By Olawole Boy
A society that arrest and detain the teacher for beating the students will soon have to sleep with both eye opened. Th e “unbeaten” children will form diff erent formidable teams. A team among them will arm themselves with guns and cutlasses and make sure your property is not safe in your house. Another team will equip themselves with laptops and internet connections and make sure your money is not safe, even in your bank account. Another group will buy mask and machine guns with the money their parent spoilt them with and make sure the sons and daughters of the above average men are kidnapped and released only when money changes hand. One of the many groups, which has no means of buying mask, guns, laptops and internet connection and other related items, will become an easy tool in the hand of terrorist, who will make sure life is far from being peaceful for all and sundry.
A group among them will also drink and drive so that those that escape the above troubles can meet theirs on the road. Another group will make it to leadership positions, so that the trouble, after being doubled will aff ect everybody. Imagine, parents give the teacher the responsibility of teaching, counseling, mentoring, guiding, training and probably molding their children but they withhold the authority to do that. In managerial science, can a man discharge his responsibility without having the authority to do so? Friedrick Taylor, Henri Fayol and co disagreed. Parents of nowadays care so much about their children’s skin, they want the skin of their children to be smooth, devoid of any mark from teachers’ cane so that the child will be fi ner than their neighbor’s child, they do that at the detriment of the child’s character.
Th ey stopped using cane and they are ready to go to any length to stop the teachers also, “I ask you to teach him, I never ask you to beat him for me”, parent of nowadays said, “I will teach him and send him back to you so that you can suff er from the consequence of having an untrained child”, teachers responded. “Do you want to kill your teacher?” that was what Iya Wale said after seeing the mark on my palm caused by the cane of my teacher, I was punished again for making my teacher get angry at me. Since then, my teacher became a god whose instructions must be followed to the latter.
Today, if your relative died of accident cause by a drunk driver, you can be rest assured that I am not the driver. Parent of nowadays, after seeing mark of cane on their children will shout at the teacher “Do you want to kill my child?” and make sure the teacher is punished. Th at is the reason their properties are not safe in their house and even in their bank accounts. Of what use is a fi ne child that passed his WAEC and got admitted to the university only to be killed by his cult members just because he/she lacks the requisite training that the fear of cane would have instilled in him. If this happens, the teacher is actually the biggest loser. My dream of having sixty chartered accountants in attendance on my sixtieth birthday will not come to pass if all my students end that way. I pray such will not happen.
Th e question that may arise is, can’t the teachers correct the students without using cane? Th e simple answer is YES, we can’t. Research has shown that teachers known for beating are more eff ective in making the students comply to rules and regulations, than teachers who employed another means of correcting them. And the funniest part is that, as a teacher, you only need to beat only one student, to earn the cooperation of others, maybe that’s why the bible says “spare the rod and spoil the child.” Applying Kolberg theory, teenagers are in the fi rst stage of behavior which is naturally motivated by the fear of being caught and punished. What happen when that punishment that serves as a guide of action is eradicated?
‘Just like a knife in the kitchen, beating in secondary school is a useful implement, cancelling the use of knife because you have accident with it, wont only make your job slow, it will also make it diffi cult. However, teachers are to note that erring students needs love, and punishment should be with love. My daughter’s teachers, please, beat her whenever she deserves to be beaten; just don’t forget everything you do to her should be with love. I am Wale Olawole, known as Mr. BOY, in case you don’t know, I am a teacher. Boy, Bsc(Ed), Med, is a teacher in one of the government-owned secondary schools
