What a Movie Teaches Teachers: Kuttram Kadithal and Corporal Punishment

Ordinary and Realistic – Two attributes of Kuttram Kadithal that set it apart from recent films that addresses important educational issues, and I am not discounting Dhoni and Taare Zameen Par. In Kuttram Kadithal, a teacher casually slaps a Grade 5 student for misbehaving and acting cocky. The student falls down unconscious and is rushed to a hospital. The movie details what happens in the next 24 hours. Mind you, corporal punishment has been explicitly made illegal by the Right to Education Act.

The sheer ordinariness of Kuttram Kadithal

In the genre of realistic cinema that shows routine ordinariness of life, Kuttram Kadithal establishes early on that this is just another day in the life of the teacher, except for a few minor things. She has trouble getting her husband out of bed and ready for work. She was married only three days ago, and it is her first day back at school. A teacher skips the last period to go to a movie with her husband and asks the protagonist to substitute for her, commenting wryly on the high spirits of the class without denigrading them. Even the moralizing speech, an essential ingredient in Indian movies, is confined to a couple of minutes in the end when the teacher ‘fesses up and declares that while her action may not have precipitated the crisis, she did not treat the student with love and dignity, as she would her own child.

The student at the centre of the storm in Kuttram Kadidhal is perfectly ordinary with no features that would make him an instantly sympathetic character or a teacher’s pet. He is not brilliant at cricket or painting but is endearingly mischievous and the apple of his poor mother’s eye. He has an eye for girls but is not cute or handsome. He kisses a birthday girl on her cheek and then cheeks the teacher when she calls on him to apologize, both developmentally recognizable behaviours in a Std. 5 student. In this flow of naturalness, it seems to be the natural reaction of the teacher to give the boy a quick, hard slap. The resulting series of actions seem to flow along with the natural order of things, contrasting sharply with the intensity of emotions.

However, education has not enjoyed naturalism in movies till very recently. Schools and teachers have usually been demonized for the most part as caricatures with glasses and a tight bun or stereotypes who ineffectively yell at students. Even in a movie as well made as Taare Zameen Par, watching the scene in the staffroom without subtitles, my students in the US were able to pick out the stereotype each teacher represented.

Kuttram Kadithal is not without its moments of melodrama: The teacher’s inter-religious marriage establishes her open-mindedness but she fiercely washes away the bindi in an emotional outburst. The principal’s personal loss of a daughter in an accident gives him moral authority in his claim that he would do the best for the student. At the meeting with the shocked mother, the teacher wails uncontrollably, and then keels over dramatically. (No, she doesn’t die to give the student life; she merely faints from emotional exhaustion).

Realistic response to corporal punishment

However, the central educational question of corporal punishment in schools is not made dramatic but is dealt with matter-of-factly and in a low key. The movie raises practically all relevant questions: What are the courses of action available to a school when a teacher uses corporal punishment on a student? What should be done when a student is hurt? What effect does administering corporal punishment, especially if it precipitates a crisis, have on the teacher and on the student audience? What kind and level of support can the teacher, students and parents expect from the school in such a crisis? What responsibility do teachers have to their students in the name of discipline?

Many of the procedural suggestions offered as the action unfolds are probably in place in most schools.

• ·       Have a connection with a hospital and doctor close by for emergencies.
• ·       Take the child to the hospital immediately with a teacher in attendance.
• ·       Inform the parents.
• ·       Have one spokesperson who represents the school, and has the authority to make decisions. In the case of minor accidents, it may be a teacher. In a full-blown crisis, it should be the principal.
• ·       Do not talk to the media.

It is in the matter of how the procedures should be conducted taking into consideration the emotional aspects of the event that schools usually fail to measure up.

Most schools tend to avoid admitting to an error to avoid legal culpability and also perhaps because they wish to be seen as infallible. So the standard response is to meet the parents as minimally as necessary and refuse to take responsibility of any kind. On the other hand, most parents trust schools and are often looking for help while dealing with their grief. Working as partners to resolve the crisis and get the best medical help possible for the student will avoid further exacerbation of relations. The first step is for the school authority, be it the principal or the assistant to be available to answer questions and be seen to take responsibility. As happens in the movie, it may be more politic for the teacher to keep away from the family at the initial moments of the crisis when tempers are running high and parents need to play the blame game. However, it is imperative for her to share in the grief of the family and acknowledge her role in the events. A simple act such as an apology, or the teacher’s heartfelt tears, often de-escalate tensions, and is necessary for the healing of both parents and teachers.

It is also essential for the school to be supportive of teachers. Teachers who may have caused a crisis do not do so with intent to harm. Nor does such an incident leave them emotionally unscarred. Very few teachers are sadists or masochists, who like to inflict pain on their students or on themselves (Students may, of course, disagree with this statement!). As in the movie, the principal should take charge efficiently, even pushing back quietly at the management’s order to suspend the teacher with immediate effect.

The only affective area the film does not portray is what to do about the effects on students who may have witnessed the incident. The question is thrown up when a student asks her mother, “Will he (the injured student) return to school tomorrow?” It is essential to reassure students who may be encountering peer mortality that normalcy will prevail. The trauma caused by witnessing such violence must be processed. Counselors should be made available to talk students through this. Teachers are the most familiar adult figures to students and often the persons they will reach out to in a crisis. A short and pertinent professional development session should train teachers to recognize signs of trauma in students, especially those teachers who teach the grade and section of the injured student and that of the siblings.

For making a movie on a ‘touchy’ issue that teachers can watch without apologizing for their profession, director Bramma deserves the national award for Best Tamil Film 2014. As Tamil cinema comes of age, perhaps corporal punishment in schools will die a natural death.