Reports of violence in our schools are on the rise and the controversy around what to do about it persists with most of us at a loss about what to do. The violence works in both directions: From teachers to students and students to teachers. We haven’t the foggiest notion about what to do about this.
All you have to do is open a Saudi newspaper to read about abuse of students by teachers. And now with the advent of Bluetooth and the YouTube generation, these incidents are displayed in graphic detail in the form of digitized video clips.
The traditional deference given to teachers has eroded away, and students no longer take their mentors seriously. They ridicule their teachers rather than revere them.
And in light of this growing rebellion, teachers have stepped up their habit of corporal punishment, especially in primary school.
Despite concerns about the lingering psychological scars that students might take with them into adulthood, our society still more or less supports corporal punishment in the schools. Many Saudis believe physical punishment is an integral part of the system of discipline in schools.
Indeed, many of us might even accept that corporal punishment is antiquated, old-fashioned or even barbaric. We might increasingly embrace different forms of discipline. But we should not ignore the serious issue of student insubordination and other elements of student conduct that is contributing to the deterioration of our public school system. This isn’t the only problem. There are others, such as our curriculum, our testing benchmarks and our heavy dependence on rote memorization that teaches students to be parrots instead of self-thinkers. But out of all these problems, the unhealthy relationship between the student and the teacher is paramount.
I read recently Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obaikan’s endorsement of corporal punishment.
“We should not do away with corporal punishment in schools,” said one of Saudi Arabia’s foremost scholars of both science and religious values. “People who oppose (corporal punishment) have been influenced by the Western culture.”
The sheikh said that student behavior must be put under control. Banning corporal punishment simply removed one of the most effective ways of instilling discipline in rowdy and undisciplined students who care nothing for the education or those that are trying to instill positive knowledge and values in our youngsters. The sheikh has asked us to rethink a ban on corporal punishment.
Contrary to what some people have said, corporal punishment is not some “Zionist conspiracy”. For every cruel and merciless teacher there is a group of rowdy students aiming to turn the rules of the school into the laws of the jungle.
But with corporal punishment comes a responsibility to use it properly. Teachers must be scrupulous about how to use physical punishment, especially with those more likely to be subjected to it: Younger kids. (Apparently teachers tend to use corporal punishment less at the high school level, probably out of concern for their own safety among kids who are on the verge of becoming young adults.) Teachers must not use this privilege to vent their own personal anger or mental problems on their students.
And in any case physical punishment should be a method of last resort; it should be unnecessary. The educational system succeeds when students love their schools and teachers.
But first and foremost: We must admit there are problems in our schools and that these problems have pushed the system to a crisis point. A teacher was recently caught beating an eight-year-old student with an electrical cord. In another recent incident a student stalked his teacher and stabbed him. With news like this becoming commonplace, what are we waiting for?
