Arguments Against Corporal Punishment in Schools | Arguments Against Corporal Punishment in Schools

The question posed is, should corporal punishment be used in public schools? I believe that I have a better feel for this issue then most, because I have attended both private and public schools. The private school that I attended was allowed to punish students by spanking them with a paddle. That method of punishment, in my eyes, seemed to be semi-effective. During high school I began to attend a public school which was not allowed to physically punish students in any way. I believe with all the changes taking place in our world today, it is not realistic to think that the idea of corporal punishment would ever take hold again in schools. I think that most children would respond negatively to a change like this and that this change would only create more of a problem in the long run.

After reading several articles on corporal punishment it became very clear to me that this type of punishment in schools is not the answer. According to Murray Straus, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire said that, "The problem with corporal punishment is that it has lasting effects that include increased aggression and social difficulties." Straus studied more than 800 mothers over a period from 1988 to 1992 and found that the children who were spanked were more rebellious even after taking into accounting their initial behaviors. Groups that advocate for children like The American Academy of Pediatrics and The National Education Association, oppose the practice of corporal punishment in schools for the same reasons that Straus argued (Boser 44).

Another interesting point that I found was made by Fredrick Green, author of the humanist. Fredrick said, "The essence of corporal punishment is the influencing of pain and humiliation. It is teaching by fear. I cannot describe either pain or humiliation as being developmentally enhancing." (Keeshan 67) Green advocates "the lessons learned by corporal punishment are short-term and will usually disappear when the treat of punishment disappears." (Keeshan 67)

On the other hand some people believe strongly in bringing back the practices of corporal punishment in schools. Researchers at the American Psychological Association Convention in San Francisco studied more than 100 middle-class white families and found no evidence that mild spanking causes lasting emotional harm. "We found no evidence for unique detrimental effects of normative physical punishment," claims Diana Baumrind of the University of California at Berkeley's Institute of Human Development (Davidson 1). This study doesn't really go back to corporal punishment in schools though, because it wasn't punishment that these children were receiving at school from their teachers, it was punishment given to them in their home setting from their parents. Turning to corporal punishment isn't the answer. It has been proven to emotionally affect students. An example is the story of a young girl named Megan Cahanin. Megan was a fourth grader at Zwolle Elementary in Louisiana. She was an honor student who had never been in trouble. Megan was paddled after she was sent to the office for fighting with some of her other classmates. After the "spanking" Megan didn't want to return to school so her parents decided to home-school her, but she missed her friends. Now Megan is a thriving fifth grader at a new school with new friends, but the memory of this unnecessary punishment will stay with her for the rest of her life. (Jerome 1-2)

In closing I believe that corporal punishment in schools is a thing of the past. I think with the way that the United States has changed in the last 20 years it would not be socially expectable to have teachers and principals paddling or spanking other people's children. Parents of today's society sue for their children having to say the word God while reciting the pledge of allegiance. How do you think those parents would respond to having their child hit? Another major concern in public schools today is the violence that is taking place among young children. If we give teachers the right to be violent then it will just encourage the students to become violent as well which is defeating the whole purpose of non-violence in schools. All and all I think that corporal punishment is wrong. Children should be punished when acting out in schools, but that punishment should be in a non-violent form.