Caning in schools?

A student from my alma mater CHIJ St Joseph's Convent wrote in to comment that caning is futile because delinquency happens due to the probability of psychological problems. By administering it, one is disregarding this reason. I beg to differ.

Caning can be implemented together with counselling and may not be the sole method of handling delinquency. She may have thought wrongly that it is to be the sole method.

It may not help her understand the reasons behind the need to eradicate such misbehaviour but it is an effective deterrent against such acts. Fear is effective in this sense. This only goes to show that the school has the desire to protect their students from descending further into this regressive state. Yes, they learn best through the hard way but if they can be saved from such a painful path, out of love, the school will have done its job.

Has she considered that it can be the most serious mode of punishment to be implemented after other methods such as counselling have been used in vain? That is not taking the easy way out. It means many methods have been explored. Her argument in the last paragraph can be applied to this way of thinking too.

She claimed that many would turn immune to this mode of punishment after a while but I know that caning can break even the toughest youth when he is faced with the prospect of it. That is why our legal system administers it too. If it does, what makes her think that schools shouldn't?

I guess it's her young age that causes her to fail in considering these additional points of view with regards to this issue. My parents did this to me when I was younger and look how I've turned out. They have brought me up well and I owe my character to them. This junior of mine seems rather narrow-minded and pampered, as I have gathered from her views.

Another reader quoted from Dr Benjamin Spock in his letter about this issue. He realised he had been wrong all along about telling parents not to discipline their children. This famous child psychologist said, "We have reared a generation of brats." I wholeheartedly agree with him.