experiences; additionally, such results may even discourage parents and guardians from seeing the true harmful colours of physical punishment in the classroom’
In a London school after World War I, Ralph Finn described his six strokes of a cane (corporal punishment) for a slight misbehaviour in this way:
“The class was silent, awed, horrified. As for me I wanted desperately to cry. But I never made a sound. I went back to my desk and clasped my sore, throbbing palms round the cold iron stanchions of the desk. The pain was awful. I thought it would never go away (Finn, 1963 referenced in Middleton, 2008).” This description appropriately captures the definition of corporal punishment, thus: Corporal punishment is a deliberate use of physical pain to bring on behaviour change (Straus, 1994). If using physical pain to change behaviour works, then society should inflict physical pain wherever there is undesirable behaviour. Nevertheless throughout history, this approach has failed to bring continuous desirable behaviour.
There is practically no corporal punishment in schools in the UK. In the U.S., 31 of its 50 states do not use corporal punishment in schools. In 2011, CNN reported that in excess of 100 countries have done away with corporal punishment in schools, and 31 countries disallow corporal punishment across the board. Trinidad & Tobago did away with corporal punishment in schools since 2000, and Jamaica is in the process of following suit.
There is a view that a teacher who applies corporal punishment has a failing teaching method, or is a teacher running out of options on how to teach. Indeed, there are some who will argue that teachers applying physical force in the classroom tend to achieve the best exam-oriented results from students, and also get the best discipline from their students.
But does corporal punishment really correct disciplinary problems in the classroom? This may not be the the case, as a large amount of evidence shows that corporal punishment is an ineffective form of discipline, imposing serious harmful effects on the medical and mental health of the child who receives corporal punishment (Straus and Mouradian, 1998; Gershoff and Bitensky, 2007; Hyman, 1996; Lynnette, 2001; American Academy of Pedicatrics Committee on School Health, 2000; Greydanus, Pratt, Spates, Blake-Dreher, Greydanus-Gearhart, Patel, 2003).
Additionally, there is the view that corporal punishment leads to academic success. Is that really the case? About 50% of students receiving harsh punishment contract an illness known as Educationally Induced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (EIPSD), with symptoms of anxiety and depression (Hyman, 1996; Hyman, McDowell, and Rains, 1977; Greydanus, Pratt, Spates, Blake-Dreher, Greydanus-Gearhart, Patel, 2003). These researchers suggest that EIPSD could produce declining school achievement, school avoidance, and school drop-outs.
Now there are other studies supporting the use of corporal punishment in schools. Thus, we may need more systematic reviews/meta analyses of corporal punishment studies to make a determination on its value in education. There is Gershoff’s meta analysis that included 88 studies on corporal punishment (2002) published in Psychological Bulletin; Gershoff found that corporal punishment produced detrimental results.
Even so, in some societies, it may be taboo to say that corporal punishment does not contribute to examination passes. Given this taboo, it is possible that appropriate examination results seen as coming from the use of physical force may cover up the real psychological trauma a child experiences; additionally, such results may even discourage parents and guardians from seeing the true harmful colours of physical punishment in the classroom.
Nonetheless, it is time that people grasp the full medical and mental health impact of corporal punishment in the classroom as one of the possible contributory factors for poor school attendance, school dropouts, school avoidance, and reduced academic results. The Ministry of Education Strategic Plan 2008-2013 reported that in 2006-2007, the average attendance at secondary schools in Guyana was 73%, and 80% in primary schools. For the same year 2006-2007, the drop-out rate for males was 9.25% and 9.10% for females, together numbering 5,961 students as school drop-outs. These are troubling indicators requiring a review of organizational behaviour in education.
For some time now, many school systems using corporal punishment operate with a traditional and a progressive education structure. Let me explain.
John Dewey in Experience and Education (1938) noted that educational theory covers two different views: (1) the view that education is development from within (traditional education), and (2) that education is development from the outside (progressive education). Dewey notes that in traditional education, students have no say on what the curriculum, rules, standards, teaching methods, and discipline should be. Under such conditions, corporal punishment thrives. How so?
In the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire (1982) sees education as a banking concept, where education is depositing as occurs in a bank; the teacher is the depositor and students are the depositories.
This banking concept of education produces miseducative experience, as it reduces the growth of other experiences; as students have no say in what the teacher deposits, and when students as the depositories become defiant, the teacher as the depositor unleashes the whip.
But let us not become entangled in this web of traditional versus progressive education. Both favour corporal punishment, as they are two sides of the same coin. That is why we need an exit route from both.
That exit route is Dewey’s division between educative and miseducative experiences, providing a path to several teaching methods that could make corporal punishment irrelevant. Educative experience can generate additional experience; miseducative experience does not. In fact, education is of, by, and for educative experience.
