I used to enroll in a school where every week, you'll see students being whipped either by teachers, discipline masters or the administration. I tried myself to avoid being in trouble and not get beaten but that failed as I got beaten every year in the school for any small mistake I made. I remember the time I got 10 hard strokes on my palms because I assisted in cheating in an exam. Imagine those red throbbing hands and you're still trying to complete an exam. That's why I decided not to help people in exams.
If you enrolled in that school and you didn't get beaten, congrats, you're an anomaly. This is cuz every student during the whole duration of the school year get beaten at least once. And I'm saying this cuz my class was collectively punished by cane. Sometimes when there's noise in my class, a teacher or discipline master just decides to beat the whole class including the students that didn't make noise and I was beaten too.
I was beaten for either coming late, forgetting to do assignments and failing some subjects. Most of the time I come early, but when I come late, it's usually because of a short program that forces me to come to school before 6:30 AM and if I come after, 2 strokes of cane, even at 6:31 AM. I hated those times. I was beaten for failing tests, kneeling down and opening my palms to receive either 5 or 6 strokes of cane. One assignment that I didn't finish, I was flogged by holding my desk and the teacher whipped me in the butt 5 strokes.
Sometimes, I do manage to avoid canes but my friends and classmates didn't. They got beaten a lot for noisemaking, sometimes having to go out of class and receive strokes of cane on the school yard. Even in class, you get beaten for talking while the teacher's talking. Girls were also beaten too. Mostly on their palms but there were a few teachers that beat them on the butt sometimes. I would always feel sad when they start crying on the middle of receiving their strokes and the teacher would still beat them until they have finished with their strokes. Can you imagine being in that class, seeing grown ass men with canes hit the girls on their asses and then see them uncontrollably cry but you can only do nothing about it because you know that you could get a similar or worse treatment. Yeah, I saw all that and became a little emotional. They got beaten either for noisemaking, failing subjects or forgetting to do assignments. One time after the mock exam results were published, I managed to barely pass and because of that I avoided being flogged but majority of the class failed and some discipline master whipped them really hard on their palms to the point I saw visible bruises on their palms and hands the next day. I couldn't do anything about it.
When you trigger the teachers angrily, you could get beaten like an animal. That's what happened to a friend of mine who left the school before I did. He said something that got the teacher angry, teacher then uses chalk to draw a circle on the floor, takes a cane, tells my friend to lie on it and because he couldn't do it well, he whipped my friend mostly on the back and sometimes all around his body. He was crying, begging to the teacher to stop and he repeatedly said he's sorry. The teacher didn't care, kept hitting him even though he was crying, and my friend was 13 at the time, being beaten by someone twice his age. After all that, he went to his seat to continue crying cuz that was just brutal. I sympathized with him back then and this situation still lives rent free in my mind. He was beaten like an animal all because he said something that triggered the teacher or was talking while the teacher was talking.
Mind you, this school is in a country where corporal punishment is banned with the law explicitly banning it in schools. But of course, the law wasn't enforced and my school got away with it. Because of that, I had to see students being whipped at least every week, receive 10 strokes of cane on my palms, 5 strokes on my ass, seeing girls receiving the same treatment and crying. Most of us guys didn't cry when that happens cuz we were pretty used to it. They beat us since primary school. Lying on the desk and being whipped 5 strokes and trying to hold that same desk so that you don't fall is really brutal. Pain everywhere. Pain sitting down.
I really didn't like this school at all as the only benefits I got from this school was making friends and academics being good. Basically, if you avoided being beaten in that school, you're an anomaly and a good one at that. And you can't even protest cuz when you try to do that, you get heavily beaten. Something that happened to a friend of mine when he argued about a dumb school rule and a teacher went to our class, called him out and beat him like 10 strokes just for doing that and warned us not to do the same.
Children being whipped every week, sometimes outside the school yard, teenagers being whipped like animals, almost every week, I must hear a whooping either in my class or in other classes. I'm not sure you guys could make it if you went into my school. All these memories compelled me to write this post to show awareness of how bad we have it in africa.
