Alternatives for Corporal Punishment in the Classroom

Corporal Punishment is a cruel and medieval method of disciplining a child in the classroom. Years ago in many countries around the world, Schools thought that the only way to punish someone who did a sinister deed was to beat and whip them. Corporal punishment is a means of inflicting pain to someone who has done wrong by hitting or beating him or her. There are many ways to discipline a student but corporal punishment is not the way; teachers can as just easily use different methods of discipline such as proper communication, strictly enforcing any rules or regulations the school might have and using methods such as reverse psychology and positive reinforcement.

Proper communication with a child on what he can and cannot do is much better than turning their bottoms into tomatoes or using corporal punishment. The most obvious reason for corporal punishment to be used is to castigate a child for doing wrong. The teachers that do this physically abuse children and they expect the children to learn from a mistake that they might not know they did. It is therefore important for a child to be told why he or she will receive any type of punishment. A question to ask though would be: is the child actually benefiting from this beating? Or is it a means of just venting frustration on them? If teachers set rules, draw the line and sets limits on the first day of class, they should not have any problems with their classes. Of course teachers are not expected to be sour, grouchy, miserable witches that rule with an iron fist. Teachers do need to be strict but fun and spontaneous as well without using any form of corporal punishment.

If drawing the line does not work, rules that are in existence should be enforced without using corporal punishment. If a teacher wants the students to follow rules the teacher can guide the students to make their own class rules. In this way they will be more aware, more involved and feel like they are writing something more personal rather than just a bunch of words on the wall written by the teacher. These however need to be reinforced. Studies have shown that when children participate in making their own rules, they tend to follow them. Rules made by the students will be easy to follow and so avoid problems in the classrooms thus avoiding the use of corporal punishment.

Using psychology in the class room is way better than spanking children. Corporal punishment is just a ineffective or easy way out for dealing with trouble makers. Using psychology takes planning care and devotion. Using reverse psychology is a great way to get students to do what you want without even having to do anything yourself; can you imagine that? . For example a troublesome student can be given a high post in the class room. Why do this? Because the child will feel more important and will feel other students will look up to him or her so the child will want to always be at his or her best behavior. Using positive reinforcement is also a great way to get students to behave in a certain manner. A teacher can praise students who behave well and give them positive gestures when they conduct themselves well in class. Other students will want to follow in their fellow class mates’ ways.

The followers of the corporal punishment method might say that it gets the job done. Yes it’s true but it can physically and mentally scar the students. Certain people might say the more corporal punishment is used, the least mistakes from students there will be. There is also the saying that ‘if you spare the rod you spoil the child’. What does this mean? It definitely does not mean that every time a child makes a mistake, he or she is to be whipped. It simply means that a child should be corrected every time he or she makes a bad mistake. It does not literally mean use of corporal punishment. The truth is corporal punishment has too many flaws and negative effects short and especially long term.

Corporal punishment has been banned from most of the schools around the world because a lot of the teachers who administered it, abused it. Even the ministry of education in Belize is presently undergoing a dispute as to whether it should be kept in the education rules or not. Corporal punishment has so many rebounding effects that it shouldn’t be allowed in any school. There are so many proven ways that don’t include a whip or a ruler that teachers can use such as communicating with the children enforcing rules and using modern psychology.