Physical Punishment Prevents Students from Speaking and Defending Themselves and Hinders Their Development

Physical punishment of students has always been and continues to be considered a red line in education.

Today everyone knows that correcting the behavior of students who have committed wrongdoings through physical punishment is not only ineffective but also has a negative impact on students’ mental and psychological well-being and drives them away from studying. Despite these proven principles, occasional news reports still emerge from various corners of the country about physical punishment of students in schools, causing astonishment among the public and officials.

According to a report by FCN, much of acquired behavior is environmental, but a percentage of it is also innate and depends on the teacher’s personality. We can consider the punishment of students as part of a cycle of violence in society, but we cannot accept that a teacher, like an adolescent student, resorts to violence under the influence of a particular television series or the general atmosphere of society.

If a teacher is an educated adult who has acquired the necessary qualifications to be present in schools and to educate and teach students, if a teacher has studied psychology and educational sciences at universities and in in-service training courses and knows how to control his anger in critical situations, if a teacher possesses such mental health and psychological balance that he does not take out the problems of the classroom such as low wages or difficulty in living and school shortages on students, if a teacher knows that the answer to violations such as talking, not knowing lessons, fidgeting, laughing, not having a book, and so on is not beatings, it is incomprehensible how a teacher in the era when the unwritten law of physical punishment in classrooms is being codified would still ignore corrective dialogue and behavior and use brute force to educate students.

The law on student punishment has provided school managers with conditions for punishment that include warning, verbal warning in the presence of students, class change, written warning, temporary expulsion, and transfer to another school.

On the other hand, there is a big question mark: Is the Ministry of Education unaware of what is happening within schools, and ultimately should the media intervene to expose such unfortunate problems so that the Education Ministry takes action?

In the executive regulations of schools, this issue has been explicitly addressed and it has been announced that physical punishment in any form is prohibited in education; if someone violates it, they will be fined and based on the laws, referred to the administrative violations committee.

As stated in the executive regulations of schools, no school official should apply physical punishment to students, and this is legally prohibited in any form or guise.

The law explicitly states that this punishment must be rational and conscious, and the student’s psychological and physical conditions, age, and social status should be considered, and the punishment should be proportionate to the violation the student has committed and not be out of spite.

The school executive regulations also state that the method of remedying the violation should be presented to the student and he should be asked to correct his mistake and violation, and this should not be done in front of a group, and these matters are also mentioned in the above regulations.

Regarding the consequences for those who apply physical punishment to students, whether they are school principals, supervisors, teachers, or school officials, given that the law prohibits this matter and considers it a violation, anyone who violates it should be judged by the administrative violations investigation and committee, and a ruling should be issued; this ruling includes warning, caution, rebuke, or anything else the law decides for it.

School Discipline Regulations Are from 13 Years Ago

One of the noteworthy matters is that all these laws regarding the executive and disciplinary regulations of schools date back to the year 1379 (2000), and no review has been conducted since then, and in some cases there are still finer ambiguities that require a review of these laws after 13 years.

Today, when all education programs are aligned with the Fundamental Transformation Document and all upstream documents, the Education Ministry needs to conduct a new review of the executive and disciplinary regulations of schools.

A video has been circulated on social media showing a teacher beating students with a belt in Shahriar city. This video is not an exception to the rule; rather, similar incidents occasionally echo on social networks, creating a wave of hatred and disgust. For our generation, this disgust is a sign of change, and a structural change in the value system of society.

But there are other reasons that exacerbate the problem:

The glorification of violence in various forms in public forums, the enormous class gap and the growth of marginalized communities that lead to widespread norm-breaking and foment a culture of thuggery and mischief. A teacher who teaches in the margins of cities with minimal wages, without wanting to, knows that rebellious and defiant children from abject poverty cannot be forced to willingly submit to discipline through other methods. Fundamentally, he has not been trained to develop communication skills, and even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t know what to do. The system, as long as it is not pressured by public opinion, has no sensitivity to this issue, and based on the plundering of the Teachers’ Reserve Fund, we understand that the attention of senior managers is elsewhere. It is the responsibility of civil organizations and social networks to raise the level of sensitivity among families, students, and even school staff in marginalized areas to the issue. But the problem is solved in a different way, namely the advocacy of teachers’ professional organizations themselves, which can both defend their rights and increase their level of awareness.

The most important thing is to realize that both the teacher and the punished student are victims, and their behavior has roots in thousands of factors that create a negative incident both hidden and openly. A child who is punished at school may also be exposed to violence on the street and at home, just as a teacher is constantly punished by the whip of poverty and deprivation and is forced to vent his anger in his work environment. Without fighting abject poverty and empty tables, the punishment problem cannot be solved in isolation, although this understanding does not mean efforts in this regard should cease. A poverty-stricken child until adolescence can only gain an identity through brute force and displaying it, which makes it difficult for schools. It is society’s responsibility to give these children the opportunity to develop identity in other ways such as sports. Inside schools, instead of providing this opportunity, clichéd propaganda is conducted for official values that mostly causes disillusionment among the audience.

In hope of a day when peace, friendship, and kindness prevail in human societies.