Or more pertinently, the cane.
The Daily Express (living up to their reputation as a bastion of morality) are today claiming that over half of the adults in Britain - the Express claiming over two thirds of pupils themselves - are calling for the return of corporal punishment in the classroom, in an effort to curb the rampant disrespect and irritating mannerisms of the latest generation.
Let us be clear though. Whilst it would be a simple thing to think that stricter punishments will de facto equate to a deterrent against unruly behaviour, this is not, indeed cannot be as easy a subject to understand as that.
How many of you have parents, or know parents of friends, who teach? I do. They are all people who care about helping children progress themselves, in an effort to better the position they're in at the moment. In a microcosm of current social attitudes, teachers as a whole seem to believe that personal progression is key to achieving potential. Most of these people are moderate liberals and are nice, polite - if not usually middle class - people. I struggle to see my mother, or even some of the teachers I had at secondary school, raising their voices very much, let alone a cane. It is undoubtedly true that there is a marked difference between verbal warnings and and physical punishments. There is also a very serious question to be answered: Who will administer the punishment? Certainly not the hack journalists who're more interested in churning out tag-lines and causing consternation than they are in the actual outcome, nor the parents who have relinquished all responsibility for their demented off-spring.
These kind of measures would actually require the hiring of people who were specially recruited to mete out punishment, assuming of course that the current infra-structure of the education system was to remain untouched- merely built upon. Should of course the proposals for tougher teachers be enforced then it is entirely likely that the voices of moderation and empathy within our schools will be swept aside in a tide of rising aggression and borstal-like behaviour (on the part of teachers and pupils alike). Proponents of this kind of hare-brained scheme sound like they could do with being re-educated on the daily struggles in the class room, on both sides of it, before claiming that there can ever be such a simple answer to such a large and complex problem.
