Of course, it is in severe decline as compared to what it used to be. Some argue that this decline is the reason for the corresponding rise in discipline problems which teachers seem to be experiencing. Do you agree or are there other reasons for this? Should the option of wrapping on knuckles and swatting behinds be used more often, at least with certain offenses and/or certain offenders? If so, how to regulate abuse? Or should it be eliminated forever, even in private institutions?
Do we want our children to be disciplined and well behaved or do we want to raise a generation of uneducated hooligans? In today’s school system, kids like to misbehave. There is a lot of commotion during lessons and both the teacher has a hard time and the kids don’t learn anything at all. Unfortunately, except for a few schools around the USA, corporal punishments have been banned.
ReplyDeleteIf corporal punishments were to be reapplied, teachers would have much more influence over the events in their class. Currently, the best a teacher can do is either give the student a black point or send him out of the class for a few minutes. These kinds of “punishments” don’t serve any real purpose as the student isn’t truly punished. However, if the student knew that the teacher could give him a smack on the behind or a slap on the knuckles, he would think twice about misbehaving in class. A lot of people argue that they’ll get the message that dealing with problems with force is good. This is definitely not the case, the student will get a better picture of how it goes in real life. If you are rude and disrespect other people, you will get hurt (be it physically if you call a black person a nigger, or by other means if you call your boss an ass). The students will simply learn to behave, and this mentality will stick with them in the future.
Of course, I don’t want to promote the brutal beating of students. These punishments should be given out in a form that the kids don’t have any bleedings because of them, or any other signs of injury. It should be solely for the purpose of making their actions sting.
I was really flabbergasted by the fact that corporal punishment is still allowed in some US countries, since I consider it, as stated in the article, “an archaic form of child abuse”. In my opinion, this form of motivation is wrong and might be misleading for students in terms of their mental development.
ReplyDeleteIt is claimed by many people that corporal punishment is an effective way of sustaining discipline in school. However, I believe that not only students’ academic performance should be considered when talking about the advantages and disadvantages of this phenomenon. As the example of Ms Henning’s son shows, this approach to students, if encouraged, can cause occurrence of extreme cases. Tyler’s cost of breaking school rules was one trip to hospital, but it could have ended much worse. Which, in fact, in other cases sometimes does. Mr Murray, a lawyer hired by Ms Henning, mentions this kind of case which happened at the same school in Mississippi that Tyler goes to. I sincerely do not believe that paddling that causes passing out succeeded by a break of jaw can be considered an appropriate way of sustaining discipline at school, since it really seems more like a severe violation of human rights. As Ms Henning says, she would be convicted of crime if she treated her child in the same manner. And I really do not think any school should be allowed to such treatment of their students.
Also, it is a matter of question, how effective this way of motivating students is. As claimed by Nadine Block, the head of the Center for Effective Discipline, research showed that corporal punishment might not even be as effective as considered before.
And last but not least, the side effects of promotion of corporal punishment in schools should be considered. There is a lot to ponder about when it comes to values we want to teach our children, however, I do not think that majority of parents want to encourage violence in their children. As far as I am concerned, if kids see a violent way of problem solving in school on regular basis, they might use it in similar situations later in life. On the other hand, as Cynthia Nava, a State Senator, suggests, it would be great to show the students that there are other ways to solve problems or conflicts and other ways to gain respect from other people than violence.
Discipline is, in fact, very hard to achieve, especially when it comes to children because they usually try the patience of parents or teachers until the very last bit. I even have a feeling that with the newer generation, the discipline is even harder to achieve as children somehow lost the natural respect towards these authorities. Surprisingly I admit that this issue might lie in extinction of usage of corporal punishment in families and schools. Not that I say that it is all right to beat up a child to death, but when a child loses his mind and is undisciplined violence might be the best solution of how to create a respect of a child towards higher authority. Moreover, paddling with a stick, or a slap or two, won’t necessarily hurt the children, it will rather serve as an educational act, I would say.
ReplyDeleteProblem, however, arises because violence in families is banned in many countries nowadays, what we can find an evidence for on the account of Ms. Herring. “If I did that [used violence] to my son,” she said, “I’d go to jail.” Therefore, when used in schools, it is considered inadmissible and uncommon these days as well. Schools oppose that the physical punishments in schools would promote violence at homes, and school should not be a medium of violence in any sense. Yes I agree, but still, aren’t children exposed to violence by myriad of movies, PC games and reality of world more than they would be in schools anyways? Moreover, violence, when used while bringing up the child, is the best key how to create respect and some orders in families. I would suggest that violence only in families, not in school, should be allowed as only a parent is responsible for its child. That would avoid the possibility of accusing someone else of illegal hurting. Though, parent should teach a child of discipline in families as well as in schools. Even in my family physical punishment was present when I was a child and I must say that I perceive those many slaps educational and beneficial rather than avocatory in promotion of further violence in me. To conclude, I think that, the violence would not have to be used frequently, yet it should be present in families in order to let children realize that there would be a possible, little hurting, punishment what would definitely increase discipline in their behaviour. However, it should be used only into a certain extent, so a child would not be hurt like in the case of Tyler Anastopoulos and only parents could use it. After all, it worked all the time since it became inappropriate in people’s eyes.
Corporal punishment is something I only could have seen in a movie or perhaps could have read in a book. And that is exactly where it righteously belongs. In the past. Our world has taken a huge step ahead in the past years, so why shouldn’t it be so in case of corporal punishment as well? Imagine you’re living in one of the 20 states that had been mentioned in the article, the ones that are still supporting the idea of hurting children to sustain discipline. How would you feel when you get physically punished, when the people who think they have the right to harm you cause you pain, while the majority of your peers all around the world are seen as individual people with the right to defend themselves against such unjustness? Well you would be flowing with many negative feelings, but certainly not solely with gratitude for their enlightening ways of showing you, you have done something wrong, like they expect you to. I think that they take too lightly the fact that not all students are rigid sheep who are afraid of getting hurt, especially when they feel the injustice that is thrust upon them. Furthermore, I fully agree with Mr. Dunne, who proposed an idea that when the student’s parents see that it’s legal in their school, they will not have any restraints at home. When this happens it can all be addressed to as child abuse. The very same child abuse that many organizations and people around the world have been fighting for some time now. Every child deserves to have a childhood without pain and suffering, even when these are provided with ‘’good intentions’’.
ReplyDeleteIn addition it has been reported many times, as read in the article, that a teenager has been beaten up so badly, that he needed to go to the hospital. In these cases I think that there are grounds for suing the people responsible. We are in the 21st century and for such things to be enforced by learning institutions is beyond preposterous. They endanger the children and are a threat to their physical and psychical health as well as their development and their actions in future. Do we really want our future generations to be obeying, timid and unable to take action, to take a stance and move forward? Where would the future of our planet be?