I put a spell on you

30 May 2013 - 03:50 By Jonathan Jansen
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Schools can do stupid things. One Johannesburg school punishes serial latecomers by removing one shoe so the pupil spends the day walking on a sock, no doubt to humiliate the young person.

The theory, I suppose, is that if you embarrass a child in this way you eradicate late-coming. I have been around schools long enough to know that no amount of public humiliation will end late-coming, except for the few. But is this education? What messages are we conveying with such degrading acts? Do we really understand why children come late in the first place?

Late-coming in schools does not explain itself. Often children walk long distances, sometimes more than 10 kilometres, to get to school. Others, especially girls, avoid the winter darkness and its accompanying dangers before leaving for school. Older children have to prepare younger siblings for school where parents either do not exist or leave much earlier to get to work.

And then, of course, there are children who come late simply because of habit and a general tardiness associated with the school environment.

The first set of problems requires organisational solutions, such as school buses or a timetable that starts school later, but also finishes later. The main reason pupils come to school late has much more to do with the school than with the children themselves.

Over the years, I have observed the following:

  • Students come late to school where teachers often come late to class; show me a school with student latecomers and I guarantee you there is a principal or a set of teachers who also come late;
  • Students come late to school when there are high levels of teacher absenteeism. Why show up as a pupil when there is a good chance that, in some classes, it is not worth showing up at all?; and
  • Students come late to school when the teaching itself is routine, boring and predictable.

I know many teachers in poor schools who have no latecomers.

They await pupils at the door of the classroom. Their lessons are exciting and involve high levels of pupil participation. They give positive feedback all the time and regular feedback on tests and homework. They take a personal interest in every child in that classroom for their academic progress and their personal challenges.

The walls of the classrooms are well decorated with subject materials (a periodic table or biographies of poets) with a warm and inviting atmosphere.

There is a planned school life sciences trip to identify the major and minor species of animal in the local zoo; or a featured speaker in the classroom on careers in the arts. In other words, the children want to be in that classroom and not miss out on those precious moments with the teacher.

It is a point I have made often in this column: do not require children to go to school, or to a classroom, unless it is worth their while coming in the first place.

What the school in this story gets wrong is to try and correct the problem of late-coming at the wrong end of the school gate. You cannot force human beings to do things they are not convinced is in their own best interests, unless, of course, the penal code for prisoners applies, where coercion and humiliation seems to be part of the punishment for committing a crime.

Of course, there is a powerful hidden curriculum that comes with the sock story. Children learn that humiliation is part of the experience of school and of life. They will, in most cases, themselves impose these rituals of humiliation as adults responsible for children in the home or, for some of them, as teachers. Such rituals in everyday life in South African schools include the sharp smack to the face, the cane to the backside, the gratuitous insult, the illicit touch of the body, and the sock-hopping on the playgrounds.

Of course, there should be consequences for not coming to school or for not performing in the classroom. But, in a highly motivated school culture and climate, children not only want to come to school, they desire to do well. The poor marks achieved are, in fact, the embarrassment and the spur to do better. This is where our shoe-penalty school needs to place the emphasis.

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