Barbados Op-Ed

Once a week or so I pick up a local paper to see what’s going on. Being such a small place there’s not a whole lot to report on, with articles like “Woman in car crash” or “Man’s home burglarized” taking up quarter pages on the inside. But they do have lots of colorful op-ed columns. Here’s one that made me laugh out loud, both for the author’s clever insight but also for his well-timed application of the bajan dialect at the end. Try to imagine a Barbadian schoolteacher actually speaking it.

No To Flogging in Schools

For too many years our local media have been bombarded with the pro and con arguments re the use of corporal punishment in schools. One of the more amusing statements I have been hearing is that “one should not administer corporal punishment while angry.”

Can anyone TRUTHFULLY say that he/she has administered corporal punishment without “being angry”? After all, the mere fact that one thinks of flogging indicates that one is angry with the perpetrator or his/her deed/infraction.

I grew up in a school system where children were flogged, among other things, for “not learning.” From Infants “A” to class 7, from Prep to Sixth Form the story was the same. It seemed as though some teachers were just awaiting their chance to “get piece off that duncey little trouble tree.”