School Spankings

[amykhar]

CNN reports that more than 200,000 kids were spanked at school last year. Were you ever spanked at school? Did your school spank, but you were just a well-behaved kid and never got a whack?

What do you think about school spankings in general? Are they necessary? Are they bad?

(Yes, I was spanked at school. Once in Junior high. I'm not confessing my sin )

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Were you ever spanked at school? No
Did your school spank, but you were just a well-behaved kid and never got a whack? No and Yes; never got spanked at home either.
What do you think about school spankings in general? Are they necessary? Are they bad? They can be bad, but generally the problem with them is they're not the most effective thing the way most people dole them out.

Coincidentally, yesterday there were news stories about the upcoming release of a University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill study that found those who spank with objects are nine times more likely to cross the line into abuse. North Carolina still allows spanking in schools and there's pressure to change that.

[jgibson2[$]]

I had nuns who would whack the palm of your hand with a ruler. I probably got whacked, but it didn't make much of an impression.

The school my older kids attended spanked, but you had to sign a form giving permission. I informed them that they were required to call me instead and that if I felt a spanking was necessary, I would come to the school and administer it. The ONE time the principal called me, she wanted to spank my first grader for poking a hole in his shirt with a pencil. She was angry out of proportion to the offense, so I went to the school where I discovered that the kid had a temp of 103 and a rash. She somehow managed to miss those points.

I'm not big on schools spanking. OTOH, I'm also not big on parents spanking. Mine very seldom did and I almost never have.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Today's news: Study says minority children receive disproportionate number of school spankings.

In states where paddling is most common, black girls were paddled more than twice as often as white girls.

Boys are three times as likely to be paddled as girls.

Special education kids were more likely to be paddled.

[amykhar]

Here's the problem with those stats. The stats would be meaningful if they were that minority children were paddled more often than white students who had committed the same offense. If minority children are misbehaving disproportionately to the white kids, it would make sense that they were paddled more. (I'm not saying they are. I'm just saying that the stats as written are meaningless and designed to spark controversy)

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

page 75 of the report said

Some might argue that African-American students are punished more because they
commit more serious disciplinary infractions, or because they commit a higher
number of minor disciplinary infractions. The US Department of Education, Office for
Civil Rights, the main source for information on rates of corporal punishment, does
not collect data on the underlying infraction; the question of whether black students
commit more serious infractions that would explain their disproportionate
punishment cannot be answered in this report. Neither can we determine whether
black students commit more (as opposed to more serious) infractions than white
students, and therefore receive corporal punishment more frequently.342 Existing
data do establish that African-American students receive corporal punishment at
vastly disproportionate rates, and that the disproportionality has persisted over
time.343

(full report here)

You're right in that it could be that the black kids act out more than white kids and thus "deserve" spankings more frequently, but just like with racial disproportionality in foster care placements, when the numbers get big enough ("African-American students make up 17.1 percent of the nationwide student population, but 35.6 percent of those paddled"), you have to start thinking about biases in the responsible adults in charge. Edited to add: the data in the report also doesn't count the number of incidents of spankings, it counts the number of children; any child who got spanked counts as "1" whether paddled once or several times during the school year.

As for special ed kids being spanked more frequently than "regular" students, I don't see how there can be justification for that since spankings don't tend to fix disabilities in my experience.

[Prepoia[$]]

I did some student teaching in some cities near me. (That was 15 years ago). Parents all signed waivers for their children to be spanked if needed (blacks and poor whites) because they said that's what they did at home and if the school tried other disciplinary actions that the kids wouldn't understand what they did was bad when it was.

Since then, the state of Michigan passed laws prohibiting corporal punishment in schools.

I was spanked at school once with a ruler. In high school some of the teachers were a little to quick to pull out their power paddles (the ones made of wood with holes in them) and I never saw a girl get spanked with one of those paddles.

[thinkerlady[$]]

I still remember when I was in second grade and got spanked in the hallway. We had to wear dresses, and I wet myself. I got taken into the hallway and got spanked because big girls did not wet themselves. My mother was called, and she took me to the doctors. I had a serious kidney infection and had no control over the "accident". We did not know until then that I was sick. My mother had a problem with the school--resorting to spanking before checking into the reason a second grader had a sudden accident.
It was public school.

