I think D_Odds is absolutely right that there is no “silver bullet” here. No one solution will solve all problems. However, it seems to me that allowing corporal punishment will cause more problems than it solves, and thus should be avoided at all costs.
There… that’s it from me for a while, promise.
Please read the entire article cited in the OP, if you haven’t already done so. The availability of CP remedies led to a loss of class discipline, an $80,000 settlement of a spurious claim, and helped drive this intelligent, committed person out of teaching in the Wahington DC school system. This is a heavy cost, especially since there’s no showing that there was ever a CP problem in the first place.
I don’t know. My goal isn’t to encourage corporal punishment. I want to discourage false accusations. Tying CP into physical evidence is a way of doing that.
I lived through huge increases in school spending, even after adjustment for inflation, etc. Here’s one cite
Here’s another
So, schools are spending five times what they did when I was in school in 1950, and the results are worse!
D_odds:
You make it simple and easy. You get honors in your current track, and you’ve earned the privilege to move up if you wish. If you do, you get special access to tutors and lots of help to make the transition.
You fail out of one track and you move to the next.
If the parents want the kids in a higher track they need to help them make the grades.
Standardized testing would also help with the problem.
You want to move up a track? Study during the summer, and take a standardized test that allows you to advance.
Upward motion should be encouraged, but, if you don’t hold the GPA you need you drop down. No buts about it.
Sounds like the problem is an inadequate definition of “corporal punishment”.
There’s nothing wrong with physically separating two kids who are fighting–what else are you gonna do, wait for the police to arrive and do it for you? (Just what we need, more police in schools.)
On the other hand, using physical pain/intimidation for the purpose of discipline is something entirely different. If the law or the powers-that-be can’t distinguish between the two, they need to be replaced.
I assume you mean the inavailability of CP in your first sentence there. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
That said, I read the article, and I don’t see direct proof that CP being available would have improved class discipline in that case. Do you have any? There is no evidence in the article that allowing corporal punishment would have improved the teacher’s classroom situation at all.
Also, the points you quoted in the article are not very representative of it as a whole. I don’t know why I’m surprised at this…
It seems to me that the teacher who wrote the article was inexperienced, a victim of poor training, and was not properly prepared for his classroom environment. He identifies the problem himself quite clearly:
This is a very common problem, and seriously needs to be changed. Teachers are ill-trained and ill-prepared by many districts. My wife experienced a similar problem in her first teaching assignment, being thrown into a special needs classroom in the middle of the year, full of kids who had had no steady teacher for several months. She was thrown at this situation with little warning and no direct training from the district or her peers. It was a nightmare which makes Klapowitz’s article seem like everyday business.
Another problem Klapowitz describes is an unsupportive principal:
And an resistant administration:
Now, I agree that the discipline model the administration in this case supported was weak, and needed a great deal of help. This (a lack of support from administration offcials, including principals) is also a somewhat common problem. My wife has run into it now and again throughout her career as a teacher. However, to assume that corporal punishment is the only answer (or the best answer) to this problem is simply an incorrect leap over logic into gut reaction.
Why not recommend that a better principal be hired (which Klapowitz thought would be an improvement)? Why not recommend that the administration train their teachers for the situations they will experience in class? Why not better prepare the teachers? Why not support different (non-corporal) discipline models? There are many that work… you’d be surprised what a good teacher using a consistent discipline model can accomplish.
Klapowitz does bring up a good point about parental support, which you also either missed or ignored:
How does your argument for corporal punishment fit into this? It seems that, for these kids who are already abused at home and act out at school because of this, CP would make the situation worse, not better.
Also bear in mind that the article you’re depending on is written by a first-year teacher…
There are many such horror stories told as teachers adjust to their new career. For an even better one, try Educating Esmé. The point here is that stories like this are far from uncommmon, but for every one like this there is an teacher of 20 years’ experience who has an established discipline model that works like a charm, with no corporal punishment needed (or wanted).
You suggested I read the article, december. I hope you can see now that I have already done so. May I suggest that you go back and read it yourself? Only this time, read the whole thing, not just the bits you like. There’s a lot more there than what you portrayed, and most of it does not support your argument.
I can’t believe you think this is an acceptable answer to my question about the limits of corporal punsihment. If the law allowed “moderate” corporal punishment, should the limitation of it be unknown? That is an unacceptable response.
Moreover, if you really feel this way, then your OP is disingenuous. You should be asking to re-define the standards of what is and is not considered “corporal punishment,” which I could support to a degree.
However, your suggestion in your second post was to “change the law to allow moderate corporal punishment.” You’re changing your argument mid-thread, december. “Moderate corporal punishment” is too much of a weasel-word to be allowed.
If you want to talk about changing the definition of corporal punishment to (a) decrease the spurious lawsuits and (b) increase school safety, then we might have something to discuss. Until then, I say that teachers should not be allowed to use corporal punishment, period.
