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Why, in my day...
Feb. 22nd, 2002 04:58 pmAh, me. Another day, another battle with the in-tray. It's almost like one of those ancient myths - you know, the forces of good do battle with the forces of evil, sending them back to the pits where they were spawned for a season, but they emerge once more and the eternal battle is joined again. One of those legends they cook up to explain the cycle of the seasons or night and day or such crap.
Anyway, I was at the Mart yesterday when I bumped into an old buddy of mine, Siva, whom I hadn't seen in a while. Siva and I are the same age, and although we went to different law schools, had taken the bar exam and entered the biz together. Difference is, Siva gave up on lawyering after a couple of years and became a high school teacher. We got to talking about his kids and about our own experiences as students and how old we were all getting.
(Among the bits talked about was the horrifying concept of having Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" being declared as a "Golden Oldie" on the radio, and his students refusing to believe that U2 had any albums before "POP." Siva had sworn to himself never to use the phrase, "In my day..." but he finds himself using it more and more. But here's the interesting bit coming up.)
He's the discipline master in his school, and he talked about how the kids that gave more trouble were usually the richer and smarter kids. They were the ones usually in your face, almost challenging you to teach them something, while the slower and less privileged kids, even though they were the ones with the worse reputations, the smokers and so on, were actually more deferent to and respectful of the teachers. In our day, one of the punishments teachers doled out was the infamous public caning. Basically, at morning assembly, the perps go up on stage and get hit on their backsides with a switch. The punishment is not just pain, but humiliation, but it usually did the trick, and was a fun show for the rest of us. Anyway, the punishment still exists, but nowadays, the kids get to wear a book inside their pants to cushion the blow.
Which, I thought, kind of defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. And Siva mentioned even then the kids start bawling after the first stroke, to which we shook our heads and muttered, "Wimps." And of course, we realized that if some of the stuff the teachers whacked us with were done today, they'd be hit by a law suit, or worse.
This put me in mind of when this mother showed up the other day to complain that another woman had slapped her son. Of course, this was only after her son had hit the woman's own son first. The mother's point, and it was well taken, that regardless, the woman should not have slapped another person's child. However, I was wondering about the fact that this woman wanted to involve the Courts, the Police, invoke the Almighty Process as it were, in an incident that, if it had happened to me when I was younger, would have been shrugged off with no incident. In fact, Ma would probably have said it served me right for hitting the kid in the first place, and probably doled something extra to me.
I'm not saying that kids should be beaten, or that all punishments should be corporal. Of course there are benefits to time-outs and non-physical punishments and so on, and of course kids should understand why they are being punished or else it serves no purpiose. But the majority of the punishments I sustained as a kid did not cross the line into abuse, and none of them traumatized me to the point that I needed any kind of therapy. In fact, some of my happier memories involve the crap I pulled with my friends that got me into trouble to begin with, and although we could have done without the punishment at the time, I don't think any of us, even today, would think it was undeserved.
Granted, violence is never an answer, but to a certain extent I think corporal punishment in junior schools builds character. Allowing kids to roughhouse, within limits, also builds character. Is there something wrong with discipline? Or else, aren't we turning ourselves into a zero resistance culture when it comes to minor trespasses? I'm sorry the ideas here don't seem to be too well developed - and I'm not sure I believe whole-heartedly in any of them myself. It's just something that occured to me.
Anyway, I was at the Mart yesterday when I bumped into an old buddy of mine, Siva, whom I hadn't seen in a while. Siva and I are the same age, and although we went to different law schools, had taken the bar exam and entered the biz together. Difference is, Siva gave up on lawyering after a couple of years and became a high school teacher. We got to talking about his kids and about our own experiences as students and how old we were all getting.
(Among the bits talked about was the horrifying concept of having Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" being declared as a "Golden Oldie" on the radio, and his students refusing to believe that U2 had any albums before "POP." Siva had sworn to himself never to use the phrase, "In my day..." but he finds himself using it more and more. But here's the interesting bit coming up.)
He's the discipline master in his school, and he talked about how the kids that gave more trouble were usually the richer and smarter kids. They were the ones usually in your face, almost challenging you to teach them something, while the slower and less privileged kids, even though they were the ones with the worse reputations, the smokers and so on, were actually more deferent to and respectful of the teachers. In our day, one of the punishments teachers doled out was the infamous public caning. Basically, at morning assembly, the perps go up on stage and get hit on their backsides with a switch. The punishment is not just pain, but humiliation, but it usually did the trick, and was a fun show for the rest of us. Anyway, the punishment still exists, but nowadays, the kids get to wear a book inside their pants to cushion the blow.
Which, I thought, kind of defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. And Siva mentioned even then the kids start bawling after the first stroke, to which we shook our heads and muttered, "Wimps." And of course, we realized that if some of the stuff the teachers whacked us with were done today, they'd be hit by a law suit, or worse.
This put me in mind of when this mother showed up the other day to complain that another woman had slapped her son. Of course, this was only after her son had hit the woman's own son first. The mother's point, and it was well taken, that regardless, the woman should not have slapped another person's child. However, I was wondering about the fact that this woman wanted to involve the Courts, the Police, invoke the Almighty Process as it were, in an incident that, if it had happened to me when I was younger, would have been shrugged off with no incident. In fact, Ma would probably have said it served me right for hitting the kid in the first place, and probably doled something extra to me.
I'm not saying that kids should be beaten, or that all punishments should be corporal. Of course there are benefits to time-outs and non-physical punishments and so on, and of course kids should understand why they are being punished or else it serves no purpiose. But the majority of the punishments I sustained as a kid did not cross the line into abuse, and none of them traumatized me to the point that I needed any kind of therapy. In fact, some of my happier memories involve the crap I pulled with my friends that got me into trouble to begin with, and although we could have done without the punishment at the time, I don't think any of us, even today, would think it was undeserved.
Granted, violence is never an answer, but to a certain extent I think corporal punishment in junior schools builds character. Allowing kids to roughhouse, within limits, also builds character. Is there something wrong with discipline? Or else, aren't we turning ourselves into a zero resistance culture when it comes to minor trespasses? I'm sorry the ideas here don't seem to be too well developed - and I'm not sure I believe whole-heartedly in any of them myself. It's just something that occured to me.
