Texas schools revive paddling

[Omar B]

TEMPLE, TEX. -- In an era when students talk back to teachers, skip class and wear ever-more-risque clothing to school, one central Texas city has hit upon a deceptively simple solution: Bring back the paddle.
Most school districts across the country banned paddling of students long ago. Texas sat that trend out. Nearly a quarter of the estimated 225,000 students who received corporal punishment nationwide in 2006, the latest figures available, were from the Lone Star State.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/15/AR2010041505964.html?g=0

Now I think this is a great idea. I've never had a problem with corporal punishment, but then I grew up going to private schools where more than once I was given a beating at morning assembly or my old school Sensei who regularly used the cane in class. Not to mention my parents.

I'm all for it, how about you guys?

 

[dancingalone]

I'm a product of the Texas educational system. No sneers, please.

Anyway, I was paddled a few times in elementary school. It hurt and it deterred me from repeating what I did to get in trouble in the first place. I have no objections to corporal punishment if applied in a fair fashion.

On a side note, one of the times I got paddled was because I got into a fight on the playground with another boy. We both got three swats and were back in class learning 30 minutes later. Nowadays, we'd probably be suspended from school immediately under some type of zero tolerance nonsensical rule.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

I came up in California in the public schools, and they had paddling when I was in school... I know firsthand. I am all for it.
Spare the rod and spoil the child is absolutely something I believe in.

 

[Omar B]

Exactly, it curbs behavior and keeps kid in school. Is suspension really a punishment when these kids have cable TV, high speed internet and video games at home? Taking kids out of the classroom should not be such a go-to option.

By the way, I got it for leaving school without a parent. I waited around after school to be picked up, I didn't see anyone so I walked to my mother's office. She got to my school shortly after I left, didn't see me, it caused a minor panic on till someone from her bank called the school to let her know I was there. Way I see it, I was 7 but deserved it. Never left school by myself again.

Also getting caned in karate class for not paying attention or catching a cane across the back for a mistake in kata helped my karate a lot.

 

[RandomPhantom700]

Personally, I'm against it, but that's because I do not believe in or endorse corporal punishment in general; even less so when it involves teachers, rather than parents, administering it.

I'll leave the appropriate punitive action to the actual teachers and school administrators to determine; I have no real experience with disciplining children, especially not a group of them. However, I'd like to point out that there's a spectrum of approaches to take; it's not either using the paddle or zero-tolerance suspensions. I do believe in giving teachers discretion when it's their classroom.

 

[Stac3y]

Is suspension really a punishment when these kids have cable TV, high speed internet and video games at home?

In my house, it would be. My kids know that, should they get into sufficient trouble at school to be suspended, I will make their lives HELL during that suspension. That being said, I am not a proponent of corporal punishment. My kids have been spanked fewer than half a dozen times (together), and they are very well-behaved, especially in school. There are more effective disciplinary methods than hitting.

 

[clfsean]

Huzzah & about damn time somebody did something right in the school systems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately... let's see how long it takes for the first lawsuit to occur after an appropriate disciplinary action has been dispensed.

 

[Omar B]

In my house, it would be. My kids know that, should they get into sufficient trouble at school to be suspended, I will make their lives HELL during that suspension. That being said, I am not a proponent of corporal punishment. My kids have been spanked fewer than half a dozen times (together), and they are very well-behaved, especially in school. There are more effective disciplinary methods than hitting.

You make good points Stacy, but how many working parents would take the time to make sure that suspension period was as you put it a "living hell?" In most cases it'll be like a short holiday I think.

But we all have our methods, I grew up with corporal punishment.

 

[Ken Morgan]

I just wrote a paper on this a few months back.
Points to consider,

• The literature does not support CP, it has been shown to actually increase problems rather then decrease. I have yet to read a paper that came to the conclusion that CP works.
• If CP is applied before guilt has been determined it is considered torture.
• We do not use CP in our prisons, yet we use it on our children???
• CP used against a spouse is domestic assault.
• If CP was indeed an effective means of discipline, it would never have been banned in half the US states.
• How many of us have had crap, insane teachers when we were in school? I had more than I could count. There is no chance in the world I would let any of these people decide to use physical violence on my or your children.

