That’s right, there is a DISABLED kid in a school near you getting beat with a paddle because he can’t figure out how to act properly.

I have so much to say about this I don’t even know where to start. I think I’m going to do something a little different. I’m going to bring up every point made in this article and I’m going to analyze it, deconstruct it, and see where the truth is after that. I’m going to get a little Socrates on this.

Point #1

Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, the woman trying to end corporal punishment in our schools, is quoted as saying: “The bottom line is that if we don’t allow beatings in prisons or in mental institutions, then it’s time we stop allowing it in our schools.” Okay, fair enough, what do you think? Is she on to something, or is she full of it?

Well, if someone commits murder, and is sentenced to 25 years in prison, if they misbehave in prison, the guards cannot beat them as punishment. Conversely, if a 10 year old has a potty mouth, we can beat them. Adding to this, (and this is the amazing part really), as a society we are not allowed to physically abuse patients in mental facilities, because we are under the impression their disability is such that everything they do isn’t necessarily under their control. Unless they are under 18 and still struggling through high school, then we can beat them when they get out of hand.

Watch out kids with Asperger’s, time to shape up.

Point #2

Kenneth Whalum, the guy against the meddling congresswoman, says this: “Our public education is in a state of crisis because the current discipline system in this nation is being ineffectively implemented. Corporal punishment would be an arrow in the quiver for teachers to use at their disposal. It’s the best way to get the system right.”

How would Socrates deconstruct this? Well, is public education in a state of crisis? Clearly, I would agree with his assessment there. Is it in crisis because of ineffective discipline? Okay, that might be a contributing factor at some sites, and is certainly an issue people feel strongly about at my school. Should we be looking at discipline as one of the many ways we can improve schools? Sure. Is allowing teachers to beat students with a paddle the “best way to get the system right?” Um…okay, there I have to stop you. The “best” is a little strong. I don’t think anyone in this country, certainly not anyone who has studied education, would say beating students is the BEST way to improve our failing schools. You have to remember, this is still legal in 20 states, which means this is how things are and always have been, so if we need to do something new to change this “crisis”, shouldn’t it be something we haven’t been doing the whole time?

Point #3

This article states minority students are among those most likely to get paddled. This is kind of like the Arizona Immigration Issue, if humans didn’t act with their own biases, eccentricities, and insecurities, some laws might work as intended. But as always, we’re dealing with people, and people are messed up, racist, bigoted, and biased. Yes, even teachers. So who is most likely going to bear the brunt of these paddles? Minorities. If you find yourself shrugging your shoulders and saying, “So what,” that means you are a racist. But you probably already knew that.

Point #4

A psychology professor quoted in the article did a study of 180 kids and found those who were spanked ended up getting higher grades, having more community service, and a bunch of other good stuff. This one is easy to deconstruct.

Take a statistics class and then ask me if 180 kids is a large enough pool to draw from. I can’t believe CNN even prints this stuff. That’s like me saying, “I taught 180 kids last year, most of them were getting abused in some way, and none of them were very good at school.” Actually, I do teach about 180 kids every year, judging from their conversations about what their parents are going to do about their report cards, I’d say a heck of a lot of them are getting some form of corporal punishment. And the ones who talk about their parents’ belts seem to do less well in school. But I would never in a million years think about using that in an article on CNN, it would be ridiculous.

Point #5

Whalum makes another point, “When you remove the ability for the school to discipline students, as they did in the old days, you are creating a system that serves to undermine students’ progress in school.”

How would Socratic questioning help here? Well, let me ask Whalum this: Have we removed the ability for the school to discipline students? The answer there is no. Some states have removed beating students as a form of discipline, but there are many, many, many, many, many discipline alternatives that someone on a school board should know about. It’s not like these states have said, “Okay, you can’t discipline your students at all.” You just can’t beat them.

Point #5

A former student under these laws in Texas said it was the fear of being humiliated in front of your class that was the big deterrent, and caused better behavior.

Okay, I can buy that. I smile a bit imagining putting some of my worst students over my knee in front of the whole class. Would the fear of that deter some of them? Maybe. But I’ll tell you one thing for sure.

I’d like you to come in and watch me try it.

You’re talking about creating one of the most potentially dangerous classroom scenarios I can imagine. That student is libel to turn the paddle around on me and then on the police who come to my rescue. Of course, that means we’re really only implementing this in the ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEVEL, something the article forgets to mention, because you sure can’t pull it off in high school. So what this article is really saying is that it is only the littlest KIDS, ages 5-11, who are being beaten for being bad in school. I’m sorry, and maybe I lack imagination, but I cannot imagine any scenario in school where a six year old should be getting beaten.

Basically it comes down to the age-old debate about whether you think beating kids is okay. I’m not going to argue that here, but I will say it doesn’t belong anywhere near the schools. I could go on forever about teaching kids more violence with more violence. It shows them even adults resort to violence when they don’t get their way. I’m mean, there are a hundred similar things I could say.

In reality, all this article did was remind me that with education we are still in the dark ages. It’s tragic, and I want to almost laugh. Every time I hear some crazy statistic about education, I always think it can’t get any worse. Then it does. Then it does again. Then CNN runs an article about DISABLED kids still being beaten in our public schools in the year 2010.

There’s just too much I can say, so I’ll wind it down. I could appeal to your emotion. I could try and use powerful rhetoric. I could even use the old cliché, violence is a vicious circle, and kids of abusers end up abusing their kids too.

Well, how about a little spin to that old cliché, and I’ll begin it with a rhetorical question Socrates might ask: What kind of parents will these kids end up being?

The kind of parents who are okay with letting other people beat their children.

Matt Amaral www.teach4real.com is a fellow of AmeriCorps TEAMS (Teacher Education for the Advancement of a Multicultural Society), and teaches summer courses at UC Berkeley. He has taught all high school grade levels and abilities, and is known to dive into fights between students, even though his wife doesn’t want him to.