The Place of Punishment in Education

Rewards and punishments were used in the conventional system of education as incentives to education. The terror of punishment or desire for reward encouraged the students to learn. So, they were used as encouraging factors and were considered an essential part of school education. An essential reason for this state of affairs was that the curriculum was not selected according to the wants, concerns and abilities of the student, but in keeping with what the adults in the community considered obligatory for the young to know. Hence the students were not interested and had to be forced to learn with the help of reward and retribution.

But in the modern child-centric and life-centric education these are considered uninvited and superfluous. It is the bookish and theoretical curriculum, which holds no interest for the students. A broad-based activity curriculum supported by well-thought out co-curricular activities will arouse the interest and self-activity of the learners. In such a situation discipline is internal and so there is no need for reward and punishment. Here the activity of work itself acts as the incentive, and hence, external incentives like reward and punishment become superfluous. This is the reason why in modern child-centred education so much importance is attached to the fact that education must be based on the need and interests of each student. This has again brought in the trend of individualization in education.

The child is father of an adult. The child is an abridged adult with rights which cannot be abridged. The Child is a person for all practical purposes. The child observes, thinks and imitates or reacts to happenings around. The child is a person. Either at home or school, the child is subjected to disciplinary practices while, child should be part of those processes. If the indiscipline of the child could be complained, ascertained and responded to, where is the way to find and establish the indiscipline of the adults? 

A section of sociologists and educationist have brought forth three points to validate the merits of punishment.

First, the value of punishment is that like reward, it acts as an inducement to learning. Through the fear of punishment, the inattentive child may be forced to attend to his studies.

Second, corrective punishment may be doled out to make the students conform to the rules and regulations and so uphold school discipline.

Third, like the parents and guardians the teachers too provide guidance to the students. The application of punishment is sometimes unavoidable in providing such guidance. 

As opposed to this view, a larger group of educationists and psychologists have presented the following points against punishment:

1) The demerit of punishment is that, first of all, it is based on Thorndike's Law of Effect. When a modifiable connection between a situation and a response is made and is accompanied by an annoying state of affairs, its strength is decreased. 

Therefore, since punishment is annoying and painful to the individual, acts followed by punishment decrease in strength. Nevertheless, this explanation has been rejected by many psychologists, from experimental findings. Thorndike himself came to the conclusion that, in the case of human beings punishment is not effective as an incentive. So the use of punishment in schools is not psychologically sound.

2) Punishment creates fear and an acute sense of inferiority complex in the students which lead to the development of weak personality.

3) The fear of punishment gives rise to truancy.

4) The feeling of dislike, annoyance and fear for punishment may be transferred through conditioning to the school, teacher and subject-matter. Thus, the very purpose of punishment is defeated.

5) Some teachers get a sadistic pleasure out of punishing their students. When the pupils realise this, they develop a feeling of dislike for the school and the teacher and the good relation between the teacher and the taught is destroyed.

6) The effect of corporal punishment is especially harmful. The students feel that because the teacher is stronger, they have to submit to punishment. It may also cause physical harm. Corporal punishment significantly interferes with the right to development and participation as it leads to antisocial behaviour. The theme of Child Rights Convention, that an adult should recognize the child as the person which means promoting their liberty, privacy and dignity. The brutal disciplinary processes hamper psychological growth of a person.

7) Punishment is not very effective in maintaining school discipline. Since this discipline is forced the students break it at the first available opportunity.

8) The child learns to lie, to cheat and conceal in order to avoid punishment.

9) Mental punishment has a disintegrating influence leading to neurotic behaviour and emotional outbursts.

As a result of these disadvantages, educationists of the present times have called for a complete eradication of punishment from the contemporary system of education. One might wrap up by stating that both reward and punishment as incentive to learning are objectionable because they create predicaments rather than provide resolutions. 

Instead, the educator should motivate the students to learn by making an appeal to their natural interests. In such a system the pupils will attain knowledge for its own sake and his success in such learning will be his reward and failure his punishment.

Article contributed by: Mam Chatterjee