I think schools need a great many changes made, but instituting CP is not one of them. CP in Texas is brought to you by the people who consider Iron-age stories to be science.

 

[blindsage]

Cannot and will never endorse corporal punishment for children. If a teacher or school administrator ever lays a hand on one of my children they'll be extremely lucky if I don't return the favor.

 

[Scott T]

I just wrote a paper on this a few months back.

Points to consider,

• The literature does not support CP, it has been shown to actually increase problems rather then decrease. I have yet to read a paper that came to the conclusion that CP works.
• If CP is applied before guilt has been determined it is considered torture.
• We do not use CP in our prisons, yet we use it on our children???
• CP used against a spouse is domestic assault.
• If CP was indeed an effective means of discipline, it would never have been banned in half the US states.
• How many of us have had crap, insane teachers when we were in school? I had more than I could count. There is no chance in the world I would let any of these people decide to use physical violence on my or your children.

I think schools need a great many changes made, but instituting CP is not one of them. CP in Texas is brought to you by the people who consider Iron-age stories to be science.

And yet, my favourite teacher was a man who twice threw a garbage can at me in class while in High School (and I'm not talking about a nice gentle underhand toss)...

Was CP banned because it was determined to be ineffective? Or was it banned because some left-wing PC idiots started squealing about it?

CP was banned in schools here just as I was just getting into Junior High. I was paddled at least once by pretty much every teacher from Kindergarten to the fifth grade.

Kids still need discipline, and nowadays, with their busy work/play schedules, a lot of parents couldn't be interested in finding the time to care what their kid has been up to. Just let him/her do their own thing without boundaries.

There was a time when a teacher wasn't just a teacher, but also a surrogate parent for the day while the kids were at school. For those six or seven hours per day they had the right to behave as parents would, not only in discipline (even paddling when deemed necessary), but also in showing affection and helping a child deal with his or her non-school related problems.

Over the last couple of decades, society has eroded the role of the teacher in the child's life to just that of an desensatized automaton. A child is no longer expected to respect a person in that role and vice-versa.

Teachers can longer enjoy their work, and to top it all off, everybody blames them when their idiot son or daughter is a failure in class (can I say that, or is 'everybody a winner' now?)

It looks to me as though some Texas schools may be trying to bring some of that back.

Some people claim that Corporal Punishment in a school is a way for somebody to punish and get respect through fear. To my mind, that's ********. I may have always respected these teachers (on a first-name basis with most of them now) but I never feared them.

These are just my rambling, incoherent observations. I'm still reeling (in a good way) from a conversation i just had...

 

[Gordon Nore]

Or was it banned because some left-wing PC idiots started squealing about it?

Or maybe some right wing cracker permanently disabled some kid?

 

[Deaf Smith]

I'm a Texican. I grew up in small Texas towns. Yes I got my butt whopped a few times in school.

And later in TKD I got a few 'attitude adjustments' to.

But by God, I grew up politically to the right of John Wayne, college educated, bible toten, and never have I been in trouble. Worked every day out of college (and some while in college and high school) and never took a dime in welfare.

So maybe those paddling’s didn’t hurt at all except a bit of pride. Might have done some good to!

Deaf

 

[Gordon Nore]

Cannot and will never endorse corporal punishment for children. If a teacher or school administrator ever lays a hand on one of my children they'll be extremely lucky if I don't return the favor.

Couldn't agree more, and here's the Hell of it: I was paddled myself. There was Christian Brother who taught grade eight at my school for some forty years. He taught me grade seven math and grade eight homeroom in the early seventies. Brother Arthur by this time was in his early sixties and kept a sawed-off hockey goalie stick by his desk. "Talkers up!" he'd call out, and up we'd get, march up to his desk, lift our blazers above our belts, lean over, and take our whacks. I don't resent it, but all hell would break loose if it had ever happened to my son growing up.

