Comments 6 | Recommend 1 Print RSS Yahoo! Buzz Share Paddling is back in Temple schools 12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, April 18, 2010 Michael Birnbaum

Comments 6 | Recommend 1
Print
RSS
Yahoo! Buzz
Share
Paddling is back in Temple schools

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, April 18, 2010

Michael Birnbaum, The Washington Post

TEMPLE, Texas – Most school districts across the country banned the paddling of students long ago. Temple has gone the other direction.

The Central Texas city of 60,000 revived the practice at the demand of parents who longed for the orderly schools of yesteryear. Without paddling, "there were no consequences for kids," said Steve Wright, who runs a construction business and is Temple's school board president.

Since paddling was brought back to the city's 14 schools by a unanimous board vote last May, behavior at Temple's single high school has changed dramatically, Wright said, even though only one student in the entire school system has been paddled.

"The discipline problem is much better than it's been in years," Wright said, something he attributed to the new punishment and other discipline programs the schools are trying. Residents praise the change.

"There are times when maybe a good crack might not be a bad idea," said Robert Pippin, a custom-home builder who sports a goatee and cowboy boots. His son graduated from Temple schools several years ago.

Corporal punishment remains legal in 20 states, mostly in the South, but its use is diminishing. Ohio ended it last year, and a movement for a federal ban is afoot. A House subcommittee held a hearing on the practice last week, and its chairman, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., is gearing up for a push to end the practice once and for all

"When you look that the federal government has outlawed physical punishment in prisons, I think the time has come that we should do it in schools," she said.

A joint American Civil Liberties Union-Human Rights Watch report last year found that students with disabilities were disproportionately subjected to corporal punishment, sometimes in direct response to behavioral problems that were a result of their disabilities. Many educators and psychologists say that positive tools, such as giving students praise when they behave well and withholding it when they don't, are far more effective for discouraging misbehavior.

Rules about paddling vary from district to district, but typically only administrators can mete out the punishment, which is done in private. Usually, a long, flat wooden paddle is used to give as many as three blows across the student's clothed rear end, although Farmer found students who had been hit many more times. Boys are overwhelmingly the target.

Not everybody in Texas is gung-ho about paddling. The practice has been banned in the state's big cities, and its use varies from campus to campus in districts that allow it.

In Alvin, a formerly agricultural city of 23,000 that has been swallowed by Houston's suburbs in the past decade, the policy is on the books but not used in many schools.

"I don't think it's that simple anymore," said Terry Constantine, who added that she hadn't swung a paddle in her 16 years as an elementary school principal there. "We look for our parents to work with us now."

At Alvin High School, where the technique is used, principal Kevon Wells said he has paddled students about six times this school year. If a student continued to misbehave, he said, he wouldn't do it again.

"I'm not into beating kids," he said.

Michael Birnbaum, The Washington Post

Print | RSS | | Yahoo! Buzz | Send a news tip

Create A Screen Name

Screen names can only consist of letters and numbers.
Your screen name will appear to everyone.
NOTE: You cannot change, delete,
or edit your screen name once you hit "Save".

Check to see if this screenname existsCancel Screen Name Form
Leave Comment
Guidelines: We welcome your thoughts, but for the sake of all readers, please refrain from the use of obscenities, personal attacks or racial slurs. All comments are subject to our terms of service and may be removed. Repeat offenders may lose commenting privileges.

You must be logged in to contribute. Log in | Register Now!

You are logged in as Mihaela Zeinali | Log Out

You are logged in, but do not have a "screen" name. Create a Screen Name
Showing:

Comments (6)
Posted by Mihaela Zeinali | less than one minute ago

"It takes a village to raise a child". Many people, blinded by old-fashioned ideological extremism or rough individualism, scared by too much government involvement, don't seem or want to understand the importance of social/cultural environment aspects and values, their enormous significance and impact on our children. Not only educational institutions, teachers and parents, but also the entire society are responsible, are influencing and forming our children, their education and general development. The physical punishment should be only a parent's privilege, and parents should not be intimidated by fear of overzealous government intervention, violating their privacy and their parental discipline rights. Schools in other countries are operating like military institutions, with no need for Police on the campus, where children understand respect for authority and appreciate education and educators, where teachers can tech without serious disruptions and Police intervention. In a democratic and multicultural society, to achieve positive and constructive learning school environment and culture, the whole society needs to be funded on mutual respect, positive and flexible integrative cooperation between diverse individuals and groups of people, harmoniously embracing their various values and structures to its benefit.