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AS I SEE IT, THERE ARE VERY ANGRY PEOPLE

30/06/2016 01:03:00 The editor

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Sir,

As I jogged past the local primary school I observed teachers with sticks at the entrance. The bell had rung and although they were caning the children, upon being confronted about same they openly denied it. My country has banned this behaviour by educators but the practice persists.

You should have heard the anger in their voices as they endeavoured to shun me away, telling me to mind my own business. I remained there jogging on the spot as I observed their behaviour.

What they did not realise is that this behaviour divulged so much about them. They are very angry people. They could openly not only partake in such acts, but vocalise their denial in front of the children.

What are these children learning? Denial of something does not mean it did not occur. No wonder children tend to deny anything and everything they fear may be wrong, despite them having committed the act. After all, the very adults who educate them behave in this manner.

Many parents argue that corporal punishment should be permitted. What such parents do not realise is that the anger with which they beat their children is the same anger that the children mirror back to them.

Upon this happening, the tendency is for the perpetrator of the act to increase the degree of whipping, resultant in the child suffering serious injury.
Parents/teachers then say children are defiant. The children are not being defiant, they are simply showing parents/teachers what the energy they are emitting looks and behaves like.

When are perpetrators of such acts going to realise that Newton’s 3rd Law is also applicable in this situation? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. What better explanation could there be than this one?

Did we as children enjoy being whipped? Why do we ‘copy’ behaviours we so disliked? We complained about our mothers and yet most of us turned out just like the very mothers we complained about! I personally believe children are there to ensure we deal with issues we failed to deal with and until such time that we deal with them, we will constantly be confronted with the same situations. Life has an amazing way of ‘forcing us to learn’. What we resist persists, what we acknowledge disappears.

We read about teachers who beat children until they end up in wheelchairs, are blind or even die, but what we do not acknowledge is that any of us could end up perpetrating such acts, for when one starts beating, another one gets so engrossed in that behaviour that one does not realise that it is a choice to stop at any time we deem fit.

Needless to say, after such behaviour one tends to regret one’s actions. Denying it will not make the injuries perpetrated on another go away. The unseen scars are worse than the visible ones. The sight of those injuries are reminders of how an uncontrolled act can get out of hand.
Are we a society that is in denial that we presently show children more anger than love?

In most homesteads, parents tend to vocalise only the ills children do and rarely ever praise them for the good they do.
In certain homesteads, before a child can go to school, the child has to perform certain duties often times, those which will take up more time than the child has. Upon arriving at school the child is beaten and humiliated publicly.

En route to school few motorists extend politeness towards the children.
Other children within the school tend to run down those who do not have the same material possessions as they do. Where do these children who are the majority in our country fit?

When do these children feel loved, admired and appreciated? And then at the end of it all, despite the beatings, the denials by the very educators of the wrongs they have perpetrated, the teasing and bullying we want to have children who excel in every respect!
Are the blind leading the blind now? (Comments: My FB page; inaldthegreat@gmail.com )

Inalda Jorge-Antonio