Page 2, 30th November 1962
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PUNISHMENT IN OUR SCHOOLS
Li kc many 01 x our readers, I have been shocked by the freedom with which adults strike children. The English and the Irish are the only nations left in the world that continue to beat children as a normal method of keeping order or even of leaching.
I have been a headmaster for fourteen years. and have taught for forty. I have never found it easy to send a boy for corporal punishment. I think hitting children in cold blood shows a lack of reverence for the human person, an arrogant slickness: a child is a complete person with the same dignity as an adult.
1 hat parents need occasionally to chastise their children, when all else fails, can be admitted, but surely they only hit their children when they cannot do anything else. when they have run out of ideas. In schools I do not think any child should be hit for any offence that would not warrant chastisement by a parent. Intelligent schoolmasters can obtain what they want without the use of a cane.
I think it is perfectly stupid as well as wrong to strike a child for ignorance, for forgetfulness or for some minor offence like running down a corridor nor do I think it is right to cane children for purely moral offences. To hit them for telling lies seems to me to produce a desire to avoid being caught, and to bring up fear not of the Lord but of the vane.
To have a tariff of punishments is ridiculous. it makes a boy play a game with discipline, it does not make him exercise his will to make right choices. This is a very crude way of running a school, for it opens the gate for many injustices. The argument that the boy does not mind means that the boy knows of no other way, or that the boys prefer a tariff to a system where they have to use their will and intelligence.
I am in full sympathy with your non-beaters.
Rev. C. R. Leethom President. Ratcliffe College,
Leicester.
Perhaps I can bring my intimate knowledge of the use of the cane, chair leg and short rubber hosepipe to your recent correspondence on the use of corporal punishment in Catholic schools. People, when they support corporal punishment in schools always say "It is a
ticlet rent". But do they ever wondel 15 fiat it is a deterrent against.
For example, a child is given the cane for talking in class. What is the punishment supposed to do? Stop the child from talking in class again, make him respect the teacher or make him more inquisitive for knowledge? Surely corporal punishment does none of these things.
The main effect of this form of punishment is to make the child accept the fact that violence by an authority is justified under any circumstances. Secondly he feels a resentment against the authority that punished him. 'This is an ideal way of bringing up a generation of lapsed and semi-illiterate Catholics.
In my expel ience, the best method of dealing with trouble in the classroom is for the teacher to use plain reason and infinite patience. the child wants a reason for what he is told to do, not a "clout" round the head. This makes the child harbour a resentment against the teacher and learning in general.
The purpose of schools is not to indoctrinate the children with the views of the teacher, but to answer the natural inquisitiveness of the child. The classes should be run on a completely relaxed basis and the lessons made more interesting so that the child is not frightened of questioning the authority of the teacher or the arguments used. I have seen more harm done by teachers using corporal punishment when teaching religion than all the propaganda used hy communists against the Church. Catholicism is a religion of justice and compassion not of violence and coercion.
Norman T. Biddlecombe London, SWI7.
Mr. Edward O'Hara is tight in advocating a study of Saint Don Bosco's methods abolishing "all physical punishments and even
• harsh reprimands." Not every Salesian teacher, however, is a saint with the personality of Don Bosco, and a mere human being may well find his methods, in practice, quite beyond his capabilities. Spare the boy's body the physical punishment which, justly and moderately administered. he will never resent, and you are liable to destroy his spirit instead by such a time-wasting and negative imposition as detention.
Scotland allows corporal punishment to be administered by individual teachers. instantly, and within prescribed limits. Seldom or never does a Scottish reacher strike a boy in temper, since he has recourse to recognised means, nor is family-life or parental timetabling interfered with on account of detention.
Teachers who detain a boy should realise that they may cause incalculable and unequal difficulties both as regards transport and priority parental arrangements. and that the time they presume to steal is, legally, not theirs, but the parents'. Moderation in physical punishment is, surely, a time-saving and a time-honoured method which few substitutes can rival.
Strapwell"
This correspondence makes sad reading. When we are fed daily with a diet of violence on television, radio, cinema and in the press, it is surely time to call a halt. The eradication of violence in childhood would be a good starting. point.
Speetwor
The perpetrator of your etymological note in last week's issue deserves at least three of the best. If there is no FERULE (Lat. FERULA-a cane or rod) handy, they might perhaps be administered with an umbrella which has a FERRULE, or metal band placed round wood to prevent it from splitting.
If any authority is wanted for FERULA in Latin, see Juvenal Satires I. I: "et nos manum ferulae subdusinius".
(I. too, have snatched my hand away from the cane.) M. Hands
Liverpool.
Let's get it right: FERRULE and FERULA are two unconnected words with totally different meanings. The former is, as you say, from the Latin for bracelets. The latter is from the Latin for the plant Giant Fennel, hence rod.
Hold your hand out !
P. Barber
London, W.2.
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