The case of the first-grade girl who had her braid cut off by a teacher has raised a controversy here on Open Salon as elsewhere. The teacher has been alternately reviled and given the benefit of the doubt. What most of us do not know is how prevalent this behavior (and much worse) is in our public schools and how some federal, state, and local laws hold teachers harmless if they should injure a child while administering corporal punishment.
In 2008, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union published a report on the widespread use of corporal punishment in United States schools. The document, A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment in US Public Schools reported that 21 states legalize the use of corporal punishment, citing the beating of almost a quarter of a million (223,190) students in the 2006-07 school year. (Note: Each student was likely to have received more than one beating. Researchers cited underreporting with the actual numbers estimated to be much higher.)
Data collected for the 2006-07 school year showed that the majority of the rule infractions leading to “paddling” were as trivial as having a shirt untucked, being tardy, or talking in class or the hallway. Other infractions earning this physical discipline were listed as “chewing gum, being late, sleeping in class, talking back to a teacher, violating the dress code, or going to the bathroom without permission.”
Corporal punishment was shown to be applied disproportionately to the crime but also applied with bias towards race, disability, and gender. Boys made up almost 80% of the victims. Of both genders, the Black and Native American students were beaten at twice the rate of their white counterparts. Special Education students were twice as likely to be "paddled" than the general student population. In Texas, almost 10,000 Special Education students (or a quarter of all punished students) were beaten.
Getting beat up at school by the teachers can cause students immediate pain and physical injury "severe muscle injury, extensive bruising, and whiplash damage”. Hand and arm injuries were common, resulting from defensive attempts by the student. Beatings may be allowed by law; however, there is no way to regulate the force used. Mississippi makes rules that the punishment should not be administered "maliciously or for the purpose of revenge".
Beatings can cause mental harm and leave children with feelings of humiliation and low self esteem which may result in depression or hostile acting out. Disengagement and subsequent withdrawal from school defeat the purpose of discipline which is to keep the child learning in school. If corporal punishment is practiced on children, they will learn violence. Another learned attitude concerns how this violence may groom girls for domestic violence and legitimize the targeting of weaker individuals.
Parents find no help in the justice system which hesitates to interfer with school discipline issues. School officials from the local to the state level close ranks while states that allow beatings offer immunity to school staff who may injure students. The highest court in the land ruled in 1977 that school corporal punishment was exempt from the Eighth amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Corporal punishment should be banned because it is wrong. Most cogently for those schools which continue to use it, it does not work. A school that uses beatings for discipline fosters an atmosphere of fear and hostility and results in rebellion and avoidance in children who then do not want to go to school.
Alternate strategies include programs like Positive Behavior Support which builds an inclusive climate in the school with clearly laid out expectations, incentives for good behavior, and immediate consequences for bad behavior.
NOTE: I was going to post a map showing the states which legally allow spanking; however, except for Ohio, the map is identical. If states allow it, schools use it.
UPDATE: Links:
Neilpaul's post on how corporal punishment affects human beings:
Brutality, Humiliation and Hatred
Ouside links:
International Debate Education Association--An international forum debating pros and cons. (BTW, the US, Canada and one county in Australia are the only developled nations which still do this.)
The Global Initiative to End Corporal Punishment of Children
The Center for Effective Discipline --A US site
World Research on Corporal Punishment
A tip of the hat to Emma Peel who noticed the lack of helpful resources.
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Comments
Thanks, O'Stephanie.
thanks for the comment.
Robin,
XO back girl. The numbers are going in the right direction--in the 2000-01 school year there were almost 350,000 students reported beaten. Not fast enough.
It appeared to me to almost be a cultural thing. The teachers often said that they treated the kids "just like family" by "paddling" them. I somehow think that you might beat your own kid a little less enthusiastically than they seem to be doing.
It's way past time to end it everywhere.
And as an aside, I cant help but notice how concentrated this is in the "bible belt" states, aka the spare the rod and spoil the child folks. And they wonder why the rest of the country thinks them ignorant.
