Geof BrownTHIS NEWSPAPER as well as the Herald carried headlines this week about an allegedly injurious flogging of a child in a prominent high school. Acting promptly, the school has reportedly banned caning by any teacher. The incident has helped to re-open the unresolved persistent debate in the society. To flog or not to flog; that is the contentious question. Minister Burchell Whiteman has gone on record declaring that there are more creative ways of punishing children than simply beating their bodies.
Of course there are. But before I come to that and also share personal experiences in support, let's look at the opposite side of the contention. There are many who sincerely believe that flogging by strap, cane, switch or whatever, is an effective and salutary way to discipline children. Many even take a Biblical quote in a very literal sense, instead of its symbolic meaning of disciplinary guidance. So not "sparing the rod" is a comfort to their position.
But let's understand that what unites those who are for and those against flogging of children is their desire to shape the child's behaviour through effective discipline. Essentially there are two ways of accomplishing this either through negative stimuli or through positive stimuli. In the early days of research in Behavioural Psychology, experiments in conditioning behaviour of animals tried the effects of both negative and positive stimuli. If a rat in a cage pressed a bar and got food as a reward, it would continue pressing. That was a positive stimulus effect. But if it pressed the bar and got an electric shock, it would avoid pressing and perhaps starve. That was the negative stimulus effect.
What does this have to do with human beings? Much later than the early years in the development of Behavioural psychology (as distinct from Freudian psychology) it came to be seen that the more lasting results came from positive rather than negative stimuli. In the parlance, if you want to 'shape-up' a certain kind of behaviour, you use positive stimuli repeatedly for positive reinforcement. If you want to 'extinguish' the behaviour, you use a negative stimulus.
So flogging as a negative stimulus can have the effect of extinguishing (stopping) certain behaviours. But go back to the early experiment. Once the rat gets a shock, it will not press the bar to get food. With human beings, you may get the negative stimulus (flogging) to stop or diminish certain undesirable behaviour but that is not the best way to build desirable behaviour with lasting effects. The price may not be worth it. It is rewarding for good behaviour rather than punishment for bad behaviour, which 'shapes-up' (builds) desirable behaviour.
Don't get me wrong. Punishment is important and necessary. It's how it is done that makes the difference. If you deny a child a privilege which he or she enjoys, you are likely to get a far more lasting effect than a quick flogging will. Some children get so terrified that like the rat getting the shock, you lose the battle through winning the war. I know a bright accomplished lady who failed in school repeatedly because of her terror of the strap. Her talents flowered after leaving school. Other children happily take the flogging (pain means little to them) and get no benefit from the punishment.
What we all want to secure is desirable behaviour in children. Creative ways can build this lastingly. As a young school principal at a primary school in Clarendon (Morgans Pass) I started out with strap and switch, inflicting pain on children in the secure belief that I was doing the right thing. In my excess on one occasion a child received a cut. And like Saul on the road to Damascus, a light came on in my head. I banned flogging by the staff as well as by myself for a one-week experiment. That turned into weeks and into months. We never went back to flogging. The result? Our school became a place that children begged to come; it became a place for pleasurable learning.
The school's academic results in exams and the then 'inspection' visits took a big forward leap. We excelled compared to many schools around. Parents from distant places begged us to admit their problem children; the school was besieged.
Codes for behaviour
We developed a series of rewards for good behaviour and for any progress from point A to point B. The school became 'self-governing' as a micro-copy of the major society. Children became 'citizens', drew up a constitution and codes for behaviour. Peer pressure did the rest. The 'citizens' would not allow some to let down the standards. Space does not permit detailing the exciting results. That was over 40 years ago.
Similarly when I was Assistant Director of the Jamaica Youth Corps at Cobbla Camp in 1956, we developed a system of peer pressure for positive reinforcement. Bear in mind we were dealing with teenagers many from poor circumstances and untutored. Using groups of 10, each with an elected leader and sub-leader, we set up competitions between them to excel in various areas of behavioural achievements. It was like magic. Disciplinary problems were minimal. But most such problems were handled within the group itself. None wanted to be the worst group.
And that brings me to the assertion often made by sincere believers that the floggings made them better people. No. It is the approval or disapproval of parents and authority figures which is the strong force or stimulus. The flogging is only incidental to that. It is approval which is our eternal quest. And it is disapproval, conversely, we all want to avoid. Like many other parents my wife and I have brought up our children on that principle; they have excelled but were never flogged. And as Minister Whiteman suggests, we were challenged to find creative ways of discipline no less than in the case of the group behaviour examples cited above.
I challenge anyone to prove that flogging of children would have been a more effective course. Flogging is easy.
Geof Brown is an HRD consultant who lectures part-time at the UWI, Mona.
