CCT205+ASSIGMENTS

ASSIGNMENT #1

Corporal Punishment.

A few years before I came to Canada, I studied at Sherwood College, a small boarding school, in a hill station, named Nainital, which is located in the Kumaon foothills of India. The school had been around since the British rule over India and still followed the same standards that a boarding school in Britain would. My dormitory had 35 beds and lockers. Every morning, we’d have to be ready for inspection on time, where the warden, Mr. Vaz would walk around making sure that our uniforms and shoes were clean, our beds made and our lockers tidy. This happened every morning for five years of my life. Failing to be ready on time led to what we called a ‘fatigue’, which in essence was a punishment. During a ‘fatigue’, the warden could ask us to do anything from a hundred push ups to running around the field till we drop. Occasionally when we weren't doing it right, Mr. Vaz would slap us. Although corporal punishment is not allowed in the Indian schooling system, teachers still would give the the occasional slap. I was in Grade 11 when my fellow dorm mates and I were enduring such a punishment by our warden who that night seemed more agitated than usual. In the midst of all this running around and getting slapped a few times, Mr. Vaz lost his temper and picked up a hockey stick (field hockey, not ice hockey) and started calling us one by one and hitting us on our backside. He kept doing that one by one to every child again and again, until I told him that he wasn't allowed to hit us, and I was going to report him to the school board had he continued this corporal punishment. I reiterated to him that what he was doing was illegal. Yet instead of stopping, the man quickly connected the stick to my right knee. Initially I didn’t feel any pain, It felt like an electric current was running through my body. In shock I fell to the ground. Three weeks later I found myself in the Apollo hospital in New Delhi, being operated for a cut anterior cruciate ligament in my right knee. It took my 2 months of painful physiotherapy before I could finally stand on my own two feet. I don’t remember myself ever being as angry as I was for that period of my life. My parents immediately removed me from the school and began to prepare for me to move to Canada to finish my education. So did I. I did not want to have anything to do with an institution that almost crippled me, so I started researching various schools in Canada. Fearing that we would take legal action and win against the school the Principal of Sherwood came to my house all the way in Delhi to talk to me, check on me and deliver an official apology from the school. My mother was adamant on suing the school, yet I had better idea. I asked the Principal, rather told him that I was not going to press the issue any further if he could provide me with documents that would help ease my application process. Within a week, I had recommendation letter from almost every teacher and coach in the school, including ones that never even taught me in my five years there. In addition to that I received a TOEFL exemption letter from them which saved me a lot of time and effort. All these documents fast tracked my admission into a Canadian high school. Sure, I could have sued the school. Probably would have got a huge settlement also, but at that time I knew that I could use the Principal’s anxiety to my benefit. My strategy worked out very well for me. As a result of that I am now in Canada on my way to completing a University education.