Friday Ramblings with Robert
Marcy Shows Some Gusto
Bill Marcy may not beat Bennie Thompson in November, but you sure have to have some respect for a man who will walk into a human lions den and call out the Congressman in front of his own supporters. Bennie undoubtedly is not used to having the type of opponent who will actually have the fortitude to pull something like this off and I think it is refreshing to have a candidate who will take this sort of approach. The most telling thing in their encounter for me is when Thompson is pressed to answer for his district being among the poorest in the country with the worst schools and the best he could come up with is to point to a period 80 years ago and take zero accountability for where his district is today. The only thing Bennie Thompson has ever done for his district is cash his own check. The man is a failure to his constituents who are sadly just too obtuse to realize it. Good for Marcy to try and show him for the failure that he is.
Paddle On
A student at Independence High School in North Mississippi has been defeated in his efforts to have school paddling stopped in the state of Mississippi. The student is a 16 year old who claimed he had been paddled with excessive force and as is typical in the times we live in filed a lawsuit. Heaven forbid he admit that he actually did something wrong and was justly punished for it. Of course as a 16 year old I would be pretty embarrassed to have to go to the principals office to get a paddling for being immature and disobeying. Kudos to U.S. District Judge W. Allen Pepper of Greenville and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans for denying the request. Corporal punishment is only legal in 20 states and you could probably guess most of them including Mississippi are in the southern part of the country or mostly rural states. Nowadays a great deal of children have no idea what its like to get spanked or paddled and society is not better for it judging by the results. I think that paddling in schools is not the ultimate solution to straighten out bad kids, but I think it can and does help in most cases. I am glad our state has not outlawed it and gone the way of taking a psychological sissy approach to disciplining children in schools.
Comments are closed.
The Mississippi student has not been defeated, only the Temporary Restraining Order has been denied as the law allows paddling in schools in Miss. The lawsuit seeks a Federal Declaration that physical punishment of children in schools is Unconstitutional! Legislation is in U.S. Congress now, HR 5628 “Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act”, please urge your Representative to Co-Sponsor/Support this bill. We do not hit our 3 children, yet they must witness/overhear teachers threaten/Hit students with Wooden Paddles just outside class for minor infractions as a knee-jerk reaction with no parental communication, notification or consent, as State Law does not require Parental Consent or Notification for children to be physically punished at school. Physical/Corporal Punishment is Illegal in Schools in 30 States, over half our nation, and opposed by our nation’s most trusted Children’s Health and Education Organizations. Physical/Corporal Punishment is Prohibited by Federal Law in Prisons and Juvenile Detention Centers. Anyone can view shocking true reports of incidents of child abuse that have taken place in publicly funded schools by searching “A Violent Education” and “School is Not Supposed to Hurt”. Sadly, the state of Mississippi leads the nation in the number of Children paddled or spanked in schools, one recent headline reads “Nearly 60,000 Mississippi School Spankings last year” and a school district in LeFlore County, MS was sued twice in one month for $500,000 each time by the families of children injured by paddling at school.
Anyone who thinks it is okay to hit a 16 year old under any circumstances other than self-defense or defense of others needs to engage in some self-education. No professionals support hitting people who are at this stage of sexual development. None. Not even the few “professionals” who advocate spanking children as a method of “training” them. This is not a coincidence. Mississippi is entrenching itself at the bottom on the United States on yet another basis… what a surprise.
Typical knee-jerk reaction. Can you tell us by what criteria you determined that this kid does not have a valid complaint (even if you think his efforts to get paddling abolished is overreaching)?
Anyway, here are some general arguments against this form of punishment:
1. School paddling violates Title IX insofar as boys and girls are impacted differently, given that unlike boys, girls who have entered puberty would have to reveal intimate personal information in order to avoid the chance of this punishment being unfairly compounded by menstrual discomfort, or a risk factor where there is the possibility of pregnancy. There are at least two known incidents where paddling had medical consequences due to a student being female, one in Dunn, N.C. from 1981 (ref: “Don’t Inflict My Pain on Others,” by Shelly S. Gaspersohn, USA Today, October 23, 1984) and another in Scioto County, Ohio from 1997 (ref: “Some Ohio schools not sparing the rod — Corporal punishment allowed in districts,” The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), September 24, 2000). With children of any age, moreover, discomfort following a paddling is apt to be greater for girls, due to pressure on the inflamed and/or contused area of their bodies resulting from their normal mode of urination or, alternatively, to muscular discomfort if they awkwardly avoid this pressure. This disparity was illustrated in the case of an 8-year-old in Florida who had to use her hands to support herself astride a toilet in order to urinate without aggravating the lingering pain she was experiencing (ref: State v. Paul E. King, Florida Supreme Court Case No. SC05-258).
