Voice 9 News Desk: A lady teacher at a private school
in Noida was fired after she clipped the hair of over a dozen kids as part of
disciplinary measures. The event occurred on Wednesday at Shanti International
School in Sector 168, prompting parents of the affected pupils to mount a
protest on Thursday.
Shakti Avasthi, Additional Deputy Commissioner
of Police in Noida, stated that the instructor, Sushma, had been requesting the
kids to have their hair clipped for the last few days, but the students had
neglected to do so. As a result, on Wednesday, she chopped the hair of 15
students in order to chastise them. After the incident, the parents of the
students staged a protest and escalated the matter to the police on Thursday.
The teacher was promptly fired by the school
administration. Additional DCP Avasthi claimed that the school administration
then communicated with the parents and resolved the matter.
Why do teachers believe they have the right to
impose such harsh penalties on their students? Who gives them the authority to
do so? Does being a teacher give them the authority to impose such harsh
disciplinary procedures on students? Don't these teachers realize they're
normalizing the abuse of power dynamics in the minds of their students?
While it's understandable that the school may
have had rigorous hair-length standards that pupils were required to comply
with, the teacher may have handled the matter better. Instead of spending the
time to clip the hair of those 15 youngsters, she might have called each of
their parents and urged them not to send their children to school with
untrimmed hair. Wouldn't that have been less complicated? Why did she have to
go to the trouble of clipping their hair?
As a teacher, she should be mindful of the
long-term effects such occurrences have on students. Teachers striking children
and administering harsh punishments to them under the ruse of disciplining them
is rather common in India. When will society realize that harsh disciplinary
practices will merely traumatize children rather than "discipline"
them?
With many social media influencers and
therapists discussing the need for gentle parenting, it is equally important to
address teachers' discipline of children properly. Because children spend half
of their waking lives at school, schools play an important role in molding
their sense of right and wrong. It is good that the school acted quickly in
firing the instructor to guarantee that such harsh penalties or disciplinary
measures do not occur again.
