Spare the rod…

                During my last visit to India this past summer, there was a news item on TV about a teacher lynching a student with a ruler for making one mistake in his recitation. A lynching- much more than a beating- 63 lashes with a ruler. A hidden camera picked up the action and news outlets beamed it to the world. I was beyond disgusted watching it; it made my stomach turn. Horrified students huddled in their seats, watching their crazed out-of-control teacher beat their classmate. Do you think this helped the student with his recitation?

When I attended school many years ago, teachers hitting students used to happen, but not too frequently. I attended fairly high-performing schools with many upper-middle class families, and while corporal punishment wasn't rampant, it did occur now and then. I would have thought that this practice would have become unfashionable by now. Apparently, not so. Sad to say, it still happens. A parent asked me in disbelieving earnest, “How can you bring up a child without hitting him every now and then?” Getting compliance from a child out of fear does not instill character. After all, character is defined as one’s behavior when no one is watching.

I have been a mother for over 20 years, and a teacher for about a dozen years. I am a teacher of students with special needs and with several aggravating behaviors. Yet I have never felt the need to hit any of them. More to the point, it wouldn't have helped. After all, what am I going to do? Hit a crying child to make him stop crying?

Beating a child is an exercise in futility. The beater is acknowledging that he or she is defeated, and doesn't know any more skills to manage the student. The beater is accepting failure, and using brute power to assert superiority over a child half his age, and probably half his size. (I very much doubt a teacher would pick on a student as tall as himself or herself. Unlike younger kids, I dare say they would defend themselves, physically if necessary.) It is a highly unequal and unfair power relationship, where the teacher is counting on the fact that the student will not defend himself/fight back.

This is just sad. It shows the teacher’s shortcomings more than the student’s. Beating a student every time he makes a mistake on his multiplication tables will not help him to learn multiplication tables. In fact, it will make him more anxious and make him stutter and stammer the next time he has to recite his tables. What is the point?

I realize that teachers don’t use physical punishment as the first step. It only happens after repeated infractions on the student’s part. Agreed. First the teacher tries reteaching the student, then the teacher makes the student stand on the bench, then sends him out of the classroom, then sends him to the office, then calls the parent for a conference and yells at the parent…. Then finally beats him. OK …, then what? Where do you go from there? What is the next stage? The teacher is now out of options.

Seems like teachers beat for two reasons- anger, and frustration. An angry person is a pitiable person who needs mental health help if he is beating kids out of anger.

Beating a student out of frustration- this situation can be helped somewhat. This is frustration felt by the teacher not towards the student, but rather toward oneself. It is frustration felt by the teacher at not having the skills to know how to help. Intensive training and practice in classroom and behavior management can help with this situation.

Physical punishment- and its ugly cousins, verbal abuse, shaming, disrespect- reflect more on the teacher than on the student. “Naach na jaane aangan teda…”

Learning Disabilities- Processing Disorders Simulation lab workshops in India

This Learning Disability- Processing Disorders Simulation Lab workshop was presented to B. Ed students and to in-service general education teachers in India in July and August.

The PowerPoint presentation before the lab activities

Explanation of fine motor simulation activity

Auditory Processing disorder station- participants on headphones



Sample of a participant's Visual Motor Integration (VMI) activity

Some comments:

• Very useful in order to understand the child's difficulties in learning. Useful for the regular classroom teacher to know the child's difficulties. - Sai Lakshmi, SpEd teacher, Pondicherry
• The LD activities set me thinking- I need to make more allowances and modifications. - Teacher, Bangalore
• This training should be included in B. Ed and D. Ed training itself.- Head Mistress, Mysore
• The simulation lab helped me to actually experience and understand the difficulties our children face. It helped me to understand children with LD. I got a clear view of some concepts like modifications and accommodations. - Sanyukta, B. Ed student, Goa

Finnish Wonder

Finnish students do so well in international testing that Finnish teachers are the new model of teaching excellence. It is indeed wonderful that they are so accomplished.

It speaks to the premium placed on education by the Finnish culture that the best students at university level choose teaching as a viable career option. They make a conscious choice to become teachers. This is as opposed to the Indian or the US system where the best university students seem to prefer the financially lucrative technical field, and the remaining graduates drift into teaching. The Indian value system is supposed to value education highly; however this theory is not apparent in our society. A look at the Sunday matrimonial columns will bear out this truth. How many eligible young men and women want to marry teachers?

The Finnish system has intelligent, motivated, educated, respected and well-compensated teachers. This is in contrast to many other educational systems where teachers have minimal specialized training, are unmotivated (teacher absenteeism in government schools in India is supposedly chronic), and inadequately compensated. It might all tie in to the value society places on teachers, lip service aside.

But this is a one-sided look, I think. What about the student body? The Finnish student demographic is much more homogeneous compared to either the American or Indian demographic. Finland, being a socialistic welfare state, ensures that there is a fair amount of social and economic uniformity among its citizens. This would do much to eliminate the teacher-student disconnect. When teachers are from a different socio-economic background from their students, it’s hard to connect with them. I remember telling more than a few parents to check their children’s grades online, until I understood that many of my students don’t happen to have much technology in their homes, among other things….

Immigrant students and second language learners might also be a less pressing concern for Finnish teachers, I imagine. In contrast, almost every year, at least half my students are English Language learners, having emigrated from some other country. Either their parents, or they themselves, were born outside the US. I imagine Indians classrooms must be similar. Maybe children from migrant working families come from adjoining states in search of work, and speak a different language. My students also come from other problems inherent in low-income neighborhoods. Incarcerated parents, hunger, abuse, drugs and crime are fairly common themes in my students’ families. I would imagine some variant of this theme applies in Indian government schools as well. Teaching in such circumstances is hardly ideal.

Indian and American teachers do an excellent job with middle-class homogeneous student populations. Indian students with a private school education immigrate to all parts of the world, and are usually the most successful immigrant group wherever they go. A look at the link between American real estate prices and students’ test scores shows that American teachers do a fine job of educating privileged students pre-primed for success.

Students from economically privileged families and neighborhoods consistently do well on standardized tests. It is not too hard (I would never call teaching an easy job) to teach motivated students who are primed to learn. But how successful would Finnish teachers be in Indian and American public schools, I wonder…?

When administrators transfer comparative performance pressure to classroom teachers, one has to wonder if it is a fair comparison to only compare teachers, while ignoring the student body.

That aside, if I ever had a chance to collaborate with a Finnish teacher in my career, I would value it highly; I dare say I would learn a lot. But then again… they might also learn a thing or two from me.