Corporal Punishment

You should know going into this that I am a sensitive person. Hyper-sensitive, in fact. If we were in the same room right now and you were feeling sad, you can bet that I’d know it and be concerned for you, whether you are total stranger or not. It’s taken me many years to be able to stay emotionally afloat while surrounded by people who are, sadly, sinking. Imagine me in a classroom with 30 little humans and their attached human drama all day every day! It took some getting used to. Now that the stage is set, let’s get to the crux of this blog post. Corporal punishment. Specifically, the use of caning in schools here.

So, here we have it. One very sensitive issue and one very sensitive human being. I struggled with how to write about this in a way that 1) fairly represents the Ugandan perspective, and 2) honestly represents my feelings. But enough beating around the bush, let’s start with the facts, shall we?

Fact #1: Corporal punishment is a part of daily life here. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks at school primarily administering assessments to fourth graders. It is, quite possibly, the most boring job in the universe, but somebody’s got to do it. While I’m saying the exact same thing 100 times in a row and using, say 1/64 of my brain power, the other, um, fraction of my brain is observing my fellow teachers and their classrooms. And what is it observing? Well, a lot of lecture and a lot of caning (hitting students with the branch of a tree). In the area where I’m situated, I easily see and/or hear at least 4 beatings a day. Now, when I interviewed the principal about this very topic, he said that the school is “moving away from caning,” and that it is seldom used. It’s quite possible that this is the truth. Maybe caning happens much more frequently at other schools, or maybe its frequency is declining at this school.

Fact #2: The Ugandan government has voluntarily signed a United Nations treaty on the rights of the child that condemns the use of corporal punishment. Most teachers (dare I say all?) know nothing about this.

Fact #3: Teachers have not been trained in any behavior management strategies to replace caning. Let’s imagine for a moment that I am suddenly told by the government that I should not teach reading using the alphabet or letter sounds or sight words. That’s it. No, “Do this instead,” just don’t do “that” anymore. What would I do? Well, I’d probably go right on teaching reading in the same way, wouldn’t you? I think that’s the boat the Ugandan teachers are in. Caning is all they know. Most teachers even agree that it doesn’t work, meaning that caning a child does not lead to a decrease in the “bad” behavior.

So, here I am, sitting outside a classroom listening to a child scream and cry as he/she is repeatedly beaten. Or, I walk into a classroom to see a teacher grabbing a child’s face, forcing it up, and slapping him while his classmates laugh. I know all of the facts above. I’ve even seen caning before in the schools in Ghana. I should be able to handle it, right? Wrong! It really, really upsets me. The bile rises in the back of my throat and I get either very angry or very sad or both. My solution, for now, is to duck out, to run home. I scream into a pillow. I sob for a few minutes. Then I clean myself up and head back to work.

When I think about this issue and others like it, I picture two pairs of glasses. One pair is the Ugandan perspective, the other is my (U.S.) perspective. I really want to see the world from the Ugandan point of view. It’s useful. It’s necessary. I need to understand the people I am living with. But I really don’t want to give up my glasses. My personal sense of morality, my culture and beliefs…they are important to me. They are part of what make me who I am. So what do I do? I was pondering this question on a VERY long taxi ride, when suddenly an image came to my mind. Permit me to geek out for just a minute…

Have you ever watched the TV show “Lost”? If you haven’t, you really should. Yes, the show devolves into a time-traveling, bloody-nosed mess in the third season, but at least watch the first season, okay? Anyway, there’s this character named Sawyer (cute dimples, good hair, from the south) and he’s getting headaches because he needs glasses, but they’re on a desert island, right? So he gets a buddy to make him some bifocals by melding half a men’s pair of square, black glasses with half a pair of women’s 1950s style glasses. (How did I mention “Lost” and not talk about Jack? Mmmm…Jack.) Are you seeing where I’m going with this? I decided that Sawyer’s glasses is what I’m aiming for: one eye seeing through a United States lens and the other through a Ugandan lens.

So where does this leave me on the corporal punishment issue? For now, I can understand why it’s still being used but I feel like it is fundamentally wrong. There. How do I look in my new glasses?

Fun Fact #1: There’s no concept of “yards” here, so in the space that would be my front yard in the U.S. I find people doing an assortment of things, like a man napping…on a mattress. Or children washing clothes and drying them on the grass. Or, my personal favorite, a grown woman using the lawn as a toilet.

Fun Fact #2: Picture an ice cream truck. Did you do it yet? Okay, now instead of a truck, picture a man riding a rusty old bicycle with a cooler strapped to the back. Can you hear the ice cream truck? Keep that same tinny, super loud, one-note sound and now make it play the theme song from “Titanic,” you know, the one with Celine Dion. Isn’t it awesome!?! It makes me laugh every time it drives by. What’s in the cooler? Wouldn’t you like to know! (And wouldn’t I—it’s driving me crazy!!!)