What do you think about corporal punishment at school?
Asked by
JLeslie (
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September 14th, 2009
I was shocked to learn that corporal punishment is still alive and well in some schools. I cannot imagine giving a teacher the right to hit my child.
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39 Answers
I think teachers who hit kids ought to be beaten up, yes.
It’s a fundamental infringement on human rights, not to mention the rights of a child.
I find it bizarre that it is against the law to strike an adult in most countries, against the law in most of the west to strike someone as part of a judicial sentence, but perfectly valid for a teacher or parent to strike a child.
So in many countries criminals can’t be hit, but children can be. Fascinating.
Interesting differences even within Europe of what is and what is not permitted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Corporal_punishment_in_Europe.svg
Happily I live in the “green” zone.
Still? I know in the school district I went through, it stopped in 1984, which wasn’t before I got the taped-together yardsticks smacked on my bottom. It’s not right to hit children. Not only does it hurt and humiliate them, it teaches them that it’s OK for an adult or someone bigger to hit people who are smaller and weaker.
Oh no… Not this topic again…
Hitting children has no place in school (or much of anywhere). It’s so primitive… It shows low intelligence in a place that should thrive on smart alternatives, not caveman mentality.
Well round here a teacher wouldn’t dream of hitting a pupil (mainly because all the pupils are heavily armed and are busy shooting and stabbing each other).
As @Lightlyseared refers to in an oblique manner, I don’t think students should hit teachers either.
Down here if a teacher hits a student CPS gets involved, but if a student hits a teacher, the cops are called.
However, in Texas we do allow and encourage American football, which is very close to hurting children in my estimation. Behave or I will make you play football!
We still use it in my little school….and parents are very “for it”. I think it depends on the culture, since here in rural America we are often told to “pick a switch” as a child…heeehee. Parents have to sign a waiver to allow it, though. But it is an interesting debate.
In Germany the reverse is happening. I think kids who hit teachers ought to be punished. The law should be applied and a teacher might have to act in self defense.
There’s a long standing story (which I tend to believe, knowing the folks invovled) about my high school in the 80’s—run by brothers (monks, who go out into the world)—two students were having a bit of a scuffle in the school yard, the brother who was supervising, grabbed them, put them in boxing gloves in the gym and let them duke it out.
The student who won, while gloating, got socked by the teacher.
This was told as the moral: With physical violence, no one wins. (Or, alternatively, with physical violence, Brother ____ wins.)
It’s not how I think children should be disciplined. I don’t think it works, either. Not in the long run. It may get children to stop misbehaving overtly, but I sure it changes into passive resistance in many cases, and also leads to corporal punishment as a style of training in the future.
It is expedient, of course. That’s why teachers use it in states where it is legal. So much that occurs in education is due to expediency, and not based on pedagogical goals. But people like it, and life goes on.
@daloon I think it is more than expediency. The person I was speaking to yesterday about this just really thinks it is the way to go. Some seem to think it is the Christian thing to do, that it is almost necessary/required.
I first learned that this still goes about 6 months ago from the wife of a work colleague of my husband. I was SHOCKED that the school she taught in MS still does this. She is a high school teacher, and she was suprised when she moved to St. Louis that they did not utilize it. I asked her THREE TIMES, “in a public school? You taught in a PUBLIC school in MS? PUBLIC? I could not believe it, it seemed impossible to me. She said that detention was a great thing. Not really part of this discussion, but she went on to say that her students in the midwest weemed much more interested in learning. Better informed on issus and current events, and more willing to discuss a topic. She said at first she thought children were rude, because they answered with “yes,” instead of “yes ma’am,” which I thought was funny. And, she said that she quickly learned that if a boy doesn’t tuck his shirt in, it doesn’t mean he is a bad rowdy kid. I mean I was stunned at our conversation and her observations I found very interesting—what she inferred from certain behaviors. She did not hold onto her stereotypes at all with her students, in fact she seemed very pleased to let go of them. Just found it interesting. Both schools were in middle class neigborhoods.
But, the person I spoke to yesterday brought the topic back into my head, and I felt so dissappointed after our discussion I thought to ask fluther to try to see what more people thought who like and are willing to discuss issues.
@JLeslie Was this person citing religious beliefs to justify corporal punishment? Because if teachers are using a religious reason to justify corporal punishment in public schools, I have a problem with that.
