Dear Editor,
I wish to add to the ChildLinK statement condemning the flogging of 10 QC students (SN May 22, 2024) and calling on Guyana to “create a safer and more nurturing environment for its youngest citizens, where their rights are respected, and their potential is allowed to flourish.” My additional concern is misbehaving teacher punishment, ‘normalization’ and ‘perpetuating’ violence for the ‘correction of behaviours.’ Formal documentation of the issue, a written explanation, and apology falls far, far short of what is required for behaviour change. Instead, the Ministry of Education can use this opportunity to begin repairing the damage done to generations of Guyanese.
This means, first, immediate acceptance and responsibility by the Ministry of policies which support, foster, and legitimize violence against children. Full acceptance of responsibility must exclude excuses and justifications such as reference to colonial and past governments or cultural attitudes towards corporal punishment or children’s behaviours or teacher difficulties. Statutes stipulating how, where, and who is entitled to administer corporal punishment must be officially and publicly repealed. No one is entitled to hurt children. And ‘no one’ includes those who make children, those who are responsible for child development, and all those in authority over or in contact with children.
While we do have, we should not need, UN agencies, international covenants, declarations on the rights of children, or legislation against interpersonal assault to inform our behaviours towards our children. Disrespecting children’s bodies is how we got to this level of violence in our society. What do we think happens when we make a child open her hand or offer his butt for the infliction of violence?
A second thing that a real education ministry must do is promote positive norms and model desirable behaviours towards teachers; and guide teachers in self-respecting and respectful ways of working with children. Conscious awareness of the unmet needs and struggles our teachers, our boys, girls, and other young persons on the gender spectrum are facing is a necessary beginning. It may be too soon to expect or ask for compassion, but hopefully this will emerge in due course as the Ministry of Education practices advocacy on behalf of teachers and children, practices acknowledgement of the importance of teachers, human and humane forms of education, practices attention to meeting the critical needs of teachers and children, practices accountability, and practices atonement (repair and some restitution work) for individual, institutional, and systemic wrongs.
The norms highlighted in bold above are some of the positive norms outlined in ChildLinK’s BeKind manual for raising boys; however, they are applicable to, and necessary for, all healthy relationships. “Hurt people hurt people” is its sub-title. We all share responsibility for reversing the shame, humiliation, and traumatizing of our children’s minds, spirits, and bodies. We all need to play a part in bringing into being a generation that is self-respecting and respectful; and bringing into being a generation capable of ensuring the safety and well-being of our children, and the adults they become. Our national poet Martin Carter puts it in “You are involved” in another way: “This I have learnt: /today a speck/tomorrow a hero/hero or monster/you are consumed! /Like a jig/shakes the loom. /Like a web/is spun the pattern. /All are involved! /All are consumed!”
Sincerely,
Bonita Harris