Anyway, thanks for this great piece. As someone with much experience in schools here in Ohio, though, I can tell you that I have never, and I mean not once, run into a situation in which physical violence against students was demonstrated. In fact, teachers are reluctant to intervene in fights or even offer comfort to upset students because of fear of physical contact. I realize that your post and map indicate a geographic bias by the south for such beatings, but I thought I would mention this anecdotal evidence about my state.
Again noting that I am not in one of the red-zone states for corporal punishment, I will say that emotional bullying by teachers is a far greater concern of mine.
YES.
I see it all the time. All the time (again, clarifying that I'm talking about non-physical punishment). Before people get shocked by this, please remember that the vast majority of special ed students are not wheelchair bound or Down's Syndrome. They are children with diagnoses like Oppositional Defiance Disorder or ADHD or even mild autism. Mostly they are just vague, nonspecified learning disabilities. Whether they have an IEP or not, and even whether they have an official diagnosis or not, it's clear to me that children who manifest the symptoms of what the medical community call these disorders are routinely treated with severe frustration by teachers. It's easy--lord knows, it's easy--to get down on a student who is highly impulsive, regularly disrespectful, maddeningly obsessive, or just sort of doltish, but I constantly remind myself when I'm in classrooms (I'm currently in first grade) that it's best to maintain equanimity, give the student the benefit of the doubt (knowing that s/he does not want to be like this and doesn't find it easy to be like this in a setting like this), and refrain from using methods that don't work, which leads to nothing but diminishment of a kid's psyche and frustration all around. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is worth killing a child's sense of self. Passing state tests least of all.
You are quite right about your Ohio. The states with less than 1,000 affected students have made CP illiegal; however, they do allow "spanking". As more schools see how well PBS works, there will be less of even this.
Yes, I understand about schools being nervous about any kind of touching at all. Our schools are the same. Sometimes I think that the mission of the top school administrators is to avoid law suits.
Grif,
Amazing to me that so many schools have this. I only remember one student being spanked once in fifth grade. It was so traumatic for everyone involved that it was the one and only time.
Yes, it is time for the US to be done with this.
If he were to have a teacher who felt that corporal punishment was the best option, I would likely lose him forever to rage and bitterness. Things would progress to a level I don't like to think about.
I find the biggest predictor of abuse (again, talking about emotional) is the population of students. I have experience in urban schools where almost all kids are minority and on school lunch program and more recently in inner ring suburban schools, where students are white working class. I'm not even mentioning the schools my own children attend, which are primarily white upper middle class. From what I see inside the walls, the abuse of kids in the urban schools is far greater--completely predictable, in fact--than the other schools. I see mostly happy, satisfied kids and teachers where I'm at this year.
Also--back to the urban kids. It's unquestionably true that their own parents are using physical violence against them as a means of control. I found myself regularly keeping information about behavior from parents of kids who were likely to be beaten. It was common knowledge for many of them. I had (and constantly have) ethical concerns about all of this, including keeping information from parents. I've been involved in some formal reports to county officials, but much of what I'm talking about falls beneath that level of severity, and I just can't bring myself to report that a kid was "on yellow" to a dad who is screaming at his kid from the moment he gets in the car to begin with.
I too was shocked at the number of SPED students who are brutilized in Texas. I rechecked the number three times; it just seemed impossible. I've worked in SPED also and know how vulnerable they are to words and tones much less violence.
As a human geographer, I did not miss the geographical evidence. It is pretty stark. One of the things that the staff who was interviewed said was that the "spanking" was a sign that the staff considered the kids family because that was what happened at home.
Nana,
Yeah, before I heard about this report, I thought it was a thing of the past also. The world thinks of us as a violent people. Perhaps a large section of us are.
Lainey,
I share you concern about bullying teachers. My daughter was targeted by one teacher I later worked with. I'd like to say I rose above it, but I did not and sought revenge in time.
THANK YOU THANK YOU for writing about these kids with emotional or behavioral problems that are treated as if they could help themselves. I worked with these kids all the time. They would mouth off at staff and get suspended and then be out of our reach. (Sometimes, they would sneak back in to visit with me and my colleague.) There is a real disconnect.
