email from Sandra : Sparing the rod (II)
It was during a mathematics class in Class 5. I had as usual prepared very well for the Mental our teacher, Mr. Annan, had announced two days before. Mental was when a teacher would ask spontaneous mathematics question and the pupils were required to write down the answers straight away.
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Nobody actually wanted to get a mark below eight over ten because any mark below that attracted ten lashes from this teacher who was known for soaking his canes in kerosene.
Mr. Annan was fearful: his height, looks, complexion, his way of walking, everything about him invoked fear. We heard, in those days, that his wife left him unannounced; she couldn’t live with such a sort. The best part of the body he liked to cane was one’s back.
He claimed we liked “loading” so anytime he beat our buttocks we didn’t feel it as much as our backs. “Loading” was a term we used when we wore so many other undergarments to cushion our buttocks from the pain of the cane.
Then the results of the Mental were announced. A decimal point I failed to place properly brought me down by one mark below the acceptable. Huh, Mr. Annan whipped me over and above the standard number of strokes. With tears in my eyes and a trembling self, I rushed home to report the incident to my aunt with whom I lived at the time.
Worried about my plight, this elderly aunt of mine, marched me straight back to school during the evening shift (we used to attend both morning and afternoon shifts in those days), and confronted Mr. Annan on the issue. “Madam” he said, “I didn’t just whip your ward for getting seven over ten. I overheard her calling me “Mari Jata”, a name I had warned them not to call me by during break time today, and that has warranted my lashing her the way I did”.
My aunt, claiming I had embarrassed her because I hadn’t shown respect to my teacher, requested for a cane too, and unleashed four more lashes in my palm, warning, “next time you ask me to follow you for vindication, make sure you have a better case”. It was one of the wretched days of my life.
Today, in the name of Montessori, British, American, Canadian and what have you curriculum, school pupils are not whipped as a means of correction. This is quite good. After all, what was meted out to us in our days was more like corporal punishment. But should pupils be left unbridled by their teachers and parents?
Last week, I was telling you about my encounter with a woman and her three uncontrolled toddlers in a barbering shop, remember? The appalling conduct of both mother and kids left so much to be desired, when she eventually rushed out of the shop with her wounded son, a discussion ensued among clients as to why the woman had turned her kids into an undisciplined lot. Clients also commended me for not talking back to the woman who affronted me for warning and making her kids steady.
Apparently, a client in the barbering shop knew the lady and her toddlers. “I know those kids very well. They attend the British Curriculum school in this community; a school where teachers are forbidden to beat children. My kids, two of them attend the same school too. But my wife and I made it a point to let them know that we are bringing them up to be well-trained future leaders. So they know that if they misbehave in school or anywhere, the cane awaits a correction. Yes, in our home, when you misbehave, abaa bedi wo nam”, he added. I was so impressed with his contribution.
Then as though frustrated with that school’s authorities he said, “the only punishment meted out to pupils in that school is “sanctions”. The authorities either sanction the child to face the wall, write lines or face a sort of detention. And by their detention, what they do is, the child could be made to forfeit their snack or lunch break by being made to stay in class. That obviously isn’t a sure way of disciplining an African child in a computer age Kids should fear the cane”.
“All these foreign what have you curriculum, I just don’t understand”, said the barber. “They are spoiling the children and they say as for us, we don’t beat, we don’t beat. Parents have to be careful and ensure that their wards are being disciplined the right way. We are Africans and we should behave as such. They import foreign culture into our system and say that is the best”. Mchew, then he kissed his teeth.
“See how the woman’s last son has destroyed my large hanging catalogue by pulling and tearing it. Eh? Anytime they come here, they destroy something. The other day, one of them passed a scissors through that cushion over there”, he lamented, pointing at a chair’s foam. As for that one, their mother felt so bad, she gave me forty Ghana to replace the cushion.
“Unfortunately, I needed cash for something else so I used the money. But next time they walk in here to behave the way they did today, I will simply walk them out, they and their mother. She never corrects them”. He went ahead to brush powder on the neck of the man whose hair he had finished work on, and asked one of my nephews to take their seat in the swivel chair behind which he stood.
He asked for which style I wanted for both of them. “Around the city”, I said. Around the city is the same level hair cut – no, Mohawk, no Mohican. Simple level style. That’s all. Mohawk, or Mohican is a hairstyle where both sides of the hair are shaven, leaving a strip of noticeably longer hair in the centre.
Some have argued that canning children these days isn’t the best form of discipline. Fine! So what ways are the best forms of disciplining our African kids?