Corporal punishment in Schools

[zolockit]

I'd rather have corporal punishment than having the state forcing people to medicate their children. Nowadays in NY, if a public school teacher can't deal with your child, you either have to get meds for them or face a CPS case:mad:

Both would be implemented regardless. Even if Corporal punishment was allowed there are many kids who wouldn't take well to being hit, resulting in CPS/meds as the secondary solution. The remainder of kids who might "respond well to the punishment and now behave" may (more like definitely will) end up emotionally scarred later on in life. After all learning that "if you do something wrong you'll be physically punished" is no way to educate.

Then there is the fact that some kids really don't give a shit and are looking for a reason to take things to the next level. I know damn well there are some kids praying to a higher power that a teacher lays a hand on them just so they can pull out a mac and blast it. All because they believe that it would fall under self defense or just don't care. It maybe delusional, but it's a result of a shoddy education systems/bad parenting.

I always thought that each case should be handled individually and specifically. Educators as individuals wouldn't be able to accept the idea that the other party would strike back, and even if they did, the concept of a professional learning environment loses itself.

Corporal punishment couldn't work, unless parents would be okay with schools being fight clubs.

[Max465]

I don't think physically abusing a child is right on any occasion. There are more humane ways of doing things. Like a bar of soap for example. Soap does wonders on a child. Because they don't want to taste that again.

I don't know if any of you have seem Malcolm in the Middle, but a lot of the ways they punish their kids amuse me, and seem to cause less physical harm...usually...XD

[Catwoman]

I don't think physically abusing a child is right on any occasion. There are more humane ways of doing things. Like a bar of soap for example. Soap does wonders on a child. Because they don't want to taste that again.

Max. You are a genius.

[Lenalee33]

I know a few teachers here in the US that think there should be corporal punishment in schools.

Personally I don't like it though. One of the main problem with it now days, is that parents could sue the teacher or the school for abusing their children if the teacher does not properly document what happened and all that good stuff (if you don't like paperwork, don't become a teacher -.-). Sure some force is still used in schools today, but you have to have a very good reason and you have to be specially trained, especial when it come to restraining children. A lot of students act the way that they do for a specific reason, though the reason my not always be clear to people. On the other hand some schools take this too far, and won't even allow teachers to hug their students. All of this depends on the policies that the school district, state, and government have in place along with the principle of the school.

In short the whole situation is complicated and corporal punishment in schools would just create a big mess for a ton of people including teachers.

[Caledoriv]

I just see it as wrong it's the same as the Police beating criminals it should be illegal everywhere.

Usually I'd agree with you that policemen should not beat criminals without any reason since the criminals can be punished otherwise... But since I'm from Germany I have to object to this because the German Law is ridiculous. I think it was last year that a policeman was attacked by some drunken guy. He defended himself and the drunken man was hurt.

Now guess what happened: The policeman had to pay compensation for pain and suffering.

[...] there is a thing called prison which punishes criminals right ?

Again speaking as a German... prisons here are just as ridiculous as the law itself. Most prisons in Germany look like this:

There is a TV, plenty of time to spend in the gym or swimming.

Of course I am not saying being a prisoner is like a holiday in Germany, but I don't think this is the right way to punish eg. murderers. And since "life sentence" means in over 90% of the cases just 15 years, it imho isn't a "punishment" at all.

But to get back to the topic:

I think the image of the criminal and the police is a quite fitting image - and that's why I wrote so much about it. The examples I gave should just bring me to the conclusion that the "whole" has to be considered.

If the law is reasonable, criminals are punished justly and policemen have adequate rights everything is fine. If one or two points of those are not fulfilled, then the whole system will collapse or at least stop working properly.

And it is the same with children: Punishing them too hard won't bring the right result, neither will punishing them too softly.

I do agree with you that the responsibility rests on the parents, but as quite many of them fail in educating their children properly, there has to be something else that kind of "replaces" this function. And the next higher instance simply is the school.

And exactly this school should have the right to educate the children... and not to be toyed with by those children.

Two other examples of my everyday life:

I'm still a pupil (and I will pass my A-levels next year), so I can tell you quite a few things about the school life nowadays.

There is absolutely no respect or at least I don't know many other pupils or students having respect for teachers. They go past off a teacher and 99 out of 100 pupils will not even glimpse at him, not to mention greet him.

As the teacher's only "weapon" is reasoning, an average lesson (45 min) is like this:

About 5 min: Quieting the pupils

About 5 - 10 min: Asking certain pupils to put away there mobile phone (since there is a general mobile phone prohibition in my school)

The real class begins, always interrupted by pupils talking to the neighbour.

Of course not every lesson is like this (and I may have exaggerated a little bit), but one can say that a little less than 1/3 of a lesson is unnecessarily used to argue with pupils. I really pity some of my teachers and don't want to change with them.

Nowadays, regarding the whole picture of incapable parents, overextended and helpless teachers, I think something has to be done, to be changed.

As a result, an obvious solution would be corporal punishment - and in some cases this is imho the right solution. However, to prevent abuse, the teacher has to be able to give several evidence that his action / punishment was justified. Those things and similar ones would have to be regulated by the law. If this condition is met, corporal punishment is just fine with me.

This might at least bring back partially the missing respect, but will bring with it several other problems that have to be dealt with then:

I have to think of my English teacher now: a 1.50 m tall woman. What do you think will happen if she beat a guy that is about 1.90 m and 18 years old with absolutely no respect for her?

I could go on at this point, but I will make it short now.

If I limit my answer to corporal punishment (in school and at home) only, I can say that I support the idea for as long, as (at least in school) there are laws preventing abuse.

But as I think the problem is not just the question of corporal punishment but education nowadays itself. There are two major instances, the parents and the school. If the parents fail, the schools and thus the teachers have to get along the the brats. Therefore, imho teachers should be allowed to use effective methods to discipline pupils, but there should also be taken some steps to stop this problem in its origins: the parents. As BlackDahlia said, many of them are too young and inexpirienced to bring up a child, so aid should be given to them and youths should become the target of some more awareness training.

So far,

Cale