You would think that the behavioral specialists would at least know who these kids are. The ones we had were like bar bouncers.
Thank you, Lainey!
Sorry for the confusion over Ohio! Beautiful Ohio!
I love your pronouncement.
And you picked up the detail about private schools. Only two states extend the prohibition to private schools.
Thank you so much for covering this issue with your own much needed perspective. The bottom line is that no educator should ever be allowed to use any form of corporal punishment on any student at any time for any reason. Period.
The notion that pain inflicting discipline is some sort of restraining factor is false. What it does do is teach impressionable minds - through example - that inflicting pain is a normal and endorsed way of dealing with such problems.
Where is the united cry of parents shouting, “No one touches my kid!”?
Rated and appreciated.
I don't support corporal punishment but the fact remains that teachers are increasingly being asked to do a job that they are not trained for with fewer resources and hostile parents and administrations. I'm surprised frankly that there are MORE problems.
And once again, I don't hear any solutions, just more teacher bashing. As I said earlier, there are bad teachers just as there are bad pilots, lousy doctors and surly sales clerks. But teachers seem to take a special measure of vitriol.
That is not what I consider teaching to be but then again, that is one reason I do it part time and even at that, I am ready to get out and do something where my job isn't simply to babysit and placate.
I've missed your irrascible self.
However, you still can't read. At least not until the end or you would have found:
"Alternate strategies include programs like Positive Behavior Support which builds an inclusive climate in the school with clearly laid out expectations, incentives for good behavior, and immediate consequences for bad behavior."
Hitting kids does not work to "make them mind" as you seem to suggest. Or are you suggesting that it is okay if a stressed out teacher cuffs a few special ed kids to work out her frustration? Being with kids all day is stressful. I know, I've done it. If you start hitting them, the job is not for you. There is a solution which works and that is to prohibit corporal punishment and adopt a system that does.
Look at the map. There is some reason that this phenomenon is geographically situated. Teachers are just as stressed out in the North. What is different in the South? Think of culture and climate.
I am honored that you have come back to make such great comments.
Bless you for treading that fine line of balancing discipline with the reality of a kid's life. For so many of them, school is the only stable place they have. There is such a chasm between these two worlds that you describe, separated by poverty and lack of opportuity and education. The kids who jump back and forth over that chasm every day deserve our respect.
I am still thinking about that stark geographic contrast between the North and the South and am thinking now that this may be driven by forces beginning in the Civil War and Slavery that ruined the economy of the South which has never recovered. After all, it is the only part of America which knows on the ground what losing a war means.
Thanks again, Lainey.
I'm not sure it's the climate -- living in extreme cold is also very stressful -- or the culture. The program you mentioned sounds very promising. I hope that it will be funded.
Thanks for coming by. You are a gem.
The report detailed the stories of parents who did stand and fight back but were powerless to protect their children. They couldn't get the police to arrest them, the DA to charge them, a grand jury to indict them, or a lawyer to represent them. The parents also mentioned being "shunned" in the community. The Supreme Court washed their hands of this in 1977 when they ruled that school punishment was exempt from the Eighth amendment. "Opt out" arrangements were not enforced. Most of these parents wound up home schooling their children who were afraid to return.
This is why I have said before that children do not have civil rights.
I was touched by your account of your son. How good for him to have a mother who is so aware of his needs. There are lots of folks who work in schools who can work no other place because they just love kids, working with kids. And they don't expect them to be like small adults, all put together and finished.
I'm glad you are in a good district with good teachers. Always stay in touch with them, even into high school. When a teacher knows that a parent cares, the communication can do wonders for the student. Bless you.
I had the highest grades in my class, and I was often BORED beyond belief. The day that I was beaten I had finished all the assignments for the day and was making paper airplanes at my desk and tried to fly one out an open window. I was pretty clear who the failure was under the circumstances.
There wasn't one book left in the classroom that I hadn't already read. By now, Mrs. Avery must be in the seventh level of Dante's hell for teachers.
I wonder now what effect it had on all the other students if she was beating the most accomplished student. I hated her for the rest of the year and plenty of my friends did too. What a way to ruin education and the love of it.
