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Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

theguardian.com

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Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#121

Post by alephnerd »

froh wrote: post #117

beat the violence out of them, that'll show em? I find the evolution of §1631 of the German civic code interesting from 1900 to the early 2000s it slowly moved from "the father has the right to chastise the children" to "the parents have the right and obligation to bring up their children. humiliation is no appropriate means for upbringing." so no form of violence, psychological and physical, that goes beyond merely…

> beat the violence out of them, that'll show em?

It does in Singapore - a province and later country that was historically rife with civil, religious, ethnic, and political instability.

Westerners may not like it, but there's a reason LKY elucidated on "Asian Values" [0]. What do you care anyhow - it's not like you'd be given PR let alone citizenship.

[0] - https://time.com/archive/6732416/in-defense-of-asian-values-...

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#122

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

invalidSyntax wrote: post #114
freetime2 wrote: post #112

I was horrified to read this, assuming it was the same type of caning used on prisoners that causes severe damage and leaves lifelong scars. But apparently it is a much milder form for students [1]: > In a much milder form, caning is used as a disciplinary measure in schools. Boys aged between 6 and 19 may be given up to three strokes with a light rattan cane on the buttocks over clothing or the palm of the hand as a…

Seems like they just get what they did. To be honest, I think it should be less milder.

We have overwhelming evidence that corporal punishment is harmful in general, and very harmful for kids.

As someone that was on the receiving end of that kind of violence due to growing up in a fundamentalist evangelical family, I will not mince words: the view you have expressed is pure evil. I simplly cannot imagine the mentality that kids need to be physically tortured to learn how to behave.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#123

Post by ryandrake »

quiet35 wrote: post #78

I see at least 2 issues with the physical punishment: - it will only make the bullies taking their revenge on vulnerable ones with even more cruelty. And they will plan it carefully to be hard/impossible to prove. It will lead to the escalation, not to the resolution - the power will be abused, it's inevitable. I would be so scared to be in a class where "teacher" has the power to harm me physically! (to clarify: I a…

> - the power will be abused, it's inevitable. I would be so scared to be in a class where "teacher" has the power to harm me physically! (to clarify: I am very much out of the school age, but just thinking about this perspective is making me feel uneasy)

Absolutely. I would never agree to allow teachers the ability to apply violence to my kid with no due process or proof of wrongdoing. Teachers play favorites and can be just as bad bullies as the other students. They should be able to strike my kid with "trust me bro" as proof that she did wrong? No fucking way on Earth.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#124

Post by krackers »

oompydoompy74 wrote: post #11

I didn’t expect to open the comments and find people who were pro beating children on Hacker News. I find this abuse horrific and you should speak to a therapist if you think this is okay. Absolutely barbaric behavior.

Half-serious thought: Would giving them an appropriately sized dose LSD (with proper setting/supervision) or similar thing be a better alternative? If the issue is lack of empathy for others isn't this a much better solution that actually fixes the root cause instead of papering things over. Maybe caning might fix the superficial symptom, but those people may well end up as sociopath CEOs or something or find other ways to gain satisfaction from asserting their power (just look at the state of the world, you can be a "bully" in many other ways than physical ones).

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#126

Post by invalidSyntax »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #122
invalidSyntax wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like they just get what they did. To be honest, I think it should be less milder.

We have overwhelming evidence that corporal punishment is harmful in general, and very harmful for kids. As someone that was on the receiving end of that kind of violence due to growing up in a fundamentalist evangelical family, I will not mince words: the view you have expressed is pure evil. I simplly cannot imagine the mentality that kids need to be physically tortured to learn how to behave.

Yeah my bad. I was the getting bullied side of students, but the current punishments are something that should be ended.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#127

Post by cineticdaffodil »

Bullying is pack animal cohort behaviour. The selection of a "victim" by social means to be fed to the wulfes when they come, by biting said animsl. It reduces drastically when the environment provides the ilusion that there exists already someone who is "next" , be it a frail, because old teacher or a "known" underperformer. The dynamic cant be altered, but managed. From all the bugs in humanity, this one is one of the nicer ones. It can be percieved, it can be reasoned over, it can be handled by institutions (the individual in natural dynamics will not) and it is not societal loadbearing bug.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#129

Post by danpalmer »

The only effective punishment/threat that I saw work on my bullies at school was the threat to remove one of them from the football team and prevent him from playing for the school. He turned it around and was ok after that.

It was highly effective because it was a bigger punishment than those used for not doing your homework, and because it was highly relevant to him specifically. It worked because we had 16 students to a class (I was very privileged to be there) and teachers who gave a crap and put the time in to understand the problem and think of potential solutions, rather than just apply generic policy.

The problem is that most schools don't do that, would likely argue they don't have time to do that, and also probably spend a fair amount of resources and time on relatively ineffective bullying prevention.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#130

Post by riffraff »

freetime2 wrote: post #112

I was horrified to read this, assuming it was the same type of caning used on prisoners that causes severe damage and leaves lifelong scars. But apparently it is a much milder form for students [1]: > In a much milder form, caning is used as a disciplinary measure in schools. Boys aged between 6 and 19 may be given up to three strokes with a light rattan cane on the buttocks over clothing or the palm of the hand as a…

Yeah this seems like the kind of punishment that was also common in the west in 1800-1900.

I remember my parents still talking of getting hit with a ruler in the 50s tho the practice was technically forbidden since 1860 or so.

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