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Jakarta Post

Teachers learn hard lessons from physical punishment

News Desk (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, August 24, 2016

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Teachers learn hard lessons from physical punishment In relation to physical punishment in school, Indonesian teachers are now thinking twice about using violence as a punishment after known cases in which teachers were sued or beaten by angry parents. (Shutterstock/Everett Collection)

T

he recent conviction of an East Java teacher in a local court for pinching his student has served as wake up call for educators that physical punishment is no longer appropriate.

In interviews with The Jakarta Post, teachers said they would think twice before they resorted to physical punishment, even if in the mildest form, such as slapping the palm of their students who get up to mischief.

Instead, schools should empower their counselors, a more interactive approach that parents would gladly welcome.  

“In the past, it was acceptable for teachers to apply punishment like softly slapping their students’ palm with a ruler but now we cannot do that anymore,” said Entam Rustamah, principal of the state elementary school SDN 03 in South Jakarta. “Nowadays, even touching their hand has risks.”

Instead of handling problematic students single-handedly, Entam said, she would rather summon their parents and together find a solution.

A hot topic in national education is the Sidoarjo District Court’s guilty verdict of Samhudi, a sports teacher at Raden Rahmad Junior High School in Sidoarjo. Judges found him guilty of violating laws on child protection and sentenced him to three months’ jail with six months’ probation.

The unprecedented verdict sparked protests from local teachers who considered the sentence too harsh.

A more recent incident occurred in Makassar, South Sulawesi, where a vocational school teacher, Dasrul, was physically assaulted by the father of a student whom he slapped and sternly reprimanded for failing to bring his drawing kit.

Posma Sinambela, deputy principal of the state junior high school SMPN 185 in South Jakarta, suggested that in case where a teacher is unable to handle a misbehaving student alone, he should involve the school’s counselors.  

But he argued that a mild physical punishment should be acceptable in certain circumstances as Susana, a parent of a third grader, also agreed.  

“I believe no teachers would hurt their students intentionally. But if they punished my kid by hitting or pinching him, I’d find and talk to the teacher,” Susana said.

Good communication between teachers and parents have proven effective to avoid misunderstanding when a student misbehaves in school, as Siti Farida, a parent of a 12th grader, did. So when her child came home bruised from a pinch, she went to the school and met with the teacher who had punished her child and discussed with them an amicable solution. And it worked.

Abdul Waidl of the Indonesian Education Monitoring Network (JPPI) thinks parents nowadays no longer see physical punishment as part of educating and disciplining their children.

“Whenever physical punishment happens in schools, government authorities should look for reasons beyond education,” he said.

In search of more comprehensive knowledge about prevailing punishments and to find effective solutions, Abdul advised that the Culture and Education Ministry collect information about incidents from its local offices and analyze the cases.

Totok Amin Soefijanto, an education expert from Paramadina University in Jakarta, said many teachers still found it hard to kick the habit of punishing their students physically out. A way out he suggested was that the teacher should talk to the mischievous pupil one-on-one.

Teachers should find out why some students misbehave at school, he said. “Once the reasons have been figured out, it will be easy to find solutions.” (wnd/pan)

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