Corporal punishment should be outlawed for good. The fact that it still occurs is unacceptable.
The cane may have disappeared from West Australian public and Catholic schools in 1986 but it has not disappeared completely from the state’s schools.
According to Minister for Education Liz Constable, two independent schools in WA still use the cane.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Education Services said the School Education Act prohibited the use of corporal punishment in public schools – but confirmed the cane was used in some non-government schools.
The spokeswoman said the government regulated the use of canes through the process of school registration.
Mrs Constable said although she did not believe physical punishment was an effective method for controlling student behaviour and did not support its use, parents were able to make their own choice.
“It is a matter of parental choice to send their children to study at schools that include this type of punishment in their discipline policy,” she said.
“The strategies we are implementing now in public schools focus more on positive reinforcement, especially around attendance issues.”
The push to ban corporal punishment has less to do with the rights of parents and more to do with the rights of children.
Click on the link to read my posts, ‘Teachers Who Beat Kids Should Be Put Away!‘ and ‘Corporal Punishment Reveals the Worst School has to Offer‘.
Tags: Corporal Punishment, Corporal Punishment in Education, Hitting students, Liz Constable, Physical Punishment, Teachers using the cane, Use of the cane in the classroom, West Australian public and Catholic schools
June 25, 2012 at 5:46 pm |
Corporal punishment has no place in schools. Ultimately parents are responsible for training their children to behave properly. Badly behaved children have no place in schools either. Bullying teachers ought to be taken out of schools and teachers who bully other teachers ought also be eliminated. Relationships modelled in the school should be examples for the whole community to follow.
Who is responsible? It seems to me that teachers are being made responsible for more and more but with less and less authority.
June 25, 2012 at 6:13 pm |
I agree! John, please start an education blog so that I can read more of your insights and experiences. You have a wealth of knowledge and a great way of expressing your opinions.
June 25, 2012 at 6:23 pm
I should and I will. There’s so much going on in education today that is worthwhile and worth reporting on. At the same time there is so much going on that is has no value whatsoever for education and needs to be exposed for what it is.
June 25, 2012 at 6:28 pm
I can’t wait to subscribe!
June 25, 2012 at 5:50 pm |
While corporal punishment has been generally eliminated there are still teachers and principals who behave as if it’s still available. Their threats are hollow and the children know it.
June 27, 2012 at 8:29 am |
In light of the Judge Adams video,
We often hear from those who fight to uphold this practice for those under the age of 18 (even to the blaming of the social maladies of the day on a supposed “lack” of it), but we rarely, if ever, find advocates for the return of corporal punishment to the general adult community, college campuses, inmate population, or military. Why is that?
Ask ten unyielding proponents of child/adolescent/teenage-only “spanking” about the “right” way to do it, and what would be abusive, indecent, or obscene, and you will get ten different answers.
These proponents should consider making their own video-recording of the “right way” to do it.
June 27, 2012 at 8:30 am |
Children should have a right to their bodies, and the right to say “No!”
Currently in the U.S.:
When an adult does it to another adult, its sexual battery:
http://hamptonroads.com/2011/12/va-beach-restaurateur-pleads-guilty-sexual-battery
When children do it to adults, its a “deviant sexual prank”:
http://www.theday.com/article/20101207/NWS04/101209750
When an adult does it to a person under the age of 18, its “good discipline”.
Research/recommended reading:
Spanking Can Make Children More Aggressive Later
http://tulane.edu/news/releases/pr_03122010.cfm
Spanking Kids Increases Risk of Sexual Problems
http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2008/feb/lw28spanking.cfm
Use of Spanking for 3-Year-Old Children and Associated Intimate Partner Aggression or Violence
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/126/3/415
Spanking Children Can Lower IQ
http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2009/sept/lw25straus.cfm
Plain Talk About Spanking
by Jordan Riak
The Sexual Dangers of Spanking Children
by Tom Johnson
“Spanking” can be intentional or unintentional sexual abuse
http://www.nospank.net/101.htm
June 27, 2012 at 10:22 pm |
Thank you Marjorie for your comments.