Corporal Punishment in School
Today I read an article about a woman who is suing her school over corporal punishment. Apparently she attended a high school that allowed and practiced corporal punishment. A few days after her 18th birthday she broke a school rule and was punished by paddling. She is suing because she believes she should have had the right to withdraw herself from school rather than receive the beating since she was 18 and legally an adult. So far she has lost her case, but she is now taking it to the Supreme Court.
I was shocked to hear that there are still schools who use corporal punishment. I thought that was something from the past, back when my grandmother was in school. But it turns out there are currently 21 states that allow corporal punishment. Those states include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.
Many school districts have parents sign a release giving their permission for corporal punishments, but most states where corporal punishment is legal do not require school districts to notify parents. If you live in one of the those 21 states the only way you can be sure your school doesn’t use corporal punishment is to scour their school policy or ask the administrator. Corporal punishment seems to be more prevalent in private schools where regulations are less stringent.
How do you feel about schools paddling your child? Do you think it’s effective punishment or abuse?
Most leading professional associations have come out in opposition to corporal punishment.
The American Psychology Association believes corporal punishment may do more harm than good. According to extensive research done by Dr. Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff, Ph.D., corporal punishment has many more negative associations compared to just one desirable association; immediate compliance. The negative associations include increased child aggression and antisocial behavior. Gershoff says corporal punishment does not teach children right from wrong. And although kids will behave while the adult is present, that same child may misbehave when the adults are not present.
The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry is also opposed to corporal punishment.
Corporal punishment signals to the child that a way to settle interpersonal conflicts is to use physical force and inflict pain. Such children may in turn resort to such behavior themselves. They may also fail to develop trusting, secure relationships with adults and fail to evolve the necessary skills to settle disputes or wield authority in less violent ways. Supervising adults who will fully humiliate children and punish by force and pain are often causing more harm than they prevent.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that corporal punishment in schools be abolished in all states by law and that alternative forms of student behavior management be used.
Effective discipline requires three essential components: 1) a positive, supportive, loving relationship between the parent(s) and child, 2) use of positive reinforcement strategies to increase desired behaviors, and 3) removing reinforcement or applying punishment to reduce or eliminate undesired behaviors. All components must be functioning well for discipline to be successful.
The AAP goes in to further detail on how to implement these three essential components on their policy page regarding corporal punishment.
Corporal punishment does not teach children why their behavior is wrong. It does not teach them alternative methods, such as compromising with a classmate rather than punching him. It does teach them to be sneaky so they don’t get caught. It does teach them to not trust teachers or principals. It does them to not respect teachers or principals.
While the child is being spanked or paddled he isn’t thinking about the behavior that got him there. Instead he’s thinking about the punishment. He’s thinking about the pain, how much he hates the person spanking him and what he can do so he doesn’t get caught next time. Not exactly the goal the spankee was trying to achieve with the punishment. Spanking doesn’t teach the child to be accountable. Instead it puts all the effort on the teacher. While the child is thinking of new ways to avoid getting caught the teacher needs to keep an eye on them so they can catch them.
Personally I would be furious if a teacher spanked or paddled my child. I don’t send my children to school to be abused. If the school has a disciplinary issue with my child then we need to discuss and brainstorm ideas to correct. I know schools are overcrowded and teachers are overworked, but surely they can come up with better forms of discipline to get kids to behave than beating them with a wooden paddle.
My jaw dropped in the 2nd paragraph. I am relieved to know that Iowa is not a state that allows corporal punishment. I can’t fathom what makes people think corporal punishment works better than talking to your children (or your students) and establishing boundaries. Wow…just wow.
I don’t have a problem with spanking the students. You said you thought it went out with your grandmother. Unless your grandmother is in her 30s, it didn’t go out with her. When I was in 3rd grade there was this 1 boy that popular then and on throughout high school (Prom King even). He got into mischief often (& was a bully to some) and got paddled often. His dad was a county judge, his mom a homemaker, was middle child with 5 siblings. That boy grew up to become States Attorney; he’s about 38 now.
