Education - what sort of discipline works?

I've taught in Asia and here in South Africa. The problem with writing off corporal punishment is you basically empower the children to do anything. This may seem harmless enough, but the reality is that children don't know more than adults and shouldn't have more rights. They can't modulate their own behaviour, and lack self-discipline. Often it boils down to pupils being abusive to teachers, and teachers then having to bite their tongues etc. Given that the purpose of education is to educate, I've seen little of this happen in schools were there is no discipline. Also, the matric results speak for themselves. South Africa's results - especially distinctions - with white learners who are generally well disciplined tends to be good.

clipped from www.sowetan.co.za Different views on corporal punishment Findings show that blacks are against use of force on pupils Black people do not favour corporal punishment in schools, while their white counterparts would welcome it. This was revealed by a research conducted by Dr Mbithi wa Kivilu and Muchiri Wandai on the changes in attitudes towards methods of disciplining school pupils. The findings will be published in the Human Sciences Research Council Review this week. Corporal punishment has been banned in South African schools since 1996. Despite the ban, most teachers continue using corporal punishment because of a lack of alternative methods. The research was done over four years with an average of 4980 respondents. The respondents were South Africans aged 16 and above. The impact of corporal punishment on pupils includes the eliciting of negative emotions but little is known about the impact of the other methods in promoting desirable change in behaviour.