Archive for the ‘Corporal Punishment’ Category

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Corporal Punishment and Those 19 American States

July 28, 2011

You shouldn’t need a study to tell you that corporal punishment is not a legitimate and ethical means of classroom discipline.  Yet, as I write this, 19 American States still allow corporal punishment.

It’s time they stopped!

Hitting misbehaving kids with sticks might result in immediate obedience, but new research suggests it does more damage than good in the long term.

A new study compared kindergarten and Grade 1 students in two West African private schools. In most ways, the kids were similar. They came from the same urban neighbourhood, and their parents were mostly civil servants, professionals and merchants.

The difference was in how their schools doled out discipline. One school beat disobedient kids with sticks, slapped them on the head or pinched them. These punishments were administered for a wide range of offences, from forgetting to bring a pencil to class to disrupting lessons.

The other school favoured non-physical punishment, with teachers issuing time-outs or verbal reprimands for bad behaviour.

Researchers gave students from both schools “executive functioning” tests, measuring their ability to plan, think in the abstract and delay gratification. While test results for the kindergarten kids were similar across the board, the Grade 1 students from the school with corporal punishment performed significantly worse.

The study’s authors, who hail from the University of Toronto, McGill University in Montreal and the University of Minnesota, say the results are consistent with previous research that showed kids will immediately cease bad behaviour after getting physically punished, but they fail to internalize the morals or rules behind the punishment.

What this means, the authors note, is these kids aren’t really learning the difference between right or wrong, and are likely to re-offend.

“This study demonstrates that corporal punishment does not teach children how to behave or improve their learning,” said Victoria Talwar of McGill University.

“In the short term, it may not have any negative effects; but if relied upon over time it does not support children’s problem-solving skills, or their abilities to inhibit inappropriate behaviour or to learn.”

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Calls To Allow Teachers To Use “Reasonable Force” on Students

July 13, 2011

Students should never be physically disciplined under any circumstances.  Whilst a majority of teachers care very much for the wellbeing of their students, there are teachers around who are more concerned with quiet compliant classrooms than the needs of their pupils.  Giving these teachers the opportunity to use force is asking for trouble.

Telegraph journalist, Bertie O’Brien disagrees:

Here’s hoping that the Government’s plans to allow teachers to use “reasonable force” to control disorderly pupils in the classroom is the beginning of a turnaround in our society. The culture of child protectionism – developed in tandem with health and safety and political correctness – is preventing children from entering the professional world as well-developed adults.

It’s about time teachers were lawfully allowed to regain control over pupils. Let’s get back to the purpose of being young: becoming a well-rounded adult, not having a good laugh or being “empowered”. Young people have to learn to lose out sometimes, and to follow orders. It is necessary that they learn to live in a world which won’t continue to worship them when they do grow up.

What does “reasonable force” mean anyway?  What is reasonable for one teacher may not be reasonable for other sections of society.

The argument that corporal punishment will help students become well-rounded adults is plain wrong.  Teachers help their students become well-rounded by understanding, connecting and appreciating their students, by setting a good example and high but fair expectations, imposing fair and consistent consequences, making their lessons engaging, fostering their students’ talents, creativity, critical thinking and independence as well as offering support and guidance.

I bet any teacher wishing to inflict corporal punishment on their students has in fact failed their students.  I would encourage them to spend less time worrying about using reasonable force and instead concentrate on their own performance.

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Middle Children More Likely to Become Bullies

June 28, 2011

A recent study has explored the so-called “Middle Child Syndrome”, and came to the conclusion that being a middle child increases your likelihood of becoming a bully.

CHILDREN with both older and younger siblings have a higher chance of becoming bullies, according to research.

The Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex and the University of Warwick conducted the study covering some 40,000 British households.

It was traditionally assumed that the oldest child is likely to dominate or use violence against his or her siblings. However, it turned out that those in between had a higher chance of being involved in physical conflict while striving for parents’ attention, as well as competing for power among siblings.

The study also showed that children who received corporal punishment are more likely to bully siblings or their peers. Of the about 2,000 children researched, about 42 per cent of those who experienced physical punishment resorted to bullying.

‘We know from experience that sibling bullying increases the risk of involvement in bullying at school,’ Professor Dieter Wolke, the co-author of the study told a local media.

‘Children involved in bullying are 14 times more likely to suffer behavioural and emotional problems; they have no place that is safe for them.’ It is known that the manner of bullying at home showed no relationship to the education or economic level of households.

I am surprised by the findings.  I can see how being the oldest or youngest child can draw one into bullying habits, but I am surprised that it is the middle child who is most likely to become a bully.

