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Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

• andsoitis 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  • circumlocution 5mo ago
    If you follow the article link they reference a WHO (another UN organization) report regarding their position and review of research: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/B09424 https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/B09424
    • andsoitis 5mo ago
      Thanks.
    • userbinator 5mo ago
      Propaganda.
• lioeters 5mo ago
  Solution against bullies: a bigger bully.
  • euroderf 5mo ago
    So, a regulating force must necessarily be of the same nature ?
    • yetihehe 5mo ago
      I would like to know your opinions on a better one, if you have one that doesn't require several sessions with a school psychologist (I had a school psychologist at my school and she didn't do anything meaningful about bullying).
      • niemandhier 5mo ago
        In a friends school in Denmark the teacher could decide that your family had to host a party for all the kids at the family home, so they could get to know each other better, and that was repeated until all involved parties stoped misbehaving.
        • yetihehe 5mo ago
          Good when all parents are able to host such party. I would say that in Poland, most of parents with a misbehaving kid are barely able to throw a party for their kid and several of his/her friends. Many times people complain about the cost of school supplies for their kids already.
          • niemandhier 5mo ago
            I think the cost of doing this as well as the time you need to invest are what puts pressure on you. I’ll have to ask what would happen if you do not comply. The Danish are nice people, but they really do not like if you break the social rules, so I guess it would get intense verry fast.
            • yetihehe 5mo ago
              > The Danish are nice people Just like I thought. I'm sure your solution would work when majority are nice people. That won't work on people who are from "lower social circles". We still have a lot of them in Poland and don't know how to make them behave better, because trying to make them behave better typically results in defensiveness about their way of life and a lot of excuses about their circumstances. They only dig their heels and start being more aggressive.
              • niemandhier 5mo ago
                My experience with humanity is: Most humans are nice people. Many are also overwhelmed, self absorbed and make excuses. That general observation, for me at least, describes the world from rural Pakistan to backwater Tschechia. The only exception were groups that had a very strong in-group out-group separation. These people always treated me with too much suspicion to express passing kindness.
    • stubish 5mo ago
      This is the last resort punishment, so no, not necessarily. I'm surprised the last resort punishment isn't expulsion though, like it is in most places. I guess education is a right that can't be taken away?
  • rvnx 5mo ago
    Works really well, and doing nothing is exactly why western societies are fucked up. New generations do whatever they want and do not face any consequences. Have you seen how much of a shithole France became due to street criminality and teenagers attacking people ?
    • lava_pidgeon 5mo ago
      Why are western countries fucked up?
    • Arodex 5mo ago
      >Have you seen how much of a shithole France became due to street criminality and teenagers attacking people ? Are you a time traveller from 1900? https://libreo.ch/revues/sjsca/20232/sjsca-29-2023/sans-foi-ni-loi-paris-1900-sous-la-menace-des-apaches https://libreo.ch/revues/sjsca/20232/sjsca-29-2023/sans-foi-... Note that it was a time of widespread caning and death penalty...
      • rvnx 5mo ago
        Not sure if I agree or disagree with you but that’s a really interesting article actually, so thanks for sharing!
    • hkpack 5mo ago
      > Have you seen how much of a shithole France became No, how far away should I be to see that?
      • Saline9515 5mo ago
        Paris, rue Poulet is a good intro, but the rabbit hole goes deep if you choose to go to the North of the capital.
    • userbinator 5mo ago
      Many decades ago when I was still young, I was bullied and reported it to the authorities, but they didn't care beyond giving the usual empty "be nice and get along" verbiage. Ended up fighting the bully and gave him a few deep bleeding cuts with my nails. I got in trouble for it, but he never dared to touch me again.
  • bitlax 5mo ago
    This but unironically.
  • CM30 5mo ago
    I'm no fan of caning or physical punishment for crimes, but isn't that how a lot of bullying ends? The victim snaps, the bully gets beaten up or injured in some way and the latter finds an easier target to go after? At the end of the day, a bully picks on those they perceive to not be a threat, whether that's a school bully using physical violence or a copyright/patent troll harassing individual creators and small companies. Being forced to go against someone with more resources or who can inflict serious damage against the aggressor is how a lot of bullies get shut down.
    • ergocoder 5mo ago
      > The victim snaps, the bully gets beaten up The unspoken rule is that the victim must only do hand-combat. They cannot use weapon in any way. If the victim uses weapon to defend themselves, they will be in the wrong. Life is hard for victims. They are often bullied because they are weaker. And the only way out is to do hand-combat.
    • gramie 5mo ago
      I would suspect that the vast majority of bullying ends when the victim is able to escape from the bully -- by changing schools, etc. We hear about victims snapping and beating up their bullies because that makes a good story. How about victims who snap but then are beaten up (because the bullies are often bigger and more used to violence) even more? Probably much more common.
      • CM30 5mo ago
        That's a fair point. The challenge is that a lot of the time, it's hard to escape in that way. The ideal would be that a bully is expelled or forced to change schools to get their victims away from them, but the system seems very reluctant to do that. Same with letting the victims find a new school to replace the old one. It works really well for bullying in workplaces and communities though. And true, the bully might win. But the thing is that it puts the victim from an easy target to a slightly harder target, and a bully may decide it's not worth the hassle/risk when others aren't going to fight back at all. It's like that old joke about outrunning a bear; you're not trying to outrun the bear, you're trying to outrun the people next to you. Or perhaps the old adage about home burglaries. A lock won't stop a determined thief, but they'd usually rather find an easy to break into house than go through the effort of defeating a security system.
  • NotGMan 5mo ago
    You can never fight against a bully with words. The only real way for a kid in school to stop being bullied is for him to challange or beat up his bully. Nothing else works.
    • jancsika 5mo ago
      > The only real way for a kid in school to stop being bullied is for him to challange or beat up his bully. Why is this always painted as one individual victim having to fight/challenge their particular bully? I remember a bunch of us kids spontaneously self-organizing in the fifth grade. After an older kid bullied a few kids at recess, a group of ten of us-- most of whom hadn't been bullied, but who obviously could be bullied-- suddenly realized we could walk over to him as a group. He did a double take as we meandered over mumbling to each other about what our intentions were. When we got close, he then looked down nervously at his shoes. We didn't do or say anything to him. After about five seconds, we all dispersed. I don't remember him bullying anyone after that.
  • reenorap 5mo ago
    The best way to handle a bully is to fight them tooth and nail even if you're going to get beaten up or you get suspended from school. If you keep fighting them the bullying will stop, and you will also gain some self-esteem.
  • trextrex 5mo ago
    That's literally how the real world works. State violence or super power violence is exactly this playing out.
• thijson 5mo ago
  I understand that caning leaves lifetime scars, at least the type I heard about. It's not something you can put weight on for a while.
  • srean 5mo ago
    It's a matter of degree. Life time physical or emotional scarring would, to pull out an example, be US slavery degree. I grew up when corporeal punishment was a thing in schools. No physical or emotional scars. Wish this is extended to white collar crimes.
