Corporal Punishments – Sacred Heart Convent School, Sarabha Nagar
September 9, 2015
Ludhiana-

Sacred Heart Convent School located in Sarabha Nagar is know for their high quality education and professional school protocols. However, I only realized this to be very misleading and inaccurate after hearing my niece, who is currently attending, share her personal experience. She has brought it to my attention that teachers are disciplining their students using very outdated corporal punishments.

Specifically, Mrs. Harvinder Chaddha. My niece has complained to her mom several times that she is being physically abused by Mrs. Chadda and then she is warned to not tell her parents in regards to what happened in class. From aggressively pulling her ear to slapping another classmates across the face, these violent actions have had lasting physical and emotional damages on these students. Not only is she physically abusing her students, but she is also teaching them to lie to their parents. Due to these actions, my niece and her classmates are very frightened to attend class the next morning.

This is not the kind of environment teachers should be creating for students. Teachers should be encouraging students to attend school and teach them the importance of education, not scaring them up to the point where they do not want to learn. I understand that some schools In India, specifically in rural area, are still using these outdated and violent ways to punish their students; however, I was shocked to know a school like Scared Heart Convent is not embracing alternative forms of discipline .

Now in the 21st century, there are many ways you can teach a student from right and wrong without being physical. As a matter a fact, studies show that physically abusing a child can lead to mental illnesses. Tracie Afifi, “professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba in Canada”, states that, “It’s pretty well established that physical abuse has a negative impact on mental health, but this is showing the same effect even when you look at milder forms of physical force. This is saying that physical punishment should not be used on children of any age.”

The way students are treated defeats the whole purpose of getting an education. We send our children to school in hopes that they learn to be brighter and responsible human beings, which is far from what Scared Heart Convent is teaching their students right now. My sister has gone and complained about this issue to the head of the school, but to my surprise the school has disregarded the complaint and suppressed the issue. It does not concern them one bit that their faculty members are abusing their powers. This can only mean that they are condoning this type of behavior. By hitting students you are persuading them to believe that physically violating someone is the only way to teach them obedience. This is the sole reason that India suffers from issues like domestic violence, bullying and etc.

Everyday people fight for justice and try to reduce violence, but they fail to realize that violent behavior is embedded into peoples minds at a very young age because they have gone through a school system in which they were taught that violence is acceptable. I’m hoping this is brought to Principle Sr Reshmi’s attention, so they can address this issue and take action against corporal punishments.

Citation:
Rochman, B. (2012, July 2). Hitting Your Kids Increases Their Risk of Mental Illness | TIME.com. Retrieved September 9, 2015.