Should Corporal Punishment be reintroduced in schools?

[Gavin Luper]

The man chairing the review of Australia's education system has suggested that corporal punishment was quite effective back in the day and should be reintroduced if supported by the community.

http://m.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/head-of-curriculum-review-kevin-donnelly-says-corporal-punishment-in-schools-was-very-effective-20140715-3bz7p.html

Completely unexpectedly, most of the public responses I have read have been in favour of this. The poll on Ninemsn.com.au was strongly in favour of reintroducing it. While all the officials repudiate it strongly, the community response is interesting.

What do you think? Should serially misbehaving students be given the cane or the strap, rather than endless timeouts and suspensions? Are you alarmed that the question is even being asked? Did you receive corporal punishment when you were at school or know someone who did? What do you think of it?

[RedStarWarrior]

Corporal punishment works. The only problem is drawing the line between it and abuse.

[Drago]

http://cbswycd2.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/matilda1.jpg?w=480
"Use the rod, beat the child, that's my motto."

[Dark-San]

East Asians has been doing that for many years. Now look at where they are economically? South Korean, Japan and China are all in the top few countries that are doing remarkably well off comparing to some of the more sluggish European economies (with the exception of Germany).

So if you ask me whether corporal discipline works? I would say yes. Should the Australians take that up? I doubt it will work since you have a different cultural setting.

[kurai]

the prussian education model is already fundamentally predicated on corporal punishment regardless of whether or not anyone is being hit, involving discipline and obedience training in order to reshape the body into sitting in place and memorizing things

but i will also take the bold stance of saying that active violence against children is bad, and putting violence in the hands of people of dubious qualification and under little supervision would be bad also, from both a moral and a practical-legal standpoint (granting a group of people legal immunity in their interactions with children does not work out well historically, so any actual application is sure to result in legal drama).

regarding effectiveness, skimming through a Gershoff 2002 meta-analysis of studies on corporal punishment; hitting someone basically might get them to do what you want in the short term, but in the long term that might end up hating/fearing the source of discipline (or the world in general). this seems sensible enough: you don't train humans to conform with social norms of dedication/efficiency/justice/imagination - or to understand and recreate learned skills - by treating them as an animal. the argument is that people will try to avoid pain by returning to their studies: well, maybe this will happen half-heartedly on some occasions, but perhaps they will also just avoid the situation altogether by not going to school again.

as to the original article, clicking through brings us the revelation that "more than 72 per cent of students who are given a long suspension never receive a second and only 1.7 per cent of the total 2012 school enrolment were given long suspensions, a figure which has remained stable." this sounds like a fabricated crisis:

http://i.imgur.com/kNofVEt.png

[Magmar]

I went to a private primary school with corporal punishment for only one year. I got the paddle :( I wasn't even a bad kid! I got write-ups for stupid things like my hair being too long and failing uniform inspections. My parents are mentally ill and went on a hyper-religious kick when I was in 5th grade so they stuck me in that stupid school when I entered 6th grade, but we also REALLY couldn't afford it. One time I got in school suspension for having the wrong type of bow compass for math class. I got kicked out of class for not knowing any Christian Christmas carols. I hit the write-up quota and got beat. I was almost expelled! It wasn't all bad though, because the 6th grade teacher did catch on that things weren't okay at home.

I don't think corporal punishment is an effective model. There are numerous cases of corporal punishment being abused and minority students being targeted disproportionately. It creates and perpetuates a culture of violence against children being acceptable and can create adult abusers as well. If we as a culture can't come up more effective behavior modification model than beating children for not conforming to behavior standards, then we suck as a culture.

[Katie]

and putting violence in the hands of people of dubious qualification and under little supervision would be bad also, from both a moral and a practical-legal standpoint

This is my biggest beef with the idea. Report their behavior to me, and I will handle it as the parent.

[Blademaster]

There is no way that this will end well in the litigious and trigger-happy society we live in.

1. Angry parents will sue the shit out of any school that hits their child. Hell, the kids themselves will likely raise the notion of suing in many cases: Teachers being scared of their students seeking legal action is quite common here in the States.

2. I don't know Australia's demographics, but just imagine a white teacher smacking a black kid with a stick. The Australian equivalent of the NAACP would utterly fucking explode.

[Heald]

Leave it to the parents:

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