Just this past week, a teacher in the town next door reacted to a Gym teacher sending some fifth graders running laps on a course that took them through where her first graders were doing their own activity by tripping the runners and kicking them.
That school district, according to my wife who works for LAUSD, has one of the lowest salary scales in the area. So they are obviously not hiring high quality people. So let’s introduce authorized corporal punishment, and the trade-off of the low salary will be permission to take out your frustrations and agressions on other people’s children.
This will especially play well in the inner cities, where enhanced security has failed to keep guns out of schools. Take a disgruntled kid who got slapped in front of the class in European History, and you’ve turned the schools into a literal war zone.
I’ve been an educator for over two decades, and I’ve met more than my share of teachers who could not even remotely be trusted with such power. And as is clear from incidents where teachers have taken such authority upon themselves, parents do not want essential strangers manhandling their kids.
The reintroduction of corporal punishment as a means of classroom management in this day and age is quite probably the most retarded shcool reform proposal I have ever heard of.
We had CP in public school in the 60s. I recall a broken hockey stick they used to spank us with in 7th and 8th grade. It was wrapped with blue cellophane tape to make it sting worse, and was called “The Bluebird of Happiness”. But I don’t recall this as being a scarring experience.
I don’t understand why kids are going to behave if they don’t mind getting yelled at or sent home, and know that’s the worst punishment. I think you’d have to have something worse lurking in the background to give the yelling meaning. And having to ladle stew doesn’t count - the kid refuses, and nothing worse happens?
From the local daycare, I hear about 4 year olds yelling “Fuck you, Bitch!” at elderly teachers in the hallway, and large 6 and 8 year old boys punching the women in their stomachs or kicking them. Well, it’s a daycare, so they can fix that by not letting the kid come back, but they’re not taking responsibility for the kid that way, just the workplace.
Somebody please explain to me, where are the logical consequences that kids are supposed to care about if they figure out yelling isn’t a warning, it’s the bottom of the bag of tricks.
Then why do you remember it so well, down to the blue cellophane tape intended to provide more physical pain? do you remember what you learned in class those years?
Obviously, beating is not a deterrent either. Because just hitting you with a stick was apparently not enough to get the message across. They needed to add stinging tape to it. What happens when the tape doesn’t sting anymore because the kids are desensitized to it? Do they push thumbtacks through the tape to make it sting even more? Where does THAT bullshit end?
Why, when a parent is so lax in their responsibilities that they’ve raised a little monster so uncivilized as to be yelling obscenities at the elderly, is it suddenly DAYCARE’s job to do what the parents refused to?
Please don’t equate corporal punishment with beating.
Why do we remember things so well? Well, some things make an impression. I will forever remember the teacher who told me, “Those glasses make you look almost smart,” who regularly made fun of my name, and otherwise was an ass. I remember that my principal in elementary school had the paddle and that he removed a very bad sliver from my finger with a knife and it didn’t hurt a bit. I remember getting shots while standing in a line in the main hall, and I remember getting in big trouble for kicking a boy. I remember the time I get hit by a baseball in my wrist while pitching, and that Jeff forgave me for getting him in trouble for bringing a hardball to school.
If a kid is getting desensitized enough to whacks that upping the ante to thumbtacks seems like the next step, I’m thinking that kid shouldn’t be in school.
QUOTE=amarinth]I’d be less against it, if I thought for one second that it would be applied fairly. But when there is corporal punishment, as a group, girls get hit less frequently and less severely than boys - for the same crime…
[/QUOTE]
Well girls are much more delicate than boys and their dignity/modesty is far more important to maintain :rolleyes: . My mom doesn’t remember ever seeing another girl get paddled in school. Apparently when she went to school if a girl got spanked it was by a female teacher or secretary and in private. Boys got spanked in front of other students (including girls) and by women. She doesn’t remember if boys had their pants pulled down in in public, but at home her brothers did (well not in public, but in mixed company).
And if said teachers break the rules then it should be even more justified to use CP on them since if they don’t like it they can quite (though to be fair lets make sure they know before they take the job).
I’ve noticed that (among males at least) when CP was used not getting it made one seem like a lesser man/boy then boys who did. Punishment which is neither very unpleasant or results in loosing face in the eyes of one’s peers isn’t punishment.
