petitefrancaise

My french community shared this information. Which, I have to say I find a bit ironic.
Paddling to be allowed at Three Rivers ISD

Basically, a school district in Corpus Christi has voted to allow misbehaving students to be "paddled" with a wooden paddle. I assume on their bottom If the parent signs up for it that is.

I actually thought Texas education could not surprise (shock?) me anymore. Silly me.


What is surprising though is how many other states allow corporal punishment as shown on the map in the article.

vikingsail

Thanks for sharing. What is particularly sad is I guessed almost every single one of those states before I looked at the map. The prevalence of the SE US is not at all surprising to me. It's a "special place" and that's from experience.

dc koop

if a parent were to be seen in public in Texas or any other place using a paddle on his or her child someone would call the police and chances are that the parent could be charged with child abuse.

Why then should paddling be made legal in schools ? Don't make sense to me.

I grew up in the British school system in the days when caning was allowed, teachers threw blackboard erasers or chalk at anyone seen talking, rapped knuckles with wooden rulers and boxed ears. The latter could have possibly led to permanent ear damage. All very barbaric

mrken30

Would a kid be within his right to shoot a teacher if he thought he was in danger of being injured? Or worse still a revenge killing?

Former Lancastrian

In Texas most probably

Rete

That is so very wrong and should be placed before the supreme court for a ruling. I went to a Catholic school from grade 2 through graduation at grade 8. Corporal punishment was the norm, without parental consent back then, and it was brutal. No way would I allow a teacher to physically punish my child.

LondonSquirrel

My friend's mum wouldn't allow him to get the slipper for forgetting his homework. He told the teacher that his mum objected so he got lines instead. His mum did the lines. When he brought the lines in, they said 'this isn't your writing' and he replied 'No it's my mum's, and she says that if you've got a problem with it, you're to see her about it.' My friend was born in 1967 so this would have been 1979 to the early 80s. Mind you his mum used to hit him, but apparently she thought it was her perogative not the school's.

petitefrancaise

You're right Rete. It should be challenged. If a parent hit their child with a wooden object, that would be child abuse. I cannot see how the teachers are allowed to do it and if it's with parental permission then surely both the teacher, the school district and the parent are abusing the child.

It's so unbelievable in this day and age.

tom169

My wife having been through the NC school system has never heard of paddling happening here, even though it's supposedly on the allowed states map.

carcajou

I believe it's actually a district-by-district policy.

Some do allow it. There was a case about 15 years ago in Arizona that received attention.

The big issue from an educational leadership perspective is liability. What happens the first time some 400 pound teacher named "Coach" paddles an 80 pound girl in middle school, and breaks a bone? The district gets sued for millions . . .

In parts of Western Europe the paddle/cane were still used as recently as 20 years ago . . . and I am sure it still happens "off book" there in some places. It certainly is still a mainline behaviour management technique in the vast majority of the world. As one person told me: It took 1,000 years of organised education in Western Europe before it stopped there . . .

I am completely against corporal punishment but those of you who are commenting that this is barbaric, do/did you spank your own children? Pot meet kettle. So much of the "do as I say, not as I do" attitude going around these days.

It will never go before the Supreme Court because in the US education is a state matter. The best way to cut this out is through civil litigation which is probably why it has largely died out in such a short time.

petitefrancaise

No. Never spanked my children. My own childhood ensured that would never happen to my kids.

Southern France still has a way to go though.

A teacher in France once smacked my daughter for something so utterly minor (bopping another kid on the head with one of those small water bottles which was empty btw). We had only recently arrived in France and it shocked the hell out of me. Made an official complaint which got nowhere but this teacher never touched a child of mine again.

My son once came home with red pen marks on his head - a teacher got cross with him because he'd finished his work and got fed up with waiting patiently so he started talking to the boy in the next seat. She stabbed his head with her pen. That was another complaint.

An school after care worker shouted and screamed at my 4 yr old daughter because she was looking through the gate to see my car arriving. The gate had been left open by the same woman. At this point I learned my lesson that complaining through the proper channels never did anything so this time, the next night with all the other parents standing at the school gate, I went up to her and in front of everyone told her she didn't have the right to shout/scream at MY kids. Then I got called into a meeting with her boss. I was expecting a dressing down but actually she thanked me and asked me what I had actually said because this woman had been a problem all along, they had been unable to get through to her and were unable to fire her.

I once saw a 3/4 yr old kid walking along the path from the school door to the car park and being smacked so hard by his dad that this kid's feet left the ground. Several times. Parents walked past and did nothing. I went up and told him to stop it. Then someone came up to me and said if I wanted to make a complaint then she would be my witness and she told me the name of the father. (see what happened there? I was the one to do something, not her). I told the headmistress of the nursery school ( she was great) and she brought in the police, it wasn't the first time for this father. BUT so many other parents had just walked past....

LondonSquirrel

99% of the time hitting children is totally unnecessary. I think I was smacked by my mum up to about 5. I don't actually remember ever being smacked, but she told me she did and she smacked my much younger brother, again only up to age about 5. But my sister never lifted a finger to her son, nor did his dad. He has turned out fine. My sister and brother and I turned out fine too, and I believe we would have without the smacking. OK my nephew is a bit spoilt and selfish, but that came from always having his own way, not from lack of being smacked.

A colleague told me recently that her daughter, when she was 5, decided to hide in a clothes shop. My colleague was terrified thinking her daughter had been snatched. She was in such a state that I'm afraid she did smack her when she came out of her hiding place. I guess we're only human. But if I had kids I would do my darndest to never smack them. Proof corporal punishment doesn't work exists. The same names in punishment books time and again. If it worked surely the head teacher wouldn't need to keep doing it?

carcajou

If a teacher hit my own kids, I would call the police.

Unfortunately schools seem to have become "safe spaces" from the police - kids fighting kids is assault and should result in a police call (and does when it is outside school). Corporal punishment is assault and should as well.

We do not do a service to anyone when we pretend that something that would get a person arrested outside of school, is actually OK in school.

tom169

Police call to break a couple of kids fighting?

Kids will be kids.

carcajou

I used to think the same thing. Maybe if you are talking about primary school.

But this isn't 1950 anymore and these fights aren't over games of marbles gone astray, and the hostility don't dissipate once everyone has a yell at each other.

Central office attitudes have changed as well.

What happens now is, that one calls his brother, that one calls his cousin, that one calls his friend and then you've got people waiting for each other outside of school and/or a big incident somewhere in town. In some places - that happens on a daily basis.

Or something happens in town before, the kids carry it into the school, and you've got a cycle too big for the school to handle, but too disruptive to the learning environment not to handle.

Nor does this stuff just go away once everyone leaves at the end of the day - these fights and arguments continue and escalate on Facebook, Instagram and other social media and that can also lead into very nasty areas.

Then the boss and the lawyers call, and want to know why you didn't call the police.

Or someone gets injured and it's just not apparent right away. What did you do about it?

Yeah. It isn't 1950 anymore.