Should we use common educational policies or regulations in a multi-cultural society?
making noise in class during a teacher’s absence, failure to pay certain required fees, failure to have uniforms, absenteeism, and that these beatings are not recorded, as is required by the regulation.
The reliance on corporal punishment raises several questions. The first is the issue of culture and the law. While we are a multi-cultural society should we not also make education laws and regulations that correspond with this? For example research shows that the “Basarwa” culture (made up of 16 different language and cultural groups) does not accept corporal punishment. Any school that beats such children is likely to scare them away. Unfortunately, until recently, this has happened to frequently.
by the offence. This is common in schools that do not have in place policies on corporal punishment.
The third factor relates to teacher training. During training, teacher-trainees learn how to discipline students from a variety of courses in psychology, human growth and development and theories of learning. Humanism and behaviourism are some of the critical theories that will always be part of teacher training. During preparation, trainees do field work where they are attached to schools for teaching practice. In some schools they get good mentoring, but in others, they find teachers who use the ‘stick’ instead of ‘teaching aids’, and thus the trainees may learn the habit of ‘indiscriminate beating for backwardness’.
The fourth factor has to do with teachers relying on their own past experiences. The majority of our teachers did their basic education under systems that believed in “spare the rod and spoil the child”. Some teachers grew up in rough environments, such as the lands, cattle posts, and farms where they survived the hard way. They were taught that a Motswana child learns better from a lash. As soon as these people are recruited after training as new teachers, they join the old teachers and use the stick. They apply what they experienced when they were children, not the new methods they have learned in college. English-medium schools do not allow corporal punishment, and they are thriving. There must be lessons to be learned there. [To be continued.]
Dorcas Molefe, Owen Pansiri and
Sheldon Weeks
