PUNISHMENT IN SCHOOLS, ETC.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22904, 11 June 1936, Page 10

PUNISHMENT IN SCHOOLS, ETC.

TO THE EDITOR

Sir, —Apparently tbo two irate parents, one an Oamaruvian, the other _a Tnpaimia’i. have no confidence in their School Committees, through which complaints against teachers may be ventilated. Perhaps the fancied injustice done to their children may be used us an excuse for attacking the teachers from motives arising from personal spite for tbo schools or (be teachers therein concerned. According to your two correspondents, punishment should be eliminated from the primary schools. My reply is that Nature exacts punishment for wrongdoing that right may triumph, and society, too, punishes the wrong-doer through the law courts, for offences, if allowed to go unpunished wotdd undermine the moral fibre of the nation. Thus viewed basically, punishment of some kind is essential. Fairmindedness compels me to deprecate unfair punishment, but our primary schools would be queer places if the authority of the teachers were not upheld. Visitors from overseas have stated that nowhere else in the world do teachers work harder and show more enthusiasm and seriousness for their task than they do in New Zealand. The teachers of New Zealand, like parents and all other human beings, are liable to make errors, no matter how high the degree of genius possessed by them, and it is the duty of parents to realise how difficult at times is the task of the teacher who has to adjust his or her methods to meet the requirements of all types of temperament. Then, again, the teacher is often called upon to shoulder responsibilities that ought rightly to be apportioned to the parent. During the depression, the writer knew of one teacher who made it possible for certain children in the school, who were in necessitous circumstances, to be clothed, but that teacher received no public thanks from the parents concerned. Probably, if he or she had punished severely some child for moral delinquency, he or she would have been castigated through the press. Recently an experiment was tried out in Auckland. Corporal punishment was banned from certain schools. Certain children who lacked parental control took full advantage of the occasion to defy the teachers. It is on reci’d that when one child was asked to perform a certain duty, it poked its tongue out at the teacher. Your two correspondents, the irate Oamaruvian and the acrid Tapanuian, would uphold such conduct, if one judges rightly from their remarks. A wise parent punishes his own children if thev need it, as the writer has done. ]f mollycoddling, maudlin parents neglect their responsibilities, the teacher’s task, difficult enough at times, is made much more difficult because of the carelessness of the parent. A shrewd New Zealand critic recently stated that, very often a child is born with two disadvantages, a father and a mother. As a parent, who has read your paper, Sir, for the past twenty years, it is my opinion that the poor unfortunate school teacher has been pilloried excessively. He is now in the same unenviable position as “the Oppressed Englishman.” If a patient wrote in the same strain about a medical practitioner, or a client were to try to castigate a solicitor in public, both doctor and lawyer would be consulted for their version of the story; but no opportunity is ever given to the teacher ot defending himself or herself. Invariably under cover of a noin-de-plume, the parent with some slight real or fancied grievance launches an unfair, one-sided attack. , If parents are opposed to corporal punishment, then banish it from all the schools, primary and the secondary schools. The latter use the cane. Still the teacher s authority remains to be upheld. Then by what are wo going to replace corporal punishment? One thing remains—expulsion. As a parent I am strongly m favour of corporal punishment and opposed to the stigma of expulsion—l am. etc.. Father of Six. [lf a specific charge were made against any particular teacher, it would he investigated before any decision was formed as to whether it should or should not l>e published. —Eu., O.D.J .]