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Posted in Bullying, Corporal Punishment | 1 Comment »

Corporal Punishment Reveals the Worst School Has to Offer

April 24, 2011

Imagine finally taking the important and highly necessary measure of banning corporal punishment only to take on another absurdly simple-minded strategy in its place.  That is what India’s Sindhi Vidyalaya matriculation Higher Secondary School is guilty of:

Candy or cane? City schools seem to have dumped the primitive notion of spare the rod and spoil the child. Instead of wielding the stick, they are now offering chocolates to kids to encourage them in academic excellence and enforce discipline.

“We are strictly against corporal punishment. We hand out chocolates to students if they score good marks and behave well in school. We have realised that it greatly motivates our students,” said Gouri Ramarathinam, Principal, Sindhi Vidyalaya matriculation Higher Secondary School.

Why go from one extreme to another?  Is it so difficult to replace a terrible educational policy for a sensible one?

Meanwhile, in Johannesburg banning corporal punishment didn’t change a thing:

Corporal punishment is still common in South African schools even though it was banned more than a decade ago. Recent research showed that up to 70% of primary school and 50% of high school pupils were still subjected to corporal punishment.

In Louisiana corporal punishment is here to stay.  But don’t be concerned. They have come up with a foolproof measure for its responsible use – a checklist!:

Corporal punishment is here to stay in Rapides Parish public schools, and members of the Disciplinary Policy Review Committee on Wednesday discussed ways parents can inform a principal if they don’t want their children paddled for infractions.

“Corporal punishment is an acceptable discipline procedure by law … We try and use it as little as possible,” said Ruby Smith, the Rapides Parish School District’s director of child welfare and attendance. “When I was a child in school, corporal punishment worked like butter on toast. I receive few calls from parents saying that they don’t want their child to receive corporal punishment.”

Louisiana House Resolution No. 167 was passed last year that requires principals to fill out a “Corporal Punishment Incident Checklist.”

“Principals will send the checklist to the (School Board office), and once a month, it will be sent to the state Department of Education,” Smith said. “Our first reporting was due in Baton Rouge on the 11th of April, and principals will have to turn one in every month, regardless if they have an incident or not. The officials in Baton Rouge will probably do some study on the checklist.”

Corporal punishment never worked like “butter on toast” for students as it may have for teachers, Ms. Smith! I am sorry to tell you but your checklist isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

To conclude my thought for the day on this awful means of disciplining kids, I will quote from an article entitled “Schools Under Pressure to Spare the Rod Forever,” Dan Frosch tells the story of one case, and then puts it into larger context:

When Tyler Anastopoulos got in trouble for skipping detention at his high school recently, he received the same punishment that students in parts of rural Texas have been getting for generations.

Tyler, an 11th grader from Wichita Falls, was sent to the assistant principal and given three swift swats to the backside with a paddle, recalled Angie Herring, his mother. The blows were so severe that they caused deep bruises and the boy wound up in the hospital, Ms. Herring said.

While the image of the high school principal patrolling the halls with paddle in hand is largely of the past, corporal punishment is still alive in 20 states, according to the Center for Effective Discipline, a group that tracks its use in schools around the country and advocates for its end. Most of those states are in the South, where paddling remains ingrained in the social and family fabric of some communities.

Each year, prodded by child safety advocates, state legislatures debate whether corporal punishment amounts to an archaic form of child abuse or an effective means of discipline.

This month, Tyler, who attends City View Junior/Senior High School, told his story to lawmakers in Texas, which is considering a ban on corporal punishment. The same week, legislators in New Mexico voted to end the practice there.

Texas schools, Ms. Herring fumed, appear to have free rein in disciplining a student, “as long as you don’t kill him.”

“If I did that to my son,” she said, “I’d go to jail.”

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Teachers Who Beat Kids Should Be Put Away!

March 14, 2011

Please join me on my mission to eradicate legalised corporal punishment from our classrooms.  In Australia a teacher is not allowed to hit, beat or physically handle a student.  It is against the law, and so it should be.  The fact that some other countries don’t practice the same policy mistifies me.  A teacher should never be given the permission to physically discipline their students.  Such an allowance gives bad teachers the right to lash out at any student that gives them a hard time.  That is hardly what you would call “quality education.”

Stories like this one sicken me:

Picture this. It’s 10am in a classroom at a primary school and a teacher is handing out science test marks to the pupils. Among the children sits a 13-year-old boy who is an excellent student and an athlete, generally a boy who could be classified “a good child”.

But he has failed this particular test. The teacher tells him to stay behind after class.

His heart lurches and he gets a knot in his stomach because he knows what that means. He’s going to get a beating. Before spanking him, the teacher tells the pupil, “My daddy beat me and I beat my children, so I’m going to beat you.”

