The problem with corporal punishment (in an Indian perspective) is, the highly underpaid teachers don't quite know when to stop beating the child. Almost every month, I hear about kids being beaten to death in schools in rural / semi-urban India, and the helpless parents can only wail as the justice system is so screwed up.
Seriously? It seems pretty easy to know how not to beat someone to death. It's very easy to inflict a lot of pain with only superficial injury - with a cane or paddle, for example.
That really sucks if true. Like ericd says, however, I don't think you can beat someone to death when administering corporal punishment just because you "didn't quite know when to stop". I think you're giving the beater too much leeway.
I'm not really advocating the return of corporal punishment in American schools. It's such a political issue, and potential liability, that I have a hard time seeing it ever making a return.
Ya, this is definitely true. I can't attest to children being that beaten badly in India, but when I taught at an elementary school in the Himalayas beating the students was common place. The first day I walked into a classroom I was given a bamboo stick by the child in charge of the class.
First I tried not resorting to the stick, then I would scare the students with the stick (by swinging at them and missing or stopping just short or their body), but eventually they learned I wouldn't actually hit them.
The class would occasionally get so bad that the child in charge of the class would go around and hit his own classmates.
Unfortunately they responded to the abuse and would quiet down.
I think it's all the culture. It goes back to how the parents discipline the kids and how primary school teachers discipline the students.
I don't believe in corporal punishment in any school, I think this problem can be solved in
