Spare the rod, find a solution

Updated on: Monday, March 30, 2009

With recent instances of corporal punishment stirring up a hornet’s nest, the issue has hit a raw nerve. While it is true that corporal punishment cannot be used as a means to enforce discipline in a civilised society, there are questions that, perhaps, need to be addressed.

How do you handle a classroom when you have 70 students to take care of? Even one rowdy or disobedient student can cause enough disruption to ruin a class. In such cases what are the ‘classroom guidelines’ that a teacher should go by?

Most educators feel that punishment and discipline doesn’t go hand-in-hand. Instead, it can be achieved by re-enforcing positive qualities in children.

To start with, Lilly Vishwanathan, advocacy manager, project on corporal punishment, Plan India, feels that there is a need to foster a primarily pro-active attitude, empathy from teachers, encouragement techniques and so on — both at the adult level and in adult-student relations.

However, most teachers admit that initially they warn students, but when things get out of hand, they are forced to take ‘action.’

Monika Chopra, a PGT in chemistry from N C Jindal School, Punjabi Bagh, says, “We have a system where we write a note for parents in students’ diaries. Once the student gets three remarks in his/her diary, the parents are called. They, along with the teacher, talk to the child and arrive at a solution.”

Sharing an instance of good practices, Chopra cites an example of a class IX student, “This child was indisciplined and never followed instructions in class. We could figure out that he had a strong desire for stage and public speaking. So, we made him the class monitor as well as the house prefect. This worked and we saw a marked improvement in his behaviour and academic performance.”

For more information visit : timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Spare the rod, find a solution

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