  • ergocoder 5mo ago
    It depends. For some, yes. For most, no. Not that I support caning by random teachers; this happens a lot of developing countries. A random teacher becomes the judge, the jury, and the executioner. A caning punishment with proper investigation from proper authority seems like a good middle ground. Bullies should be punished. We cannot just brush it off as "they are just kids".
  • riffraff 5mo ago
    This is not that kind of caning, it's basically a harder form of slapping kids, not the one they give criminals that breaks the skin.
  • eastbound 5mo ago
    For minors, caning is with half-inch cane, which is the only one available in supermarkets. Only judicial caning is with the inch cane.
• oompydoompy74 5mo ago
  I didn’t expect to open the comments and find people who were pro beating children on Hacker News. I find this abuse horrific and you should speak to a therapist if you think this is okay. Absolutely barbaric behavior.
  • noworriesnate 5mo ago
    Pain is a highly evolved way of telling humans to change their behavior. Why would we choose not to use such an excellent tool, within reasonable boundaries? Also, do you think the victims of bullies have a pleasant experience? Being merciful to the bullies enables them and is cruel to their victims.
    • oompydoompy74 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      • elevation 5mo ago
        Deterrent can be an effective form of rehab. A former coworker of mine walks funny because he had polio as a child, and his father worked for the railway union after WWII. He told me one day in high school, one of his friends came to school with bruises couldn’t hide, inflicted by his drunk father. Everyone in school knew, everyone in town knew, but no one did anything. My coworker informed his dad, about the egregious injuries that day. His dad drove to the drunk man’s house and knocked on the door and seized the drunk man by the collar: “if you ever touch that boy again, I’ll kill you.” The threat must have been believable coming from a rail union worker, because it rehabilitated the recipient’s decision making processes going forward.
        • jitler 5mo ago
          > My coworker informed his dad, about the egregious injuries that day. His dad drove to the drunk man’s house and knocked on the door and seized the drunk man by the collar: “if you ever touch that boy again, I’ll kill you.” Yeah that wouldn’t fly nowadays. Your friend’s father would be hot with a slew of charges from “terroristic threats” to “meanacing”
• deleted 5mo ago
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• commandersaki 5mo ago
  I wonder how severe a caning in an educational institute compares to one administered by state justice.
  • lern_too_spel 5mo ago
    Adult caning is done by trained professionals. https://transformativejusticecollective.org/2023/10/20/getting-caned-by-the-singaporean-state/ https://transformativejusticecollective.org/2023/10/20/getti... School caning is with a lighter stick and through clothing, so it will be less severe, but the reduction in severity will probably vary a lot with the person administering the punishment.
    • oompydoompy74 5mo ago
      Trained Professionals -> Goons exercising the states monopoly on force. Ftfy.
      • lern_too_spel 5mo ago
        You'll notice that my carefully chosen link does not look favorably upon this practice, but that doesn't mean that these people aren't paid to do a job that they've been trained to do with some consistency, unlike school officials.
• deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
• ButlerianJihad 5mo ago
  The only times I got hit were when I deserved it, was asking for it, and pushed that adult over the tipping point. So that was all completely just. My peers learned they could trigger me in the same way, and were always careful to be subtle and passive, lest they also get punished. I suppose that is also, street justice.
• lava_pidgeon 5mo ago
  Btw, besides using violence on school children is barbaric this action is also sexism. Young boys generally suffer more from violence. Now the teacher can add it. Besides, why is the teacher right? They make mistakes , they can be racist etc. Just stupd
  • gramie 5mo ago
    When I was a volunteer in Africa, my school's English teacher was furious because none of the students in his class had done the homework. His solution: to bring them into the staff room one by one, have them hold their hands in a "chef's kiss", fingertips pointing up. He then whacked their fingertips ten times with a short wooden rod (laughing as he delivered the final blow, "and one for Caesar!). These were tough, hardworking teenagers, but very few of them were not in tears when they stumbled out of the room. The next day we found out that he had forgotten to assign the homework. So why should corporal punishment ever be considered appropriate? (I'm not arguing with you, but agreeing with you.)
    • markdown 5mo ago
      lol, standard practice in schools where I grew up, though not with a wooden rod but the wooden back of the blackboard duster.
      • rmwaite 5mo ago
        I don't think this is something to laugh at. Whether or not you think it's necessary or a proper method of punishment, it isn't funny.
        • markdown 5mo ago
          It was always funny to us as kids, and we often laughed at the poor bugger who had earned that punishment (and were laughed at when it was us). Our teachers didn't abuse us like some do in other societies, with extra homework and detention. We new the rules and punishment for breaking them, and made choices accordingly. Wonderful teachers who I remember fondly decades later, though some of them have passed on.
• quiet35 5mo ago
  I see at least 2 issues with the physical punishment: - it will only make the bullies taking their revenge on vulnerable ones with even more cruelty. And they will plan it carefully to be hard/impossible to prove. It will lead to the escalation, not to the resolution - the power will be abused, it's inevitable. I would be so scared to be in a class where "teacher" has the power to harm me physically! (to clarify: I am very much out of the school age, but just thinking about this perspective is making me feel uneasy) So what is the possible solution then? Protect those who are vulnerable. And work with bullies to resolve/ease their life issues. I suspect most of them do what they do because of tough situation in family. In severe cases, I can think of suspension or exclusion from school or another kind of isolation. Probably way better than showing ALL kids that violence is a fine casual way to solve issues. Applying violence to kids is not the way to make them stop applying violence to others.
  • cindyllm 5mo ago
    [dead]
  • davyAdewoyin 5mo ago
    As I previously mentioned, if you actually grew up in a system where corporal punishment is carried out, you would find that point two is not such a bother. No one cares whether a parent or teacher can cane them except they were in the wrong of course, perhaps because it is a culture and a shared experience and I knew a lot of children growing up who prefer the canning to other form of punishment. I think the issue lies in your conflating caning and other forms of corporal punishment with physical harm. It is not the same as hitting a student or throwing a bottle at someone; it can be done very humanely. Sure, abuse is inevitable, and I could point to many teachers who were terrible and took out their issues on students, but such cases were easily resolved by reporting them to the principal or bringing parents to school the next day to file a complaint. In
    • gramie 5mo ago
      > such cases were easily resolved Hah! In any case, it is a curious argument that, in order to show that stronger people should not hurt weaker people, you think it's okay for stronger people to hurt weaker people.
• NotGMan 5mo ago
  Singapore works as a multi-ethcnic multi-cultural society because of measures like this and an understanding that you cannot have a functional democracy in a multi cultural, multi racial and a multi-ethnic society: each race/culture votes for his own and against others on racial/ethnic lines.
• dooglius 5mo ago
  Singapore already uses caning in schools, so it sounds this just extends it to be used in cases of bullying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore?useskin=vector#School_caning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore?useskin=ve...
  • deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
• freetime2 5mo ago
  I was horrified to read this, assuming it was the same type of caning used on prisoners that causes severe damage and leaves lifelong scars. But apparently it is a much milder form for students [1]: > In a much milder form, caning is used as a disciplinary measure in schools. Boys aged between 6 and 19 may be given up to three strokes with a light rattan cane on the buttocks over clothing or the palm of the hand as a punishment for serious misconduct, often as a last resort. > Based on first-hand accounts, the student typically feels moderate to acute pain for the first few minutes, depending on the number of strokes. This soon leads to a stinging sensation and general soreness around the points of impact, usually lasting for some hours; sitting down is likely to be uncomfortable. Superficial bruises and weals may appear on the buttocks and last for a few days after the punishment. For comparison, criminals get: > A report by the Singapore Bar Association stated, "The blows are applied with the full force of the jailer's arm. When the rattan hits the bare buttocks, the skin disintegrates, leaving a white line and then a flow of blood." > Usually, the buttocks will be covered with blood after three strokes. More profuse bleeding may occur in the case of a larger number of strokes. An eyewitness described that after 24 strokes, the buttocks will be a "bloody mess". > Men who were caned have variously described the pain they experienced as "unbearable", "excruciating", "equivalent to getting hit by a lorry", "having a hot iron placed on your buttocks", etc. A recipient of 10 strokes said, "The pain was beyond description. If there is a word stronger than excruciating, that should be the word to describe it". > Most offenders struggle violently after each of the first three strokes and then their struggles lessen as they become weaker. By the time the caning is over, those who receive more than three strokes will be in a state of shock. > The wounds usually take between a week and a month to heal, depending on the number of strokes received. During this time, offenders cannot sit down or lie down on their backs, and experience difficulties controlling their bowels. I understand that many people feel that any form of corporal punishment is wrong. But I think it’s still important to point out that this is not the same type of caning that Singapore is (in)famous for internationally. And the BBC article, which also makes reference to judicial caning, makes no attempt to explain the difference - which to me feels rather sensationalist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore
  • invalidSyntax 5mo ago
• userbinator 5mo ago
  I wonder how many would get accustomed to the pain, or may even develop a liking for it. BDSM is a thing, after all...
• froh 5mo ago
  beat the violence out of them, that'll show em? I find the evolution of §1631 of the German civic code interesting from 1900 to the early 2000s it slowly moved from "the father has the right to chastise the children" to "the parents have the right and obligation to bring up their children. humiliation is no appropriate means for upbringing." so no form of violence, psychological and physical, that goes beyond merely protecting the child or it's environment from harm, is appropriate. any such acts that are covered elsewhere in the code actually turn violent into a felony: insult, beating, locking in the room, even grounding? that's not how you turn a young human into a decent adult. the turning point btw was Astrid Lindgren of Pipi Longstockings fame, and her acceptance speech "Never Violence!" for the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, a prestigious event with high reach in politics and intellectual elites. The speech was rocking the boat, indeed, she was asked to only hand out the prints and not actually give the speech, to not spill the event. Yet she insisted... Never Violence! - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Violence!
  • alephnerd 5mo ago
    > beat the violence out of them, that'll show em? It does in Singapore - a province and later country that was historically rife with civil, religious, ethnic, and political instability. Westerners may not like it, but there's a reason LKY elucidated on "Asian Values" [0]. What do you care anyhow - it's not like you'd be given PR let alone citizenship. [0] - https://time.com/archive/6732416/in-defense-of-asian-values-singapores-lee-kuan-yew/ https://time.com/archive/6732416/in-defense-of-asian-values-...
    • decimalenough 5mo ago
      Singapore "rife with political instability"? We're talking about the same country that has been ruled uninterrupted since 1968 by same party, which has also retained an absolute supermajority in Parliament during that entire time, right? The party line is that Singapore was a miserable fishing village before LKY & the PAP stepped into rescue it, and LKY doubled down on "Asian Values" to justify his iron-fisted rule: better not take any chances with that dangerous democracy! But in fact pre-WW2 Singapore under British rule was already a prosperous, advanced trading metropolis and widely considered the second wealthiest city in Asia after Shanghai.
• Liftyee 5mo ago
  I was only punished like this once as a child. I don't remember what it was for, but I only remember the punishment. So anecdotally, it doesn't seem to work.
  • stodor89 5mo ago
    I was only punished like this once as a child. It was because I beat another kid and took his crayons. It worked like a charm. So YMMV.
    • bamboozled 5mo ago
      I'm going through this now, we don't smack our child but I do remember getting smacked when I was especially naughty, and yeah, it set me straight. I don't hate my farther for it or anything, I just understand he had to do something. My wife is getting basically beat up by one of our kids now, she doesn't believe in smacking so basically she just puts up with it and tries to talk to them about it and uses various strategies. Some work for a while, some don't. Sometimes she blows up anyway, which is completely normal human behavior. I guess we're running a potentially very high consequence experiment with our children to see if talking through them and using other strategies turns them into better / equivalent humans to us without the smacking, let's see.
      • stodor89 5mo ago
        > My wife is getting basically beat up by one of our kids now You can't have this. Have a one-to-one conversation with your kid and tell them you can't have this. If they continue... well, I'm not saying "whoop their ass", but you can't have this.
  • dyauspitr 5mo ago
    Who knows? Maybe it fixed the problem but you don’t remember and now it’s just a part of your ethical framework. Only time I got corporal punishment was when I stole a small amount of money out of someone’s backpack in school when I was 8. I haven’t stolen a thing in my life since then, like not even candy or a towel from a hotel room.
• cineticdaffodil 5mo ago
  Bullying is pack animal cohort behaviour. The selection of a "victim" by social means to be fed to the wulfes when they come, by biting said animsl. It reduces drastically when the environment provides the ilusion that there exists already someone who is "next" , be it a frail, because old teacher or a "known" underperformer. The dynamic cant be altered, but managed. From all the bugs in humanity, this one is one of the nicer ones. It can be percieved, it can be reasoned over, it can be handled by institutions (the individual in natural dynamics will not) and it is not societal loadbearing bug.
  • iammjm 5mo ago
    No, it’s not a nice one and it can and in fact does ruin whole societies and generations of people. Here one case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina
    • cineticdaffodil 5mo ago
      I never said its nice or justifyable. I wish there was a grown up to talk with here. I know the russian bully culture. Stop talking down to evil people that only exist in your head.
      • iammjm 5mo ago
        > From all the bugs in humanity, this one is one of the nicer ones. > I never said its nice or justifyable Sir are you schizophrenic?
        • cineticdaffodil 5mo ago
          On a list of cthullian horrors, its one of the less uglier ones. On a scale from mere bad to "reading about it damages yourself", the "nice" is a word describing its location on that scale.
• ivanb 5mo ago
  Regardless of what side you take, time is the judge. It does not care about what you consider right or wrong. It will show which societies will prosper and which will go extinct.
• danpalmer 5mo ago
  The only effective punishment/threat that I saw work on my bullies at school was the threat to remove one of them from the football team and prevent him from playing for the school. He turned it around and was ok after that. It was highly effective because it was a bigger punishment than those used for not doing your homework, and because it was highly relevant to him specifically. It worked because we had 16 students to a class (I was very privileged to be there) and teachers who gave a crap and put the time in to understand the problem and think of potential solutions, rather than just apply generic policy. The problem is that most schools don't do that, would likely argue they don't have time to do that, and also probably spend a fair amount of resources and time on relatively ineffective bullying prevention.
