Dear Editor,
EVERY once in a while, the letter pages of the local print media are visited by nostalgic missives in support of corporal punishment.

The latest one argues: “Many of us remember the wild cane and the thick ruler being present in the school system from nursery through secondary… this respected part of the British disciplinary system of the past had worked well for many decades in Guyana and continues to work well in countries like Singapore.”

Indeed, as a teacher in Guyana in the 1970s and 1980s, I used corporal punishment because that was how discipline was administered to me as a student and within the system by teachers. We didn’t know better and besides corporal punishment was the means of discipline applied by parents at home.

One might be tempted to assume that even in 2023 when information and facts are available at the click of a mouse or the roll of a finger, the writer referenced above and others like him still do not know better. Or is it that they choose to ignore the facts because they suffer from extreme nostalgic syndrome?

But, so many, including yours truly do know better. In fact, as a teacher in the US in the 2000s and 2010s, I not only learnt that discipline does not need corporal punishment, but I also successfully applied same in my classrooms.

So, not only have I walked my talk in advocating for corporal punishment to be banned, but the evidence, via research and practice,  abounds. On the flip side, outside of nostalgia there is no hard evidence presented to prove that corporal punishment actually worked as well as some assume.

Yes, parents did apply the stick, but in my experience that elicited two responses – fear or rebellion. Those, like me, who feared, did what was expected, not because we wanted to or felt it was the right thing to do, but because we wanted to avoid the “licks.”

Others took the licks, but continued to do what the “licks” were supposed to prevent, as their way of showing that “licks” did not bother them. Still, others though fearful of the licks continued to display little desired change.

And, within my experience, none of them ever became the children the parents thought the “licks” would make them become, just like none of my students 30 and 40 years ago never became the students I and their parents desired, in spite of corporal punishment.

When they did become such individuals, it was in spite of the “licks” and because other influences were at work, including the company they kept, or the discovery of role models, church and religion or aspirations, including a desire to rise above their circumstances.

Yet, during my teaching years in the US, I was able to transform eons into students of excellence via classroom management without corporal punishment, as teachers have done and continue to do, even though at the start of my teaching career in New York City, I wondered how I would ever be able to manage my classroom and help my students to reach for excellence.

Similarly, my spouse and I brought up our son to be a wonderful, empathic, humane adult, underpinned by integrity and a moral compass, without resorting to corporal punishment. In fact, countless other parents have and continue to do exactly that.

Now, not only are the mountains of evidence available and eminently accessible, but, unlike the days of yore, there is basis for comparison. Then, corporal punishment was assumed to work because, for the vast majority of people, because there was nothing for it to be compared to.

Today, anyone and everyone who desires to know and possibly do better, can and should do so, instead of falling back on the ossified position that corporal punishment worked in their time and thus would work now.

In the final analysis, life is about evolving based on new knowledge, which is a continuous, and continual phenomena.

And arguing for and applying corporal punishment indicates a lack of desire for advancement via this ongoing evolution. The sadder reality is that such stagnation affects our children, not us. As a teacher, I would tell my students, “your parents simply want the best for you.”

It was the same thing I often told my son when he was down or needed reassurance in the face of challenges and frustrations.

After all isn’t it a given that all parents want the best of their children? How is inflicting physical punishment the best, especially now that we all know, or should know about the negative effects of such infliction? Besides, when we open ourselves to the new and different, we create possibilities for advancement and betterment, that otherwise would not exist.

Yours respectfully,
Annan Boodram