Last week, I read about a tragic case of a 9-year-old girl who lost her life due to a spelling mistake. Yes, this might sound shocking. But the news article described an incident that took place in an Arab country, where a teacher committed the heinous crime of hitting one of his students on the head with a wooden stick, after the latter failed to properly spell a word. The girl suffered from a brain hemorrhage and skull fracture, ultimately leading to her death. Just a few days ago we celebrated International Teacher’s Day. This is a day that deserves to be celebrated and honored because teachers are some of the most important people in our society. They are not simply those in charge of bestowing academic knowledge upon our children; they are educators and role models first and foremost. A good teacher is a role model for students. He may change a student’s life by simply listening to them or being there for them. He may help a child build up their character and resilience. Needless to say, the teacher who beat his student due to a spelling mistake is an abomination to the teaching profession and to teachers around the world. Most teachers around the world possess the qualities of patience and empathy. They can motivate and empower their students, even when they make mistakes or experience failure. Indeed, there are many ways and various teaching methods to correct mistakes. All of them proved effective and virtually none of them consist of threats, reprimanding and, certainly, not physical violence. Using violence against children must disappear from our world. It has been shown, time and again, that violence has a strong adverse effect on children, their social and cognitive development and their overall well-being. In fact, studies show that even when children aren’t affected by physical violence but simply witness it as bystanders, they bear its negative effects. There is a good reason for which education officials strictly prevent the use of violence in classrooms. This doesn’t mean canceling the principles of reward and punishment, which are crucial for a child’s development. But it does mean finding and using alternatives to physical punishments that have been used in our education systems for decades and decades. Is a spelling mistake a “crime” worthy of physical punishment? Is it worthy of a child’s death? Is this the education system we want to build?! –Youssef Al-Qublan (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)