  • BrenBarn 5mo ago
    The generalized version of this is "take away something they care about". But it's not always easy to do. In many cases, schools have nothing the kids care about. If they do, rules often prohibit them from using it as leverage. And in many cases parents also are unwilling to apply any kind of consequence that would make their kid unhappy.
    • samuell 5mo ago
      Which is probably one of the biggest problem with the outsourcing of parenting for half their awake time that is happening with our established school system. Not that I claim it is super easy to find an alternative on a large scale, but I think societies need to think hard about how to enable involving parents to be as much involved as possible in the kid's day. (For parents working full time shifts + commuting in a major city, this is very hard).
      • andyferris 5mo ago
        > outsourcing It should also be pointed out that children and teens especially benefit from a range of role models and mentors. Having the parent(s) provide 100% of the (life and academic) lessons is not actually ideal. You say outsourcing, I say providing a range of different people to learn from. (It takes a village to raise a child…). Not saying the current school system is perfect (it’s a rather dystopian “village”!), but keeping the teens locked up at home isn’t going to help.
• staplung 5mo ago
  I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. W.H. Auden
• dyauspitr 5mo ago
  [dead]
• zarzavat 5mo ago
  This is naïve. This will just lead to the victims of bullying getting caned after the bullies set them up. A bad person sees such a punishment as an opportunity to intimidate others.
• bryanrasmussen 5mo ago
  this does seem like an "I learned it from watching you" moment.
• avazhi 5mo ago
  Good. And while I know Singapore already allowed this for other misbehaviour, it should have never been removed from schools in the West in the first place, and I say this as somebody who grew up with no lack of (in hindsight deserved) swattings from teachers and principals. No doubt many problems today can be traced back to a complete failure to disciple many children that has developed over the past 20-30 years.
  • squibonpig 5mo ago
    That's pretty dumb
• fleroviumna 5mo ago
  [dead]
• dash2 5mo ago
  This seems a good place to point out that the evidence for the harmful effects of corporal punishment is very low quality: https://wyclif.substack.com/p/the-academic-literature-on-smacking https://wyclif.substack.com/p/the-academic-literature-on-sma...
  • InsideOutSanta 5mo ago
    That's an interesting article, but I find the conclusion peculiar. So there's no good scientific evidence that corporal punishment helps children in the long run, and the best available evidence links it to worse outcomes rather than better ones, but because we can't do stuff like double-blinded studies with control groups, "bans on smacking have got far ahead of the evidence, and should be actively opposed until the science is much more solid"? That's not the conclusion I'd draw from that body of evidence.
    • rlonn 5mo ago
      Seems there actually is a fair amount of research pointing to prohibiting corporal punishment for kids leads to better mental health, lower suicide rate, etc. and it does seem like a no-brainer to me that less violence leads to more stable individuals, and a more stable and happy society in general. In medieval times there was a lot of physical punishment, and society was violent, dangerous and unhappy compared to now. Singapore may be modern in many respects, but in this area, they're a bit of a backwater.
      • oreally 5mo ago
        Sometimes you don't need to make a study showing some number to act on something. It can be a simple chain of logic saying: % of children try to test their boundaries. Of those children some get away with it, some don't. Of those who get away with it, they carry on doing it, and it has reprecussions down the line. If you look at the problem this way, it's a rational take on caning - to tighten the net against bullying. Posted more context here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48059470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48059470
      • 5mo ago
• squibonpig 5mo ago
  As I understand it, a lot of bullying, especially physical bullying, stems from physical abuse at home. The plan is "hey let's try double-or-nothing" on the child abuse. Great fuckin plan. When people are into this shit I hope they don't have kids man.
  • Haven880 5mo ago
    Caning proven to work.
    • squibonpig 5mo ago
      For what, administered by who?
      • Haven880 5mo ago
        Usually is headmaster or disciplinary teacher if in school. Otherwise will be the special trained prison officer for general adults.
        • squibonpig 5mo ago
          So when you say proven to work, do you just mean "proven that it gets them to follow rules"?
• sebmellen 5mo ago
  On this same topic, Texas leads the US in paddling! > Spanking has greatly decreased in elementary schools but increased at high schools, especially in non-urban districts. > Between 2010 and 2025, over 180 high schools reintroduced paddling —- often justified as an alternative to out-of-school or in-school suspension. https://www.corpun.com/rtsd.htm https://www.corpun.com/rtsd.htm
  • tomashubelbauer 5mo ago
    I googled this and I didn't even have to scroll the search results before I found an article about a perverted teacher abusing a teenager this way.
• reenorap 5mo ago
  The best way to handle a bully is to fight them tooth and nail even if you're going to get beaten up or you get suspended from school. If you keep fighting them the bullying will stop, and you will also gain some self-esteem.
  • clort 5mo ago
    This is only half-true. Normally, the bully can escalate further than you are capable of, since they are experienced at it. Sometimes they can even get their henchmen to hold you at a distance so your resistance has no effect. It worked for me once. I think, bullying the loser was kind of cool in front of his gang, but rolling around on the floor wrestling with a loser in front of them was not so cool. Sure, I got pulverized but he didn't try me again. That is an anecdote though, not data. He was a small time bully, could have simply escalated to a stabbing after school and left me permanently disabled. I don't know the real answer, but telling people is a good start. Make sure people know about every incident. Don't silently suffer.
    • threethirtytwo 5mo ago
      No getting stabbed is rare. You made the right move and you learned to stand up for yourself. The bully learned not to fuck with you. If you told authorities and they coddled you that experience might get imprinted on your personality.
  • selcuka 5mo ago
    I don't fully disagree, but the bullying will not stop if they see that they can beat you up easily. It might even get worse.
    • modo_mario 5mo ago
      I can think of only 3 times where i or someone else confronted a bully and made it stop. In 2 of those cases the bully was stronger but such stuff can always carry risks that the bully might not like or scenarios they can't take. In the first the bully eventually got hit with a school desk (they were fairly light but hard) pretty bad by the victim that finally crashed out and the bully actually looked like a wimpering fool in front of a ton of people. As far as I know he didn't try to get back at the victim. In the second it was I that flipped out and had some luck. I didn't seriously hurt him but he realized the blind intent in the moment was there. He just seemed shocked and no longer bothered The 3rd guy had some Moroccan machismo thing going and kept picking on people he couldn't beat and it always happened fairly conventionally without suprise.
• christkv 5mo ago
  I think it's important to understand why Singapore ended up where it ended after experiencing decades of multicultural violence. This guy gives a pretty good overview of why Singapore of today happened as a reaction to that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icxc_KDPrxM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icxc_KDPrxM I think the modern equivalent case is probably El Salvador (can it become a new Singapore? Probably not).
