should corporal punishment be allowed in schools?

[Niluial]

What is your view? For it or against it?

[Niluial]

Corporal punishment is a big issue around the world. One viewpoint is that it is much needed in schools since many children do not respect authority, and on the other hand, in some cases where corporal punishment has been allowed it has been abused. Today many ask the question: “Should people in authority (teachers, principles etc) be allowed to hit someone else’s children or is it up to the parents to administer the beating?”. Many of the cleverly thought of punishments don’t seem to work (e.g. detention, extra work, greenbooks) the children seem to run freely doing as they wish. So if we gave those in authority the right to administer corporal punishment, perhaps the children would be more obedient and then listen to and respect their teachers. But then, there have been many incidents where teachers have abused the right and taken the punishment too far, inflecting unnecessary wounds on the children.

In a recent survey on those for Corporal Punishment and those against it the finds out of 68 people were that 33 were for corporal punishment and the other 35 people against it. A few of the people I asked were sceptical and said it should only be allowed for good reasons and not be abused. But then again, where is the boundary of “a good reason”? Others said no they would rather apply corporal punishment themselves and would rather have the children in detention. One mother of two and grandmother of six said: “Yes it should be brought back in. When I was at school we respected our teachers and when we were disobedient we would get smacked. We really need some of that respect brought back into this new generation!”

In America for example, where corporal punishment has long since been done away with, in some schools, teachers are often attacked by the children. They are forced to teach from behind bars which separate them from the children in the classroom in order to protect themselves. Is this what we want in all the schools around the world?

Many other forms of punishment could be used instead, such as detention after school or during break, the teachers could give out extra homework or like many schools are doing today they use the greenbook system. But do these punishments really work? Are they severe enough and do they have enough impact on the behaviour of the child afterwards?

As we all know, when corporal punishment was allowed, it was abused in many cases and many grown ups today have mental scars and others even suffer from social anxiety due to their abuse at school and yes also at home. Many of the times hitting was used on the children it was for silly reasons or purely because the parent was in a bad mood and took it out on the child. Another thing we must remember is that teachers lead stressful lives and hitting the children would be the way they got their anger out and if corporal punishment was brought back today the teachers would be no different.

So I am against corporal punishment!