RBSC

Collapse

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Thwaites: Teachers need training in alternatives to slapping

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Thwaites: Teachers need training in alternatives to slapping

    Thwaites: Teachers need training in alternatives to slapping

    BY LUKE DOUGLAS
    Observer senior reporter douglasl@jamaicaobserver.com

    Friday, November 30, 2012

    EDUCATION Minister Rev Ronald Thwaites says teacher-training institutions need to emphasise alternative methods of disciplining students to corporal punishment.


    He made the comment against the background of anecdotal reports that beating of students is still taking place in the country's schools.
    (L-R) Carlene McCalla-Francis, principal of Kensington Primary..

    THWAITES... under no condition should corporal punishment be used for academic deficiency






    "I don't think we have been careful enough to give alternative measures of discipline in their (teachers') training and practice that can work," Thwaites told the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday.

    It (corporal punishment) appears to be more widespread from the anecdotal reports that one is getting."

    The education minister yesterday received a report on the institutionalised beating of students by teachers at Kensington Primary in St Catherine, with the agreement of the Parent Teachers Association there.

    In a report in this week's Sunday Observer, the parents of a nine-year-old girl said they were forced to withdrew their daughter from the school after the child was slapped for not achieving a perfect score in a test.
    But principal of the school, Carlene McCalla-Francis maintained that slapping was a part of the school's policy and parents agreed to the practice when they were registered there.

    Kensington primary has an outstanding record of academic success based on the Grade Four literacy and numeracy tests.

    On Tuesday Thwaites, while reiterating his opposition to corporal punishment in schools, suggested that the practice could be carried out by principals in extreme circumstances.

    "Under no conditions should corporal punishment be used for academic deficiency. I accept that there may be rare and severe incidents where a principal may be permitted to apply moderate corporal punishment to redress a serious infraction," he said.

    The minister also dismissed the view that teachers and parents could agree for corporal punishment to be administered, as was done at Kensington Primary.

    "In a public institution it is for the state to set the appropriate standards and any agreement that they are being asked to sign permitting teachers to administer corporal punishment in the wide scale way that was reported would not be proper," he sated.

    Commenting on the use of corporal punishment, Principal of Allman Town Primary Kandi-Lee Crooks-Smith said the issue was not topical at her school and only a handful of parents requested that their children be hit.
    However, Crooks-Smith has instructed her teachers not to carry out the practice not only because of the ministry's directive, but because it doesn't help students learn, and is too risky.

    "In my school there are so many children with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and other learning disorders; some are diagnosed, some are not. When a teacher is going to be slapping a child who is diagnosed with ADHD, that won't get the child to learn," she said.

    "There are parents who will say to you 'slap dem and save the eye' but if you should ever miss and cause some injury to that child, they will never admit that they gave you permission to slap them," she added.

    Crooks-Smith agreed that colleges and universities need to do more to prepare teachers in alternative disciplining strategies.

    "Teachers don't know the reality until they get into the classroom for teaching practice. When a student says to you 'I don't have to do any work because me soon gone a foreign', no college can prepare you for that," she said.



    Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...#ixzz2DiwudgTL
    "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

  • #2
    Ronnie fi tap di yapping and tryfind place fi di pickney dem get a quality heddikashon.

    Comment


    • #3
      Kensington, you cannot wrong and get right

      Kensington, you cannot wrong and get right

      Published: Thursday | November 29, 2012

      I MAKE no apologies for the solid pro-teacher position that I normally take. I know what it is to feel beleaguered, disrespected and unappreciated. It is part of our lot.

      It is especially difficult to experience the feeling of being given 'basket to carry water', then being told by persons who have never been part of the profession that it is quite possible to do so, and finally being reprimanded for allowing some of the water to leak out. The system is replete with examples of this, and it is the eternal struggle of the teacher to convince others that he knows what he is doing and is, in fact, better at it than those who pontificate in the media and from political platforms.

      For example, there is the statement sent out to primary schools giving them a target of 100 per cent mastery of literacy at the grade-four level in just a few years. Yet there is no programme in place to deal with students with learning and reading deficiencies and disabilities. Everyone knows that, without significant intervention programmes - using teachers with specialised training - this target is impossible. But the schools have all been handed the baskets and taken to the water.

      PLAYING FIELD NOT LEVEL
      Recently, my heart bled for the administrators and staff of a fairly new secondary school who had been given a cohort of extremely low-achieving students in grade nine. They motivated, cared for, pushed, pulled, encouraged, cajoled and loved them. Upon graduation, this group of students were ready for the world, most of them equipped with a marketable skill and all with the attitudes that earmarked them for good citizenship. Quite apart from that, they had received quite reasonable Caribbean Examinations Council results. Even though only a few of them had passed English and math, the progress they had made in these subjects was remarkable. Distinctions even! But people baulked at identifying this school as excellent because, for a school to be declared excellent, the students should have good passes in English and math. As if the playing field were level! Talk about water in baskets.

      I can give so many other examples: overcrowded classrooms, unsafe schools, poorly equipped teachers and schools, trying working conditions - including the occasional verbal or even physical attack on teachers. But suffice it to say that I have good reason to tend to automatically spring to the defence of teachers whenever they are under attack.

      But my colleagues at Kensington Primary are wrong. Horribly wrong. To claim that flogging is a useful teaching tool is not only unsupported by any kind of research, it is unsupportable by any kind of logic. Come on! And it simply cannot be presented in a good light. The argument about a few taps in the palm of the hand makes us look worse. Worse even is the argument that "I got it when I was young and it did not scar me". To be valid, you would have to get a random sample of persons and test them for psychological scars. It may not have harmed you (possibly), but what about others?

      FLAWED THINKING
      There are persons who have suffered rape and have found the strength to overcome it and lead happy lives. How would you, teacher, respond if a lawyer used this as an argument for leniency for a convicted rapist?

      But maybe I am just as bad. Maybe it is my own experience that underpins my thinking. At primary school, I had a teacher who would place us in a line and play a game called 'head and tail'. He would ask questions on a topic he had set and, if you were correct, you went closer to the head, if incorrect, you would 'descend'. After three or four rounds, he would start flogging those at the 'tail'. This would occur even though you had answered correctly, but did not overtake enough persons to escape the tail. Flogging same way! True, we would study like mad to get the answers right during the game, but nearly 60 years later, I still shudder when I recall the experience. It took me decades to bring myself to forgive him. And I am not sure if I really have. The wicked son of … .

      Keith Noel is an educator. Send comments to columns@gleanerjm.com

      http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/2...cleisure3.html
      "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

      Comment


      • #4
        So what he said made no sense? Shouldn't the Minister of Education make a statement on this unjust treatment of kids in 2012??? If not who else should? Why allow your coloured view to ignore this? For the messenger...that's his job...is madness going on at the school.

        Yes, and we all want quality education for our kids.

        Understand this though, once we continue with an elitist education system, we will never go forward.

        Comment


        • #5
          Read what mi seh again...ACTION not a baggah mout.

          Everyday dis hypocrite a chat...

          Comment


          • #6
            Not holding no quarter for him but as Min of Edu he had to make a statement. Simple. Action should be to suspend the Principal and Teacher who beating DESPITE policy, not to mention the parent should sue har ************ and the Ministry.

            Comment

            Working...
            X