Spare the rod and spoil the child? Yes, please!

My resolution for 2011 was to write more frequently. Given that it is the 6th of January and this is my first post, it does not augur well for frequency but I shall try.

There have been several reasons for my posting less since September (ok! Fine! not posting at all) but the foremost was the fact that I was just overwhelmed. At first, my experiences in schools were just hilarious anecdotes to share. Then I realized that this morass of disorder was going to be my reality, at least for the forseeable future, and I was too exhausted by the thought to write about it. Now, almost six months in, I am finally getting to the point where I can accept the mire, do the work and still analyze the situation (somewhat) objectively. Well, at least most of the time.

Some things still catch me off-guard though. For instance, the other day I walked into a school to see the newly hired co-ordinator (a glorified term for prison warden) shouting indiscriminately at everyone - adult and child - around her, and finally smacking a child sharply on the arm. After the incident, I had a tete-a-tete with her and asked for an explanation of her conduct. She contradicted herself several times during her convoluted explanation which involved a reference to the Headmaster's disapproval of corporal punishment, her own conviction that one must not spare the rod, and her assertion that she never uses a stick and was only seen carrying one when she had taken it off the other teachers. My personal favourite was that in her overzealous effort to prove her innocence, she claimed that she does not hit children simply because it does not work. Also, in answer to one of my questions, she proudly stated that she had never once hit a child. (Rest assured that despite her delusions, the appropriate authorities were informed of the situation and have since taken "positive disciplining" action against said prison warden.)

What was also interesting was that I, a young, relatively inexperienced person was able to make a teacher with 30+ years of teaching experience behave like a cornered rat with a single question.

A few days later I was in the Headmistress' office at a different school when a parent came to talk to her. The parent was distraught because the child was performing poorly at school and tearfully begged the Headmistress to have the child slapped if his poor performance at school continued. Aside from the millions of problems with using corporal punishment as a sanction for academic problems, what struck me was that a parent was pleading with the Headmistress - not for lenience but for harsher punishment.

I was reminded of Freire's theory about the Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Paraphrasing loosely, his theory suggests that when an oppressed person has access to power he becomes more tyrannical than the oppressor because his understanding of power cannot be separated from the oppressor-oppressed paradigm.

While Freire's theory is illuminating in its simplicity, it is incredibly frustrating to watch this paradigm being played out daily in the lives of these children, especially given that they are far more earnest, sincere and motivated to learn than many of their wealthier, more-empowered contemporaries.