Friday, 7 September 2012


ANGELS SUBJECTED TO CORPORAL PUNISHMENT ?

It’s horrifying to see cases of corporate punishment getting to the extent of causing serious injuries to innocent kids.

These little angels adorned in attire as sacred as  school uniform coming back home in blood stained shirt! What is the crime they are being punished for? The crime is either not obeying the commands of the teacher or  not being able to come up to the expectations of the teacher. The fact is that children become soft targets of teachers’ anger and frustration , they might be carrying from home or due to some issue dealing with their personal lives. By hitting children they also tend to express their superiority  and nourish their false ego. Shameless, isn’t it?

There are teachers on this earth who have spent whole of their lives teaching ,not even scolding children ,beating being out of question! Amazingly, they are the ones who have been able to get best results out of their students and educated them in the real sense. They are adored and revered by their students whole life long.

Teaching is a very noble profession where teachers are given a group of tender saplings to nurture with their affection and care and facilitate their all round development which is possible only  in a healthy conductive environment where the child is free to think and express himself, share and be appreciated ,speak and be applauded. A school should be  a child friendly  zone inviting the child to come every day and soak into varied innovative and engrossing activities. Scolding and hitting  should not be allowed to disrupt the tranquility of this heaven, the abode to  hundreds of innocent souls .

Kids up to class VIII are absolutely  innocent and cannot be accused with anything so serious that calls for corporal punishment. At a tender age of 3+,a child steps out of his mother’s lap and opens his eyes to a whole new world full of strangers .Even parents, who have not missed a sight of him all these years  send the child to school ,blindly trusting the school authorities that their child would be looked after well. In this world of strangers, the child yearns for the warmth of affection that he has been getting at home. He looks out for it in the eyes of his teachers and everybody else around .He searches his parents’ love in his teachers .He notices each and everything about them and gradually become ardent admirers of them .They place their teachers higher than their parents and even above God. The words of a teacher  become sacred to the child and he wants to follow the teacher word by word. Teachers are  best role models for children as we tend to acquire what we see around and children take a lot of pride in adopting their teachers’ mannerism. This is what a teacher means to a child. This is the high altar that a child gives to his teacher. Blessed are the teachers and the noblest this profession, where you are dealing with the purest section of the society and getting back loads of pure love and affection. A school is like an oasis of goodness in this world all full of hatred and distrust.

Teachers need to value the bliss of being  involved in a task as great as nation building and make the best of every moment they spend with their students ,making this profession more worthwhile and eventful.

Dr. Monika Rastogi (an English teacher for about 20 years)