In the movie Action Hero Biju, there is a scene where Nivin Pauly, who plays the town SI, talks to school students about an incident from his childhood where his teacher beat him with a cane, causing his skin to peel off on his thighs. He talks about this incident as a joke, adding that if his parents had seen it, he would have gotten a round of beating from them too. He then goes on to talk about how his teachers’ caning helped him get to wherever he is in life and how that was an act of love.
Just like this, “Thank you to my teachers for beating me with a cane in school. That’s what has made me what I am today” is a tribute to teachers that I have heard a lot. I hear this mainly in the context of today’s parents complaining about teachers disciplining their kids. While I do agree that there are many parents who get offended by teachers scolding their kids or giving them a much-needed, but appropriate, punishment to correct them, a sweeping statement about how all new-gen parents are overprotective is a bit much, don’t you think? Especially when these tributes are mainly seen under news about police cases registered against teachers for physical and brutal mental disciplining of the kids, I can’t help but ask – are we saying that today’s parents should support such acts as examples of “tough love” that will help their kids in future?
While this tendency of old-gen parents, maybe born out of a predominantly joint family culture, to be okay with just about any elder disciplining their kids was nothing uncommon, it’s a reality that things have changed today. We don’t let every mama, chachu, kaki, or didi yell at or smack our kids because the responsibility of disciplining our kids in ways that correct them but don’t leave them scarred for life is on us, the parents. Whether we do it properly or not is a different question and one that every parent should introspect about. Because, as they say, if we don’t correct our kids when they are young, they will be corrected in much harsher ways by society when they are grown up.
Anyway, let me come back to the teacher tribute I was talking about. These “my teachers’ love reflected in the caning I got from them” tributes have always baffled me. Many of these tribute-givers go on to explain how the extremely angry teachers they were most scared of in school have played the most important role in shaping them. That has baffled me even more. Is it a cultural thing that consistent anger and over-strictness and even physical disciplining are revered as the purest form of love from teachers, and somehow, in the same way, from fathers?
I have thought a lot about these comments and wondered, “What about teachers and fathers who were affectionate and nurturing? The ones who didn’t resort to hitting the kids to discipline them or maintained a scowl on their faces always?” I have also looked back to my school and college days and thought of all the teachers I am still in touch with and love the most – all of them are invariably kind human beings, not the perpetually strict and angry kind, as glorified by people. At 40, I still visit these teachers every time I go to my hometown and stay in touch with them always because their affection for me still remains unchanged.
I don’t mean that these teachers have never scolded me. I have been scolded by them whenever I have done something wrong, but their words affected me deeply in a positive way to change myself only because they weren’t always scolding or yelling at me. These were people who have shown me genuine love and kindness that their scolding made me feel disappointed in myself instead of inciting indifference or rebellion. The fact that they were proud of me and loved me made me see the good in their scolding, also because their words or actions never crossed the limits of being born out of love and genuine care.
On the contrary, even now, when I look back to the teachers who were known to be terrors, looked at with not respect but fear, the ones from whom not a single word of affection or smile was to be expected, I do not feel any sort of respect or love. They were never people who made any difference in me as a person because their actions and words came from a place of demanding fear and, out of that fear, absolute obedience with never a question, never a word back.
And the fear of being punished with a cane or in an equally scary and painful way, even with their words sometimes, didn’t make us flourish and thrive in the best possible way, it just made us walk on the line that was drawn by the scary teacher without thinking of why and if there was a good alternative. Even for a teacher who is normally good to kids, a normalized approval that caning or similar physical disciplining is an accepted mode of correcting kids is something I can only view as problematic. Just because we turned out fine, doesn’t make their ways correct in any way.
I know this is purely a personal view that varies from person to person. But maybe it will be a good idea to think of what is more effective in a positive way in the long run – kindness or fear. This is something that can apply to parenting too. While extremely gentle parenting of never scolding your kid ever, whatever they do, is not something I would advocate for – although I’m happy if it works for you – knowing where to draw the line and ensuring that disciplining is just a small part of their life when compared to the huge part that includes quality time, gentle life lessons, and laughter you share is likely to make a much more positive impact in these kids.
So, as much as we want to appreciate what our teachers or our super-strict parents did for us, maybe we could do so by not glorifying physical disciplining and perpetual terrorizing in the name of setting kids right. Who knows, what if that small step makes childhood memories more beautiful for our next generation?
Also published on Medium.
Leave a Reply