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Should Paddling Still be Allowed in Public Schools?
Some Florida schools still use paddling, a form of corporal punishment, to enforce disciplinary standards — and they’re not alone in the US.
While corporal punishment is largely a relic of a bygone area in most of the western education world — a disciplinary measure missed by some on both sides of the Atlantic — it continues in some Florida schools.
Florida is one of 19 states that still allow public schools to paddle, according to the Center for Effective Discipline. The most recent numbers show 3,661 students were spanked in 2010, the Florida Department of Education reports.
The Florida Department of Education does not keep data on instances of corporal punishment in the state’s private schools.
Most school districts in Florida have opted out of using corporal punishment. But 29 counties have policies allowing schools to paddle students. Many are in rural North Florida.
Democrat Rep Ari Porth didn’t think it was fair that where students were located determined whether they got spanked or not and sought to ban corporal punishment outright statewide. His sponsored bill HB 493 failed. While that’s fine with some parents, other people think the practice is degrading.
Schools are the only public institution where hitting is still allowed; it’s no longer permissible in prisons hospitals or the military. The usual arguments about the effectiveness of corporal punishment, or lack thereof, are repeated with the anti-camp drawing attention studies showing that it doesn’t work as a deterrent and the proponents of corporal punishment pointing the widely acknowledge decline in youth discipline since its phasing out and that it actively keeps students in school by being an alternative to suspension.
Senior Cole Long has never made a paddle, but he has been on the receiving end of one. He says he has been paddled for things like, “throwing papers, throwing pencils, a couple times for cussing, back-talking.
“I used to be a really wild child,” he said.
Long thinks all schools should paddle students because, he says, the spankings teach students discipline and respect.
There are no statewide regulations on the paddles and each school district designs their own, usually out of wood or fiberglass. Most schools still using paddles seek parental permission, although it is not required.
Wednesday
March 21st, 2012
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Comments
It is really shameful we still do this. Especially to high school kids! Spanking a 17-year old? It’s kind of sick.
I didn’t even notice of first read that they don’t require parental permission. That’s so wrongheaded.
“Schools are the only public institution where hitting is still allowed”
I just wanted to quote this for emphasis.
I still believe that they should do paddling in schools especially nowadays when it is needed the most, I think children take advantage of there elders today , I find more children do what they want and how they want. Which is getting them in to more trouble with a lack of education and discipline. Our future is important and the new generation is getting careless and lazy. In my opinion schools should reconsider surfacing this action of discipline again.
Maria, the new generation has been careless and lazy since Socrates complained about it. There’s nothing original in these arguments and no merit to them either. By no stretch of the imagination are the kids lazier, less motivated, more violent or less committed than they were when you were their age. We all tend to don rose colored glasses as we age, but we should still maintain some kind of rational approach to things.
Your arguement may hold some water. But, our ethics have eroded. Not sayng paddling would handle it, but some handcuffs need to come off.
Example? I’m not at first blush seeing ethical lapses that we’ve committed lately that couldn’t have been committed by Americans or just humans 100 years ago. I’d happily stack up my ethics or the ethics of this generations against those of the Gilded Age in 1912.
Watch TV and you can see the decay of our society. The video games kids play are surely different, and lastly when my wife has a third grader come to school telling her about the horror movie he stayed up watching late last night that says something about our ethical decay.
Linda, you are quite right. It is of course only in recent times that we have stopped spanking children. Maybe the wisdom of the ages should continue as a way of dealing with centuries of adult concerns regarding the behavior of children.
If the complaints have changed, why change the solutions.
“No Child’s behind left”
I don’t think it’s right to paddle students.Teachers should have respect.I know that in my elementary school in 2009 that if you don’t listen then you have to flip your card to yellow that’s means you lose a few mins of your recess and then you have to turn your card to the next color and then you lose a lot of mins of recess and then you turn your card to red you lose all of you recess time.No school should paddle ‘NO STUDENTS’.If your a pre-schooler teacher and you should not paddle a little kid because their just little kids they don’t know what is right and what is not right.I can’t believe that florida schools spank over 3,000 students and I wouldn’t even go to that school if you know what policies they have there.
Well said, Semeeah.
19 U.S. States allow disciplinary beating of schoolchildren by teachers, coaches and administrators in 2012, some without parental consent!
National Protest Against School Corporal Punishment will be held at TN State Capitol in Nashville Thursday, April 5, 2012 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. to Demand Governor Haslam and TN lawmakers Abolish Paddling (Sexual Assault when done to a non-consenting adult)/Pain to Punish Tennessee students K-12, already Illegal in Nashville Schools and Schools in 31 U.S. States. Search “A Violent Education” for disturbing facts including graphic descriptions of injuries to students, “Teacher Immunity Laws” and No Legal Redress, even the U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear school corporal punishment appeals! Support Federal Bill H.R. 3027 “The Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act” , languishing in U.S. Congress NOW, at donthitstudents dot com See Facebook page for Abolish School Corporal Punishment for more info.
2/3 of Tennessee Students attend “Paddling Schools”, Prohibited in Nashville Schools and Schools in 31 U.S. States! My 3 children, who we don’t hit, are forced to overhear the blows as their middle school teachers hit classmates just outside class in halls as a knee-jerk reaction to horsing around or not turning in homework, without parental consent or notification, not required per TN State law, then the beaten student is further humiliated when they immediately return to their seat! Our local school board members ignored our written/verbal presentation during their meeting in April 2008, during “National Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness Month” to Demand they Prohibit Physical Punishment of Students, we received no letter, no phone call. Federal and State government officials informed us that school corporal punishment is a “Local Issue”!
Imagine this….
A child gets hit by a teacher in class for saying a bad word.
The child accidentally says the bad word again at home when no one is around. The child realizes that the teacher will not be there to hit him every time he says a bad word. So from then on the child never really learned his lesson… he just stopped cussing whenever the teacher was around.
I am 24 now but as a little girl of 8 attending a private Christian school with strong religious overtones, I was spanked more times than I care to remember. I’ll admit it, I was a trying child who could be difficult to deal with but being told to ‘ask god for forgivness’ and having a prayer said over you before being spanked with not only the teacher who you had offended but also the principal standing by watching……..it was demeaning and humiliating and only served to make me suspicious of authority figures, fearful of the wrath of adults and forever distrustful of God and organized religion.
The school I went to would send a note home with the child. explaining that a spanking had taken place and was expected to be signed by the parents and returned to the school. This meant that I would have a second spanking waiting for me when I got home.
As an adult who hopes to one day become a mother, I don’t see what good being spanked as a child in school did. Yes, it taught me to put on a false face to respect my teachers but it also taught me that using ones hand or fist was an acceptable way to correct bad behavior. I don’t want to have to spank my future kids but I don’t know any other options. Spanking was my disciplinary procedure, at home and at school.
Oh and I have to add that my parents did spank me when I needed it, but there was NEVER another adult in the room besides the one doing the spanking, nor was I forced to ‘ask for Gods forgivness’ beforehand. Just the pain and dissapointment from my parents was enough to make me not act out again. With that being said, I do not think it is okay or even sensible for a school to hit a child, no matter how much of a $&!@ the kid is being. That is something that should be left to the parents discretion, not the schools.
The parents barely even discipline these days. they send their precious children to school each day for the teacher to deal with. The childrens behavior gets put off on the teacher and I think that if that is the case then the children should be punished for it. I am all for not paddling, but when a child is acting a fool and deserves it then I think it is so right. If parents would punish their children then this issue wouldnt be a problem.