It also surprises me how many people don’t have a problem with corporal punishment. I thought that more people knew better. There’s so much research out there that shows how ineffective it is. I guess it’s not trickling down to the grass roots.
@daloon Not him personally, but I have heard people use their religious beliefs as justification (even on shows like The View from Sherri and Elisabeth). I am assuming with this particular person, because of other things he said throughout the discussion. I could be incorrect in my assumption with him. He also made reference to his father having been a marine, and in so doing seemed to imply that he was from a strict household. But, I would never assume all marines are for corporal punishment.
My parents sent us to a private school for a little while, and gave permission for us to be paddled. I was paddled once, for forging my mother’s signature on a disciplinary note. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t cry much because I did the crime and I knew the punishment. So I wasn’t traumatized by it. Still, it didn’t deter me from similar forgeries in the future…
Still, I am opposed to corporal punishment in schools, because I don’t believe that fear should be used to motivate children to behave, or that painshould be used when they misbehave. I beleive in teaching by example, earned privileges, and natural or pre-established consequences.
@JLeslie I agree with you… no teacher is ever spanking my child (at least not with my permission!). I do think parents should be allowed to choose corporal punishment themselves, but I feel that it’s only to be used in very specific circumstances- far too important of a matter for anyone besides a parent to decide when it should happen
Sorry, not going to agree with it ever in a million years. :)
If parents want to corporally punish, nothing’s stopping them. But it should not be done in schools at all.
Schools are for learning. Leave it to the parents to do the disciplining. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen much these days.
To bring up my grade school again they used to spank kids. I think some parents complained, so they stopped.
The Christians that espouse corporal punishment are probably citing “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Many think this is from the Bible, but it isn’t precisely. However, the sentiment is expressed in various ways in the Old Testament. However, it isn’t in the New Testament, and it isn’t stated precisely the way it sounds.
In light of the New Testament, and in light of different translations, the Bible basically says that parents who care about their children should discipline them appropriately, more in line with “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6
@tinafaery that’s the exact reason there is still the issue….some parents don’t do their jobs. You can’t NOT discipline in school, the kids spend half their lives here…
@kikibirdjones
And there is discipline at schools. But corporal punishment is not the only form of discipline and some people simply don’t believe in using it, my parents for example. Schools shouldn’t be able to make such a personal decision like that.
My wife is a special ed teacher. She disciplines in regards to school interruption and social issues, but her credential gives her more knowledge in this area than other teachers. Your average math or history teacher has no right to discipline beyond sending the student to a dean, who then calls the parents. If parents don’t give a shit, schools will appraoch DCFS and like sources. There is procedure to deal with unruly kids. Hitting them is not the domain of the school. Or anyone, in my opinion.
When I was in high school, you could have a choice between detentions or whacks. Most kids would rather take the whack than spend an hour in detention after school. It doesn’t change my opinion of it as being a barbaric practice, but I have to wonder what most kids would choose today, given the same circumstances.
@IchtheosaurusRex
Interesting. My hypothesis is that kids who are corporally punished at home would be more likely to choose “whacks” though they still might not. People who aren’t corporally punished at home probably would just go with detention.
I guess testing that isn’t really going to happen… :P
I don’t think I agree with it but many older people I have spoken to about it are all for it even though they themselves got the cane when they were at school. This makes me wonder, if they feel it did them good in the long run is it such a bad thing?
My dad is one of these people. He was caned at school (in the 60’s) for graffiting a bookshelf in the library (he wrote “Saints for the cup” and as he was one of very few Southampton Football Club supporters in the whole school, it wasn’t hard for the teachers to find out who the culprit was. Doofus!) and he says that, although he didn’t enjoy being punished in this was, he is glad he was because he learnt to think of consequences and take responsibility for his actions. Of course I am biased but I can genuinly say that my dad is one of the most wonderful men I have ever met. He is respectful and kind to everyone he meets and, despite the odd caning, he says that he thoroughly enjoyed his school days and never looks back on it with bitterness. My brother and I were smacked as children (by our parents, not the schools) if we were badly behaved but it was a rare occasion because we knew what the consequences were (although my brother pushed the boundaries more than I did).
Anyway, I definately think that kids get away with far more nowadays than they did when my dad was at school and the worst thing is, they all know that there are no major consequences for their actions and so they continue because no ones going to stop them.
