DEPED SAYS NO TO CORPORAL PUNISHMENT (My review)

DEPED SAYS NO TO CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

By: Jeannette I. Andrade @inquirerdotnet

Philippine Daily Inquirer

August 12th, 2016

(My review)

- SYNTHESIS -

The Department of Education (DepEd) on Thursday said it does not consent to any form of corporal punishment or humiliation inflicted on a learner even as it called attention to two incidents last week in Iriga City, where two students were hit by their teachers over minor offenses.

“While the DepEd is one with the belief that education should also instill and reinforce the values of respect, responsibility, and discipline—it does not, without reservations, condone any act of violence or abuse in the conduct thereof,” Education Secretary Leonor Briones said in a statement.

Briones urged all teachers and school officials to uphold the rights and the welfare of the students, citing the department’s policy and guidelines for the protection of children in school from abuse, violence, exploitation, discrimination, bullying and other forms of abuse.

She said Republic Act No. 7610 or the Special Protection of Children Against Child Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act also guarantees that learners’ rights are protected.

“Let it be remembered that children learn best by doing and that during the years they spend in school, they are most heavily influenced by authority figures,” Briones said.

- ANALYSIS -

Corporal punishment is “the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain, but not injury, for the purpose of correction or control of the child’s behavior” (Straus, 1994, p. 4), such as patting, hitting, punching, and spanking “or other forms of physical punishment wherein school personnel actually strike the student with a part of the body” (Bogacki, et al., 2005, p.371).  Therefore, the some authors exclude verbal violence such as insults and threats. 

Stakeholders have divided views about this issue. The following are their explanations:

Some authors mentioned that corporal punishment “is cheap and easy to administer” (Clark, 2004, p. 364) because it does not need anything, except perhaps a stick. However, some poor countries cannot employ qualified teachers who can educate difficult students or employ student advisers who can solve students’ problems. Nevertheless, it is unwise to kill harmful ants using cluster munitions; therefore, when the teacher motivates his/her students, he/she should not forget that the most important thing is human dignity, because harsh physical punishment is sometimes like cluster munitions, and disproportionately harms the dignity of the child.

The effectiveness of corporal punishment as a process of reform is also being considered, “in that the fear of physical pain will characteristically motivate a person not to reoffend; and the fact that the motivation is extrinsic makes it no less valuable.”  This point has two aspects.  First, Clark asks a fundamental question: “If corporal punishment deters, does it therefore reform?”, deterrence does not mean reform and may disguise long-term bad effects.  Second, Clark disproves his point, “ethically, extrinsic motivation has less value than its intrinsic brethren”. (Clark, p.  366). 

Likewise, corporal punishment “is adjustable, in that we may easily inflict different amounts of pain on different people for different offences” (ibid., p. 366).  In the author’s opinion, this point is just a claim without any proof or deep meaning.  However, Clark sees that a similar argument can be used for noncorporal punishment (Clark, p. 366).

Aside from these advantages there more numbers of studies showed that corporal punishments also have disadvantages.

On the other hand, perhaps the negatives of corporal punishment are clearer than positives because many research and media reports have been performed about the disadvantages of corporal punishment. Violence has harmful effects in the short and long term. Corporal punishment might kill the child if the teacher went too far in their use of corporal punishment. In Egypt, for instance, there was a teacher who beat a pupil to death (BBC News, 2008).  Violence also has the disadvantage of long-term effects (Smith, 2006, p. 117). According to the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association APA) Website, corporal punishment causes “undesirable responses” in students, such as low self-confidence or feeling that he is “an undesirable person” (APA), and these feelings may be frustrating for the child or make him live in misery. Moreover, research shows that the child learns by imitating the behavior of adults. Therefore, “the use of physical punishment by adults having authority over children is likely to train children to use physical violence to control behavior rather than rational persuasion, education, and intelligent forms of both positive and negative reinforcement”(APA.,), so his examples will lead the matured child to use corporal punishment because he did not learn how to solve problems logically from the role modeling of his teachers.

- REFLECTION -

I am sympathetic to the claim that far too many teachers fail to foster an atmosphere of mutual respect between their pupils and themselves. They lack the ability or the inclination verbally to communicate expectations to children- first gently and then more strenuously. They do not first employ milder forms of punishment but rather resort to the cane in the first instance. Some might not believe in rewarding good behavior, only in punishing bad. However, from the claim that corporal punishment often indicates teacher failure, we cannot infer that it necessarily demonstrates such failure or even that as a matter of fact it always does. It is true that when the teacher resorts to corporal punishment this indicates that his prior efforts to discourage the wrongdoing failed. However, there is a big difference between this, a failure in the pupil, and a failure in the teacher. In either case it is true, in some sense, that the teacher failed to discourage the child from doing wrong -- failed to prevent failure in the child. However, it is not a failure for which the teacher necessarily is responsible. I am well aware that the responsibility for children's wrongdoing is all too often placed exclusively at the door of children themselves, without due attention to the influences to which they are subjected. However, there is a danger that in rejecting this incorrect evaluation, teachers (and parents) will be blamed for all shortcomings in children.

This argument can be strengthened further. If we say that corporal punishment indicates the failure of prior efforts, then we must concede that the immediately prior efforts -- say, detaining the child - equally indicate the failure of the still earlier efforts -admonition - that indicate the failure of yet earlier efforts - moral example. Once we see this, it becomes clearer why, although it is the case that earlier efforts may have failed, it is not sufficient to say that the failure is in the teacher. To reject this would lead to the conclusion that the teacher is responsible for the child's not following the teacher's moral example. We can now also see why the argument that corporal punishment indicates failure is as much an argument against any of the prior attempts (except the first) to prevent wrongdoing.

- RECOMMENDATION FOR POLICY -

It is my opinion that corporal education is bad when every teacher can use it without objection. This is because the teacher may have sadistic tendencies, is aggressive, or thinks that corporal punishment is the best way to solve problems.  However, corporal punishment is acceptable when some factors are taken into account such as precision in timing, intensity, and rationale. For example, when the school has used all other punishments without any improvement in the student’s behavior, it can use corporal punishment, not to harm, but to say that the student’s mistakes created an unsustainable situation. If the educational system authentically prevents corporal punishment, the student will think teachers will not use corporal punishment and get into trouble, but the teacher may use it if he can. In addition, the student will realize that corporal punishment is only used for extremely bad behavior because the school does not use it except in difficult cases.