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©The
Sunday Star (Used by permission)
by Tee Shiao Eek
October marks the second anniversary of the UN secretary-general’s study on
violence against childreBy teachers and school staff who use abusive
disciplinary methods. Two years after the global study, we take a look at the
effects of corporal and humiliating punishment on children.
WHAT could be worse than hitting children on their head with wooden planks?
Using wooden planks with nails embedded in them, as educationist and child
rights expert Prof Dr Judith Ennew discovered while visiting a school in Peru.
“I discovered that the teachers were using wooden planks to hit students who
misbehaved,” related Prof Judith to an audience of Education Ministry officials,
school principals and teachers during a workshop themed “Enhancing Educational
Standards through Positive School Environments” in Kuala Lumpur recently.
“When I expressed my concern, the teacher told me that things had actually
improved.” She paused before adding: “They had previously used wooden planks
with nails embedded in them.”
Her audience gasped in collective dismay.
During the workshop organised by HELP University College and the United Nations
Children’s Fund (Unicef), Prof Judith discussed current perspectives on
discipline and introduced the concept of positive school environments to enhance
educational standards.
“According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, education should
encourage children to res—pect others and help them learn to live peacefully. A
child’s right to education also encompasses his/her right to discipline that
respects their dignity,” said Unicef Representative to Malaysia Youssouf Oomar.
Inflicting pain
With more than 20 years of experience researching child rights in the
educational setting, Prof Ennew, who is currently a Research Associate for the
Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of
Queensland, is well-placed to advocate for positive discipline.
Her work in countries around the world, including South America, Africa and
South-East Asia, has looked at the many forms of negative discipline that take
place in schools, and their far-reaching consequences.
“Physical punishment of children in schools is widespread. It takes many forms,
including verbal abuse and punishments involving total humiliation and loss of
dignity,” she said, describing extreme cases where children were made to kneel
on the spiky skin of a durian or tied up next to a nest of ants.
While such severe abuse of teachers’ power cannot be condoned, there is also
another side to school punishment that is often overlooked — the fact that
children are rarely involved in disciplinary procedures and seldom asked how
they would like to make amends for their mistakes.
Prof Ennew’s research has strongly suggested that children — regardless of
cultural and geographical differences — respond best to respect, praise and
encouragement. Yet, she has continued to observe schools inflicting shame and
guilt on children.
“Corporal punishment is used because teachers have strong authority over
children and over parents, who are reluctant to intervene in school matters and
may even encourage teachers to punish their children to make them learn or
behave better,” she noted.
Little do teachers realise that every time the cane is used to punish a child,
“the full weight of the teacher’s power, and also of the State, parents and
community, is brought to bear on a single child.”
When children are caned and shamed by their teachers, they feel the pain now and
carry the emotional scars for life. The child experiences total humiliation,
while the other children who are watching are subjected to fear.
“Negative discipline also leads to a future of continued violence. Hitting a
child teaches him or her that violence is acceptable, that it is okay for the
strong to hit or hurt the weak,” she explained.
Are times-a-changing?
Despite the old mindset, new ideas about children’s rights are leading to the
realisation that corporal punishment is wrong.
“Children are not adult possessions but people in their own right, with opinions
that must be respected,” said Prof Ennew.
She reiterated the findings of the 2006 UN Study on Violence Against Children,
which urges States to en—sure that school discipline takes into account the
child’s human dignity, and cultivates the spirit of peace consistent with the
Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“Positive discipline is more than just the absence of caning. It is about
respecting children and getting children to respect their own development. It is
a means of establishing a culture of peace and non-violence — not just for
children, but for all of us.”
Teachers and school systems will need the support of parents and the community
to change the prevailing mindset and foster a positive environment within
child-friendly schools.
“Corporal punishment has to be taken out of the school equation to stop the
vicious cycle of violence from perpetuating,” said Youssouf.
“Schools should be made for children, not children made to fit into schools,”
Prof Ennew concluded.
