A Catholic view on punishment in education

Abstract

The reasons why I have decided to write a thesis on a Catholic view on Punishment in Education are: firstly, that it is very much linked up with the most interesting and importand problem of suffering. Punishment is per se a purposely inflicted kind of suffering and more specifically corporal punishment is the infliction of bodily pain; secondly, this last kind of punishment is very much practised in British countries like England, Australia and New Zealand in both non-catholic and catholic schools, much to my surprise, as in the country where I come from (the Netherlands)corporal punishment in schools is forbidden by the code of civil Law. This has made me wonder what should be the right attitude to the problem both from the catholic and from the educational standpoint. My concern therefore is to deal with this topic from a sound educational viewpoint, integrated in orthodox Catholic Theology and Philosophy, and to find out, by means of a combined theological, philosophical and educational enquiry, what the place of punishment in general, and of corporal punishment in particular might be, and also whether there is a place for them at all, in Catholic Education. I shall therefore deal with the essence of the human personality which is the formal object of every system of Education. I shall make a philosophical as well as a theological examination of the human person and try to construct a definition of Education (chapter one) and of Catholic Education (chapter two), based on the nature of the human personality as it is seen from a naturally philosophical and a supernaturally theological standpoint.