Corporal Punishment, Is it necessary for education or is it a violence?

Corporal Punishment

Is it necessary for education or Is it a violence?

 

 

Thinking about the Corporal punishment

 These days I see the news on Internet media like this. That is, a grandmother and a mom beated their 3 aged daughter ruthlessly on the purpose of corporal punishment and they made her die. We call this not as corporal punishment but as violence and mistreatment.

What is different from corporal punishment and violence? I consider again the corporal punishment happening between parents and children, teacher and student..

    In my country, South Korea, the corporal punishment is prohibited by principle. As doing so, It is limited only to inevitable case. But this is the controversial problem in this country. It was reported that a teacher left a student out in the cold on the purpose of punishment. Most people think this as mental violence. They form public opinion about corporal punishment.

 

The premise of corporal punishment is full relationship of affection

   I think the corporal punishment is necessary and the whip of love is possible. But the corporal punishment must be done only if the relationship of affection and trust is built among them. Then the victims can look back to them and do not feel it as a violence.  And the care must be followed after corporal punishment. We can not grow as upright person if we don’t have lesson from our parents and our teachers. But only if they take care of their victims after punishment, they will not become twisted beings. Otherwise they remember it as a violence.

In fact, it is reported that the child who has the deep relationship and intimacy with mom will get a less stress.

From my experience, as a baby sitter in church. Infants who are taken good care from their mom are healthy. Because infants have deep dependent relationship with their mom, their mom embrace and feed them after punishment.

Even elementary students can turn back from their error easily because of their intimate relationship with their mom and teacher. But middle school students and high school students can go across easily and they feel the punishment as a violence because of their weak relationship with their teachers and parents. .

As reflecting my school life, I remember that the punishment from the teacher who had deep concern about me made me turn back and feel good. But I remember a teacher whose nickname was a crazy dog. He beated his students without reason. He beated his students by the reason that they did not wear slippers in the limited area and they do not line up rightly and they do not look forward, even if they line up rightly. He beated them ruthlessly.

I feel fear and shame whenever I remember the crazy teacher.

 

The significant thing of the right punishment is that the heart of attacker must be painful as much as victims suffer.  

When I was a middle school student, Our class, most students did wrong to a female teacher. I don’t remember the contents of wrong doing. But I was impressed by her response to us. She punished us by beating with her both palms over our both palms. Then, both of attacker and victims are hurted. I was painful by just one beat. But she did more than 30 times because our class consisted of 60 students, as I remember. How painful her palms are! We, our class, observed her palms swelling up redly. The she said to us, “when I beat you and you feel pain, I also feel pain”

Most students agreed with her and lowered their head and kept silence. Her palms swelling up told us something to our heart. She got hurted more tens of times than us.  

One day, she came to die by accident. When our middle school held a funeral in the ground, all students shed tears. It seemed to me the wave of tears and finally the sea of tears.

The teacher went over to heaven with our love which was proven by our tears how we love her and how we respect her.   

The corporal punishment happens in our ordinary life, no matter how it is prohibited by principle. We must recognize that the punishment must be done not on the purpose of logic, duty and principle that you must be punished because of your wrong doing but on the purpose of turning back from errors. And we must recognize that attacker feel not triumph but pain. The most important thing is that attackers give it to victim’s heart that they also feel pain when they punish.

As doing so, love and trust will grow our children to be better and matured persons.