SCHOOLS happen to be nurseries for human minds. Their existence guarantees human and social health, progress and development. By Domino effect, the slightest aberration in their functioning triggers a chain reaction of social entropy.

Despite ban on corporal punishment in educational institutions, it is still meted out to students in its various camouflaged forms. The notorious wooden sticks have been replaced by steel rulers that go easily unmonitored as tools of corporal punishment because they are included in the stationery articles of students and teachers.

Slaps on faces, twisting of ears and wrangling of arms help the perpetrators evade the circumstantial evidence offered by the traditional presence of sticks in classrooms.

Verbal abuse, taunts, insults, cold behaviour, victim-shaming and favouritism are also forms of punishment administered to students. This type of punishment is more deleterious as it mars the beauty and health of the learning process in classrooms.

This causes deterioration in the mental health of learners, causing aversion to education among them. Such punishments have a direct impact on one’s self-respect. Students with punctured dignity and self-respect show magnanimity to nobody and become rebellious.

Stifling of curiosity by killing the questioning spirit among the students is also a form of punishment. It smothers healthy debate by inquisitive minds. Dialogue and debate are discouraged. Unanswered questions suffocate the human mind and clip the wings of imagination.

Genuine teachers are above personal grudges, biases and prejudices against students. They do not exercise likes and dislikes while dealing with students. But most of our teachers create an unwelcoming environment, especially for those who pose a perceived threat to their pedagogy. All this negativity is transferred to their students and shape their behaviour and mindset.

They grow up to be short-sighted, bigoted adults with no critical abilities.

Students who face intolerance in their impressionable years become the vectors of physical violence and verbal abuse, and society as a whole gets infected by these vectors. Sometimes this infestation goes undiagnosed till it explodes uncontrollably beyond any remedy.

Teachers not only communicate through words, but also with their gestures, smiles and reactions. They are morally and professionally bound to create a student-friendly learning milieu.

M. Nadeem Nadir
Kasur

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2022