I believe that there definately needs to be stronger consequences for bad behaviour in schools but despite my dads (and other people who experienced corporal punishment in their school) opinion I don’t know whether this kind of physical punishment is the answer. Kids NEED boundaries but what thos boundaries shoud be, I don’t know.
I thought this was illegal in American public schools? I don’t agree with it at all, regardless.
@hungryhungryhortence So did I. I still can’t believe it. I guess since I grew up in states where it is illegal, I just assumed the whole country was the same.
Okay… In my opinion, corporal punishment should not be carried out in schools. From what I saw, it’s pretty useless. The procedure went like this:
- You put a cushion at the back of your pants
– During morning assembly, you go up in front of the school where the discipline master would wait with his cane
– You bend down
– You get hit with the cane
From what I understood, it was mostly just a noisy demonstration meant for public humiliation. Personally I don’t think it worked. At best it just made the student stop behaving in a way that would get him punished but probably just made him resent the system. At worst it would somehow make them “cool”.
Interestingly enough, it seemed to me that those who got punished in this way ended up getting a sort of martyr status. I know they didn’t really feel like criminals to me. That could be due to the fact that we found our school’s discipline system draconian (the discipline master walked around holding a huge cane, striking it against walls/floors to get attention).
@JLeslie Yea I thought so, I guess so because it seems too obvious to me that it should be illegal, I personally believe that spanking should be illegal in any form.
Funny everyone opposes teachers hitting kids but from listening to tells from my Mother (when this was the norm) the drop out rate was lower and children performed better in school. Now it seems to have gone the other way where may teachers are in fear of their lives.
My father got caned once when he was a boy. He was in a British school in South America, and there was no opportunity to put a cushion anywhere (unlike @Saturated_Brain ‘s scenario) because you had to go to the headmaster’s office and drop your pants and your underthings and be whacked on your bare buttocks with a bamboo cane that had a metal tip. After that you had to walk the quad for a specified period of time (in essence walk around and around the school yard instead of playing or sitting and eating lunch). I don’t know that it did him any good, but he certainly never forgot it. And he made sure it never happened again.
My son is bipolar and in Special Ed. No one has ever hit him at school because it gives him (in his mind) license to hit them, and he is larger than most of the teachers. However, they have had to restrain him at times.
@mponochie , you can’t assume that paddling had anything to do with the dropout rate. There’s a confounding variable or six in there. Decades ago, the U.S. population was smaller, as were class sizes. Schools were better funded and less ethnically diverse. And yeah, maybe there was paddling, but it was incidental.
@mponochie I am 40 and have never been to a school that had corporal punishment, and I doubt we had higher dropout rates. I think drop out has more to do with other factors in society and family. I bet that most of the ivy leagues are filled with students who would be shocked like me that corporal punishment still exists. That is a total prejudicial assumption on my part (because I am assuming the ivy leagues generally have more northeastern and west coast students where corporal punishment is illegal), but it would be interesting to know. Mostly what I really believe is that people who had the threat of being whacked probably think they behaved well because that threat existed, but I bet most children who had the threat of corporal punishment grow up to be good adults, and probably most kids that didn’t have that threat grow up to be good adults. There might be little difference, so why do you want to hit a child if there is little difference?
And people who only behave well when there is the threat of consequence, are probably more like to behave horribly when they perceive the threat is not there. I have scene children who grow up in very strict households go crazy stupid when they get out of the control of their parents. While, the children who do the right thing because of internal reasons act similarly to when they lived under the roof of their parents home. I want my kid to WANT to do the right thing.
@IchtheosaurusRex Also, my high school was 40% minorities. If you lived in NY or outside of DC you had plenty of diversity in school. But, maybe you are talking about more than 30 years ago.
@JLeslie , I graduated from high school in 1967. We were a very different country then. I knew some kids who had problems, but I did not see the kind of nihilistic apathy I’ve seen among teens today. Or maybe my memories of that time are better than the times actually were. Nevertheless, it’s absurd to think that paddling these kids would want to make them stay in school.
@IchtheosaurusRex I think things are different today. I agree. I think the breakdown of the American family, violence in poorer nighborhoods, low expectations, and a seeming loss of respect for our elders has had a negative affect.
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