An informal poll conducted Friday morning indicated overwhelming support of keeping corporal punishment in schools, but some experts warn of the danger of school paddling.
A lawsuit filed in Leflore County Circuit Court Sept. 17 is seeking $500,000 and an additional $40,000 for private schooling for a 6-year-old who the guardian claimed was repeatedly spanked in school. The incident raised public conversation about the school system’s ability to carry out corporal punishment.
Adlean Epps, a school bus driver, said students aren’t paddled enough in school.
“You can’t tell them anything,” Epps said. “It’s a problem. The mothers and fathers need to discipline kids. It starts at home. I was paddled, and it never hurt me.”
Marshell Boyd, a Greenwood resident who moved here from Arkansas, said paddling worked for her, and as it long as it is reasonable, it should be done.
“I had to call and tell them to paddle my child,” Boyd said. “Before, they would call me and ask to discipline her, and I told them if they could paddle, paddle.”
Boyd said though she believes corporal punishment is effective, it should be moderate and supervised.
A study by Murray Straus presented Sep. 25 at the 14th Annual Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma linked corporal punishment to lower IQ scores. He said other research has linked corporal punishment to increased rates of depression, spousal abuse and criminal activity.
“All of these are relatively small differences,” Straus said. “Being spanked doesn’t mean any one of those things would occur when the child becomes an adult. The question is why expose children to even the small risk?”
Straus said this is an argument against the claim that it is okay to spank because the parents turned out fine as adults. He said those who are not ill-affected by corporal punishment are not necessarily evidence that corporal punishment is risk-free.
“The idea that corporal punishment is necessary is the mainstream of our society,” Straus said. “It has a long cultural history, both religious and secular.”
Corporal punishment, Straus said, is no more effective than other means of behavior modification, but often seems easier to parents than other methods.
“Children need to be told several times in order to correct behavior,” Straus said. “Regardless of method, it needs to be repeated. People who practice corporal punishment have the right procedure but the wrong method.”
Straus said studies indicate that corporal punishment introduces the child to the idea that unreasonable behavior should be met with violence. When a student who has been exposed to corporal punishment deems the actions of others unreasonable, they are more likely to react aggressively, Straus said.
“There are studies showing that the more corporal punishment is used in schools, the worst behaved the children are,” Straus said. “It is counterproductive.”
“I believe in it,” Benny Barrentine, a retired Greenwood High school teacher, said. “It’s the only thing that works. Suspending them from school doesn’t work. It’s fun for them. It’s like giving them a popsicle.”
Barrentine said those who are against paddling do not understand the school environment.
“They’ve never been in a situation with a bunch of rowdy kids,” Barrentine said. “When mommy and daddy are gone, they think they are the boss.”
Sheril R. Smith, director of the Mississippi Office of Dropout Prevention, said that while she had no data supporting a connection between dropouts and corporal punishment, she said there is certainly a potential for it to cause problems.
“Some do it well and do it properly, but some schools may need to take a look at their use of (corporal punishment),” Smith said. “Anytime a student feels they are being unfairly disciplined, a light bulb goes off that tells them that they may not need to be in that environment.”
An open letter to school board members in districts allowing paddling from Jordan Riak, executive director of Parents and Teachers Against Violence in Education, said that in most industrial democracies, corporal punishment is viewed as “unprofessional and unethical.”
“Any teacher who can’t teach without hitting, can’t teach and therefore shouldn’t teach,” Riak wrote in the letter.
The following are excerpts of corporal punishment policies found on local district Web sites:
- Greenwood Public Schools:
Corporal punishment in the form of paddling shall be witnessed at all times by at least one certified school employee.
Corporal punishment for use in this district is defined as punishing or correcting a student by striking the student on the buttocks with a paddle.
Corporal punishment shall not exceed five swats with a paddle. The student shall be given an opportunity to explain his or her version of the facts prior to the imposition of such corporal punishment.
Such punishment should not be administered in the presence of other students or in anger.
Parents may choose to prohibit the school staff from using corporal punishment on their child.
Corporal punishment shall be administered only after less stringent measures such as counseling, parental conferences and other forms of discipline have failed to produce the desired results.
