There were tempers flaring in the home of Demola Lewis, his parents threatening a police arrest, when he returned home from school with bruises gotten from a teacher’s cane recently. Demola, 14, a Junior Secondary three student of Government High School, Ipetumodu, told his parents he got beaten by his teacher for engaging in a fight with another student.
But for his father, Mr Lewis, no offence should warrant the extent of beating gotten from his teacher which was evident from the bruises on his son’s body. “I am not saying they should not correct my child, but this is too much,” he complained. “I don’t even beat my son to the extent of giving him bruises on his body so what right does a teacher have to beat my son like that?”
An outdated practice? The use of a cane as a means of correcting or instilling discipline in a child by teachers and school administrators has been a topic of debate among several interest groups more than a few times. While many would say the choice of using a cane should be left for the parents or guardians alone, others say a cane should not be used either at home or in school for any reason.
Several people still fall under the school of thought that if you spare the rod, you end up spoiling the child. For them, a cane can be used by any older or matured person, in school or at home, to correct a child immediately so that he would not repeat the same wrong doing again.
Among the latter group who believe in the cane comes the question – to what extent should the cane be used in schools?
In most private schools in Nigeria today, the use of a cane has been completely abolished, forbidden some would say. For some of these schools, the adopted British or American curriculum being used to train the students does not conform with the use of a cane. Others have stopped using it or decided not to use it as a result of decisions made by the parents or school administration. The cane is mostly being used, however in scanty measures, by public school teachers today.
Schools without canes Belinda Amao, the Head Teacher of Chrisland School, Ikeja, while speaking about the use of cane at a school function recently, said it was stopped because the management realised that it affects the relationship between the teacher and the students negatively.
“We realised that when a teacher uses the cane on a child, the child becomes withdrawn and would not be able to approach the teacher when he or she has problems with studies,” she said. “This could affect the child’s performance.”
At Bright Stars International School, Apapa, the use of cane was stopped after an unanimous decision was reached by the parents during one of the Parents Teacher’s Association meetings. “All the parents said they would prefer if the teachers stopped using the cane, so we had to oblige,” said Patricia Chukwuemeka, Head Mistress of the school.
Breaking the law In 2011, the Lagos State Government passed a legislation which outlawed the caning, beating or physical torture of school students. The provision of the law stated that striking any adult person with a stick or other weapon constitutes a violent criminal offence statutorily classified as Felony Assault and Battery, for which jail sentences can be imposed after a fair trial, under Nigerian law.
However, Ajoke Osoba, an English teacher at Oshodi Senior High School, Oshodi, is one woman who doesn’t agree with the law. “I don’t beat them because I hate them, I beat them to discipline them just like I beat my own children and it always works,” she said, adding that she only beats her students on the palm and no other part of the body.
The parents’ view on the use of the cane is just as varied.
Caroline Paul, a mother of two said she has never used a cane on any of her children and would never allow a teacher beat her children with a cane. “One of the things I asked when I was looking for a school for my children is whether they use cane on the students,” she recalled. “I don’t believe in the cane and I was not brought up with it. There are other ways of disciplining a child.”
Tomisin Bakare, another mother believes the cane should only be used at home and not in school because “teachers can sometimes get too overzealous.”
But Taiwo Oyedele, a counselor and director of Children In Leadership Foundation, says that most Nigerian parents today are being misled by the Western culture. For him, you cannot use western methods to train an African child or African methods to train a western child.
“Most parents are just deceiving themselves these days,” he said. “What works abroad might not necessarily work here. I don’t believe a cane should be used at school but it should be used at home. A child who is not properly trained according to the dictates of the society in which he grows up would always misbehave later in life.”
http://greenbiro.com/to-use-or-not-to-use-the-cane/
Can you think of some other ways to punish a student without being violent? (200 words)