There is no right or wrong, blanket answer to corporal punishment in schools. Different sized communitees, different religous beliefs, different social settings, differnet family makeups (widowed, divorced, homosexual, married, …..).
Kids are still being bullies in schools. Kids must learn to respect other adults. Kids must learn to follow directions/rules/laws. Kids must learn consequences to their actions/words.
I wish Illinois was on that list of states allowing corporal punishment. We’re surrounded by 3 states that are.
I hate when people say things like “Kids today have no respect! Thanks to child services, you can’t even spank a kid anymore, and now they’ve gone wild”. No, actually. What’s happened is, you (general you, of course) can’t beat your kids anymore and you don’t know how to parent any other way. Your failure as a parent is why your kids run wild, not the laws that protect them. Take a class. Read a book. Learn to do it the right way. There is simply no excuse for picking on someone so much smaller than you.
A public middle school I attended used the paddle. I distincly remember a male principal paddling my behind when I was around 12 years old. Can you imagine? That was back in the late 80s. My daughter is in middle school now, and if she was ever paddled I would be suing them so fast they wouldn’t know what hit them. I live in Florida, but as far as I know my daughter’s school doesn’t use corporal punishment. I better check the manual just to be sure though.
No, your failure as a parent is what led the child to misbehave. Therefor causing the corporal punishment. The punishment would not only tell the child not to do that anymore, but open your eyes about your parenting methods, and making sure your kid knows right from wrong. Even if your child did know right from wrong, people make mistakes. But if you made the mistake of taking something that didnt belong to you, even though you knew it was wrong, which method of punishment would stray you from doing it again? Five minutes in the “time-out chair” or inflicted pain?
I went to school in Florida in the early to mid 70’s. My school (elementary) used the paddle and I remember the rumors that circulated amongst us on how big,hard,lumpy etc…. the paddle was. I remember getting slapped on the behind with a yard stick in front of my class for not getting a math question correct. I don’t remember learning math any better but I do remember the humilation I felt. A sibling of mine who was in jr. high at the time received a paddling that was so hard he found it difficult to walk home. Because of that my mother made sure to let the principal know from there on out that any of her children were NEVER to be paddled again. School spanking should be abolished…….even if you choose spanking at home (which I do not) would you want someone else spanking your child?
ANyone who gets into bleeding heart histrionics about kids being spanked has never been at the teaching end of an unruly and wilfully bratty teen who thinks it’s fun to be disruptive. The pain and humilitation IS THE WHOLE IDEA – that’s the negative consequence of misbehavior Apparently, parents (in general) no longer provide any consequential discipline at home, so the school system suffers. My feeling is that every kid who decides to be disruptive or disobedient needs a sore ass from being paddled in front of their classmates. Bet you a year’s salary that they DONT become violent wife beaters and psychos, but end up more tractable and obedient to rules and order.
I opine that introducing corporal punishment in schools may stave off a new generation of spouse abusers or other social degenerates. However, there is always the danger of it being excessive as in my experience in the 1970s.
I am a 43 year old pharmacist and father of two who originally hails from Jamaica where virtually everyone has experienced corporal punishment in school as a rite of passage.
In Jamaica teachers at the elementary and primary levels were allowed to use the bamboo cane as a means of maintaining discipline in their classrooms. At the high school level only the principal might wield a cane to be used for the worst infractions only.
From age 7 to age 11 I received corporal punishment in school. Particularly memorable is my experience in Grade 5, after which I never received corporal punishment any more.
I entered Grade 5 in September of 1975. In Primary School we have one class-teacher for all subjects for the entire academic year. Mine was Ms Monica Lawson, then 34 years old, 5ft 8 ins tall and of medium/ average weight. She was a perfectionist who kept her cane of discipline dangling at the side of the blackboard.