Try a different tack, december, this one’s useless for your ends.
December, it seems to me that the thrust of the article’s complaint is poor oversight in bad schools. How is allowing teachers to hit kids (“but I used a pillowcase full of oranges- I didn’t think it would leave a mark!”) and letting children transfer out going to address that specific problem? It won’t- you’ll wind up with schools with only violent kids, and teachers who hit them, and administrators who don’t take adequate measures to stop it. Dubya’s education motto has been “leave no child behind”, but your modest proposal seems to be the opposite of that.
I meant the availabilty of CP remedies. The misuse of these remedies made a bad problem worse. Unfortunately, the remedies can be used to give power or money to a student who chooses to abuse them. This is an inevitable cost. The cost might be reduced by changing the remedies or the standards.
I regret the confusion. I don’t believe that the use of CP would have helped control the students. I do believe that a CP standard less liable to abuse could have avoided some of the problems. As you point out, there were many other serious problems in this situation that were unrelated. However, I was impressed with the comment.
Apparently this is a common problem in the Washington DC school system.
I’m sorry for the confusion. I do not mean to advocate the use of CP. I want to change the standards to make false accusations more difficult. Note the comment, “To define as ‘corporal punishment’ the mere physical separation of two combatants…” That’s too low a standard.
I agree with you that “CP would make the situation worse, not better.” My contention is that even if the CP remedies were made more restrictive, CP would not be used. I have seen no evidence that CP ever was used in the Washington DC school system.
Yes. I appreciate it.
Of course not. I’m saying that I don’t know just what the limit should be. Frankly, it’s academic (so to speak) as long as CP isn’t used anyhow.
As I see it, that’s the same thing.
OK. That’s what I want to talk about.
I’m a highschool sophmore. My school’s not really all that violent.
In most cases, I’d agree with you. However, I know of a case in which this would not be a good idea. At my school, the principal does not like the theatre department. They’ve slowly been taking away our priviledges. One of the students wrote a letter saying that he would “go over your heads to the schoolboard.” They said that this was “threatening” and suspended him. Only when his parents got involved and threatened to sue and stuff did they give in.
This is a rather idealistic idea. Even with the honors classes they have now, students like myself (wanting to learn) really aren’t getting what we need. For example, my English teacher is inept (my god, this woman thought that when women were the spoils of war, this meant that they ruined the men’s enjoyment of the fighting- and this is only one example). I could do a better job teaching that class. If you really want an honors track, you’d have to do better than you are with honors classes.
But surely that’s better than the fights they would have about parents claiming abuse if corporal punishment were brought back. The problem is that school administrators need to step up to the plate, rather than always trying to do what’s politically “safe”. It’s much easier to leave the bad kids in the regular classroom rather than putting them in reform school, because you don’t have to fight with the parents. Just dump all the responsibility on the overworked and underpaid teacher, and when the teacher inevitably fails to control the kid, you can blame them.
If it would not be considered abuse for the parent to do it why not allow it for the teachers. The teachers unfortunately end up doing as much if not more parenting than many parents by sheer number of hours available. If one of my sons told a teacher to “fuck off and die, you’re not may daddy so you cant make me do shit” I would go down there and hold him while the teacher slapped the shit out of him with my complete and full blessing. My POV on moderate is that it should only be used for special circumstances (use “moderation” so to speak) Belligerent defiance of legitamate authority would be the type of thing I would like to see CP for.
Or they see anything less than CP has little deterrent effect since they are punished more for smaller infractions at home.
I think corporal punishment is a bad idea for many reasons. There may be some short term benefits but in the long run, it will not bring about desired behaviors. I am not understanding how breaking up a fight would be classified as corporal punishment. It seems to me the only proper labels for this kind of act would be - assault, excessive force, or reasonable restraint. Corporal punishment in my mind is administered with the guilty student, a witness and the “punisher”. Something seems wrong with this story.
I am very reluctant and unwilling to break up fighting students for several reasons. In the past, I have experienced some minor injuries from getting in the middle of a fight. I have never had any sort of training with how this should be done in a school setting. I have been in the military and we practiced some hand to hand combat stuff but these are kids and that changes everything. Even though I have only had minor injuries, I can see that there is the potential for serious injury.
I think tracking is good for students that are in the upper groups. Students in the lower groups will be surrounded by below average performances and low expectations. Kids that don’t learn or perform will eventually place great demands on society. The most cost efficient and humane strategy must be to meet the needs of these students while they are minors.
One: Does your “beat the kids into line” approch apply only or in D.C. or is it a universal restorative? If you wish, add badly structured to my list.
Two: The logic behind this escapes me–how is education improved by (real cases) restricting the ability to collect money damages from the pedophile music teacher and the peeping tom gym coach and the school administrators who knowingly facilitate them?
