This is a plea to Parents and Educators, all adults at large

Why?

Violence is on the increase amongst the young amongst us!

We must take responsibility to make things right again!

So here is my plea:

Let’s start grooming our children to embrace a more ethically positive culture. Let us teach our children to embrace positive conflict resolution when relationships and interactions go wrong, instead of violence.

We all want our children to grow up well disciplined, well behaved and happy, isn’t it?

It is important to then cultivate habits that will instill this in our children.

Shouting, yelling, beating and flogging the child simply promotes a culture of violence, doesn’t it?

Think about it, when a child errs we yell, slap and flog, communicating therefore that the way to deal with people who make mistakes or do what is wrong is to beat, yell and flog them!

What do you think happens when someone does something wrong to them? They will do what they have witnessed over and over again, yell, beat and flog.

It is important to call a spade a spade, so I need to say this to any Montessori educator: As Montessorians, we need to beware!

We really need to hold up our own end of the stick. If we are actually following the Montessori method, which actually relies heavily in providing a child centered approach to education, the way we discipline and teach behavior needs to be looked into.

I wrote this nearly four years ago and I think it still needs repeating:

“A quick word to Montessori school owners and Montessori 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.”

For the rest of us we need to wake up as adults! Children are watching us and they are copying what we do, and not just what we say!

Children are human beings just like we are and they have rights. We need to be aware of this fact.

We can support and guide them into becoming well-disciplined and well-behaved individuals, and we can do this without using control and fear.

Both parents and teachers honestly need to get trained.

Gone are the days when we did things based on just what our parents did!

There is too much at stake and lots of help out there for us to key in to!

I also will suggest that the trainers of our teachers need to urgently review their training programs!

University Professors and Lecturers of Education please take note! 🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿

With all due respect: What are we teaching the next generation of certified teachers?

A Certified Teacher once claimed that they were trained on how to use the cane on children!!!

I do hope that this is no longer the case!

The following was part of a post written in 2017, I am alarmed that a lot of this is still part of what we need to change going forward!

“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.”

So as we prepare for 2022 let us resolve to start grooming our children for a better and more fulfilling ethical culture.

Let’s back it up with adequate training and implementations so our children learn how to behave right.

If children learn to behave properly, then the number of violent incidences will decrease drastically.

This will enable us to start grooming a new Nigerian culture that will help us reach our future with pride.