As September of 1975 came to a close, Ms Lawson set some Math homework for the class one day, to be presented in class the following morning. Next day, it just so happened that I forgot the homework and Ms Lawson gave me five strokes on the palms of my hands.
Another day I had quite a slew of errors in a timed class essay and again got five strokes of the cane on my hands.
Thenceforth, I became a straight A student throughout the rest of my scholastic life.
The Christmas holidays of 1975 arrived and during the festive season I overate profusely and incessantly from morning to night. I gobbled up vast amounts of bread, ham, turkey, chicken, pudding and cakes on a round the clock basis so that by time school began again in January I was now obese.
One January afternoon Ms Lawson caught me shooting the breeze in class and dispensed four strokes of the cane across my shoulder and on my hands.
I continued overeating and by March of 1976 my belly grew very large so that it burst open my Khaki uniform shirts and stuck out two feet over my pants. There was a pretty girl named Charlene for whom I just went ga-ga with her long silky hair. One day Ms Lawson gave a Math test which was baffling Charlene completely. She snuggled up to me and whispered to me help her. I then took out a sliver of paper and wrote out the workings and answers to all the Math problems and slipped them to Charlene.
Then Ms Lawson caught sight of us and called us up. She then explained to the class the severity of our infraction and reached for her cane. She then flayed the cane across my belly leaving painful raised weals. She then turned to Charlene and caned her on the hands and legs.
At another point in time Ms Lawson called me up for misspelling the word “animosity” in an essay which I had submitted to her. I sucked in my belly all the way and was caned on my hands.
Some weeks later, Ms Lawson caught me eating in class. She ordered me to stand and reached for her cane. She dropped four strokes on the front of my belly leaving indelible black cane-scars (these cane scars disappeared over the years as my belly shrunk).
Ms Lawson did keep her class completely under control; all of her students became high achievers; we all were instilled with respect for our teachers; nobody was ever sent to the principal, and there were no school shootings.
Contrast that with the situation in any public school in the USA in this topical era.
Dear Winston,
I was so intrigued by your recollection of your classroom canings. They seem to be so vivid in your mind. That you attribute your success to them is a problem. I paid particular attention to the fact that you named the teacher who gave the canings as if you were giving her an award but I think that it would be detrimental to the teacher’s career once the adverse effects of corporal punishment comes to light, if the teacher was still in education, or she may have had a change of heart and mind.
Many people are successful with or without school canings. In the United States, many children are the product of schools that do not use corporal punishment and raised by parents who do likewise. I am also Jamaican and have strived to rid our culture of this plague of the whip. I’ve called it a double-edged sword as it has both the effect of “no adverse effect” as well as “serious and long-term damage.” I suspect you are in the first category although I still uphold my theory that feeling fine is no proof of being fine, nor is success the indicator of mental and emotional stability. There is far too much evidence of professionals and wealthy people who simply cover up their defeats. There are many whipped successful people and many whipped people in Jail. Good reading your story though.
Our family is committed to raising awareness and bringing about positive change for transparency, accountability and responsibility of Government Officials regarding the urgent need for Nationwide Uniform Standards that ensure Equal Access/Civil Rights of ALL Children in U.S. Schools. ALL children must have access to safe, healthy and supportive learning environments. The state legislatures of 29 states have abolished corporal punishment in schools. Ohio Governor Ted Strickland has proposed a school paddling ban tied to education funding, if approved, Ohio will be the 30th state to ban school paddling.
