This is a plea to Parents and Educators, all adults at large: Stop usining the cane as a form of discipline.

I cannot even believe the extent that this evil has invaded our lives. I am so angry that defenseless children are continuously being invaded and abused daily. Yet some of us have the gull to say it is the best way to discipline a child. Well sorry to disappoint you: it is most certainly the worst way to discipline a child.

Children have died, lost their eyesight, been marred for life both physically, emotionally and mentally. What is it going to take for us to truly embrace change. The fact that I was beaten black and blue in school and I am now well-behaved does not make it right. Neither does it mean that I turned out OK just because of those beatings.

A quick word to Montessori school owners and teachers reading this. STOP USING THE CANE NOW, or remove the name Montessori from your school name and sign boards! It is definitely not a Montessori characteristic to use the cane. There are better ways to discipline children and Montessori children are known worldwide to be well-disciplined. So the use of the cane is definitely not needed if you know what you are doing and doing it the Montessori way.

Some of us who are quick to defend this form of punishment, will not do so I am sure, if it was your child that ended up dead or blinded by the teacher.

Come to think about it a teacher lost her life just a few weeks ago. Why? Well she flogged one of her students, who went home and reported the incident to her mother. Mum and others ended up beating the teacher and now she’s gone forever.

Wake up adult! Just as the art of parenting is no longer something we just do like a headless chicken. Teaching skills need to be learned. Do not think that teaching means controlling the minds, time and life of your wards. They are human beings just like we are and they have rights.

We need to get with the program and get trained. University Professors and Lecturers of Education please take note. With all due respect: what are we teaching the next generation of certified teachers? I read a report where a Certified Teacher was claiming that they were trained how to use the cane on children!!! Goodness what is wrong with us? Review this thing now and get it right!

A lot of people are scared that if the use of the cane is banned, our children will get really bad, in-disciplined, unruly and uncultured. Well most of them are already that way and it is not because the cane was not used.

There is actually a Biblical parallel here: If you cast out an evil spirit (which is a good thing) but do not bring in the good to replace the vacuum,  then do not complain when the situation ends up worse than it was in the beginning.

So what am I saying? Do not remove the use of the cane and replace it with nothing and hope that the children will just know what to do and what not to do.

In every family we should have family values that we instill in our children, through daily actions, teachings and practice. Also in our schools we should have values we want to instill in our wards. What are your desires for them? Where do you see these children in the next fifteen, twenty-five years? I know what I want for the children in my care. So we work on it daily, intentionally, they learn what is right from what is wrong daily. Step by step. Start from the beginning, the very early years and never stop teaching, showing by example and guiding these bright lights of our tomorrow towards their potential destinies.

Don’t wait till there is a fire to put it out. Be intentional. The use of the cane is no longer an option.

Please stop!

Instead put structures in place to help our children learn how to behave right.

We the adults on the other hand need help with the following:

Parenting

Classroom Management,

School Discipline,

Managing Challenging Behaviours in the Classroom

Anger Management

and lots more besides.

Please in 2018 let us resolve to stop using the cane and help ourselves to change this bad culture, and back it up with adequate training and implementations so our children learn how to behave right. If children learn to behave properly, then the job is done.