SCHOOLBOY "CRIMES."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20744, 11 December 1930, Page 16

SCHOOLBOY "CRIMES."

SYSTEM OF KEEPING RECORDS CRITICISM OF PROPOSAL. OBJECTION TO USE OF NAMES. Regulations framed by the Auckland Education Board for recording particulars of every offenco for which corporal punishment has been administered in schools and the name o> the delinquent, were criticised at a meeting of the Piimafy Schools' Committees' Association lust evening. The regulations provide that when corporal punishment lias been administered particulars of the date, name, nature of the offence, and tho amount of punishment shall bo entered in a book and forwarded with the term returns by the head teacher to the Education Board at tho end of each term. Another regula-' lion states that the corporal punishment of girls 12 years of ago and over is prohibited.

Mrs. Benfell said there was a great danger in keeping a permanent record of children's petty offences, as such records might bo producod later. "I do not believe in recording the small instances of misbehaviour by a child which seem important at the time, but are of no importance later," she said. "I also think it is a mistake to differentiate between boys and girls in tho matter of corporal punishment in these days of equality of tho sexes. It is a mistake to say that girls can do what they liko because they are 12 years of ago, and as long as wo have co-education it will make a peculiar position if we differentiate between tho sexes. Excopt in exceptional cases it is only tho bad teacher who needs to use corporal punishment." A letter was read from tho president of the Teachers' Institute objecting to the abolition of tho discretionary powers given to headmasters and tho proposed system of "logging." "The principle of punishment is that it should be followed by forgiveness and forgetting, and we feel that a system of recording is wrong in principle, although wo agreo that the board should severely discipline any teacher who abuses the powers delegated to him," stated the letter. Mrs. Mountjoy said that the proposed system of "logging" was an absoluto_disgrace.

The president, Mr. S. E. Chappell, opposed a system of preserving a permanent black mark against the name of a pupil. It was decided i>. approve of the regulations, subject to numbers being kept in the records of the Education Boargl instead of pupils' names.