MANY people who attended school before the 1980s would have vivid and long-lasting memories of corporal punishment in the classroom.
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Some may still bear the scars, both physical and emotional, of the cruel canings endured at the hands of trusted teachers.
There are some who admit caning and other forms of corporal punishment were effective in instilling discipline among students.
But the majority would call it nothing but cruel and unusual punishment.
With so much ill feeling towards it, why is corporal punishment even being considered for debate in Australia?
The head of a national curriculum review has reignited debate about the issue by expressing support for measures such as caning.
Kevin Donnelly believes it should be up to school communities to make the decision. What is more disturbing than the reopening of the debate is the fact a Liberal Democrat senator said he was open to the concept.
David Leyonhjelm said: “Schools should be free to manage their own affairs. I don’t like the fact that there’s a big government bureaucracy telling them how to run their business.”
The Greens want Mr Donnelly sacked from the curriculum review panel, saying his views belong to another century.
“The cane or the belt should not be brought back into our classrooms,” Greens senator Penny Wright said.
The use of corporal punishment in schools was phased out by some states from the 1980s.
While some would say the waning of respect in recent decades is the result of corporal punishment in schools being banned, respect at the end of a cane or a steel ruler is by no means the answer.
As head of the curriculum review, Mr Donnelly should concentrate on just that, the curriculum, literacy and numeracy, and leave corporal punishment alone.
Studies have found corporal punishment sometimes resulted in anti-social behaviour and poor academic achievement. Do we really want to go back to the bad old days of the cane in the classroom?