Dear Editor,

I concur with Mrs Carlene McCalla-Francis that students can be slapped when they are out of line with the norm, especially when you have their interest at heart and wish for them to perform at optimum levels in class. Kensington Primary is just a few metres from where I live, but I work in the Half-Way-Tree area, and as I travel up and down I see how students behave.

I am concerned with the disintegration of morals in our midst. Minister of Education Rev Ronald Thwaites might not agree with the methods of punishment used by various school principals, but the Good Book believes in it!

The punishment is considered barbaric and outdated, but perhaps Rev Thwaites wants to shed that old-time religion and embark on a non-religious path. Don’t spare the rod and spoil the child.

The gruesome beheadings which seem common in the society today have changed our social climate significantly and prevents us from being a very productive nation.

Many of our productive-driven citizens have already had their demise. I think some of the people who are creating mayhem in our society should be beaten with the cat-o-nine.

Corporal punishment should not be abandoned because I strongly believe in it as a deterrent to crime and violence which is peeling off the skins of our best minds and emptying them in the graveyards.

We have to work collectively to fix the system and to build a society where our young girls can walk freely on the streets without fear, or having to give sexual favours. We need to have revolutionary changes in our undisciplined society where we can develop the young to be independent thinkers and not counter-productive citizens when they reach adulthood. Some people believe beating in former colonies emanated from the slavemasters’ whips and believe that on that premise it should be discouraged. I beg to differ. This is my concept of getting a gentler society where manners can be resurrected on a wider scale.

Paris Taylor

Greater Portmore, St Catherine

paristaylor82@hotmail.com