I help run a high-school in a Third World country where beating with sticks, along with other forms of insidious child torture, are still permitted by law. Having been on the receiving end of such treatment by openly sadistic teachers in my youth, I arrived at the conclusion long ago that there are in fact ZERO benefits to brutality against children, and myriad levels of physical and psychological damage that arise from any regime of formalized brutality that targets victims of ANY age demographic.
The ownership and administrative powers of the school are split between myself, my sister, who happened to be a gleefully enthusiastic bully back when we were kids and she was twice my age, and our mother, now in her 80s, who wore the trousers in our home during the lifetime of our late father. My sister recently returned here from the West Coast of the United States, where she raised her own three children in a state school system that regards any form of physical contact with students as grounds for criminal prosecution of the aggressor.
I spent a good chunk of my life stateside where I received my college education, after completing my high school in the UK, where beating of students has rightly been illegal since the 1950s. Prior to the arrival of my sister to get her paws into the family business cash flow, I had unilaterally placed a BAN all forms of child torture by members of the teaching staff in our school, which resulted in NO adverse effects on general discipline, despite much muttering by staff AND parents to the contrary.
Responding to complaints by teachers who were of the opinion that kids in our school were not sufficiently cowed and terrorized by the authority of teachers, my sister and mom decided on their own to re-introduce the institutionalized beating of children with sticks and belt-buckles, in a doomed quest to establish “discipline” in a climate of primal fear. I was naturally livid when I heard of this regression to classroom savagery, and I decided to frame my continued opposition to that utterly stupid new policy in the context of the MEDICAL consequences resultant from corporal punishment.
Trolling the internet for studies on the subject, I learned that instances of “accidental” blinding of students by cane-wielding teachers are so widespread as to be of MAJOR statistical significance. I also became aware of the fact that the sciatic nerve, critical to walking mobility, can be IRREPERABLY destroyed by the impact of sticks and other weapons of “discipline”, rendering the victim lame or entirely immobilized for life. Beating human hands with solid objects apparently can cripple or deform hands for life, particularly when the impacts “accidentally” strike the delicate wrist area. Sickle cell sufferer’s can, according to further reports I have read, wind up simply dropping dead as a result of ANY physical assault, of which classroom beatings are a classic example.
I am writing here to seek out any internet links that could be offered by you forum regulars, such that clearly documented evidence on of the potential lasting damage to our students can be furnished to those parents who still think the caning of their children is a great idea. I intend to call a PTA meeting, and have a second, more meaningful, and better informed vote on the subject of child beating, AFTER a full and exhaustively detailed report on the inherent risks has been circulated to those parents, along with all the internet links they will need to verify the truth of my stand on this subject.
Any help in my quest to protect children from human rights abuse would be gratefully received. I need all the cold, hard medical facts that I can muster to support my stand, and to free these kids from the brutality of bullies masquerading as classroom teachers.
Topic: Brutlaity Against Children, Disguised as " Discipline" (Read 1762 times)
October 28, 2010, 11:24:52 AM