I have far too many memories of teachers viciously beating and humiliating children. I'll admit, for many years after I left school I instinctively disliked anyone who was a teacher. Fortunately, 20 years later, I'm able to be more fair in my opinion of teachers. There are good ones, who do their very best in trying circumstances. I was taught by one or two of them.
But nothing will erase the memories of my grade 4 teacher who yanked my braid so hard I nearly fainted from the pain. Or the time she caned my friend so viciously that his hand bled. Or the many times she bashed my other friend's head against the blackboard (eventually he was hospitalised with concussion). Or the daily canings we were subjected to for daring to make mistakes or giving the wrong answers.
Then there were the many other teachers who took pleasure in humiliating students in front of their classmates and, as a bonus, the slaps carelessly dealt out for the most trivial infractions.
To this day I cannot stand seeing a child spanked or physically disciplined in any manner.
I would also remind everyone that teachers do not generally set policy for school systems, nor do they make laws.
I hug the smart, sweet, innocent children you were when this happened to you.
When I wrote this, I had thought of including one of the many personal stories reported in the study. It had not occurred to me that my readers had many stories of their own. In each child who is beaten is a story that lasts a lifetime.
The story of my friend--the best little girl in the fifth grade class: she was paddled in front of everyone for an accidentally dropped book. I still remember her frozen mask of a face and the icy well in my chest as I sat helpless.
With this article, I have ruffled a few feathers of folks thinking that I was critcizing teachers in a general way. I was not. I have worked with teachers as a paraprofessional and found most of them to be caring individuals. And, as Jeanette states, teachers do not make policy. There were personal stories of teachers who did not want to spank but were caught up in a system with no alternatives for discipline. I am critical of systems, however. which do not prize all students equally.
Once that door is closed, the teacher is alone with those children. And, as was universally reported in the study, school officials closed ranks around any "problem", rendering the parents of these children helpless. No worse pain than being unable to save your child.
The teacher who made my daughter's fifth grade miserable and her last grade school field trip a painful memory won the district-wide "golden apple" award for teaching that year.
As someone without a masters in teaching certifiicate, I watched while "teachers day" was celebrated, and teachers were sentimentally lauded in a way that other professionals are not. Even the ones who hated my kids-at-risk felt that they were all good on that day. There is much in teaching that harks back to older days when teachers could not dye their hair.
What strikes me as most creepy and dangerous is in the comment you report "we are treating them just like family." That is terrifying.
Yes, this is how we mold our children. What could be more important?
That phrase haunts me as well. What is going on in these schools and homes that beating children is the norm? I'm going to look around my university's data bases and see if I can find any peer reviewed literature about this. It is so stark, surely this must have been studied. The study I took the data from did interviews in the two states which were the worst--Texas (by far just like their executions) and Mississippi. Ole Miss has poverty to plead but what of oil rich Texas?
More on this later,....
I know a wise woman who told me once,
"You know what the problem with today's kids is?"
"No Marion?"
"Not enough smacks. They are spoiled rotten."
but interesting post.
BUT...... we need to seriously examine the current structure of education in the U.S. It is unworkable going forward and like trying to fend off a bear with a b.b. gun.
I was a product of the public school system in New York. I have witnessed kids get screamed at by some teachers, and even one case where I witnessed a fourth-grade child have her head banged onto a desk. The only thing such behavior does is promote an atmosphere of terror amongst the timid and an atmosphere of hate amongst the delinquent. It did not and does not solve any problem.
Rated. A timely issue, Steph, as in Vermont we are looking into the complete dismantling of our current education structure. We see this as a time to move forward, to give kids the tools they need in an environment they can learn in to make the great strides our country needs. It will be long and difficult and expensive, but the consequences of doing nothing are far greater.
Am interested in your opinion. Used on you, it seems, do you use it on your own kids?
Hello there Bill S!
Wow, I am impressed by what Vermont is doing. We do need to do that all over the country if we are to keep up with the rest of the world. I have often thought that the Pacific NW and New England have much in common in progressive ways.