Exactly what companies have you worked for in the 20th or 21st centuries where the employees were beaten regularly? Do you beat your underlings? Show me the corporate discipline policy that states, “…failure to obey the directives of the company will result in a punch to the teeth…”
Hitting students isn’t training them for anything at all. It is merely a reflection of the desperate, frustrated, sadistic incompetence of the educators who resort to it. Always has been, always will be.
No, but lots of policies state “…failure to obey the directives of the company will result in dismissal…”. Getting fired doesn’t involve physical punishment, but can have rather severe repercussions in one’s life. The point of corporal punishment is to teach cause and effect; serious misbehaviour results in serious consequences. Some of the kids who know that they can get away with anything in school and at home are in for rather painful surprises (metaphorically, not physically) when they get to work and their mommies and daddies can’t “protect” them any more.
And a smack across the palm or backside is not a beating.
Well, okay. So you paddle the kid, the kid refuses and nothing worse happens? My point was that paddling isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a kid. Peer ridicule is. According to every single poster in this thread who was paddled, it wasn’t that bad. Put a 12 year old in a funny white hat and make him stand next to Mrs. Farkus and serve food to his classmates, and they’re going to make fun of him. This is the *real *punishment.
Paddling isn’t a logical consequence of anything except not dodging the paddle. Logical consequences are consequences which arise logically from your actions. Ideally, they arise *directly *from your actions, with no outside “punishment” needed. You don’t do your homework - you fail the class. Granted, this is only a real consequence if schools go back to common retention. Social promotion makes grades and homework meaningless. Sometimes, one does have to twist reality a bit an impose a consequence, but you still want there to be a logical connect with the crime: you mouth off in class to get attention and take teaching time away from other students, then you “give back” that time in some manner - preferably in such a way that gaining their attention is a negative thing, instead of a positive reinforcement.
The key in parenting (which this is an element of, even if it’s happening at school) is indeed saving The Really Bad for when the smaller ammunition doesn’t cut it. The Worst Thing does vary from child to child, and so some discretion needs to remain with the teacher (for example, when I was a child, when I misbehaved, I wasn’t allowed to read for a certain amount of time. This was utter torture and a true deterrent for me, where for some kids it would be a reward!). I despise zero tolerance and other forms of automatic punishments, because I think you need to be creative to make things more effective. I just don’t agree that corporal punishment is The Worst Thing that could happen to most, or even many, kids.
And please note that I have said in other threads and still believe that corporal punishment isn’t anathema. I don’t think it’s this big bad soul crushing boogeyman that some people do. I just don’t think it’s very effective.
And this is enough to teach adults to think twice about their actions. But somehow, the people who we are training to be adults are incapable of absorbing this message through any other method than physical aggression? I don’t follow.
Tell me that the next time your boss brings a three-hole punch down on your hand when you don’t perform up to expectations, after he’s removed the rubber bottom so the metal edge will make it sting more so you really get the point.
Only half of the states have actually banned it. I suspect there’s alot of schools (like my alma mater) where it exists on paper, but is never actually used or threated.
Nay. My brother got whacks all the time in school beginning in the first grade. Turns out he’s a psychopath now. Not that the “punishment” did it, but it’s more than likely the illness resulted in the “punishment.” And you can’t beat psychosis out of a psychotic any more than you can beat siezures out of an epileptic (Bud Abbott notwithstanding)
In 1st grade my son was headed down the same road as my brother. Rather than label him & put him on a long term punishment plan, the school worked with us to figure out what was going on. Turns out the kid is sick the same way my brother is/was. Got the kid some meds and now in 2nd grade he’s revered by the school administration and his peers, and is encouraged to work with the other “disruptive” kids when they get worked into a lather because he can reach them. My brother today is a waste of skin and a danger to society, and my son is not on that path anymore. Yeah, sounds like he needed the good old fashioned ass-whuppin’ prescribed by my mom and others in the neighborhood.
If our wildly successful penal system is any indicator of the effectiveness with which we as a society deal with bad behavior, I’d be willing to assert that 1) good kids do bad things sometimes and will self correct even without punishment (I know I did) and 2) kids disposed to repeat bad behavior will do so in spite of punishment, even if the punishment involves a rope or a high-voltacge chair, so this kind of “punishment” really only serves to alow the administration to vent its frustration at failing to understand what really is motivating the kid. They’re supposed to be the children experts, they should know better. Too often, however, they subscribe to medieval psychology.
