Why i don’t believe that students should be punished

There has always been this thought right from my school days that punishing is the best and maybe the only way of making the kids be under control. We always believed that our teachers hit us so that we be a better persons. Or at least be well educated. So whenever my homework was incomplete (which was always) I used to be punished. Believe me! compared to children nowadays they were torturous. But somehow the common psyche was that, it’s for our own good. Then I finished my schooldays and even was a teacher for a high school for 8 months. And there were the days that I had to really contemplate over this topic.

As I became a teacher in Hamsalekha Desi Vidya Samsthe, the school for the down trodden, we had greater responsibility than the rest of our counterparts from other schools. The children whom we had selected had come from remote villages and had completed 7^th standard. Ours was a high school. So we opened our classes from 8^th standard. When the applications were called, the students who had applied had all scored first class in their previous schools. We believed that these students were extremely talented, but were denied the opportunity to bring out their maximum, and we felt great that we were doing it. But sooner we realized that these kids, forget being brilliant, they couldn’t even identify letters properly!

The Government of our country is run by dodoes of the nth order! They wanted to show that they are eager to achieve 100% literacy mark to the world. So they made teachers liable and said that if the students don’t get first class you will be fired! Now, if you don’t know, the schools in villages lack basic infrastructure, like drinking water, toilets, blackboards, chalks, books! Only few districts like U.K, D.K, Udupi, the Mysore region, Mandya, Hassan, Bengalooru rural, have overcome such dire status and have progressed a lot. But regions like villages in kolar, Chamrajnagar, Kollegal & northern Karnataka are going from bad to worse. The students we had selected came from such areas. The teachers in their schools were helpless and couldn’t afford to give them right education. But they had to save their arse. So they gave marks to all of these students and made them “brilliant students with first class”. And we morons, without cross examining, accepted them. But now our reputation was at stake. We had to prepare them. We had made tall talks like giving these downtrodden kids a chance and boosted of 100 % result in 10^th and much more. We had to keep our word.

We decided that no matter what, in next three years, these kids are going to be the top notch students and ours will become the most reputed institution. So there were special classes, training, rigid schedules, and everything that would make education worse than capital punishment. But nothing was working! These kids grew in a rural atmosphere where going to school meant going to a broken building for an hour, then playing till the rest of the day. Tests never existed. The concept of homework is alien. And the only matter of discussion was who brought what food. I was teaching Social to them and seeing my fruits bearing no results I was pissed. I then decided that the best way to make them work was through fear. I started trying all those punishments that was inflicted on me during my childhood and it started showing results. The notes were complete. Tests were the results used to be zero, started stepping up. They were answering single sentences! They were starting to make clear sentences. But it came at cost.

When these students came to us and we started coaching them, they were all happy kids. They would talk for consistent long hours. Even when they used to see us on roads they used to run to us and talk non-stop. They were all innocent. Un-corrupted. As the regime of punishment started to strangle them, the first thing they lost was their smile! Now because they had come from villages, we had made arrangements for their residence with the local govt hostel. These kids were away from their homes. From their parents. It was same like how I was in my residential school. But I was not so confused. I could read and write and even compose poems. But these kids were lost. The notes were complete. But none of them knew what they have written. They started scoring marks, but they always copied. And worse, deep inside, they started hating us. At least me.

One fine day, a father of one of the student visited us. He had come to see his son. His son cried and was begging him to take away. The father was explaining that he should stay here or else would end up like him. I spoke to the child, and he agreed to stay. The kid was sent back to the class and the father explained that he was a bonded labourer. (Don’t get shocked. It still exists). And he cannot even afford to come here. I said why don’t you ask some money from the Gowda, at least to see your son once in a while. He got frightened and said, “How can I!!!?? He will hit me!”. That last sentence was a slap on my face. Am I being like that Gowda!

What’s the difference? He is curtailing a man’s freedom to reach his goal. I am doing the same! When I used to direct plays, I believed that if I am unable to inspire my actors to perform the right way, then I considered it to be my failure. I failed to get the results out. It is not the actor’s fault. How did I forget that simple truth when I became a teacher? If they are not learning, then I am a failure! I have failed to inspire them! I detested myself. After all, every man does whatever he does to be happy. Right? Then how did I make these kids so unhappy and say that it was for their own good.

Only people who have power punish. The one at the receiving end has no say! The rowdy hits a meek. A bully hits the weak. The husband hits a wife. A teacher hits the child! At the end I have established my authority and have damned the child’s spirits. It did to me too. Till I was in a school, I had such a low esteem. I hated myself and believed I was waste. Even contemplated suicide. Why? Because everyone else was better than me and I was waste! Lazy scum on earth. Whose notes were incomplete. Whose dress were dirty. Whose identity was unidentifiable. God! What if the kids started to think this way? It’s horrible! First it makes you detest life, then yourself. They say that 99% percent of criminals are the ones who never had a happy childhood. Doesn’t matter rich or poor. But unhappy childhood. I was driving the kids to the same vertical point I had escaped long back. How did I escape? Well I didn’t have enough courage to kill myself. When you hit someone (especially a child), and not allow him to show his dissent, he is dying deep inside. He is going to vent out his anger. Either on others or on himself. Both the cases worst. Never should any human be denied of freedom. You should always talk and let the other talk. That is the only way to stay human. I by inflicting my power of being a teacher on them, did curb their freedom. I cried that day and decided, I will inspire them and take complete blame for their failure, at least on my subject.

Things changed. There were sports period. I conducted them. There were competitions. The children started to laugh again and we made good company. I even started discussing key topics like politics, religion and even sex. They changed. I can’t claim a 100% paradigm shift in them but the started to laugh again and I liked myself. I left the school when they entered 10^th for my inconsolable reasons with Hamsalekha. The kids wrote their matriculation and guess what? The school had an 80% result. And the next batch this year has scored 90%. The kids still are in touch with me and visit my house and love me. Love does win everything. Maybe the victory is delayed. But it will just give you more time to love. Isn’t it wonderful. The kids proved it is. Hehehehehehehe