Forum:Corporal punishment in schools

I just watched a news story on CNN about a girl who got suspended for wearing a prom dress that violated her school's dress code. What shocked me, however, was learning that the school had the option of BEATING HER as a punishment. It turns out that twenty US states allow the schools to BEAT THEIR STUDENTS. I cannot believe it. Anyone here ever been beaten by their teacher/principal? P-Foster (talk) 04:30, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Not me, but that is still completely fucked up. 05:18, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I spanked Goonie, once. He spanked me back at a later date.  05:47, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I welcome corporal punishment. It is human nature to avoid pain at all costs. If you know you're going to get a beating for misbehaving, you'll think twice. I would. Keegscee (talk) 06:46, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * But when I get bigger I'll beat you. Or someone else, since that's how I have been taught to express my awesome powerz? But if you like it, feel free to share that with your lovers.  06:55, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think the issue with corporal punishment is its efficacy. I think the issue is whether its right to use violence on children to make them behave. And of course, it has knock on effects. Just like abuse. --Seantalk 06:57, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Efficacy has never been the issue, I think most people would agree that threatening to beat the shit out of someone smaller than you tends to get results. Lasting emotional damage and likening to abuse is slightly more controversial, most people who have had it turn out fine, it's not like abuse at all. There are far worse things we can do these days to emotionally traumatise children; ranging ridiculously high expectations and constant pressure to perform to scaring the shit out of them and saying all their non-Catholic friends will go to h Hell etc. etc. So the question is "do you think violence has a place in a modern society"? A lot of people say no, but some (the ones who would like to bring back hanging for minor offences, usually) will say yes. 08:04, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Mr Bond's yard ruler across my hand never cured me of my homework-dodging. Totnesmartin (talk) 09:46, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not a simple question of violence in society; it's investing a school with the authority to use violence in a way which the judicial system does not - i.e. it's OK to beat kids but not adults. & Regardless of whether the children's parents think it's appropriate to use corporal punishment at home, the school can still ensure that violent punishment is part of their childhood experience.   09:57, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Here's some statistics for y'all. 2006-2007--> 223,000 children were legally beaten in American schools. Kids in Mississippi have 7.5 % chance of being legally beaten in school. Black kids are legally beaten in schools WAY above what would be proportionately expected. Also, as Human's banter above suggests, there is an undeniable sexual aspect to this--an adult male "spanking" a 17-year-old girl? Really? This country is sick. P-Foster (talk) 14:00, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Arguing against it because it might have sexual connotations is fallacious. I oppose corporal punishment whole-heartedly. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 86.12.234.147 / talk / contribs 16:43, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Bit on an EC on this but... Corporal punishment is
 * Inefficient - it does little to deter misbehaviour, indeed, getting the strap or cane or whatever is a mark of pride for some.
 * Morally indefensible - how to you teach children that violence is wrong by using violence
 * Dangerous when in the wrong hands - I was taught by a paedophile sadist. We didn't know how to deal with it at the time but our punishments were more to do with his sexual pleasure than our wrongdoings. The school master in question was just know as 'a bit strict'.
 * Jack Hughes (talk) 14:03, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I was paddled in middle school in the mid-80's. When my parents found out about it they made things very difficult for the ex-military police vice principal (fresh off doing drug interdiction work in Central America to beating children), who hadn't followed protocol in order to give that punishment. He was supposed to have cleared it with the principal and called my parents in advance so they could witness it. Instead he did it with a perforated cricket bat. In his office. Alone. 19:12, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That is just plain fucking sad. And wrong.  07:12, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I haven't, because my school required a parental consent form for spranking. I've known at least one guy who was, though.--Mustex (talk) 14:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * (I won't be able to hear your counter-arguments over my Wagner, incidentally) I'm a big fan of increased capital punishment. I do feel that it's a waste to keep a murderer locked in prison when is death will serve as a deterrent to others. It is a similar vein with corporal punishment.  When beating a student will serve as an example to others to not take the action that lead to the beating, a large number of students won't take the action!  It basically serves as a deterrent.  Of course, if the desire to take an action can overcome the stigma against the beating, a different approach will have to be tried.  In the words of the Western judge, albeit slightly altered: "We aren't beating you so you won't do it again.  We're beating you so others won't try it in the first place."  -- 18:10, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Pretty much everyone above has said 'the efficacy isn't relevant, CP is immoral', and your response is 'but the efficacy is quite good'? I'm an anarchist No one has the authority to assert their opinion by violence. I don't care what the situation is. 19:19, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * But it's a pretty damn good deterrent, so why stop at paddling? Why not actually hang one or two of the little fuckers?  That'll really show those other kids who's boss.  19:43, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I was. When I was in high school I was a bit of a fuck up. I moved to Houston Texas to live with my sister, go to school there and straighten out a bit. I was in the ninth grade. I failed to dress out for gym class one day and got paddled for it. As I remember your parent had to opt out of the beating policy. At the time I though about not letting them beat me but, weirdly enough, I wasn't all that concerned about it. I was surprised though. I was unaware of the beating policy until I was sentenced, The gym teacher and another male teacher took me into the office made me take down my pants and they hit me three times with this wooden paddle. To this day I believe they enjoyed it and did it because I was was a "furriner" (I was from the east coast) and did not fit in with any of the established cliques (the kids in Texas were like they were from another planet. I doubt anyone in the whole school had ever heard of the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. Crazy, I know). I remember feeling badly for them because they were perverts. I dressed out for gym class after that but always assumed that the two teachers were pedophiles sanctioned by the state. Me!Sheesh! Mine! 20:24, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Being schooled in the early 90s in the UK means that you can get away with a lot of wacky antics without having to be beaten up by paedophiles thanks to those goddamned liberals that try and protect people. Once when I was about 9 or 10, me and my friends got caught chucking wet tissues about the bathroom by the deputy headteacher, who was one scary bloke. All he did was shout at us for about 10 minutes, tell the caretaker what he'd caught us doing to try and make us feel bad (it worked, as I was a little bitch as a kid) then make us clean it up. If I'd done that fifty years ago I woulda got beaten for it. 20:38, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Man, thanks a lot. I've been thinking about this all day now. I'd sort of forgotten about it, but given that I remember all those details 30 years later it obviously made some sort of impression on me. So this is what strikes me (pun recognized, but not intended) about my experience. I knew it was wrong at the time. I had the feeling (not uncommon to teenagers) that it was neither fair nor healthy. It didn't effect me all that much. I mean, I honestly think those two teachers got their jollies by spanking me and I didn't really care--now or then. It was more about them then me. Lots of people, for good or ill, have seen me in my underwear. It was just one thing in a plethora of experiences that made me realize some people fuck with other people they perceive as different or weak. I would never, ever take a job that involved spanking children (what is up with that? Part of your job is to make kids pull down their pants and spank them? What did they go to college for?). I might take a job that involved spanking hot women, but that's entirely different. I think the thing that stopped this from becoming traumatic for me was/is my arrogance. Through the whole ordeal I thought they were the losers. They were the ones who made a teen age boy take his pants down and bend over a desk so they could hit him with a paddle. My perspective on this happening to other people is entirely different. I think about some teacher spanking one of my dozen or so nieces or nephews 9or some undifferentiated child for that matter) and I want to beat that person to death. Literally. But as for what happened to me? meh . . . Ask me about dishonest and aggressive homosexuals. I have a very similar story though, in my own defense,  I kept my pants on (same rules for bad puns apply). Me!Sheesh! Mine! 03:13, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Move to a forum to "save"? I think this is interesting. 07:12, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that mild physical chastisement works as a deterrrent for most kids. The problem is that for the difficult ones it only exacerbates the situation and unclothing what is generally considered a private part of the body is definitely a no-no. Also many adults go beyond what most people would describe as mild, especially if they are angry or just plain sadistic (nuns & priests being some of the worst offenders). So to err on the side of safety I have to side with the anti-corporal punishment brigade. As Cesar Milan has shown with dogs you don't need to beat an animal to control them then bad behaviour with kids is a failure of something else. 08:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I pretty much agree with the Pinko here. It's just not a good idea.  My dad clipped me upside the head a couple times as I recall, once, I think for talking back to my mum.  I think he regretted it, and certainly would have if in later years I held a grudge, when he got smaller and I got bigger.  08:32, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Pfft
One of my fellow teachers last year had kids kneel on chairs, and then he would hit the soles of their feet with lengths of wooden doweling. Those kids paid attention, let me tell you. Of course, here in South Korea, it's just different. They have a loose set of laws about corporal punishment, but by and large the parents are okay with whatever the teachers do. Teachers get a great deal of trust in that sense, and there's some residual notion of in loco parentis. Different world.-- 05:45, 8 April 2010 (UTC)