yes more than a slap on the wrist

This is in reference to the “Counterpoint, Sunday Hindustan Times, June 20, 2010, by Vir Sanghvi”, where he concludes that the ‘corporal punishment’ meted out to the school students by teachers is an indicator to the fact how a schools see itself.

Not only Mr. Sanghvi shows undesired arrogance but also uses derogatory adjectives for the Teachers (sadist, perverts, maniacs…) besides dubbing them as strangers. He doubts the capability and fidelity of the Teachers to award fair punishment to the children but also remarks that the modern developed societies have dumped the practice of ‘corporal punishment’ implying that the use of the same in India amounts to taking back the country to stone-age.

His bias against the Teachers is conspicuous when he writes, ‘...it exists (corporal punishment in village schools) because of poor calibre of the Teachers.’ How and when Mr. Sanghvi measured the calibre of the village school Teachers before making this sweeping statement? He goes on to say, ‘…in elite schools, it (corporal punishment) continues because such schools believe that they can do what they like to our children’, as if people weren’t sending children to schools to learn wisdom but to taverns, brothels, pubs or casinos to learn whatever is to be learnt from such places.

Education is modification of behaviour and if we want our children’s behaviour to be modified in a systematic and controlled manner, there is no better institution than a school, where a child is under the trained and caring eyes of the teachers. As the Teachers are going to be held responsible for the behaviour and academic achievements of our children, certain responsibilities have been entrusted to the Teachers. And with responsibilities, are attached some powers to let the execution of these responsibilities possible. Our efforts should be directed towards keeping a check on the misuse of the authorities and not to command the Teaches and telling them which and what authority they should use at what time.

Of late the term ‘corporal punishment’ has been used in such a way that it has started giving an impression as if Teachers were using third degree torture to extract some particular traits of behaviour from students. True that excessive and reckless use of physical punishment would only demoralise students but think what would happen when the students are sure that the hands of the Teachers are tied and they can’t do anything against the erring students. Wouldn’t that lead to a chaos in the entire educational atmosphere?
By writing all this I do not intend to attest ‘corporal punishment’ but just want to show that simple physical-punishment meted out to the school children is not used as a singular tool by the Teachers. From psychological handling to simple do’s and don’ts, fines, remarks in note-books/diaries and discussions with parents in the Parent-Teacher-Association meetings there are numerous such tools which are more commonly used to modify the student’s behaviour. And yes, physical punishment is also one of these tools.

Being a Teacher I have no sympathy for those of my fellows elsewhere who resort to physical punishment just to vent out their frustration, or those who think of this as the best resort to discipline the children. They need to be counselled for their behaviour and the pressures, if any, on them which leads to such behaviour should be removed first.

As an example, in state run schools of Punjab, the Teachers Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) are adjudged on the basis of the pass percentage of the students in the respective board exams. Thus every student failing in the board exam would lead to downgrading of the Teacher’s ACR and the teachers resort to all sorts of means to get the students pass in board exams. The ‘honest ones’ use text-books all through the year and switch over to help-books during exams to quick-fix the shortcomings, the daring one resort to cheating during the exams and the entrepreneurs even trace the examiners who correct the answer copies of their students and settle a deal.

All this because the Teachers are to be judged by the students’ performance, even as they (the Teachers) should be held accountable for only their own inputs to the students and not by the output delivered by the students, which depends on multiple factors.

We share the deep sorrow felt by the family of the deceased Kolkata student and offer our sympathies but advise our friends in the media that the school should not be made a scapegoat in case one fails to reasonably comprehend the reason of death of a student by suicide. A suicide by a student, or for that matter, any common man, is not a single dimensional situation and is not easy to comment on except on a case-to-case basis. Did the deceased have a good and supporting family or he belonged to ‘richies’ who can buy all the worlds watches for kids but have no free time for them? Was he a very shy and sensitive person or was his ego hurt to such an extent that he felt helpless and took the extreme step?

Such questions would not only add to the pain and agony of the family which has lost their beloved but also lead to unnecessary scrutiny of their family life. Let’s pray to God to grant the strength to the family enabling them to endure this pain and to grant wisdom to a section of columnists, who have 500 square centimeters of space every Sunday to fill by whatever they can write.

The only agreeable thought shared by Mr. Sanghvi this time is that, ‘a middle class that is growing faster than the available educational opportunities. If we don’t open more good schools in our cities…’.

Yes, we do need a large of good educational schools, steered away from Colonialism, denominational schools and the ones which are run in the name of Lord in the most questionable means. Hope Mr. Kapil Sibbal and a large number of great Indian entrepreneurs are listing the footsteps of time to take the tide on its rise...

Pushpesh Kumar has sent to me