Violent discipline in school
Vietnam
Punishment
- Physical punishment: behaviors that cause pain or injury to a
child’s body, potentially affecting his or her physical development.
These include, but are not limited to, beating with a rod or stick,
rapping a child’s head with one’s knuckles, pulling the child’s ears,
kicking, forcing the child to kneel, etc.
- Emotional punishment: Behaviors that cause psychological and emotional pain, such as scolding, cursing, humiliating, and inducing threatening, etc.
A female teacher slapped students who forgot to do their homework
Another teacher spanked a whole group of students who did badly on their tests
This elementary kid was hit in the face by a rod for didn't bring her text book The female teacher was suspended after that but this picture still left people speechless
Why this way of discipline is wrong?
- Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, such as cutting their finger, getting their clothes dirty, losing their books, forgetting something, getting low marks, or failing an exam. Thus, making mistakes is a normal, natural part of life, part of the process of learning and growth. Even as parents and teachers, we still make mistakes.
- Adults should forgive children and explain why the mistake happened so that children can understand and learn from their mistakes. Many adults, however, use harsh punishments to discipline children. These punishments may make children feel hurt and sad, become discouraged and want to drop out of school or take some kind of revenge against those that have hurt them.
- Once punished, children may feel that they have already paid for their mistake and may repeat it. Regularly beating children will create a resistance, making the punishment less effective over time. Children will not learn discipline, rather they will learn a bad example of how to deal with mistakes
The Effect
Recent studies had shown that this way of discipline can be harmful to the child’s development- both physically and mentally
- feel scared or humiliated
- lead to obsessive fears in both children and the adults they become
- feel worried, disgraced and suffer from loss of self-esteem and confidence
- feel less valued and may begin to hate themselves and other people
- may become angry and want to take revenge
- feel forced to find a way of hiding their mistakes from adults to avoid punishment next time
What can you do
- We want to create a new law that forbidden violence discipline in schools and open a new training program about positive discipline throughout Vietnam. Punishment by using any kind of violence like hitting, cursing, threatening, scolding or shouting will be illegal. Anyone who violate this law, depending on the injury, will have to pay a fine or be put in jail for a period of time. There will be a training program about positive discipline in every city in Vietnam. All teachers are required to go and apply it to their classes.