Today was quite a disappointing day. My classes were fine, in fact some of them learnt the material much quicker than I anticipated. The disappointing thing happened in the staff room during one of my free periods.
Firstly, just to put this into context, corporal punishment in schools has been illegal in South Africa since 1996 and any person caught carrying out such a punishment is liable to be convicted under assault laws.
Needless to say, my experiences today countered this law. In the staffroom I saw a member of staff slam the door so hard it locked and the handle fell off before picking up a belt and hitting pupils whilst shouting in Xhosa. I attempted to leave whilst this was happening but due to the door having no handle had to resort to jumping out of a nearby window claiming that I had to go to my next lesson.
So far, this is the worst form of punishment I have seen in the school, but on many occasions I have seen pupils literally being thrown out of classrooms by members of staff, forced to stand on one leg for an hour or even forced to spend the entire lesson on their knees. Most of these punishments seem to be for the most trivial things and just reinforce my belief that the education system in South Africa (or at least in several schools) requires major reforms.
Sorry to have such a downhearted post. Hopefully tomorrow will be a lot better.
Better be off now - better go prepare to watch South Africa vs. Burkina Faso later!
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