Fear is Not a Pedagogy

Fear is Not a Pedagogy

A topic I generally avoid engaging with…but this time I couldn’t. Among the many things that trainee teachers observe and participate in, one recurring discussion is about the culture of corporal punishment. What they often witness is a straight-line argument: if children don’t obey or complete tasks, then punishment is natural. This logic feels obvious to them because it appears “natural.” In Bourdieu’s terms, this culture has the status of doxa—a belief so deeply ingrained that it escapes scrutiny. Anyone who questions it seems illogical.

In 2010, India criminalised corporal punishment, yet the culture remains so hegemonic that one can notice it almost anywhere. Seeing a scale in a teacher’s hand appears normal; if questioned, the response is usually, “This isn’t for punishment, it’s for discipline.” I still argue, though I know that shifting beliefs at the level of doxa requires long, sustained engagement. So, what exactly is my argument against corporal punishment?

When teachers use corporal punishment as a disciplinary tool, they lose the opportunity to be creative—to work on communication, class management, and relationship-building. It harms not only children but teachers themselves. A stick in the teacher’s hand is, in many ways, a visible symbol of stagnated professional growth. Every time a child “disobeys,” the stick stops the teacher from engaging creatively with that moment.

I often recall an incident from one of my classes. A student once said, “The way you teach may not help us score well in exams. You should teach Hindi, not Social Science.” This was soon after I graduated from TISS, Mumbai—one of the country’s premier social science institutions. The remark stung, momentarily. But very soon I realised that this was precisely what I had been striving for: a classroom where power hierarchies dissolve enough for children to speak freely. That comment was evidence of a shifting power dynamic—something I consider central to my research interest even today.

I share this example to highlight how classrooms create countless opportunities for teachers to become thoughtful, reflective practitioners. A stick steals those opportunities. Many accomplished teachers know this deeply.

The argument that fear is necessary for learning is baseless. Neuroscience shows that fear shuts down many learning processes—Bruce Lipton writes about this in The Biology of Belief. We meet many adults who believe they studied well because they were beaten. This is correlation, not causation. Rarely do people fondly remember the humiliation they faced. And even if some “succeeded,” the number of children who dropped out is far higher.

Before 2010, if corporal punishment was supposedly effective, then the pre-2010 years should have been the golden era of Indian education. Yet the reality was that out of every 100 young adults aged 18–23, only about 9 went to college in 2000. The facts contradict the stories we tell ourselves. Of course, important arguments around child rights exist, but I want to stay with one idea: corporal punishment is unbecoming of a teacher. It snatches away a child’s right to dignity—and it dehumanises the teacher.

Classrooms will be noisy. Children may push boundaries, may even ridicule. But within that chaos lie the seeds of becoming what Giroux calls a transformative intellectual. As Dewey reminds us, immaturity is a necessary condition for growth. A messy classroom is often the birthplace of a great teacher. So, whatever the situation, choose to be a teacher. The stick or scale is a symbol of the unbecoming of a teacher.