Should corporal punishment be banned in schools?

Are these homework questions? Maybe designed to get some inputs you are supposed to discuss for an essay?

No. It is because our teacher keeps punishing us with corporal punishment. I am sorry to make you think that it is a homework question, but I just wanted to know how much of you approves corporal punishment.

In our town parents can opt-out if they choose, it works well. I do believe in it for kids 12 and under.

Ah, I got paddled back in school and it was quite literally the only way I was going to behave so no. It works and I have no problem with it.

Yes.

yes

Yes. Is your teacher hitting you, or threatening to hit you? There’s a difference.

I think so. I’ve never been a parent, but the idea of hitting a child seems absolutely horrible to me. I cringe just thinking about it.

Would you want some ignoramus with good ole fashioned values hitting your kid?

Should be banned, in general. Are there even schools where that still happens? Very much against it.

Beating children only demonstrated that those who are bigger or more powerful can inflict pain on those who are smaller and weaker. That is why beating bullies is ineffective and counterproductive.

@Dr_Lawrence back when my son was in eighth grade he got in trouble and was placed in ISS (In School Suspension). One of his assignments was to write an essay at the end of his time outlining what he had learned from his three day punishment.

He wrote that very thing; that he had learned that if you are big enough or powerful enough you could make people do what you wanted them to whether or not they wanted to do it.

I was called in because they were going to suspend him for an additional three days because of this. The reason given was because that is not what he was supposed to have learned and they told me what it was that he should have written.

My response was that you asked, he told. He is not in the wrong here. You cannot punish him because you disagree with him. That just proves him correct. Perhaps you should look at revising either your punishment or your assignments.

They were not happy with either of us but reinstated him without further punishment.

Corporal punishment teaches children that it’s ok to use threats, intimidation and violence to get your way. Is that really the lesson we want our children to learn?

Where are you from, @ahro0703?

Almost all here are speaking from the prospective of Western culture, which has largely prohibited corporal punishment in public schools.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies posted this on another thread (http://www.fluther.com/167868/do-you-think-cps-was-right-to-remove-this-toddler-and/#quip2878617). However, it bears repeating here, especially because of all the illustrations regarding corporal punishment in schools, and a great deal of the confusion regarding corporal punishment has to do with cultural norms. http://www.capc-coco.org/documents/CulturallyDiverseChildrearingPractices.PDF

Are there still countries where it isn’t banned?

I think spanking can work well in kids 2–5. Not beyond that though. I was spanked during those ages and I turned out fine.

I think in school, beyond that age, schools should have harsher punishments. Time-outs. Have special rooms that are small and completely deprived of most stimuli. Small, pitch black rooms with nothing but a chair in them and sound proof door. Confiscate their belongings before they are placed in there. Have the kid go through some good old fashioned sensory deprivation.

I honestly find that idea pretty scary and I think even the toughest kids will break down after 30 min.

I do not have the answer and I think it differs for each person but I know that whatever the infraction it is better that the punishment be immediate and proportionate.

To me it makes no sense to suspend someone for skipping school or to have detention at the end of the week or even the end of the day for something that happened in the morning.

There is no such thing as a behavior that can’t be stopped without resorting to corporal punishment. There is no such thing as a child that only learns from being hit. People who approve of spanking or other forms of physical punishment simply don’t know any better or can’t be bothered with the patience and understanding that goes into teaching children, let alone raising them.

From the American Academy of Pediatrics to any other reputable organizations involved with children, spanking has been over and over again demonstrated to be useless but potentially harmful. Forget anecdotal evidence (I was spanked and turned out fine, my kids were spanked and turned out fine, my brother was beaten regularly and is a model citizen, etc). Studies have shown that the risks of corporal punishment far outweigh any possible short term benefit. Spend five minutes looking into it and you’d be hard pressed to find credible support for spanking. Yes, children need boundaries and discipline. They do not need to be smacked, hit, paddled, spanked, or whatever you call it to make it sound better than it is: a large person hitting a small person to intentionally cause pain, fear, shame, and or embarassment. How is it OK to reprimand a child like that, when if your boss, husband, wife, sibling or any other adult corrected you in such a manner, you could have them arrested?

In regards to the original questions I obviously think corporal punishment at school is a horrible idea. Even if I thought it was acceptable at home, I would be livid if anyone else dared to lay so much as a finger on any of my kids. I would never even consider sending them to a school where they could be paddled or otherwise physically punished.

A teacher should be able to control his or her classroom without the use of the whip.

It all depends on the kid. Some kids will never get the lesson that corporal punishment offers. Others will get the lesson right off. That said, the parents should be the ones who mete out punishment at home, and the school should punish as they see fit as well.

The best option is to present a united front to the kid. It doesn’t always work out that way, but it would be nice if it did.

@snowberry but it does help. Backtimes ago, when I was in HS, there was a court case where a parent sued a school district for administering “licks” to their male child. It was a popular news item and an item of discussion in school. I asked my mother if she would sue the school if they spanked me. Her answer “No, I would probably hit you too figuring you had done something to deserve it.” Got my attention.

not that I was beaten as a child, far from it

It often does work. But not always. I never was a fan of the one-size-fits-all education system such as we have now.

I say yes. No one is going to smack my kids around but me!

When I was in high school, a male teacher paddled a student so hard that he broke the kid’s pelvis, and then kept paddling. The kid was in a wheelchair for the rest of the school year.

It is too bad that we can’t trust the teachers to be reasonable and intelligent, and able to give an elementary student a quick swat when they need it, but then you get these kind of lunatics, so it is just safer to ban corporal punishment altogether.

I do not agree with corporal punishment in schools, it was outlawed in NZ in 1987, although legislation against it did not come into existence until 1990.

Yes. Hitting is not education. It’s hitting.

I’m pretty sure in any Masters of Education or Early Childhood Development curriculum, there is not a class on “How to properly swat a child on the behind”.

I’m amazed this still happens.