Yes, being a teacher is less attractive than it has been in the past. The pay is low and children have worse home lives than previously. And educational budgets have shrunk. Growing poverty in the population makes things so much worse.
I taught a class in social skills in the workplace which all kids could use--not just the at risk ones. Relevance and relationship are so important to these kids.
Love the tropical outfit and your stories!
Of the twelve years I spent in public schools in Oklahoma not ONE of them passed without multiple encounters with paddles. The older I got, the bigger the paddle for horribly egregious crimes such as throwing grapes on the school grounds, helping another student with her work when mine wasn't finished yet, being the pushee while in line at the water fountain, etc.
I had one used on me several times in high school that resembled the white one in your top picture, except it looked more like a flattened baseball bat. This so the person doling out the punishment could get more power in his swing. I had round "hickies" on my ass for a week. The damned thing would hit with such force it would literally casue the recipients to involuntarily move foward a few steps (which in itself would often warrant extra swings).
I laugh about it now, but if a teacher ever did such a thing as this or the braid incident mentioned in your post, ballistic would take on a whole new meaning.
It's disturbing to compare the U.S. with other developed countries in this category (yet another statistic in whch we fall behind the rest of the developed world).
"Disturbingly fascinating post, Steph"
Bob, it has been for me as more folks keep checking in with memories of having been raised under the threat of these paddles pictured here. I feel like I am poking at people's worst PTSD nightmares.
These paddles are not sold in educational supply houses even though they are heavily used. Teachers--and sometimes students--make these in shop. The baseball bat one that you mention likely began as a real bat and was whittled down. Now, that is a damn weapon.
Bob, you get a hug too.
In each beaten chld is a story which lasts a lifetime.
Thanks for your lengthy response. I also loved Lainey wieghing in with her considerable experience and sense.
This post hit nerves all over the place.
This news was reported in the media when I first saw it then it sank like a stone. I once had a conversation with an Egyptian man capping a long dialogue and we both decided that what was so egregious about the US is that we always have to wear the "white hat of rightesouness" no matter what stinking horrible thing we have been responsible for.
You are so right that violence toward weaker individiuals (women, chldren, the disabled) occurs in poverty. When men are made to feel helpless by racism or unemployment, they turn to violence against others to make themselves feel stronger. This is repeated over and over again in our ethnic minorities which are demonized and condemned for their actions when much of this pain is caused by society's ills.
Thanks Neilpaul.
You know, the prosecution of two "poor, older women" fits because there are a myriad of white males who got off free. These folks had three strikes against them by being poor, older and female.
Also realized that I did not touch on another point you brought up:
"People who think our society's lack of order, whatever that means, is due to lack of violence against children are ignorant and stupid."
I take this as a reference to the flip comment by Don Rich:
"I don't think so.
I know a wise woman who told me once,
"You know what the problem with today's kids is?"
"No Marion?"
"Not enough smacks. They are spoiled rotten."
but interesting post.
Don Rich
December 18, 2009 12:16 PM"
I actually sent him an email, asking why he felt this way in genuine interest. He shot back a "blank"--a reply with no text.
I looked at his site where he self-reports that he is an educated man. I suspect that he thinks OS is just a part of the faceless internet where he may commit hit and run stupidities.
No one reading these personal stories in the comments should dismiss them in such a disrespectful mammer as he did.
I managed to avoid it, except for one time. It was for a minor infraction. The really interesting thing is that, for whatever reason, the paddle 'lick' was almost painless. It was loud.
I'm sure that the 'coach' was skilled enough to either pull the punch, so to speak or really lay into someone. I was surprised at the theatrical aspect of the entire exercise and not particularly traumatized.
On the other hand, kids would beat the absolute living shit out of each other. One kid ended up with brain damage, as I recall, after a rock fight.
In general, the coaches were full of shit, but ok guys. They played the symbolic role of "cop" and if a male student absolutely had to get into it with an authority figure, they would get a beat down.
I was more afraid of the bullies than the teachers, thats for damn sure.
This isn't to say that I approve of corporal punishment in schools. It is stupid.
