At 22 years old, Sarah vividly remembers that there was a steep price to pay for indiscipline both at home and school: caning.
Her story is not very different from not only most home setups but also schools, where a cane is seen as the perfect antidote to crooked ways.
Two decades after the ban on corporal punishment in schools, Education CS George Magoha stirred debate when he mooted it as a solution to the wave of unrest, which has seen 31 fires since schools reopened last month.
"I may appear old school, but I think we are at a time when we need to discuss how we can bring sanity in our schools and maybe bring the cane on board once more,” Magoha said.
Truth be told, however, caning was never really eradicated. Though illegal, it is still practised in schools around the country, especially secondary schools.
Its use is mostly defended on religious and cultural teachings endorsing the use of a rod lest a child gets spoilt, without regard for scientific evidence and studies.
The fact that we live in a society where two of the most ill-disciplined industries— matatu and boda boda — are dominated by a generation that largely passed through caning in school and at home, puts to question the efficiency of caning to instil discipline.
A principal of a teacher training college said the cane persists as a mode of punishment in schools since teachers are not well trained to handle indiscipline in class.
William Maritim, the principal of Tambach TTC, said, "Aspiring teachers spend no more than four or five hours out of their two-year training programme learning methods of classroom management and discipline.
"This is not practically enough to hone a teacher with skills to effectively and diversely address indiscipline. That is why they go for the easy and age-old option, caning."
MAGOHA TALKS TOUGH
In the search for solutions to indiscipline, there are those who think the education system has refused to meet students halfway.
Others believe the children are simply copying what they see in society, and others just view it as notoriety that should be met with equal measure.
The latter is the decision Magoha resorted to. In the wake of the unrest, the CS has taken a hardline stance. Within a fortnight, Magoha ordered school heads not to admit those who are expelled from other schools.
He also called on security agencies to take stern action on those found to have taken part in arson. They also would miss a certificate of good conduct.
Magoha’s suggestion to bring back the cane has split stakeholders, with some supporting the idea while others find it barbaric and haphazard.
The aim of corporal punishment is to immediately stop the offence and set an example for others so the offence is not repeated in future.
When the topic to reintroduce caning came up in the newsroom WhatsApp forum a couple of weeks ago, one of the editors remarked, “Terrible idea.”
Another colleague said caning made him hate school; he claims one day the headmaster caned him 54 strokes.
But another participant argued that if the cane would bring order in schools, then so be it.
He is among reporters who, in one week, had filed stories of eight schools from his county whose dormitories had been burnt in the wake of the unrest.
But another pointed out that even before the cane was banned, schools were still being burned.
Another editor— among the last class that sat the A-level education system before it was replaced with the 8-4-4— said during his time, there was not a single case of unrest.
He said the burning of schools is a new phenomenon that came with ‘Haki Yetu’ because kids saw adults burning property. They are influenced by what they see in society, he said.
He also said he is not sure of the correlation between caning and discipline, but he agrees during his time caning was there.
This also brings to question the possible correlation of caning and school dropout, or vice-versa.
A legal practitioner on the same forum argued that caning children only teaches them that problems can only be resolved by violence. So they will get out of school, beat their parents, beat their spouses, beat their kids, bartender, and then rinse and repeat.
She concluded that maybe the education system is the problem and not the kids.
DEGRADING TREATMENT
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and the European Court of Human Rights have all spoken out against corporal punishment generally, viewing it to be a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Many nations around the world have either severely restricted corporal punishment or generally banned it.
Kenya inherited the tradition of caning being part of school discipline from the British colonial setting.
Various methods are used to punish children. Mostly it is slapping on the face or caning on the palms of the hands.
It also involves asking students to stand on the benches or against the wall and ordering them to sit or bend in awkward positions.
Sometimes teachers become more aggressive and use fists, kicks and other means, resulting in injuries to students.
Pinching and spanking are also not uncommon.
Rods and belts have also been used to create pain and fear and sometimes, these punishments get so severe that resultant injuries are lethal.
LONG-TERM EFFECTS
Psychiatrist Njagi Kumantha, the former head of Mathare Hospital, argues that caning, in the long run, carries with it many negative effects.
One explanation is that after living with violence that is considered ‘legitimate’, people expand this to accept the violence that is not considered legitimate.
The long-term use of corporal punishment tends to increase the probability of deviant and antisocial behaviours, such as aggression, adolescent delinquency and violent acts inside and outside the school, he says.
“If we are legally prohibited from striking other adults, why is it okay to strike a child?”
Njagi says previous researches, without giving specific papers, have linked corporal punishment to a variety of psychological and behavioural disorders in children, including anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, impulsiveness, delinquency and substance abuse.
Instead, he suggests the use of psychological treatment, time out, ignoring and tension decontamination through humour, token economy and response cost, as alternatives to caning.
“Children are better controlled, learn more appropriate appreciation for authority, develop better social skills as well as improved moral character, and learn better discipline when they are treated with psychological techniques.”
For many teachers, though, physical punishment is the only technique to preserve academic control.
Edited by T Jalio