  • decimalenough 5mo ago
    Well, no, Singapore's rules on caning were inherited wholesale from its British colonial days. "Decades of multicultural violence" is also absurd. There were indeed race riots in the 1960s, but these were closely tied to the ongoing saga of the formation of Malaysia and subsequent expulsion of Singapore, and as much political as racial (to the degree that these can be separated, since many key players like Malaysia's UMNO openly advocated for a given race).
• randomNumber7 5mo ago
  Singapore also hangs people for possessing weed.
  • decimalenough 5mo ago
    Only for quantities consistent with trafficking, meaning a minimum of 500 grams. You won't be hanged for a joint. You may, however, be sent to the Drug Rehabilitation Centre, which is co-located with and effectively a part of Changi Prison, and about as pleasant. Most first-time offenders get away with a probation scheme called the Enhanced Direct Supervision Order though.
  • selcuka 5mo ago
    You can also to to jail for selling chewing gum. And you are legally required to flush a public toilet after using it.
    • refurb 5mo ago
      Neither one is really enforced
    • tempaccountabcd 5mo ago
      [dead]
  • redleader55 5mo ago
    Others have already replied this is not exactly the case and it's trafficking weed and other drugs that gets you hanged. That being said, I'm not so chill about weed. Weed people, like smokers before them, don't consider weed to be a big problem for the people around them and ignore anything you might have against it. That means you'll be laughed at when you ask neighbors to stop smoking two floors below you, to stop growing the plants in their tub, etc. It also means you'll have to go through a lot of places that smell like shit because people smoke weed there often.
    • randomNumber7 5mo ago
      Owning 500g is enough to get someone hanged. A proof of trafficking or selling is not necessary. It is exactly as I said. Please don't spread misinformation.
• hyruo 5mo ago
  [flagged]
• throwawayk7h 5mo ago
  I've never understood the illiberal desire to treat boys and girls so differently. I'm glad I live in a country where sexism is illegal at a fundamental level -- this kind of law would be quickly struck down.
  • HatchedLake721 5mo ago
    Which country is that?
  • coldtea 5mo ago
    Maybe it's based on millions of years of biological differences in their capacities and functions (starting from body strength and role in reproduction), plus differences in social roles, of which some of the latter might be arbitrary, but some are necessary adjustments every historical society understood.
    • dude250711 5mo ago
      The big idea lately is to ignore all of that and just give everyone equal rights but unequal responsibilities.
    • cpursley 5mo ago
      I always find it really amusing that the most pro trust the science people who are in total agreement with all the evolution theories are often also the ones who are the first to be in complete denial that us humans might actually share some characteristics with our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees).
      • akimbostrawman 5mo ago
        >the most pro trust the science people who are in total agreement with all the evolution theories Like with most religions which "the science" very much qualities for at this point, there believers will just pick and choose what to believe and use to get there way.
      • TurdF3rguson 5mo ago
• lazylizard 5mo ago
  the point. of course. is to teach. that nothing is good or bad. consequences.
• yowo 5mo ago
  I was hit with wooden 100cm ruler in middle school multiple times, it is painful for an hour or so but not emotionally damaging or anything, I'd be happy to meet that teacher today, I dropped out from high school eventually after I've been reducled and mocked at by a principal repeatedly as I didn't like to shave my facial hair, which I assume happen all the time and isn't as controversial. I kept dreaming of vandalizing his car for a decade but didn't want to get in trouble.
  • stubish 5mo ago
    An actual cane works more like a whip and can break skin and leave permanent scars.
    • bamboozled 5mo ago
      They are not going to perform a prison style caning ffs...it's going to be a light but firm tap on the knuckles.
  • blks 5mo ago
    You’ll be happy to meet him to do what? Hit him with a ruler multiple times?
    • yowo 5mo ago
      No, give him a handshake and thank him for being a good teacher who didn't let me and my colleagues turn the class to a zoo and teached us discipline. Corporal punishment is not bad when its fair, not arbitrary, unjust, nor physically damaging.
  • arjie 5mo ago
    Surely there is some irony to claiming no emotional impact while you ruminate in dreams about revenge. I got in terrible trouble in school and did act out but never in reaction to corporal punishment. As it so happens, if you’re a boy the challenge is to take it without showing any sign of its effect.
• JuniperMesos 5mo ago
  My biggest concern with this policy is students somehow manipulating the school authorities to get them to consider things that other students they dislike do to constitute bullying, and therefore cane them for it. Accusations of bullying - particularly cyberbullying, which is extremely subjective and also relatively easy to fake - can themselves be a form of bullying, particularly if they result in an authority figure taking a cane to your victim.
• jocelyner 5mo ago
  [flagged]
• blks 5mo ago
  Violence creates more violence. Singapore has a lot of these sick backwater policies in place.
  • arijun 5mo ago
    [flagged]
  • HlessClaudesman 5mo ago
    If that were true Singapore would be a particularly violent place, it's not. Source: I lived there.
    • zdc1 5mo ago
      Singapore isn't particularly violent, it's just efficient. It's the threat of deportation (huge swathes of the population are on work visas) or punishment that keeps people in line. Even their prisons aren't very violent, it's just that if you commit a crime, the police will find you (it's a small place with lots of cameras) and the courts will apply the standard sentencing.
• 0x073 5mo ago
  I know bullies that claim that they get bullied by the person they bully. The bully stopped in the end, but the wrong person got pushed.
  • deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
• mvc 5mo ago
  That'll sure teach them not to abuse their power over their fellow humans with less physical strength.
• testemailfordg2 5mo ago
  Not the right approach as classifying someone as a bully is left to someone's subjective perception. This makes caning legal in the hope it would reform those boys and leaves room for misuse. Once bullying is proven in front of PTA group then other formal methods should be used, starting with counselling-> monitoring for improvement -> separating them from their peers and moving them up seniors, that might turn the tables -> community service with final recourse being termination from school and in worst case / rarest or rare scenarios the country would already have a juvenille justice system to reform.
• michaelteter 5mo ago
  This is absolutely not going to teach a bully to be different; if anything, it may make them more cruel - and careful to avoid getting caught.
  • youre-wrong3 5mo ago
    [dead]
• KSteffensen 5mo ago
  If they believe it's OK to cane the kids, why limit it to boys? Girls can also be extremely nasty to each other
  • p-e-w 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    • simgt 5mo ago
      Any source to share? I know most drug-related crimes get the death penalty but I haven't heard of potential innocents being routinely executed.
    • deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    • seivan 5mo ago
      [dead]
  • bko 5mo ago
    Because it may be effective for boys but not girls. Men have to deal with some form of violence in their lives, or at least the threat of it. Most male encounters has an undercurrent of violence. Offend another male and you might get assaulted. So when you expose men to violence it's a matter of the world. Like Tyson said, social media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it. If you expose women to violence they will acclimate to it and begin to see it as the norm. That means they'll accept it, from their teachers and eventually their partners. Its entirely rational to only apply this to boys only.