Most countries do not believe in the American fiction of equality of opportunity. Once you let go of that, it is not hard to track students so that order is maintained.
Point taken about the student bullies.
You were lucky that your particular school had a policyabout the severity of the strokes. Still humiliating.
I bet there are about 10,000 special ed students in Texas who might notice an improvement right away if they stopped getting beat. What it is a symptom of is intriguing. What is driving it?
The thing is that it does not work. PBS or Positive Behavior Support does work and it is cheap to install. There is a link to it in the text--last paragraph.
Thanks, Nick for coming by.
As far as your comment on PBS, I just heard something on This American Life about dialectical behavioral therapy being used on hospitalized prisoners with borderline personality disorders. Great show.
The thrust of the show was that the entire institution (Prison) relied on a fairly harsh, rigid hierarchy of guard to prisoner and the DBT broke all the 'rules' of that hierarchy.
I would invert the question and ask, 'if you have to beat kids to accomplish it, then why are you trying?'
Meaning, should special ed "students" be in special ed "schools"?
Maybe they shouldn't be students at all and schools should be abolished.
What the hell are they learning that is so important, anyway?
PBS is a system for supporting individuals in a large group setting such as a school where behavior can interrupt the learning process. The theory underlying this approach is basically behavioral. I taught a social skills in the workplace class which covered internal loci of evaluation and control, communication skills, etc which was great for effecting change via DBT.
Special Ed schools? Not since the IDEA act called for education for these students in the least restrictive environment. You might be surprised what persons with disabilities (PWD) can do if given the opportunity and training. We cannot just eliminate those with disabilities from life by segregating them.
The beatings mostly follow trivial violations of dress codes, etc. so it has nothing to do with the actual teaching. It is a climate of violence and fear.
Not sure I am understand what you mean to ask at the end there.
You are talking with someone with more opinions than knowledge in this area. As far as eliminating schools, I am thinking of the 'deschooling society' critique of institutionalized education. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich
I agree that PWD -- can do a lot with proper support and training. I had assumed that they were disproportionally subject to punishment because they are somehow considered an institutional problem. So, instead of reforming the institution, disband the institution and provide alternative mechanisms for training in a setting that doesn't promote violence.
Or perhaps a slightly less radical critique of public schools that recognize that they are mandatory (except for home schooling) total institutions based on hierarchal authoritarianism, -- and that they tend to break down in fairly predictable ways under institutional stress. These include all the various burdens of dealing with the less advantaged segments of our population.
The overall thrust of my argument is that if you see a systematic problem, then it is difficult to blame it on things like sadistic individuals and misguided community ethos, but rather is most likely to be a function of fundamental flaws within the institution.
They have been reforming the hell out of education for 100 years, starting with John Dewey (and, I'm sure before -- Horace Mann or whomever) and you still have things like the Baltimore City Schools and the like. Or the DC school system which is at least decently funded on a per child basis. So, why can't it be fixed?
I would also say that you have stakeholders that are less interested in educational outcomes than protecting their economic interests -- which include public employee unions. This is hardly a surprise.
I will suggest that the problems go far far beyond the use of corporal punishment.
Your argument falls down when you look at the geographic evidence. This is not happening all over the US--only in those states which have not outlawed physical punishment in schools. How can it be a sign of general decay when it is not general?
A free public education is the hallmark of a nation which educates its citizenry. Completely discarding our present educational system would be chaos. I have seen too many fads sweep through school districts advertised as "cutting edge"when they are really experimental.
This blog is about corporal punishment and not the entire school system. Even if you consider the system broken, you must still protect the children from physical and emotional harm. You cannot call it a mere "symptom".
Most folks who work in schools are there because they like working with children. They are certainly not there for the pay.
Eliminate hitting children today!!!
Then deal with the fact that public schools are still fucked up.
Happy you found this post tho it is a bit of a downer. I find 'em.
I think it satisfies the adults need for retribution, and they seem to remember it differently when they grow up or they would quit.'
Also if you look at our prison system you see more retribution than rehabilitation.
Maybe it just us.