Three: The schools you and I attended 40 and 50 years ago were not compelled to deal with the disruptive, disturbed and disabled students that today’s school is required (and properly so) to accept and educate. Remember, in our salad days those kids stayed at home, often enough in the attic, or were sent to church supported orphanages where the staff endeavored to drive out the demons with a liberal dose of Jesus.
Four: Your solution is simplistic and self absorbed and short sighted.
Scylla, I don’t know how long it’s been since you were in school, but “Tracking” is far, far, FAR from a new idea. It’s been SOP for decades. In my HS it was Honors, College Prep, Standard, etc.
Some people still support it, but it is far from being a panacea. Among the problems are that kids tend to act the way you expect them to act. Tell a kid that he’s “remedial” (or “special”) and he might take it as a challenge … if he had a lot of motivation, or supportive parents. Then again, he might not have been in remedial to begin with if he had those things. Moreover, teachers teach differently; studies have shown that teachers teach and evaluate students differently depending on what the teacher expects the students to be.
Another issue is that kid’s intellects are not static. Kids who may be strictly average in grade 3 may, with cultivation, be superior students by High School. If you are focussing your time and effort at the highest performers, you are, again, making a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Most importantly, it begs the question of what kind of behavior we are encouraging in the schools (which of course gets to asking what schools are for anyway).
Is the goal to produce good test takers? Are smarter kids defined as those who do well on tests? Leaving out the possible cultural bias issues, there are simply different kinds of learners. Does anyone really think that multiple-choice questions are the best measure of intellectual ability? Doesn’t creativity count? I’ll dispense with the “Einstein failed math” canard, but the point holds. Not all kids fit into the scholastic mold.
What about the model student, who is well behaved in every way; but is dumb as a box of rocks and can’t keep up with the honors kids … so gets called “standard” and he gets less attention. Why?
I’m not saying that there aren’t benefits to tracking … but there are at least as many drawbacks.
Ok, I know Arkansas allows CP in schools. In fact, IIRC, it paddles more kids per capita (and maybe in total) than any other state. What’s the rate of violence in schools in Arkansas compared to the rate of violence in schools in a similar state that does not allow school CP?
Thanks for this misrepresentation of what I wrote. It illustrates the appeal of good-hearted positions, even when they are actually harming the children.
Several reasons:
– litigation is not the only way to control this problem
– other ways of control are better, particularly good management by the Principal
– laws permitting suits against the guilty also permit suits against the innocent
– all these suits are expensive to the school and take up top level time and attention
– some students, families and lawyers take advantage of the tort remedy to falsely claim abuse, thereby getting financial rewards.
– the danger of a false abuse claim or one arising from a misunderstanding makes it more difficult for a teach to control the class
– the risk of abuse claims makes it more difficult for a Principal to do her job. She’s less free to focus on learning. Instead she has to spend time and energy planning how to avoid false abuse claims
– students can intentionally use the threat of abuse claims to undermine the teacher’s authority, which harms the entire class’s education.
We didn’t have any attics in our small Bronx apartments. I know of no student in my neighborhood who didn’t attend elementary school.
High school is a different story. Lots of students did drop out of school. I wonder if that wasn’t better for everybody, but that’s another debated.
Cite for the bolded section (bolding mine)?
Fair request, gex gex. I do not have statistics. Here’s a bit of polemic I found, but I cannot vouch for it.
From my time in amusement park security I can understand some of your reluctance to physically intervene. Especially at HS level. The reasoning behind quick suppression of any situation like this is because they often expand and escalate. Guy A jumps guy B, Guy B’s buddy hops in, 2 of guy A’s buddies move in to keep A from getting splattered. Pretty soon you have 5-10 people on a side and a totally uncontrollable situation. Hopefully none of them have weapons.
I have lots of practical experience breaking up group fights and short of a couple brusies and stiff next mornings I have not been injured. Feel free to email me if you would like to discuss the matter further.
If its k-8, the kids dont have the kind of passion and power needed to do much serious damage to each other. You should be able to put two 8-10 y/o’s on the ground alone without anyone being hurt.
You would be surprised at how difficult it is to separate two 8-10 year olds. I teach special education (with the magical IEP’s 
) in a school district in southern Illinois that attracts a large number of poor people. 75% of our kids are on free/reduced lunch. Some of these young kids have a lot of rage built up due to their living conditions, the fact that they are moving around each time the bill collectors find them and the fact that mom marries once each year. (One first grade student, when I asked him why they moved so much, replied with, “My mom gets married a lot.” In his 6 month stay she did indeed get married and divorced.)
CP, however is not the answer. Many of these kids get beaten on a regular basis at home. I think we need to start with the parents. We need to get them past the attitude that My Little Jimmy Is An Angel and Would Never Do That! When I was little, if I got into trouble at school, I got in trouble at home. That attitude is long gone. But I don’t have any answers. Every time I think we have something that would work, it seems to fail.
Gaah! Preview Preview Preveiw!!! Winking smiley does not belong at the end of that post!