The boy walks away with not only a bruised bottom, but a bruised ego and tears in his eyes.

This scene is not from a school in some small village in “backward Africa”. Nope, this happened in a school in Alabama.

According to the US Department of Education, more than 200,000 school kids encounter corporal punishment every year across the US. And those are just the ones the department knows about. Some cases go unreported. Testimony at congressional hearings has revealed that up to 20,000 kids a year request medical treatment, mostly for bruising and broken blood vessels after being physically punished in school.

That is an awful statistic.  How can this be allowed anywhere, let alone in the United States?  How can teacher’s get away with bruising their students?  For every medical practitioner that is called on to treat a victim of corporal punishment, a policeman should be called on to put the offending teacher away!

But based on the current state of play, that scenario is a long way off for some states:

Corporal punishment in schools by teachers with a paddle (a wooden board), belt or strap is legal in 20 states. While 28 states have outlawed it outright, the US Supreme Court has ruled it legal.

The majority of the states that still allow teachers to spank kids are in the mid-west and in the south of the country. States such as Missouri, Kentucky, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and, to my surprise, Florida, are said to use corporal punishment more frequently than others.

The mother of the Alabama boy is suing the superintendent of schools and the teacher for her son’s spanking. She’s angry because, by law, you can’t hit a dog and you can’t hit a prisoner, but you are allowed to spank children.

There are guidelines for how teachers can spank kids, which is more than I can say for when I started school in the ’80s, but there are bound to be some teachers who will do whatever they like.

Of course there are teachers that exploit this situation.  Whilst I would like to believe that all teachers care about their students there are enough out there that grow resentful and irrational over the years.  These teachers can not be trusted to make decisions in the best interests of their students.

And to those that think that fear of such a punishment brings out the best in students, I say this.  Fear doesn’t bring out the best in anyone!  If a teacher can’t control their class, they can approach an expert for advice or quit.  If they feel they have to burst their students’ blood vessels to gain law and order, they ought to feel completely and utterly ashamed of themselves.

It’s 2011!  Time to wear our belts, consign paddles to PE lessons and throw away the straps in the bin!

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Posted in Classroom Management, Corporal Punishment | 9 Comments »

How is Hitting Students Still Legal?

February 15, 2011

I don’t know if it was naivety on my part or just the fact that I’m from Australia, but I had no idea that corporal punishment was still legal in 20 US states.  A third-world country maybe – but the US?  In Australia it is absolutely illegal to strike a student, and so it should be.  I just assumed that the America had the same protocols.  Turns out I was wrong.

In response to the dreadful story of the elementary teacher charged with assault for allegedly choking and punching 8 first grade students, the Washington Post recently wrote an expose on the issue of legalised corporal punishment:

In June, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) introduced the Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act, which would ban corporal punishment as a form of punishment or way to modify undesirable behavior at all public and private schools with students that receive federal services.

Congress apparently had other things to do. The bill was sent to a committee but never made it further in the legislative process.

Last year a congressional committee had a hearing on the issue. The panel learned that:

  • School officials, including teachers, administered corporal punishment to 223,190 schoolchildren across the nation during the 2006-07 school year (according to conservative government estimates, the latest year for which national statistics were available).
  • As a result of that punishment, 10,000 to 20,000 students requested medical treatment.
  • Students are typically hit on their buttocks with a wooden paddle, about 15 inches long, two to four inches wide and a half-inch thick, with a six-inch handle at one end.
  • Most students are paddled for minor infractions, such as violating a dress code, being late for school, talking in class or in the hallway, or being “disrespectful.”
  • Almost 40 percent of all the cases of corporal punishment occur in Texas and Mississippi.
  • Current studies indicate that physical punishment is most common in kindergarten through eighth grade, in rural schools, in boys, and in disadvantaged and nonwhite children.
  • African American students are 17 percent of all public school students in the United States but are 36 percent of those who are victims of corporal punishment, more than twice the rate of white students.

Supporters of corporal punishment will defend the method as being effective in dealing with unruly behaviour.  In my opinion, it is a lazy option that should never be allowed.  As much as I wish it weren’t the case, not all teachers care deeply about their students.  Many get disenchanted, flustered and resentful.  While a vast majority of teachers want nothing more than to see their students thrive, others will surely exploit any means possible to shut them up.

Australia and the United States have a close relationship and share many of the same values and ideals.  But corporal punishment isn’t one of them.  How can 20 States continue to allow such an extreme form of punishment in today’s age?  Please don’t wait for more horrible stories about unprofessional and violent teachers before doing something about this.

No matter how badly behaved they may be, kids deserve better than this!

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Posted in Classroom Management, Corporal Punishment | 3 Comments »

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