2. The general immunity to litigation–if not also criminal prosecution–which some state laws and the courts have given teachers and principals when it comes to paddling effectively and unconstitutionally denies students and parents the remedies that were essential to the Supreme Court’s decision in 1977 upholding school corporal punishment.
3. The balance of available redress in the case of an injurious or otherwise unjust paddling is further weakened by the modern day prospect of unwanted, widespread prurient attention to victims via corporal punishment-themed adult websites, which may inhibit parents from seeking redress for their unjustly paddled child for fear of the publicity such complaints could generate. (See related: The Dunn, North Carolina Paddling Incident)
4. The legitimacy of male principals spanking female students is at odds with prevailing sexual harassment codes, which bar male employers from spanking female employees (including minors).
5. The spanking paddle itself was originally invented not for use on schoolchildren but rather as a tool for beating slaves. The idea was to have something that would inflict terrible pain without causing the kind of permanent tissue damage that could lower a slave’s market value. While the corporal punishment of slaves has most often been portrayed as using a whip, it was also fairly common practice by the mid 1800′s, at least in certain states, to use a paddle instead. (This will not be news to anyone who has studied American slavery in depth or seen the 1975 movie “Mandingo.”) Although nobody would suggest that students today are paddled with the same degree of severity that slaves were, it is important to recognize that extreme severity is what this instrument was designed for. It is virtually unheard of, moreover, for school personnel to receive any professional training in how to paddle students, to be required beforehand to demonstrate competence at doing it safely and judiciously, to have their paddles inspected and held to any standards of size, weight, composition, or craftsmanship, and least of all to have the velocity of their swing measured. Thus, we can reasonably expect that paddlers will often times hit harder than they intend to, or in some cases, hit parts of the body they don’t intend to.
6. The spanking of kids at school could be videotaped without anyone’s knowledge, which is a lot easier with the tiny cameras they make nowadays. If someone were to circulate that video on the Internet, it could be really humiliating for the student. Not to mention that there’s a black market for images of children being spanked. The FBI broke up a nationwide child-spanking pornography ring in 2002, incredible as that may sound, and at least two of its members worked in public schools (ref: http://nospank.net/101.htm).
7. Despite dire warnings that school discipline would deteriorate if paddling went away, Memphis has since enacting its ban seen a reduction of discipline problems. At the national level, one finds that dropout rates, violent crime, and other social problems are most concentrated among states and localities where paddling is still allowed. School shootings have occurred most often in states that allow paddling (and paddling may have even been a catalyst for the one in Jonesboro, Arkansas). It is worth noting, moreover, that among the top 100 U.S. schools ranked by Newsweek in 2003, not a single one is a paddling school.
8. The many groups supporting a ban on corporal punishment include The National Association of School Boards, The American Academy of Pediatrics, and The National Association of School Nurses.
I am a supporter of School Wide Positive Behavior Plan’s. The only problem is the school leadership does not provide a plan to follow. This leaves the teacher without any support in the classroom. That means that the teacher is left with a negative punitive system and no positive aspect to the school behavior plan. If we take the paddle away, the teacher is left with no discipline in the classroom (classroom Chaos). The issue then turns to safety for the students The administrators in Mississippi are the most ignorant, self-rightous, power hungry, money spending, bureaucrats this State has ever seen. They will leave it up to the teachers to survive in the classroom while they sit on their rear ends in the office. Save the teachers from lazy administrators keep the paddle.
I am glad that the judges did not allow the temporary halt to school districts using corporal punishment. No, Tom, we do not know if the student had a valid complaint, but where are the parents in this? Did the parents go through the chain of authority like someone is supposed to? Did the parents sign the release form at the beginning of the year stating that they would not allow their child to be paddled? Where, oh, where are the parents of this student and are they doing THEIR job?