I am the mother of 3 school-aged children and our family resides in a paddling school district in Middle Tennessee. Two of our children attend middle school where paddling is administered routinely for minor infractions just outside of classrooms in the hallway. In our complacency, we never dreamed that Corporal (Physical) Punishment (Paddling with a wooden board) would be necessary for any of our 3 children at school, as they are intelligent, reasonable and well behaved. One year ago, I received a call from my 13 year old son’s middle school assistant principal informing me that she was about to administer a paddling to him for going outside with his class when he was told to stay in. We were only called at our son’s insistence, as all of our children have been taught from an early age that no one has the right to touch them, they can say no, get away and tell someone in order to protect them from sexual abuse. I informed her that we do not paddle our children and did not want them to. She insisted that he must still be “Punished” and we agreed upon an acceptable form of “Discipline” that did not involve physical punishment. We immediately wrote to Federal, State and Local Government Officals and Elected Representatives only to receive responses that tell us “By LAW, it is the responsibility of our Local School District Board of Education to adopt policies regarding the administration and operation of local schools. We have written to our local school district’s Board Members of several occasions and made a verbal/written presentation at their board meeting on April 14, 2008 during “Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Month” to demand they take action to prohibit corporal punishment of children in our county schools and to date, we have received NO RESPONSE.
Since the beginning of 2009 our 12 year old daughter has told of 2 paddling incidents that took place in the hallway just outside of her classroom and she told us the students names and the number of blows they received as she could overhear them. Teachers verbally threaten students with physical punishment and show them wooden paddles with holes drilled into them that they keep in their desk drawers. How is my child supposed to learn in an atmosphere filled with fear? Our family does not physically punish or hit our children and we do not feel that paddling is effective, it doesn’t make the child turn in missing work, improve grades or teach them appropriate behavior. In fact, the paddled child probably feels humiliated and resentful of the teacher who paddled him. I am very concerned about paddling taking place in schools because it is not regulated in any manner and it’s just plain wrong. We tell our children not to hit. Educators who hit students with weapons (wooden paddles) to deliberately inflict physical pain and suffering intended to punish them powerfully model physical assault/violence to schoolchildren as the acceptable way to solve problems. Schools and teachers who purchase weapons (wooden paddles) with tax payer funds and possess/use them are in direct conflict/violation of Zero Tolerance of Weapons in Schools Policies.
As members of Tennesseans for Nonviolent School Discipline, we worked on letters to editors of newspapers in paddling school districts in Middle Tennessee to inform citizens of the U.S. Department of Education, Office For Civil Rights paddling statistics as reported by schools in their community and what they can do to protect their children. The reported number of paddling incidents is staggering! Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a report titled “A Violent Education” on 8/20/08 with recommendations to Government Officials to Immediately Abolish Corporal Punishment (Paddling) in U.S. Schools. The report cites U.S. Department of Education, Office For Civil Rights statistics where schools reported disciplining over 223,190 students by hitting, spanking or similar means for such minor infractions as chewing gum or violating school dress codes.
Tragically, current news headlines regarding investigations taking place in the Chicago Public School System include HUNDREDS of incidents of child abuse reported in schools and a 9 year old boy in Decatur Co., GA suffered deep bruising at Potter Street Elementary School when the ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL PADDLED HIM 3 TIMES IN ONE DAY!
The cost to eliminate educators right to assault and batter schoolchildren is $0.
Our family is thankful to educators who refrain from physical punishment of schoolchildren. According to an important new report on physical punishment of children in the U.S., read the full report at http://www.phoenixchildrens.com/discipline, the majority of American adults are opposed to physical punishment by school personnel. The report has been endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the National Association of Regulatory Boards and others. There is a growing momentum among other countries to enact legal bans on all forms of physical punishment, bolstered by the fact that the practice has come to be regarded as a violation of international human rights law. There is little research evidence that physical punishment improves children’s behavior in the long term. In contrast, there is substantial research evidence that physical punishment puts children at risk for negative outcomes, including increased aggression, antisocial behavior, mental health problems, and physical injury. The clear connections between physical abuse and physical punishment that have been made in empirical research and in the child abuse statutes of several states suggest that reduction in parents’ use of physical punishment should be included as intergral parts of state and federal child abuse prevention efforts. For alternative discipline strategies, please visit http://www.stophitting.org.