I sometimes see the news headlines where cases of corporal punishment have turned out to be outright violence and abuse. I don’t think I am so distant from this issue as I grew up in a time and place where such punishment was an acceptable form of discipline. Based on my personal experiences, I want to argue against it.
The most memorable punishment I received at school was during fifth grade. One day we were completing an educational survey. The teacher reminded us not to stand up to share the result with others after completing the survey, as it would cause confusions and difficulties in collecting the papers. I, unfortunately, was one of the four kids who were stupid enough to stand up despite her warning. It was then when she turned hysteric, yelling at us to come to the front of the class. Then she hit each of us on the palms five times with a big, flat and sharp triangle model used for the geometry class. Because of its sharp edge, it immediately set deep red marks on our palms, and I remember crying out afterward more for the confusion than pain. Even though it did hurt, I was more upset about the way she punished us for fairly minor transgressions. It reminded me more of an abusive beating than carefully considered discipline. But the punishment wasn’t over. She made us stay
All of us thought that it was not a serious enough offense to deserve that kind of punishment. I was forced to be creative and apologize, falsifying how we felt about this sin we were accused of committing. Luckily she accepted our forced apologies. This experience sticks in my mind still to this day. Surely there were other times when I was punished in a more painful way, but it was a notable moment that made me turn against the whole concept of corporal punishment. I had a hard time understanding what I had done wrong to be punished that way in front of the whole class. It was an angry fit that inflicted physical pain without the proper explanation of what we did wrong. It is my conviction that if you do not understand how serious your actions were, then the punishment has lost its purpose.
I feel most punishments I received at school were pretty random and, therefore, lacked serious intention for moral enhancement. One of my friends was punished for refusing to eat lunch because he did not enjoy the food, and some teachers would punish us for not doing well on tests. I honestly saw no need for the punishment over the test scores, because the scores did not necessarily show that the student was a bad character. There was no rule that said students with bad scores should be punished or expelled. Just like how my teacher hit me in anger, the standards were lacking to bring out the desirable realizations.
I am not saying every corporal punishment was the reflection of abuse—I am sure there were some places and people who carried out a more acceptable punishment than those out of an emotional outburst. However, when I come to think of the very nature of it, I cannot agree if it is truly effective.
Corporal punishment inflicts pain on people who were deemed to have done something wrong in order to prevent another mistake from happening again. People are to be trained to be deterred from their previous mistakes because of pain rather than sincere understanding. Without understanding, how can you expect one to fix their problems? It is simply mending the big hole with duct tape to block the flood temporarily, not permanently. It’s like “Oh, I did something wrong, but it’s fine, after some momentary pains I will be forgiven anyway.” I hardly see it as a proper deterrence to the moral hazard. I do not have an alternative as I don’t know every other deserving occasion to determine a correct form of punishment, but it seems almost certain that
Hae Rin Lee is a sophomore majoring in history. Do you agree with her thoughts on corporal punishment? Please send all comments and questions to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
