Corporal punishment in schools

Great Debates
81

I cringe every time I hear about the awful kids a friend of mine is teaching (he is a genuinely nice guy in a crappy school). But he won’t even talk one-on-one without the classroom door open, I doubt he’d be open to getting anywhere near children’s buttocks, even with an instrument.

Why do you suppose they specify same-sex peddlers? Because they don’t want anyone getting a hard on while hitting a 16-year-old. But what if someone invents a type of person who gets wet over people of the same sex?

82

Not a bad idea actually, some gang bangers beat up an old age pensioner for her shopping money and leave her bleeding in the gutter, then by all means Birch them at the end of their custodial sentence.

Someone rapes a woman and leaves her traumatised, possibly for life, Birch the rapist at the end of their custodial sentence.

Someone burglerizeing a house is caught in the act by the homeowners and beats the living shit out of them.
Birch them before they’re released from their custodial sentence.

It may or may not, act as a deterrent to future offenders, it may or may not, deter the offenders from carrying out more violent crimes in the future, but I’m betting that you wont get many complaints from the victims of violent crime and their families.

I think that your idea to punish traffic violations with C.P. is a trifle extreem myself, but
for certain types of offence (say sexual assault or violence against the person ) your idea does indeed have some merit.

83

You’re forgetting that a lot of people get plenty of physical (often sexual) abuse in prison.

84

So would it make you feel better to forestall the paddling until an official ruling (appeal) from the school board?

85

Your argument does not hold water. Bullying is beating up someone who can’t fight back. Pops from the Board of Education are a clear case of actions leading to consequences.

My high school had the Board. They also had a posted list of infractions that earned pops. If you didn’t want the pops, you didn’t screw up. Period.

86

When I was in school I was a terror. I got the cane twice, once for pulling down (a female!) teachers pants in public, the second for throwing a fellow student out of a window.

I got a dozen the first time and 20 the second time. Bloody hurt! But I really don’t think that the cane had any effect on my behaviour, I knew perfectly well what would happen…and did it any way.

A few years later, I mellowed and became a Prefect and later head boy. Part of my responsibilities were discipline, I could not inflict corporal punishment, but I could report to the House or Headmaster who would do so.

I was far far far more effective in curbing misbehaviour than the teachers, miscreant whio would shake off a caning would hate having me tell them, ok start rounds of the football field, I’ll tell you when to stop, in below freezing temps.

87

You were lucky !

When I was at school the teachers used to beat us to death with broken bottles and then dance around on our graves singing Hallelulah.

But you tell the kids of today about it and they just don’t believe you…

88

Tell us about when you took out that mailman on a mission for the Fighting 47th, Grandpa Simpson.

89

I don’t doubt that acts of aggressive violence towards children cause long term psychological problems. I’ve always doubted that corporal punishment in any form is necessarily psychologically damaging.

I’ve known too many people from my generation and especially from older generations who were spanked or whipped by their parents, and unless all of us from these generations have psychological problems I don’t know that I buy into it.

I do think the age of corporal punishment has “passed”, mostly because I think studies have shown other forms of punishment are more effective at correcting aberrant behavior. When I was growing up getting a whipping from mom (usually with a switch, aka a thin bush branch) wasn’t any big thing at all, it was mostly expected considering how much trouble we kids intentionally got in just for the fun of it. When we got caught, we took a whipping and got over it within a few minutes.

Now, kids get into trouble and their punishments are no longer physical but they sometimes last weeks (like being grounded to your room for 1 + week), it would have been unthinkable in my age to punish a child by making them stay in their bed room (except for school/other necessary things) for that length of time. “Grounding” didn’t exist back then, in pretty much every way it would have been a way worse punishment to me than getting whipped.

Part of it is also that I think kids were allowed to be a lot more independent a lot earlier, and were allowed to hurt themselves a lot more. For example I used to climb and fall down trees every day, I used to swing on grape vines in the forests and play in the creek with no shoes. I often got bruised, cut, bumped, etc. Given the rough and tumble way I lived, a whipping from mom just wasn’t a big deal. Being banished to my room for a week would have seemed hell to me back then.

I do think that anyone serious about having a reasonable discussion can differentiate between corporal punishment and a parent or adult lashing out in a violent, inappropriate manner.

As an example from my personal life, one Christmas my dad was drunk and open hand slapped me across the face for a very minor offense. It wasn’t a punishment, it was an angry, violent reaction. Even though on the whole of it my dad wasn’t a bad guy (but was definitely flawed), moments like that are etched into my mind forever. That incident “hurt” emotionally far more than the momentary sting of the physical pain. On the other hand, I can barely remember any specific incidents of being whipped for something I did wrong, because it just wasn’t a big enough deal to create distinct memories in my mind.