Saturday, June 16, 2007

Violent Acts of Discipline

I will preface this entry by saying that I expected things would be different here than they are at home. Duh, right? But this incident was simply too much.

June 12 - I was in a good mood this morning as I headed off to the schoolhouse. I'd spoken with David on the phone, and he'd arranged my flight back home for me (first class, I'm very excited!), I would be traveling to Hohoe later in the morning to pick up money at the Western Union, and I had a fun game planned for English class.

At first, everything appeared to be fine. But, as the class finished copying their notes from the previous lesson, I began to hear yelling and screaming in the open walkway of the school building. I peaked my head out the doorway to see what was going on.

Classrooms were being lined up, one by one, and being beaten. Beatings are the main form of punishment here, so this is not that unusual. I've pretty much gotten used to the casual smack of a child, despite the bitter taste it leaves in my mouth. That is to say, I don't like it, but I deal with it. But this was different. The students were being beaten: hit with sticks and hands and feet. All the male teachers were hitting each individual child repeatedly, as hard as they could. These are men in their twenties and thirties, in peak physical condition, railing on little kids, straining and sweating at the effort of it all. It was highly disturbing.

The kids, some as young as six years old, were screaming, crying, shaking with feat. As they were hit, over and over again, they fell to the ground in pain, rolling up into the smallest shapes they could, trying to protect themselves. No body part was exempt: heads, necks, backs, arms, bottoms, the backs and fronts of the legs, the tender area behind the knees... nothing was off-limits. I saw marks forming before my eyes, bruises and welts. These children are as dark as night, most of them. Such marks do not come easily with such coloring. I saw blood dripped from open gashes on several children.

I could barely peel my eyes away. When I looked at the teachers, I could see the sick joy in their eyes. They were smiling! They were laughing! I felt sick, I wanted to throw up. I turned back into my classroom, fighting back tears. I just wanted to yell and scream and make them stop. I wanted to run away and never, ever come back. I was about to leave the classroom, gather my things and head to Hohoe early to escape this awfulness when Isaac (one of the head teachers) appeared in my doorway: "I need to speak with your students."

I hesitate, breathe in, and ask him quietly if he intends to beat them, too. He nods, and I shake my head. I can hear the kids screaming and crying loud as ever, and I tell him that if he wants to beat children, he can take up his own class time to do it. I won't have it during mine. He nods and walks away without saying anything.

Simultaneously, I feel very brave and very stupid. I had put my foot down and said no! On the other hand, I might have just worsened the students' punishment by resisting Isaac. I don't know. It felt like the right thing, but maybe it wasn't. Either way, it felt good.

I didn't ask my students about happened to them later that day, after I left. I'm not sure I want to know. I was deeply disturbed by the whole thing. I don't even understand why the teachers thought the students deserved this. I heard a couple of half-reasons: they hadn't been studying, they were late for school, etc. But if you asked me, I'd say some asshole of a "teacher" got an itch to beat the shit out of some defenseless students, and didn't need much more of a reason than that.

Later, I tried to look back at the incident with an open mind. Was I just being sensitive? Was I inflicting my American values onto Africa lifestyles? After some consideration, I really, truly feel like what I witnessed was a case of corporeal punishment gone way, way too far. If I had been walking by a parent beating their child in this way back home, I would have called the police. I probably wouldn't have even tried to intervene directly, because the acts were violent enough that I would think that the parent was deranged, mentally unstable, and that if I tried to stop them, they'd pull out a gun and kill us all. It feels that severe, even hours later. It was just incredibly violent.

I can't get the images out of my head. With all this going on in the background, I focus on my class and try to get our game started. Class passes quickly and I head back to my room to gather my thoughts and my things. I am grateful to be leaving for town.

5 comments:

Dennis said...
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Catherine said...
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John Vantine said...

They didn't "physically discipline" the kids while we were there - They stopped because one of the last volunteers left the orphanage for good after she saw it.

I sat down one day and the cane was next to me - I didnt know it was the beating cane at the time, but one of the kids held it to me and said "beat me! beat me!" - I tried to discourage this and they started using it to fake beat one another. It was odd more than anything, since I didnt witness an actual beating and didnt realize how brutal it really ws until reading your post.

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Omari said...

I know this sort of punishment is probably not common place in American society, that's why children in America are so out of hand. Here in the Caribbean corporal punishment is the norm also. One should not look at this way of punishment used by these school masters in Africa as a reason to justify that they are inhumane or ignorant and backward because when you look through the 'Book of history' all over this world students and children in Ancient Greece, Egypt,Rome, Aztecs and Inca civilisations, and even in the UK were disciplined in the same way and even treated worst. I am currently trying to find out the reasoning behind the introduction of such forms of punishment by black people. You should have an open mind to other people's culture. Just because it's not the norm in America or because it flabbergasts you doesn't mean that you should impose your culture on these African people.