There are times when people invoke the “good old days” as a counter to current social ills, in the hope of proving society is out of step with the morals and ethics of the past. They refer to the days when things worked and children were disciplined, as if a magical time machine might transport them back to simpler times.
The problem with this sort of nostalgia is that there is no such time machine and on closer inspection, one often finds that the good old days were not as shiny as recollection makes them out to be.
Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi this week was asked about how discipline could be brought back into schools. His reply was to equate discipline to “the cane”.
“Let’s be honest, you are putting it nicely, it’s the cane, and I say if government is a government of people, it must listen to the people.
“I am saying we passed these laws [outlawing corporal punishment] because we had a vision of pupils who are well behaved. We never thought we will have these kinds of pupils when the law was passed,” he told an Eldorado Times journalist.
When corporal punishment was outlawed in SA, it came on the back of a history of children often being abused in schools for expressing their views on matters that affect them, including the language of instruction. SA’s new constitution made it clear the rights of children should be protected. This includes protecting children from “neglect, abuse or degradation” as well as forced labour and armed conflict. While corporal punishment might be presented by Lesufi as a quick fix to the discipline problems at schools, government has no way of ensuring teachers would not overstep from the area of discipline to that of abuse, as some human rights organisations have found internationally.
Evidence shows corporal punishment increases children’s behavioural problems over time and has no positive outcomes. All corporal punishment, however mild or light, carries an inbuilt risk of escalation.
— World Health Organisation
Corporal punishment is legal in 20 US states and Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union have argued strongly that it be abolished across the country. The organisations highlight how corporal punishment can be used disproportionately on some already disadvantaged groups.
“Students of colour and students with disabilities are disproportionately subjected to corporal punishment, hampering their access to a supportive learning environment. According to the department of education, while African Americans make up 17.1% of public school students nationwide, they accounted for 35.6% of those who were paddled during the 2006/07 school year,” the organisations said in a 2010 submission before the House Education and Labour Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities.
The organisations also questioned the supposed link between corporal punishment and improved academic performance, saying “one recent study found that in states where corporal punishment is frequently used, schools have performed worse academically than those in states that prohibit corporal punishment”.
The World Health Organisation agrees corporal punishment is not a solution in the home and school environment.
“Evidence shows corporal punishment increases children’s behavioural problems over time and has no positive outcomes. All corporal punishment, however mild or light, carries an inbuilt risk of escalation. Studies suggest parents who used corporal punishment are at heightened risk of perpetrating severe maltreatment,” the WHO writes in its corporal punishment fact sheet.
There can be no doubt that discipline at schools has been lacking, but this is far likely linked to changes in society than the removal of canes from classrooms. Children are ultimately products of the society they live in, and if you wouldn’t suddenly start beating adults, why apply that punishment to children in a school environment?
SA neighbourhoods are battling issues such as poverty, gangsterism, alcoholism and violence against women and children. The children who live in these environments are witness to this and form their personalities based on what they see daily. It’s unlikely the cane will solve the problems Lesufi speaks of without any changes to the societal ills these children are exposed to daily.
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