It was a different time. I remember seeing Brother angry. I never saw him hit anyone when he was angry -- a uniquely disciplined individual. I do recall seeing other teachers administer their version of corporal punishment when they were in a state of rage. Really sent chills down my spine to see a teacher strike a classmate across the knuckles with a heavy blackboard yardstick or a chalk compass.

Times is changin'. People are far more individualistic. If kids don't respect traditional institutions like school, it's likely something they've learned at home, and hitting them at school isn't going to change that. We are obsessed with this scared-straight nonsense that we can shock children into behaving. Pure rubbish.

 

[Carol]

Or maybe some right wing cracker permanently disabled some kid?

Ouch! I'm hoping you meant "crackpot" and not "cracker"

 

[Carol]

Rules about paddling vary from district to district, but typically only administrators, not teachers, can mete out the punishment, which is done in private. Usually, a long, flat wooden paddle is used to give as many as three blows across the student's clothed rear end, although Farmer found students who had been hit many more times. Boys are overwhelmingly the target.

So lemme get this straight. A person of authority takes a young boy in to a private room in order to make physical contact with the boy's butt, and that person of authority may or may not follow the proscribed rules of conduct as they pertain to making physical contact with said boy.


The Archdiocese of Boston got in to a helluva lot of trouble that way.

 

[Makalakumu]

If parents want their kids going to a school where the kids get paddled, then that is their prerogative. I wouldn't send my kids to that school, but it's none of my business if someone decides to do so.

 

[Carol]

If parents want their kids going to a school where the kids get paddled, then that is their prerogative. I wouldn't send my kids to that school, but it's none of my business if someone decides to do so.

I understand where you are coming from, but I would be more ammenable to that viewpoint if Texas has school choice or a voucher system. It does not, as far as I know. So, if a parent does not want their child to go to a school where the kids get paddled, their choices are home schooling, paying thousands in tuition, or moving.

 

[Marginal]

Over the last couple of decades, society has eroded the role of the teacher in the child's life to just that of an desensatized automaton. A child is no longer expected to respect a person in that role and vice-versa.

I dunno. It seems more like society in general has elected disrespect teachers at every opportunity.

In most other societies, teachers are respected.

In the US, people frequently scream and cry at the thought of a teacher getting paid to teach their kids at all. They hate that they have pensions. They hate that they have a modicum of job security. They say education has failed with no meaningful data to support the assertion etc. Far better they get paid as little as possible while jumping through even more hoops at some private school.

So the parents don't respect the teachers either. In that climate, I can't see how a teacher paddling a kid will somehow make the profession respectable to the anti intellectual set. You'll just have more parents hovering around the classrooms further disrupting class because they're incapable of trusting the teacher.

 

[Sukerkin]

All I can add to this debate is annecdotal evidence and I believe I've mentioned these memories before when we last touched on this subject.

I went to a Secondary School with a couple of thousand pupils and discipline was maintained by a variety of means, up to and including the cane.

In the seven years I was there (five years of 'O' levels and two years of Sixth Form for my 'A' levels to go to university) I can only recall a very few occasions where the cane was used. There were a few other events where a teacher used a whack to obtain immediate attention and compliance and a few others where 'missiles' (chalk et al) ensured that disruption in the classroom ceased.

I should add also that if you got disciplined at school then you got disciplined harder at home as your actions had indirectly brought a degree of shame upon 'your house'.

Now that might be used to argue that there was therefore no need for corporal punishment as it was so seldom used. I am sure that all of us here are familiar with the concept of deterrence? That's how corporal punishment works, especially when the ultimate sanction is to receive the cane in front of the whole school during assembly (the morning religious service).

Now Morgan noted that studies had shown that corporal punishment was an ineffective way of maintaining order in schools. I am ever one for scientific evidence and would be happy to look at those studies (and their under-pinning assumptions and data gathering methods). But in this case those studies do not gel with my own actual experiences and those of others.

Why is that? Are all our memories faulty or does the flaw lie in the studies?