Jawaan

We as a nation have become so accustomed to daily shocks of greater proportion than corporal punishment in schools that such trivial incidences fail to shake us anymore. A cursory look at the editorials and letters published after 14-year-old Mudassar Aslam’s death would reveal that they focus more on the issues of penalties and punishments for the teachers to stop the curse of corporal punishment. This however would be more like killing the shadow instead of finding ways to systematically and strategically deal with the problem of corporal punishment. For this to happen we have to ask two questions and then find the answers to them for a long-term solution of this problem. The first question is: Why do teachers resort to corporal punishment? And the second: How to eradicate this menace?

First let us try to find an answer to the first question. Punishment is considered as one of the traditional and time-tested techniques that teachers use to influence a child’s behaviour in a desired direction. However, most modern educationists especially in the West are of the view that punishment of any sort, and particularly corporal punishment, is a very negative way of influencing student behaviour and should be discarded and replaced with more positive and constructive methods of behavioural change/control. Keeping all of this in mind, teacher-training programmes provide for enough material to train teachers how to avoid using corporal punishment and how to apply modern techniques for bringing discipline in the classroom.

As a result of this, there is an ever-increasing disapproval of corporal punishment thus whenever any incidence of corporal punishment occurs, there is a sharp reaction against it from different quarters. The incident gets media coverage and is talked about. The authorities come down heavily on the teacher. He or she is suspended, transferred, or handed other punitive measures besides being threatened by the parents and relatives of the victim.

But despite all these measures, the problem persists and quite often we come across reports about severe physical punishment meted out to a child by his or her teacher. It is to be noted here that a majority of cases of corporal punishment do not get reported and only those incidences get media attention where there has been some big physical damage to the child. But it looks that punitive steps against the teacher to stop him or her from using corporal punishment do not produce desirable results and that despite being aware of the repercussions, some teachers resort do it time and again. On the basis of close observation and personal experience both as a student and a teacher at public schools, one is of the view that beside others, some factors that lead to corporal punishment to enforce discipline in the class may include the following: overcrowded classes, dull textbooks, the principal’s behaviour, parents’ lack of cooperation with the teacher, teachers socio-economic conditions, etc.

An overcrowded classroom (a common phenomenon in most public-sector schools in Pakistan) can be quite an impediment in the way of an effective teaching-learning process. It is also the main reason behind disturbance or lack of order and discipline in a class. In our government schools the average number of students in a classroom at the secondary level ranges somewhere between 70 and 100. For example, most public-sector high schools in Peshawar have an average of 70 to 90 students per class. How can a teacher be expected to engage such a huge crowd called a class, without resorting to some strict disciplinary action including corporal punishment?

It is in such circumstances that a teacher is constrained to abandon all the golden rules and techniques of teaching taught to him during training programmes and tries measures that kill the very spirit of education. All training programmes teach the trainee teachers to pay individual attention to each and every student because that is what modern educational theories claim is best for the students. But how is individual attention possible when a teacher has to deal with, say, a class of 70 to 90 (even more) students assembled in a small (many times dark) room absolutely without any audio-visual aides or anything else.

On a recent visit to a government high school, one found most classrooms dark without light or any other facilities and highly overcrowded. The only duty that the teacher seemed to perform was to keep this crowd silent during his period of 40 minutes. The result is usually frustration and consequently an outburst in the form of corporal punishment inflicted on one or more students.

The next problem that creates boredom, distraction and hence indiscipline is that the whole education process in our schools revolve around the textbooks which mostly are badly written and poorly presented. They are boring for the students as well as the teachers who use them. They seldom arouse any interest among students and appeal very little to their aesthetic sense. As a result the teaching-learning process becomes monotonous and lacks any active involvement of the students. Students are regarded as empty vessels to be filled with facts and to be forced to memorise those facts to be reproduced in exams. A failure on this count is taken as a failure of competence on the part of the teacher, which is most often the case. This leads to frustration on the part of the teacher and the end result can be physical punishment to force students to take interest (to memorise things that they do not understand) in what is taught in the class.

Then there is this culture of taking ‘order’ for discipline in our public schools. A good number of school principals are traditional ‘disciplinarians’ who want a kind of military discipline on the campus of the schools. Such principals believe in strict order (by which they seem to mean complete silence) in the classroom. They appreciate those teachers who are authoritarian since to them a silent classroom indicates a teacher who is more accomplished at achieving discipline and class control. Such a teacher, regardless of the method of his teaching or whether his students actually enjoy his class or are able to learn from him, is thought of as a good teacher, worthy of praise and emulation. Such an attitude from principals induces teachers to do the same and they go about enforcing this military-style discipline using all kinds of extreme punishments, including corporal punishment.

Then there is this problem of lack of cooperation from the parents. A harmonious relationship between the school and the home can have a very positive impact on discipline in schools. However, in public-sector schools, a majority of the students come from low-income backgrounds where parents are often illiterate and poor and are unable to take part in the educational process of their children. Such students tend not to do their homework regularly and perform poorly in exams. As a result of the absence of cooperation and coordination on the part of the parents, the teacher sometimes feels constrained to take matters in his own hand. This often results in the use of corporal punishment. Also many children from poor and illiterate families are physically beaten at home and hence they become de-sensitized to such measures. Some students also do not respond in any other way as they are used to corporal punishment at home, which leads to the same phenomenon in the school.

Another very important factor that plays a significant role in this phenomenon is the poor socio-economic status of most school teachers. Most, with their meagre salaries, can hardly make both ends meet. Consequently they have to work after school as well. One often comes across taxi drivers who reveal that they are school teachers but have to run a taxi after duty hours to meet the harsh economic challenges. This becomes an extra tax on their energies and results in both physical exhaustion and emotional annoyance, which often results in negligence of duties and retaliation in the form of corporal punishment meted out to the hapless students at their disposal.

How to eradicate this menace? Well, the answer lies in dealing with the problems discussed as a response to the first question. Unless steps are taken to deal with these problems, systematically and strategically, no amount of laws and penalties aimed at stopping corporal punishment will be instrumental in solving the problem. But all this does not in any way absolve teachers of their role in eradicating this menace, for who should know better than a teacher as to what does it mean to be called a ‘Teacher’.