But this issue goes further than just corporal punishement. I am all for positive behavior support, but if you cannot get the community to back it up, it only works so much. This is a problem of any particular society. If the community is not willing to work together for the betterment of their children, then nothing gets done, no matter how hard the teachers work.
As for research, I only put a grain of salt into so called “studies.” I was spanked growing up and I am better for it. I also spank my child. There are always going to be cases where people go to far, we are all human and not perfect and also good poeple and bad people. I also do not agree with the federal government dictating to the states and state public schools what they can and cannot do. IF you don’t agree with it, you have the FREEDOM to move to another state or school that provides what you want for your child, or even homeschool. That is why we live in the United States of America and not in Germany or Norway!
As I understand it (though I’m no lawyer), the federal government wouldn’t be declaring it illegal for schools to paddle, but rather withholding federal funding from those that do. A school district may choose to keep paddling, just as a family may choose to move to another state or homeschool.
Can you respond at all to the first argument in the list of arguments against paddling that I posted?
Is shocking that people forget about children’s human rights!
And what about children who are (re)traumatized of the beating, for example because they are victims of sexual abuse in the familiy or elsewhere, and the spanking reminds them of the sexual abuse?
In Norway, where I live, beating children in schools was forbidden by law in 1936.
Its a spanking not a beating. The Romans beat Jesus, this boy was spanked. Jesus bleed because he was beat,this boy did not. The fact is this boy had the choice to be spanked, ISS, or OSS.
Spanking is beating. And it’s perverse. In the U.S. the only people who can smack someone on the buttocks as part of their profession are prostitutes, porn stars and schoolteachers.
Spanking is NOT beating. There is a big difference.
No, it’s the same thing.
Sigrun, what your kind did to Jesus, the Christ King son of God was a beating. The spanking the boy received was a spanking. Maybe we can get together and I will show you the difference.
Argument #1 – There will always be discomfort. If it felt good, it wouldn’t do any good. As for girls being paddled once they reach puberty. Girls are asked to say yes or no if there is any personal reason why they should not be paddled. They are not asked for specifics so it is up to the student to make that decision.
Argument #2 – I have no problem with teachers and administrators having some sort of litigation immunity. We live in a time where litigation is around every corner, regardless if it makes sense or not. Common sense is not evident today and it shows. School is not a federal right, it is a priviledge. It is not stated in our Bill of Rights. It is the parents choice as to where to send their children.
Argument #3 & #6 – Adult websites I have no comment about.. they are adult websites and have no business with children. As for the leakage of a video, that is why many schools do not allow cell phones in school and corporal punishment is administered in the office with at least 2 adult witnesses.
Argument #4 – At many schools, especially high schools, there is a female staff member who paddles the female students. That is an easy remedy to this argument.
Argument #5 – That type of training and inspection would be great! I know many teachers who would have no problem with that.
Arugment #7 – I lived outside of Memphis for over 2 years and you are very wrong about that situation. They (PARENTS and teachers) are trying to put corporal punishment back into the school system b/c their no punishment system is not working. Things are actually worse than it was before.
Though you note that all top schools in the Newsweek poll do not use corporal punishment, I wish you would look at the communities that these school are in as well. How much community and parent support do they recieve? I bet they recieve a great deal and that the community looks at the education of their children as a necessity and not just a thing they go and do so the parents can go have fun somewhere.
Argument #8 – As for all of the associations who support the ban on corporal punishment, I hold them with a grain of salt. Most of them are extremely educated individuals who left what commonsense they once possessed in graduate school when they recieved their degrees. They all have their motives for thinking that EVERYONE would be fine if they all followed the same rules. Humans don’t work that way.. we are all different. One-size-fits all doesn’t work for everyone.
We live in the U.S. for a reason. If the parents in a particular state don’t want corporal punishment administered in the schools, then they have a route in which to do that. Leave it up to the states and the parents to decide. Someone who lives New York has no business telling me how my school should be run or what we should be doing.
Wow . . . sorry about the screwed up formatting on the last post. Let me try again:
Ama, thanks for making thoughtful responses to all those arguments I had listed, going above and beyond what was asked of you. I’ll try to address your individual counterpoints.
