Corporal
Punishment was a sore thumb in a not so distant past, as a disciplinary
mechanism within the Bantu Education schooling system in the helm of the
Apartheid administration. Will the amendment of Corporal Punishment bring
change in our schools or improve the standards of learning in our education
system?
Many
Black students were disparaged psychologically, to attend school due to the callousness
that teachers and headmasters took to administer discipline, through a sjambok
or a well smoothen twig that was smacked to the buttocks or the hand of the
punished scholar.
Pupils
were punished for various misdemeanours, one being incompetence in doing their homework,
or failing to answer a question connected to a particular subject, and content
of discussion in class. This practice of corporal punishment was at times pushed
to the precincts of brutal abuse by teachers who had grudges towards their
pupils.
An
ethnic indifference usually brought a division amongst teacher and student,
thus the child was given a thrashing, because he or she is from such and such
tribe or ethnic group. Others were beaten for stating their political, education
ideals or for voicing out their disagreements against the state of affairs.
The
worst part about corporal punishment was experienced when a dyslexic or autistic
student was given this same treatment for failing to comprehend the content at
hand – creating a traumatic neurotic dilemma for the child that’s already in a
world of innate confusion.
I
remember when I was a youngster, attending Bantu schools: Thulisa Primary
School and Endulwini Primary School in Katlehong and Tembisa, respectively. When
students were summoned to the principal’s office - one could hear sonorous
cries of a youngster, fending off pain from a stick that was specially crafted
for this atrocities deed, called punishment.
In
one occasion, a student was beaten on both her hands, and she left school with both
hands severely swollen, with red cracks on both, for being cheeky and chatty
towards the teacher. She rubbed onion on those hands, I was told.
When
I started school I was very much of an introvert and I had a problem with my
hand writing, because I loved drawing so much that when I want to write I would
end up turning the written text into a rough sketch, therefore my books looked
all neat, but raggedy inside. My then, teacher did not understand and failed to
give me guidance on how to improve on my handwriting – for this reason, she saw
it fit to beat me up until I could write properly. This went on until my
grandfather intervened by coming to the school and warning my teacher that she
must stop abusing me. My handwriting did improve and I become a star pupil. (other
teachers told me I had a doctor’s handwriting)
Although
our generation was beaten at school, it was a rare thing to find that a scholar
dropout for being punished. Why? A group of boys was sent to one’s house to go
collect a ‘deserter’ and bring them back to school if that happened. In one odd
occasion, one child ran away from home and become a street-kid, because he was
given a hiding at school for not having
done their homework, and a thrashing at home for spending too much time in the
streets with his friends.
A
review on the constitutionality of corporal punishment as a legislative measure
to instil discipline and improve our education system; into our South African
education structure will need a much needed discourse, debates amongst
government officials, school headmasters, parents, children and a national referendum,
that will cement or reject the Corporal Punishment Law as a mechanism to punish
our children in school.
WORD
TO A NEW EDU-DISCIPLINARY MEASURE REVOLUTION
By
Linda Sakazi Thwala
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