Corporal Punishment

So, here in Ghana, in pretty much all of our schools in Ofoase (as I have heard from the other interns) they use a form of corproral punishment. I hate this. Perhaps I should not mention this as maybe it will make people not want to help these schools, but I am here to blog about the realities of Ghana, not sugar coat it and make it all rainbows and lollipops (btw, I saw lollipops yesterday. WOO!)

Yesterday when I arrived for teaching (early, as always), I hung out in the office and planned the lesson until the bell rang to start class. By bell, I mean a hand one that the Headmaster literally rings himself. It;s actually sufficient, since this school is tiny and there are only 3 classrooms.

Anyway, I went to my classroom to begin English and another teacher (whose name constantly escapes me...) was still in there. All of the students were standing, as they often do when a teacher enters a room or any sort of formality is necessary. Then I noticed he was smacking a kid on the leg with what has appeared to be some sort of bamboo stick. There are, in fact, 8 of them under the bench on the floor near me (part of me would like to run off with them and throw them in a ditch somwhere, but perhaps the administration has their own stash). It looked quite painful, and I thought if he was doing that to me I would punch him in the mouth. I (wrongly) assumed that the kid had done something bad, as on my first day I was told that when kids act out they usually get a smack with the stick. This teacher, however, was smacking each and every kid in his class. They often recoil because of what is obviously pain, so he smacks them again.

To be quite frank, I want to smack this dude every time I see him now. In America, this is more than generally unacceptable behavior, especially when it's not your own kid. Obviously, we see someone spanking their kid in public every once and a while, but anything beyond that is abuse and not tolerated. If people heard their kids were being beaten with sticks in school, there would be outrage and it would immediately appear on HLN with the lovely and loud Nancy Grace.

Today I heard a bit more if it going on from my classroom in the other room and so I plugged my ears as I graded essays. But what can I do or say? My first day I was asked if I would do it, and I said aboslutely no, I will boot the kids out of class for 5 minutes instead (which I did today for two kids who wouldn't stop talking). I refuse to even have that evil stick of bamboo in my classroom when I am teaching. I'd really just like to yell at them and be like STOP DOING THAT, JERK...but I am not sure how appropriate that would really be.