Children at school struggle to maintain self-esteem, and battle for popularity, grades, social rankings among others, when a teacher portray them as unworthy or shames them. Their self-respect and self-assurance are undermined and ultimately they lose standing in a social hierarchy and experience a sense of being small before their counterparts.
Following the outlaw of corporal punishment, teachers revived these ancient practices of shaming children. Often times these practices are done with innocent motives of requiring children to comply with school rules and standards and as punishments for those in contravention. These practices raise a question as to their constitutionality.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948 under article 1 states that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and right. In our domestic legal framework, the Constitution under article 24 provides that no person shall be subjected to any form of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
These rights are inherent and must be respected, upheld and promoted by all persons for which teachers are no exception. The right to dignity is at the heart of human rights and people hold a special value that is tied solely to their humanity and it is a non-derogable right as guaranteed by Article 44 of the Constitution.
Needless to say, it is the teacher's role to control the behaviour of children while at school. The controversies have always been about the techniques employed by teachers. Although the practices of shaming may succeed in achieving broad goals and help teachers discharge their role, they are not effective modes and as such should be questioned because they do not pass the Constitutional test and moral scrutiny.
Instilling morals in children cannot be done through techniques which themselves carry no moral values and are in contravention of the law. In whatever form, shaming practices are never justified as a disciplinary technique. Any effective disciplinary process should target the act, not the child.
Teachers and other staff members should desist from subjecting children to shaming practices. Of course, teachers view this as unachievable, but it is since there are disciplinary alternatives to consider that promote good discipline without causing further damage in the process of disciplining children. Such alternatives have been proposed by various children's rights activists and defenders e.g. UNICEF and have been adopted and disseminated by the government through the ministry of Education and Sports.
Shaming does not stimulate the desire to fix the wrong or seek forgiveness, all it does is water down what the educational process is intended to build in the child such as self-esteem. All vindications of shaming children fall short, it deleteriously impacts the children and an infringement on their constitutional rights and as a result of these shaming practices the child may develop mental health complications which may last forever.
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Educators who practice shaming children should be ashamed of themselves, all practices that can be recognized in whatever form whenever they exist should be eradicated from school, and teachers should desist from using them as disciplinary techniques.
mulumbatom1@gmail.com
The author is an advocate of the High court of Uganda and a former teacher at Kibuli Demonstration School
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