Take it out on `sir'

MR BRENTINI'S letter "Taking a Caning", Nov 28, arrived coincidentally with one from an acquaintance of mine just arrived back in Ireland after years in Canada where discipline in schools means collaboration with teachers.
"They now have to accustom themselves to watching their classmates being pushed, thumped, and caned." And to what effect? Collaboration, — perhaps, — but for quite the wrong motive, that of fear, which is about the worst educator imaginable.
The frequent thrashings Mr Brentini underwent at school did him no harm. Did they not? Have they not blurred his vision to the manifest moral injustice still tolerated in this country which allows defenceless children to be thrashed by adults of twice their size or more? — to the meanings of "punishment" and "discipline" being totally different if not contradictory? — to the common derivation of the words "discipline" and "discipleship"? — to the lack of evidence that Christ advocated corporal punishment for his disciples. — still less for children?
Christ certainly advocated punishment for those who deserve it, as certainlydo adults who still insist on the right to beat the living daylights out of other people's children in the name of discipline and education,
Gordon Dimmer
Bridgend Callander