    • verve_rat 5mo ago
      What? Your argument is men should be used to violence, so it is ok to hit boys, but women should not be used to violence, so we shouldn't hit girls? We hit boys, so it is ok to hit boys, but we don't hit girls, so it isn't ok to hit girls? That's so very, very wrong.
• DonHopkins 5mo ago
  Cane the parents first.
• itake 5mo ago
  I (think) many bullies have bad home lives. I wish parents would be held accountable instead of taking it out on the kids that are struggling to process their emotions / hormones in a healthy manner.
  • mantas 5mo ago
    And parents are acting out for myriad of reasons. There's a never-ending chain if you go that way. At the end of the day, bully victims end up holding the short end of the stick. And they frequently become bullies themselves. Maybe stopping bullying at the visible link is not the most right solution... But is there anything better that does not lead to eternal finger pointing?
    • itake 5mo ago
      I think the puck should stop with the first adult. The front line adults at school have this policy now, which covers 30 hours of the student's week. Parents need to be responsible for the remaining 183 hours they have with their kid. --- In Seattle, I hate seeing news articles about kids doing stupid stuff (murdering classmates [0], stealing cars, etc) and not an ounce of accountability for being a bad parent. [0] - https://www.fox8live.com/2024/07/05/13-year-old-bystander-killed-mall-food-court-shooting/ https://www.fox8live.com/2024/07/05/13-year-old-bystander-ki... [1] -
  • Aromasin 5mo ago
    [flagged]
• stotemoat 5mo ago
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• Tade0 5mo ago
  Valiant effort, but it won't change anything. What was quietly done in my school instead was the creation of a "sports-oriented class". All male staff, way more PE classes, including judo and the like. Nominally unisex, but only some boys showed interest. Also candidates needed to pass a test of physical fitness, so they saw it as a point of pride that they qualified. Enrollment began with third grade and enabled me to enjoy a solid four years of relative peace, without the most high-energy part of my class to date. Interestingly one generally well-behaved classmate also went there, but since he was also physically competent, he didn't experience any issues.
• sfmike 5mo ago
  the problem is what if the victim fights back, then they might be misconstrued as the bully and get caned.
• Perenti 5mo ago
  I got six a few times at High School. Compared to the beatings at home they were kinda weak. But I guess it'd freak out kids who had never been beaten. I can't see the threat of three strikes with a cane on the bum over clothes, or on the hand being any kind of disincentive to a determined trouble-maker. I do think the _threat_ of corporal punishment does help keep some kids on the straight and narrow, but I don't think it'll deter people like I was - terribly angry teens.
• glimshe 5mo ago
  I don't agree with the notion of caning children, but... Why only males are eligible to be caned? That doesn't sound fair within the framework, girls can be bullies too.
  • tacostakohashi 5mo ago
    This line of reasoning, always strikes me as rather idiotic. It's often heard from the progressive side of politics, in this general form, as if having everyone equally affected by bad things is a useful policy aspiration: "<thing>, which is bad, disproportionally affects <girls, poor people, non-white people, etc.>, which is an outrage!" Apparently, it's easier and more popular to make sure bad things are fairly distributed, rather than reduced or eliminated.
  • Jensson 5mo ago
    > Why only males are eligible to be caned? Because Singapore outlaw caning women, the schools cannot cane girls without changing other laws but they can cane boys. The article says this, if it was legal to cane the girls they would also do that but they can't.
    • wvbdmp 5mo ago
      That just raises the exact same question. But also “we would cane more kids if only it weren’t for those pesky laws” is crazy. The world seems to be on a speedrun to rid itself of all civility. I guess that’s its default state, but where did the civilizing forces go?!
• orangebread 5mo ago
  People wonder why the state of the world is the way it is. Traumatized child expresses themselves the only way they know how? Let's beat them, surely this is the solution not creating a safe environment. The cycle continues.
  • q3k 5mo ago
    Haven't you heard? Not beating children is woke. Also violence is the only way to a high trust society.
  • CJefferson 5mo ago
    I'm not saying beating children is good but.. if you think the 'state of the world' is bad, well, most countries have massively reduced how much beating children get over the last 40 years or so.
• JackOneSG 5mo ago
  About three decades ago, a student attacked me by poking my face with a pencil very hard, close to my left eye. I could have become blind, but fortunately I did not. Yet the student was not even punished in the kindergarten run by PAP. Besides that, I was slapped hard across the face by my Primary 1 teacher (Miss Maisura, iirc... or might get zero marks for mispelled her name) at Queenstown Primary School because I unknowingly brought my spelling book home and had difficulty understanding the instructions. Years later, I happened to meet her on a public bus in Singapore, but she had no recollection of who I was. I was also physically abused by classmates for months. Some stole my coins or manipulated me through social engineering. Some teachers were ridiculous and unprofessional when caning students. I witnessed that many times. Despite all these terrible experiences, a school belle, Lisa Huang Shu Shung, once became smitten with me. We lost touch after graduation — I was in the worst class while she was in the best class. Sometimes, I still wonder how she is doing now. But why should I post in HN? I have become semi-disabled in my 40s, now living with night blindness and no love life. Even after growing up, you can still encounter people who would beat others up. That even happened to me during NS, my phone was even stolen by one of them in our room but the officers could not do anything. My view is that caning only provides a short-term solution; it does not solve long-term problems. Of course, some of the naughty classmates (gangsters who loved causing trouble and making noise) were eventually sent to jail — one for voyeurism and another for assault — while others were expelled from school. Years later, I came across some old schoolmates again, but we had become strangers on the street. We were no longer the students we once were. So I hope the future kids would never have to go through the same expereince. Just don't be selfish and don't lose your empathy towards others, because we won't be reborn after billion years just as we did not experience the pain of waiting 13.6 billion years. Humans are imperfect mammals.
  • edwinsg 5mo ago
    [dead]
  • badboysg 5mo ago
    [dead]
• mock-possum 5mo ago
  Corporal punishment is brutal, inhumane, uncivilized. Hurting children is a barbaric practice, and inevitably attracts the attention of a very particular kind of person.
• rayiner 5mo ago
  It’s a tragedy that scholars don’t study Singapore more to understand what it did right. When my dad was born in what was then Pakistan, Singapore (then part of Malaysia) was a poor country. Today it’s rich but the subcontinent is still poor. The best thing all these so-called “humanitarians” could do to improve the human condition would be to study Singapore to understand how that model can be translated to all the poor countries in Asia and Africa.
  • mark_l_watson 5mo ago
    I agree. I worked in Singapore for a short while and I was so very impressed by the people and the government. Singapore is a great place. It is breathtaking to see a government govern in the interests of its people. I live in the USA and we have two institutions, the democratic party and the republican party, that do little except cater to special interests.
    • kbbgl87 5mo ago
      I remember when I was younger there was a TV series showing the differences between how things are done in Singapore and my home country. The show showed how efficient, clean, organized, fair Singapore is. An example, how they prevent traffic jams by providing licenses to roads which forced people to find and organize ride shares. Fast forward to a few years ago, I had the privilege to fly there for a few days on vacation. I got into 2 taxis there. One of them explained how corrupt the country was by the banking industry and the other, more memorable one, was a guy in his 70s that still had to work long houes while his wife was on her death bed at home. He called her while I was in the taxi, I saw the conversation and burst out crying myself. I ended up tipping him 100 USD.