Cikgu, can you please not hurt us…
ALL the girls in the Form One class silently formed a line, single-file. Their
classmate, a fair-skinned boy with eyes downcast and lips trembling, stood in
front of them.
“Girls, I want you to take turns to slap him,” the teacher instructed grimly.
“And if you don’t slap hard enough, I will slap you instead.”
And the boy’s transgression? Not doing his science homework.
This is my personal experience of corporal punishment in school. Although the
punishment wasn’t directed at me, being forced to inflict it on my friend added
a different dimension of shame to the incident.
Fifteen years later, my skin still prickles with guilt as I recall that humid
afternoon in the laboratory of my secondary school in Petaling Jaya, Selangor:
the angry murmurs that went around the class; the resentful look on our
classmate’s face, which bore the red imprints of our hands; and the feeling of
absolute helplessness among the girls who had never hit anyone before.
Shame and threaten a child, and he or she will remember it forever. Childhood is
often mistaken as just a transition to adulthood, but it is not. It is an
important life stage in itself, where children experience the present reality as
acutely as adults do.
“Children and adults have different perspectives on corporal punishment,” said
Prof Dr Judith Ennew, expert on child rights and education, who collaborated in
a study of 3,322 children from eight countries looking at their views on
physical and emotional punishment.
“Children describe more kinds of punishment and define many kinds of punishment
as abuse,” she said.
The most common punishment was direct assault, either with an implement or
violent bodily contact (such as kicking or punching), followed by verbal
attacks, including scolding, yelling, swearing and humiliating.
A significant finding from Prof Ennew’s child-centred research is that there is
a stark difference between a child’s and an adult’s perspective of punishment.
“Adults are more interested in outcomes (‘it is for your own good’) than in
abuse of rights or how much it hurts now,” she explained.
Children are more ambivalent about punishment and not entirely sure of how they
should feel about it.
“On the one hand it hurts, but on the other, they have been told it is good for
them by the very people on whom they are dependent for their upbringing and
whose opinions they are encouraged to trust,” stated the researchers in their
report of the study.
Instead of respecting teachers, children come to fear them, having been beaten
and verbally abused into submission, even to the point of serious injury.
Unfortunately, some things remain the same till this day. Nine-year-old IZ, from
Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, lives in fear of his teacher, who rules the Standard Three
class with a cane and a heavy hand.
“Once I didn’t know how to do my homework, so I asked my teacher for help. But
she didn’t help me, she just pulled my ear,” IZ related. He bit his lip and
looked down. “She always makes me feel useless.”
IZ dreads going to school every day, where lessons for him and his classmates
are daily repeats of slaps, canings, ear-twistings and other punishments like
standing outside the classroom for an hour.
“Sad to say, IZ is already used to it. The only reason he wants to stay in this
school is so that he can be with his friends,” said his mother with a sigh.
At eight-year-old Elaine Goh’s school in suburban Selangor, her class teacher
often uses a long wooden ruler to hit students.
“The teacher tries to hit the leg, but if she misses, she will use the ruler to
hit any part of the body,” said the Standard Two student.
Elaine’s mother questions disciplinary methods that inflict pain on children or
interfere with their learning process.
“Encouragement is better than punishment in changing attitudes. Giving children
stars or compliments makes them feel appreciated and encourages them to do
better.”
Soon, teachers in Malaysia will be equipped with skills to manage difficult
situations inside and outside the classroom. Unicef has initiated a Teacher
Education programme, in collaboration with the Education Ministry and HELP
University College, to train teachers in implementing positive discipline
methods.
By December 2009, a teacher training manual will be produced and recommendations
will be made to the Education Ministry towards making major reforms of
disciplinary methods in the education system.
Schools are where children spend most of their childhood, gaining knowledge and
developing their talents. Our goal of achieving quality education for all will
only be realised if schools are places where children can feel safe, confident
and happy.
Names have been changed to protect the identities of those portrayed in the
story.
Tee Shiao Eek is Communications Officer (Advocacy) with Unicef Malaysia.
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