Sir please beat me

Gyan Prakash is different from the average student.
He's really badly behaved but it isn't out of being obnoctious, it's out of being completely intense and highly strung. One minute he is absolutely despairing that he's not being picked when he has his hand up, the next he is absolutely pleading to go and drink water. He is absolutely desperate to impress me. He cannot stay in his seat even though you can see he is trying. In other words, if he was in the UK he would be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.

Today he was lying on the desk crying because I wouldn't let him go to the infirmary for a fever which he didn't have, so after a while I gave up and let him go.

He came back having quite obviously not been to the infirmary. I carried on with the class making it quite clear that I knew full well he hadn't been anywhere near.

Then about 5 minutes later, he stood up, came to the front and said, "Sir beat me."
I said "What?"
And he told me to beat him or take him to the principal because he was lying that he had been to the infirmary.

To start with, it's quite an incredible achievement for him to be owning up to misbehaving like that. But when I looked at him and told him that I didn't want to beat him, I just wanted him to understand what he had done and improve on it-- I understood from his reaction what was wrong with beating.

All other punishment he has ever known has been a quick beating to get him to stop, and no one has ever really asked him to try and do better. It's always-- "Do this or I'll hit you"
The kids are not taught to 'try to behave'. They are taught to 'try to avoid being beaten'. Big difference.