      • rayiner 5mo ago
        Singapore can undoubtedly be brutal to some. But it's surrounded by countries where that brutal existence is the norm for almost everyone. My dad tells stories like that about his village in Bangladesh. He has a hard time denying my kids treats when they ask. When he was a kid, one of his cousins had asked for his favorite meal and his parents told him they'd have it the next day. But he got a fever and died overnight. That's a common story in Bangladesh, and it used to be a common story in Singapore. But in my dad's lifetime, Singapore became richer than Europe, while Bangladesh is still mired in hopeless poverty. The poverty and dysfunction in Asian countries feels inescapable and permanent. My dad wanted to take my kids to see his village, but they overthrew the government last year so those plans are on hold indefinitely. I have no confidence that Bangladesh will ever be a place I want to take my kids. Singapore somehow managed to escape that trap. If it took a brutal, regimented society and economy to achieve that, then so be it.
• mg794613 5mo ago
  It doesn't matter which rules and policies you have in place, if teachers are afraid of some parents, or simply tired of some, they will neglect or look away from your child being abused. Which is a direct result of parents influence on the schools.
• eth0up 5mo ago
  As someone born substandard, who only became fully human as an adult, I was both the bully and the bullied as a youth. I've reflected on this throughout my years and see some virtue in this. Bullying can be extremely destructive to one's development, on either side. While I'm not 100% confident caning is the wisest option, personally I greatly value the experience of having my ass kicked for being a menace. It's probably not for everyone. For the thinking type, it's a solid shortcut to empathy and effective antidote to hostile ego. If it were up to me, there'd be an option for The Stick, or a brutal psychology session, at least initially. A bit idealistic though when the kinetic purity of the stick often just works. As adults, I think we tend to forget about the difficulties of childhood bullying, some parents being obvious exceptions. For many, the experience is profound and the impressions lifelong. I get confused here, because I want children to be tough, or prepared to defend themselves, which usually is more effective with experience. But with so many personality types, that cannot apply to all. There's also the eternal ghost of error and some children who did nothing wrong will inevitably be receiving the stick. That's a small but significant can of worms. For me this is yet more evidence of humanity's aversion to holistic consciousness. One can argue violence is intrinsic. I think it is but do not agree that its manifestations necessarily are; or rather, we have the potential to change the the output if we really try. Idealistic, yes. The stick is real. There's also the bizarre possibility that if humanity managed to develop an effective method of imparting empathy, respect, and consciousness to children, that it might break the present system. An awful lot of business wouldn't happen if both parties cared about each other.
• brnaftr361 5mo ago
  I think corporal punishment makes sense when it makes sense. If a kid runs out into the road without looking it makes sense to slap em upside the head, a much milder surrogate for getting hit by a car. I think it ceases to be a good form of punishment when it's repeatedly used. I built a resilience toward spanking. In one hand it meant that the threat of the punishment, and the punishment itself was ineffectual, and in the other to regain efficacy it would've required escalation—fortunately for me it began and ended at spanking. I think the issues are manifold, though. People willing to step outside the line and assault and or batter students are willing to break the rules for one reason or another. For instance the aforementioned resilience. The natural social dynamics one would reasonably expect to play out are fettered by the rules, irrespective of the nature of retaliation. Fighting in retaliation, bullying in retaliation, shunning, shaming and so forth—all beyond the pale. Teachers and admin are then deferred to, but the tools at their disposal are, from what I experienced and saw, pretty minimal. However they carry the unnatural burden of handling belligerents while maintaining professionality is a difficult tight rope to walk, and frankly ineffectual, but this is worsened when the students can be part of a protected class. At this point the school assumes legal liability for their treatment. With a chronic misbehavior you end up with a treatment-resistant student, and with that it saddles the parents almost exclusively with the governance of their children. This can have mixed outcomes, if you can imagine, spanning from extremely responsible to complete absenteeism. I think in an ideal situation the prevailing culture would be one where students self-police, within reason, as they're allotted the most freedom in interacting with one another, but we've largely wrested their hands in these contexts and bred a culture of bystanders in so doing. And I think that is seriously problematic and has had long-running consequences on the culture at large.
• ryzvonusef 5mo ago
  I grew up in Nairobi during the 90's, and corporal punishment was common. We had massive work loads (by grade 7, we had 13 subjects and like 50 books, and no locker system like in america so had to drag two bags everyday) and there was often some chance of us not being able to complete a certain piece of homework... so we got hit on the hands or the butt with a pipe. Not quite caning, but still very painful. Not sure how it helped, I just lived in constant stress of homework. But more importantly, the 'naughty' kids got immune to it. If you pipe everyone for minor infractions, then people just took it in stride. ____ Then we were posted in to Saudi in the early 00's, and I vividly remember an event. I was in an all boys high school by then (segregated because saudi, duh), and one day, just an hour or so before end of school, we were all ordered to assemble in the main ground. It was surprising since no event was planned, and the teachers were grim faced. Soon a van came into the forefront, and out came the police (both the normal uniformed police and the religious police, remember this was saudi like 3-ish kings back) and a few kids.... who were caned in front of us. Not much, 3-4 strikes each, and their backs were clothed, but it was whole dramatic production nonetheless, with a speech in arabic and everything. Turns out (explained by teachers after we came back to class) they were boys from our school who had loitered around the girls section, and upon the security guard's attempt to shoo them away, had bullied and hurt him badly. Now THAT put the fear of god in the kids, at least for awhile. It didn't mean there weren't kids smoking in the bathrooms or other teenage bullshit even after, but the reminder that you could be caned in front of the entire school did put a damper on the amount of mischief that kids committed for some time.... until of course the kids who saw the scene graduated and the memory was lost, I guess. ____ So, while there is some merit to public corporal punishment and the humiliation ritual... but even then, kids are stupid and will justify to themselves many things (hey I'm not going to the extent of going to the girls section, nah it's just me and the lads messing around with a fellow classmate, doesn't rise to the level of caning, does it?) And secondly, teachers will react by lower the bar further and further down until they go back to corporal punishment for everything (when all you have a hammer...) ____ One of the best way to control mischievous kids, imho, is to just kick them out. Sounds brutal, but when you have a collective environment like a school, you can't waste the time of the overwhelming majority of kids for the very few who just don't want to 'fit the system'. And yes, 'fitting the system' was a deliberate choice of words, because usually that terminology is used for kids who need guidance... but these aren't 'naughty' kids who just need a 'creative outlet', we are talking about bullies here; if you have reached highschool age and you still haven't grokked that you can't just hit fellow students just because you are miserable... then you need to spend time elsewhere and learn the costs of fitting in society. Maybe very [south]asian-coded of me, but our parents put a lot of time and expense in our educations (literally the only source of social uplift for us), and if we can't study because some other parent is lacking in raising their child.... that should not affect us, the education market is already very competitive and we can't risk falling behind. The question of course arises, what to do with the kids who have been kicked out? Can't let them roam around or the problem gets worse, nothing more dangerous than a teenager with no goals, they are walking loose cannons. Honestly... I don't know. Caning will work for a bit... but how long before the shock value passes? Some sort of juvie? That again just gets them into the crime pathway. Maybe some special school for them? But isn't that a juvie by another name?
