Corporal Punishment in School
To Spank or Not to Spank, that is the Question
Most child services organizations are very clear that they do not endorse nor prohibit spanking as a form of punishment, but there is no clear distinction on when to draw the line between punishment and beating. How many swats are too many? Can you spank a child with your hand but not a belt? Is a wooden spoon a punishment tool or a means to beat a child?
Licensed child care centers, in every state in the US, are not allowed to spank or paddle a child, but many school districts are. In fact, National Coalition To Abolish Corporal Punishment In Schools (NCACPS) states that 27 US states have already abolished corporal punishment, but that means the remaining states have no laws against it, and many school districts do still administer corporal punishment as a consequence/punishment for negative behavior.
Having two children myself, one who just graduated from high school and another just entering junior high school, I found I knew very little about our own school district's policy on corporal punishment. My daughter had never been in trouble severe enough to warrant it, but my son has already been threatened with what the school lovingly calls, "swats" twice this year alone.
So I decided to take my research away from the administrators and legislators and see what the children themselves had to say about corporal punishment. Interviewing six junior high school aged boy, three junior high school aged girls, five high school aged boys and five high school aged girls, I wanted to see what the children's perspective on 'swats' really was.
It seems that the boys and girls generally held opposing views about swats. Most of the boys would rather receive a paddling than to have to go to on campus suspension or detention. The girls usually preferred the detention over the paddling.
However, that's not what really amazed me. According to all of the students I spoke to at the high school level, they all held the same opinion: if you get on campus suspension or detention, your parents are contacted; if you get swats, they are not. These boys in particular preferred swats because they could avoid their parents finding out they were in trouble at school.
This shocked me. Basically, these boys were telling me that the school assistant principal could paddle them and the parents would never know it had happened.
This prompted me to look through the school districts handbook on discipline. I found the policy on corporal punishment and what all would constitute receiving corporal punishment, but nowhere did it say anything about required parental notification. This concerned me.
I'm not necessarily against corporal punishment, but I surely will never be an advocate for it. When a child is three years old, swatting his hand or a pat on her bottom might distract a child enough to stop a dangerous or disruptive action, but I truly do have to wonder just how effective spankings or swats are to a school-aged child.
I suppose that advocates for corporal punishment in schools and at home can argue that, much like our prison systems, the threat of the corporal punishment is supposed to be enough to keep the child from misbehaving, and that it's not actually the corporal punishment itself that deters. If that's the case, why have corporal punishment at all? Simply tell the child you will hit him, and that's good enough.
Personally, I feel that corporal punishment might be a solution occasionally, in certain circumstances, as mentioned above, but for a school-aged child, I just don't think it solves any problems, deters any behavior, or changes any actions to swat them after the fact.
Additionally, I believe that it is a parent's responsibility to punish a child. Granted, while at school, the school must have some ability to provide consequences to the child for negative behavior and breaking the rules, but I don't feel that punishment should ever be handed down without parental involvement. While school is a good place for our children to learn social interaction and behavior and I believe wholeheartedly that a school should teach to the whole child, and not just the intellectual part of him, I firmly believe that is the parent's responsibility to raise their child.
With the understanding that many parents are not responsible, and many parents don't take an active involvement in their child's life at school, I realize the school must have certain consequences, but is corporal punishment - a swat or two with a wooden paddle - really going to change anything and teach the child any type of valuable lesson to take with them in the future?
After all, I've worked since I was 15 years old, in fast food, retail sales, clerical and administrative and later in executive management - and there was not a single job I held where my boss was allowed to spank me with a paddle if I stepped out of line. I think that says a lot right there about whether or not schools, which are essentially the child's workplace, should be allowed to administer corporal punishment.
Published by Michy Lynn - Featured Contributor in Health & Wellness
Michy is an author & freelance writer, with a penchant for fiction, creative nonfiction and topics that pique her passion: alternative medicine, animals & pets, love & relationships, and her all-time favorit... View profile
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Corporal Punishment, Part 2
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- Parents should be raising their children, not schools.
- The workplace doesn't spank employees, so why does a school spank children?
- If corporal punishment were truly effective, no one would actually need swats anyway.
154 Comments
Post a Comment@Ms Isabella: "bibilical principals"?? And you're a teacher?? Maybe a "good" paddling would help you to use words properly? Repeat after me: PRINCIPLES.
Reply to Yvette 03/25/2008.
Yvette I cannot believe what I am reading. What you were subjected to was quite clearly perverted and should be subjected to charges of sexual battery at once. Any man especially a minister who does this is clearly a danger to young women and must be put down.
please consider it your duty to endangered fellow women to act firmly at whatever cost in this matter.
I was paddled three times in school. Second grade, fifth grade, and sixth grade. While I hated the paddlings at the time I see now they made me a more respectful, responsible person.
I didn't go to a high school that used corporal punishment, however, if I did than this is what I would do. I would choose paddling over detention or suspension and then I would beat the hell out of whoever tried to paddle me. Teenagers are too old to be paddled.
Kevin, the reason you had never heard of schools participating in corporal punishment is because NJ banned it in 1867, at which time I'm sure you werent around yet. haha. You should also know that since the ban of corporal punishment in most schools there has been a noticable increase in violence and insubordination among the youth of our country. They know they can't be touched and use it to their advantage. I think the reason no one likes corporal punishment is because when people hear that term they immediately think "abuse", but that's not fair. I got spanked by my father while growing up whenever I did something wrong and I learned from it. Americas youth has become arrogant in their own self-righteousness and I fear for my own future.
Very few things left an impression on me in high school than going to the vice principal's office for a paddling. I chose it over Saturday detention for tardies. Talk about an immediate and lasting attitude adjustment! I was never tardy again.
Corporal punishment as an alternative for adults actually does make sense. A speeding ticket costs about $500 or more when you figure in fines, insurance hikes, etc. I am 23 and don't have a lot of extra money. If I got another ticket and had the option, I probably would go ahead and take a paddling, assuming it was administerd in private by a female officer. It actually probably would have a more lasting impact.
I beleive in corporal punishment for adults, not children. I have been a college professor for many years and there is no doubt that most 20-somethings, male and female, would learn more from corporal punishment than the alternatives. So what if a spoiled 22 year gets a speeding or parking ticket and her parents pay the fine? She doesn't much care. If she knows, however, that she will have to report to city hall to be paddled on the bare buttocks by a police officer, it is an entirely different story.
It wasn't just getting paddled at school, or strapped at home a lot more often, but the daily reminder if corporal punishment:
"Muchacho que no escucha con las orejas va a oir con las nalgas."
"Los ojos son para observar, las orejas son para escuchar, la boca es para callarse, las nalgas son para aprender y las rodillas son para hacer penitencia."
"Boca que se habre sin permiso va a dormir boca abajo."
There were a dozen sayings like that.
I had to sign in, and had all sorts of problems migrating my e-mail account from att to yahoo! Anyway, what I wrote was pretty standard. at least for boys, in middle to upper middle class Hispanic professional families in the 70s. You weren't allowed to address adults directly. As a junior or senior. dates, on Friday and maybe Saturday, had to be approved. TV was two to two and a half hours a week. Though privileges weren't automatically revoked for a beating (I wouldn't have had any), I probably lost most of them for four to five weeks a quarter. After school, there were sports, a quick dinner, three hours a night study, maybe an hour free time. There was maybe four hours free time on Saturday, family day on Sunday, then study hours after dinner. Everyone I knew accepted this, and I never questioned it.