When I Was Young

I SAY
From TODAY, Voices
Tuesday, 24-March-2009

Dr Rachel S Kraut

ONE night, over dinner, my 11-year-old daughter whispered something in my ear: One of her Primary 6 classmates had been publicly caned that day, in the classroom, in front of all the other students.

His offence was apparently computer-game related — he had chased down and kicked another child after that child had refused to tell him his password for the online game Maple Story.

I am not much consoled by the knowledge that the child’s parents were first consulted, and gave the school permission to cane their child.

As someone who didn’t grow up in the Singapore system, this is horrifying. Not only because of the public display of barbarity, but because of several messages that were delivered by the school’s discipline master presiding over the event. He compared this caning to the punishment meted out in Jakarta jails, telling the class: “The cane they use is four times as thick!”

Are we supposed to be reassured by the comparison of our children’s school to an Indonesian jail? Before and during the caning, the students sat silently, terrified, dreading the moment. My daughter told me what she thought: “I don’t want to watch this. No one should be caned, especially in public.” She turned away and didn’t look.

One wonders: Will public caning lead to better behaviour? Was caning the right course of action in this case? Wouldn’t psychological counselling have been both more humane and more effective, as well as less damaging to the collective morale? What sort of repercussions will the witnessing of this event have on other students?

I’m sure the discipline master is confident he’s doing the right thing by caning children. The adage “Spare the rod and spoil the child” may have some validity, but as an educational philosophy, it certainly doesn’t contribute to creating a self-confident, free-thinking, creative populace.

The Singaporean school system acts according to its own rules, beliefs, and cultural norms. This is fine, as long as the system is homogeneous. However, one of the stated goals of Singapore as a nation is to attract “foreign talent” and to nurture and integrate other cultures, as a mechanism of achieving technological advancement. This is sensible, and admirable.

But before the scientific establishment in Singapore recommends to Western scientists that they should immigrate and try to integrate their families into the local system, the system should either be relooked, or parents and children should prepare themselves for a shock.

The writer is an Associate Professor at the School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University. She is a Singapore PR who has lived here for four years. She is writing in her personal capacity.

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