• vondur 5mo ago
  I remember that Singapore caned an American teenager back in the 90's for vandalizing cars. It was a big event in the news at the time.
• VimEscapeArtist 5mo ago
  The comments here are fascinating. A generation of men who've never been in a physical confrontation in their lives are absolutely certain that physical consequences don't work. How would you know? A boy who bullies needs to learn that the world hits back. You can teach that with a cane at 13 or let him find out at 25 when he mouths off to the wrong person. One of these comes with a controlled environment and a school nurse on standby.
  • nekusar 5mo ago
    A pencil makes one hell of an improvised weapon.
    • aliasxneo 5mo ago
      "I once saw him kill 3 men in a bar.. with a pencil. With a fuckin' pencil."
  • mrguyorama 5mo ago
    Most bullies already know the world hits back, that's why they are acting out Beating a child who acts out because they get abuse from other people in their life is a reliable way to not at all improve things and merely reinforce their broken worldviews. If getting the shit beaten out of you by authorities was a reliable way to raise people, my parent's generation would have had zero crime and zero bullying, and the local "White trash" trailer parks would be pinnacles of human behavior. You know that's not how it works out, right? Being hit works on people who would respond to nonviolent punishment.
    • danhau 5mo ago
      > Most bullies already know the world hits back, that's why they are acting out Not in my experience. There definitely will be some problematic kids, but to the majority of school bullies, I don't think this applies. To recall two of my own experiences: As a boy I was being bullied by a group of kids. Some day I snapped at them and decided to resolve the matter there and then. I didn't care they outnumbered me. I didn't care if I'd win or lose. I genuinely was ready to fight to the death (lol). But it never came to that. Showing some teeth spooked them and they left me alone after that. I remember the dumbfounded look on their faces. So while it didn't come to violence, the threat of violence scared them off. On the other hand, when I was bullying a boy (I honestly don't know why), he eventually fought back. That really surprised me and I vividly remember how much respect he gained in my eyes for it. It was humbling. We became friends. The best thing that can happen to a bully is their victim standing up for themself. Like the person you responded to said: "A boy who bullies needs to learn that the world hits back." The exception to this is kids with sociopathic tendencies (for lack of a better term) - kids that double down on their behaviour despite being confronted with the consequences. How a kid will respond is, I think, more of a function of their personality than the punishment received. But what do I know?
• everdrive 5mo ago
  I've never seen a bullying program which acknowledged that there were multiple types of bullying with different causes: - Some Stephen King-styled cretin who is just big and dumb and wants to hurt people. - Kids vying for status in an unhealthy way and trying to cut people down. - That weird "smelling blood in the water" problem that happens when a group of people come across someone who is just _too_ weak and their biology just seems to rev them up. - A weird kid who is socially maladjusted and thinks they're being bullied, but actually it's just that no one likes them.
• aerodexis 5mo ago
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• goofy_lemur 5mo ago
  Singapore obviously shoulsnt be doing this. it is extrmeley evil to cane people. This should be solved by nonviolence.
• wetpaws 5mo ago
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• chrsw 5mo ago
  Hurt kids hurt kids.
• profsummergig 5mo ago
  Maybe, give them estrogen injections too.
• keernan 5mo ago
  I read the article as defining bullying as kids posing physical threats to others. Yet, the memory that immediately jumps into my mind is of a boy who always wore a jacket and a hat with ear muffs inside school who would hold his books to his chest as he ran to/from classes in between periods. Kids would always laugh at him and block his path or trip him or knock his books out of his hands. My sense is that this was widespread behavior, not limited to a small group. I also seem to recall a group of kids who were picked on all eating at the same table during lunch and always being subjected to taunting and being picked on verbally or having their books knocked off the table, etc. Sadly, I do not recall ever seeing anyone stand up for him or help him pick up his books. The memory makes me feel horribly ashamed because I have no recollection of ever helping.
• awesomeusername 5mo ago
  Have them make something difficult and time consuming to make, out of a flammable material, then as soon as it get's a pass from a supervisor they have to burn it.
• Joyfield 5mo ago
  What a "lovely" country.
• holografix 5mo ago
  What about girls? https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/11/us/michelle-carter-texting-suicide-case-sentence https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/11/us/michelle-carter-textin...
• SoylentGreenGPT 5mo ago
  I read “caring” not “caning” and clicked on the url with hope. Caring would be more effective than caning. But Singapore gonna Singapore.
• badboysg 5mo ago
  [dead]
• president_zippy 5mo ago
  This doesn't solve the harder problem: properly identifying bullying. Bullies don't usually bully other people in front of their authority figures. Most "anti-bullying" policies in the past 25 years have the unintended consequence of fostering a more clever species of bully called the "crybully". People who are skilled at being assholes and manipulating authority figures into treating them as the victims. In criminal law, increasing the odds of getting caught is statistically far more effective in decreasing the incidence of violent crime than increasing the punishment. Other than that, I'm not particularly interested in the moralizing from either side about corporal punishment. Some problem children need mentorship, some just need consequences; most of it depends on their home life. Kids from abusive homes need to be moved to a safer environment and treated with therapy. Kids who are neglected or enabled by their parents need to learn that the world doesn't revolve around them and other people don't have to put up with their crap.
  • cindyllm 5mo ago
    [dead]
• jpfromlondon 5mo ago
  Reading a lot of the comments here is pretty depressing, I thought things had improved since I was a boy. My school (posh, British) turned a blind eye to bullying and fighting, there wasn't a great deal but I distinctly remember walking past a teacher having recently been punched in the face, bleeding from my mouth, and him acknowledging that I looked in a state but doing nothing. Since I never turned away from a scrap I never really encountered bullying, now I have boys of my own and hope that when they're of school age they don't have to run the gauntlet as I did.
• VerifiedReports 5mo ago
  Why only for boys?
• cheese_van 5mo ago
  I certainly don't condone the experience I had in junior high school, although it seemed to work for our specific environment. As a child I went to a well funded Catholic school in Chicago. Fighting was discouraged by priests who would put the two kids in a boxing ring - we were made to use gloves (but I don't remember helmets). Both kids would have a priest in their corner, but really for their own amusement. Then they would ring the bell and the two combatants would have at it. What those who don't box don't know is that unless you are trained, boxing exhausts you almost immediately and the gloves very quickly become so heavy you can hardly lift them to punch. At the end of the first round, the priests would ask us if we wanted to continue, we would exhaustedly decline. My only introduction to the ring ended with my opponent becoming a best friend, and most bouts ended the same. Again, I'm not condoning this practice, and I'm not nostalgic about the period, but it seemed to have positive effects in a milieu that seems no longer to exist (I'm 73).