[slick4591[$]]

I can't tell you how many I got from the fourth grade on, and I deserved every one of them. Problem for me was the rule my dad had. Get one at school and you get one when you get home.

[magenta321]

I'm shocked and horrified. What in the hell would a spanking teach anyone?

There was an abusive teacher at my school, but I didn't have her. She was a first grade teacher, and she threw dusty erasers at children.

[Magick1]

I was in parochial in 1st grade, got hit with a paddle, swiped across the fingers with rulers and decided then and there that religion (at least this one) wasn't for me.

How could you "do unto others"....plus a number of other problems that happened in that school made it very clear that this area had a hypocrisy level that was questioned by me, a 6 year old.

[Prepoia[$]]

My paddling was public school. Couldn't trust them either.

[JonSmith]

I remember being paddled several times in public school. Twice by the principal for fighting. I never felt that any of the punishment was justified. I never started the fights and paddling never changed me one bit, except maybe it made me more bitter and messed up. I remember once a friend told the teacher that I had been attacked by another student (true) and she paddled me for it. I was upset with my friend for telling the teacher. Corporal punishment usually punishes the wrong person.

[slick4591[$]]

And here I thought all this time I was warped because I just am.

[Prepoia[$]]

YOU are the exception, Slick the school spankings had nothing to do with it. But, wow, I'm impressed that someone still can take responsibility for their own actions without finding another source to blame.

Sandy
Who still thinks it's stupid to blame the bar where legal alcohol is sold (that being the business done there) because someone decides to drink and drive drunk.

[drmomentum[$]]

I have hunted down and "disappeared" every person who ever spanked me.

Payback's a bitch.

-JP

[frazzledspice]

Here in the South, a local Christian school practices corporal punishment. Parents even have to sign a slip permitting it when they register their kids (one mom I know changed her mind about sending her son for that reason.)

It's a sad reflection on Christianity when the imperative to "turn the other cheek" leaves children cowering in fear....

[wivabef]

Nope. Never spanked in school. I'm sure I was spanked by my parents, but I don't remember it.

NEVER with an object.

You know what I remember most as punishment as a child? Not being able to join my brother and sisters for a trip to the park.

[theworm[$]]

Never spanked in school. Nobody was spanked in my schools.
I was spanked at home - always with an open hand - never with a belt, paddle, etc.

I have a big problem with kids being spanked at school. I don't think it is appropriate and I think it teaches the wrong message.

I'm appalled that Angie was spanked for wetting her pants. Kidney infection of not - how could spanking ever be an appropriate response to an accident?

[thinkerlady[$]]

And the funny thing Wormie, I am much older than 8 years old now, and I still remember is very clearly. Some things never leave you.

[theworm[$]]

Of course not - that was terrible!
When I was eight, the teacher would bring the whole class for bathroom breaks. The class would line up in the hall and 4 boys and 4 girls at a time were allowed to use the restrooms.
One of the kids told the teacher that another girl and I were wasting paper towels. We probably were, and that was worthy of punishment. The punishment I got was that I wasn't allowed to use the restroom for 2 weeks. I rarely used the bathroom at school so it wasn't a big deal, but one day I had to go. I told the teacher and she said to wait because the class would be going in a few minutes. When I started to take my turn, she wouldn't let me go. That night I told my parents. I think it might have been the only time during my schooling that my dad went off on a teacher. He went in a gave her a piece of his mind. Told her that if I misbehaved I should get punished, but that telling a child that she couldn't use the bathroom was not appropriate. When I was in kindergarden I got a lot of UTIs and had surgery. My father told the teacher that the punishment was inappropriate, dangerous to my health, and stupid. The next day my punishment was lifted.

Who the heck ever came up with the thought that spanking a kid for wetting their pants, or denying a child bathroom rights was a good idea??? Crazy.

[thinkerlady[$]]

I have taught boys that have had a good ole party in the bathrooms. I could never deny them bathroom privileges. Instead, I make them go 1 at a time, and during class. they don't want to miss what I am teaching so they hurry up, and they don't have any compadres with them to get into trouble with. It works for me.
Traditionally in school, in the intermediate and middle grades, the best time is had in the boys bathrooms!! I don't know why, but I have plenty of stories of the results of their visits!!

[JonSmith]

Who the heck ever came up with the thought that spanking a kid for wetting their pants, or denying a child bathroom righ