I went to a private school for K and 1st grade where CP was practiced. I was sent to the principal for some infraction (I think it was talking in class during ‘do your work time’, not my fault I was done already and bored). His style was to adminster a few whacks and ask why you were there, if you didn’t answer or mouthed off it was a few more. Under that type of pressure I basically shut down and therefore couldn’t respond to him. Not that I didn’t want to, I was physically incapable of responding.
The following day I was bruised from my lower back to nearly my knees. I didn’t go back the next year. All this to say, I am against CP administered by school officials.
I got paddled more than half the days of my third grade year. This was the seventies, in a private Christian school. My offense was that I rarely remembered to have my mother sign my homework assignment. I’d do the work, but if Mom didn’t sign it, down to the principal’s office I went. Early in the year, it was a couple of licks, then back to class. As the year progressed, I got more licks, and the principal would pray with me before she sent me back. I remember at one point, a whole group of people came in to witness my paddling and then they all prayed together. That seems so strange to me now, and it obviously didn’t work or I wouldn’t have had to go so often.
The paddlings weren’t very painful, but I really hated waiting in the office to receive them. I’d sit there with my stomach tying itself in knots of dread, imagining that the secretaries were casting me looks of reproach. Oh the shame! Why didn’t I ever remember to get my homework signed? Beats me. I don’t even know if Mom knew I was getting paddled.
So to sum up: Not too terrible, and not at all effective. Theoretically, I’m willing to hit my own children…but I can usually think of much better ways to punish and/or help them. I’m not going to let anyone else hit them.
Anyone who’s ever met my daughter’s vile, wretched hag of an assistant principal could never wonder about this.
In my experience, there are three kinds of people who go into education.
People who genuinely like and are excited about educating children.
People who can’t think of anything better to do and like the sound of "summer vacation.
People whose personal power is so weak it can only be exercised on a captive audience of minors, and/or who enjoy inflicting revenge by proxy on the “types” who made *their * school years miserable.
There are far too many of type 3 for me to ever consider authorizing these people to hit my kid.
No, it’s to gratify the sadism and/or ego of the person inflicting the punishment. Otherwise, we’d use it on adults - but we don’t, because adults are big and strong enough to return the favor, and the law treats adults better. As well, all the studies I’ve heard of show that physical punishment at best produces short term obedience, but long term disobedience and increased aggression.
And if the parent returns the favor by waylaying the teacher and beating him up ? Logically we should give the parent a pass on that if we allow corporal punishment in schools; fair’s fair. Or if the kids old enough have him given lessons in unarmed combat and tell him to hurt the teacher back.
I also remember the hot dogs were very good there, all steamy and the bread real soft. But I don’t actually remember whether I got paddled myself or not.
>Originally Posted by Napier …So let’s introduce authorized corporal punishment, and the trade-off of the low salary will be permission to take out your frustrations and agressions on other people’s children…
What?! I never said that!
>Why, when a parent is so lax in their responsibilities that they’ve raised a little monster so uncivilized as to be yelling obscenities at the elderly, is it suddenly DAYCARE’s job to do what the parents refused to?
It is the daycare’s job because the kid is standing in the daycare’s hallway yelling at the daycare’s employee, perhaps disrupting or frightening the daycare’s other clients, and the parent might take several hours to reach. Why in the world wouldn’t it be the daycare’s job?
You are suggesting, if I read you correctly, that the sole reason the 4-year-old child is standing in the daycare shouting “fuck you bitch” to the elderly teachers is that the teachers are not allowed to beat some sense into him?
Abysmally shitty parenting over the prior four years of the child’s life doesn’t enter into it at all? Daycare has to make up for this dereliction of duty on a daily basis?
Certainly, in the moment, something must be done to stop the behavior and make its unacceptability clear, but if, as an educator, you were to see nothing of the continuum of options that exists between “doing nothing” and “smacking the little shit”, then we’re right back to desperate, sadistic incompetence, as stated earlier.
I don’t even know if Mom knew I was getting paddled.