***Argument #1 – There will always be discomfort. If it felt good, it wouldn’t do any good. As for girls being paddled once they reach puberty. Girls are asked to say yes or no if there is any personal reason why they should not be paddled. They are not asked for specifics so it is up to the student to make that decision.***
I didn’t realize it was handled this way. But if only girls can escape paddling simply by saying they have personal reasons, then that’s not really fair to the boys!
Also, even with kids well below puberty, you still have the issue of pain aggravated by sitting on the toilet. In fact, the young man whose family has filed suit said that doing so was painful for days after being paddled. A girl who received such punishment would be experiencing that pain a lot more frequently (unless she learned to pee standing). Is that fair? Do students not have a right to be disciplined in a way on which their gender has no bearing?
***Argument #2 – I have no problem with teachers and administrators having some sort of litigation immunity. We live in a time where litigation is around every corner, regardless if it makes sense or not. Common sense is not evident today and it shows. School is not a federal right, it is a priviledge. It is not stated in our Bill of Rights. It is the parents choice as to where to send their children.***
Voting is not a federal right or in the Bill of Rights either. It is up to each state to decide whether it will give its citizens such a direct voice in government (and all 50 have done so on their own), but there are federal rules about how the vote is given. For example, you can’t exclude women or minorities. Likewise, the federal government upholds certain principles in the provision of other state-based services, such as school (as in the case of segregation), even if only by withholding the federal funds that schools receive.
As for litigation immunity, the problem is that it conflicts with what the Supreme Court said about the legal remedies that keep corporal punishment in check. Besides, I’ve never seen an example of a lawsuit over corporal punishment that didn’t make sense, so I’m skeptical that such special immunities are really warranted.
***Argument #3 & #6 – Adult websites I have no comment about.. they are adult websites and have no business with children. ***
Nonetheless, if your teenage daughter is paddled at school and it somehow becomes public knowledge, you can bet that these adult websites will be all over it. So what do you do if she comes home with really bad bruises (parental consent forms usually don’t allow you to put any limits on how severely your child is paddled)? If you raise hell about it, the incident is apt to be reported in the news, and next thing you know her name is all over the Internet.
***As for the leakage of a video, that is why many schools do not allow cell phones in school and corporal punishment is administered in the office with at least 2 adult witnesses.***
That does nothing to prevent the punishments from being recorded covertly by either the principal or the witnesses–I assume the cell phone ban is for students only. Remember that one member of the pornography ring mentioned above was an elementary school teacher. (By the way, I wonder if witnesses are trained in how to react if a paddling goes too far.)
***Argument #4 – At many schools, especially high schools, there is a female staff member who paddles the female students. That is an easy remedy to this argument.***
Not quite, because a male boss could also be charged with sexual harassment for spanking male employees. Plus, you have another fairness issue, since men on average will hit harder than women, which means boys would get more severe punishment
***Argument #5 – That type of training and inspection would be great! I know many teachers who would have no problem with that.***
It would be great! Makes you wonder why it never occurred to anyone in all this time.
***Arugment #7 – I lived outside of Memphis for over 2 years and you are very wrong about that situation. They (PARENTS and teachers) are trying to put corporal punishment back into the school system b/c their no punishment system is not working. Things are actually worse than it was before.***
By what measurement are things worse than they were before?
***Though you note that all top schools in the Newsweek poll do not use corporal punishment, I wish you would look at the communities that these school are in as well. How much community and parent support do they recieve? I bet they recieve a great deal and that the community looks at the education of their children as a necessity and not just a thing they go and do so the parents can go have fun somewhere.***
That’s a good point, and I have not looked at where those schools are based or what advantages they may have.
***Argument #8 – As for all of the associations who support the ban on corporal punishment, I hold them with a grain of salt. Most of them are extremely educated individuals who left what commonsense they once possessed in graduate school when they recieved their degrees. They all have their motives for thinking that EVERYONE would be fine if they all followed the same rules.***
Does this characterization include the National Association of School Nurses?
***Humans don’t work that way.. we are all different. One-size-fits all doesn’t work for everyone.***
With that in mind, should bosses be allowed to spank their employees after all?
Resolution lets compare scores. I know a private school that uses the paddle in the correct manner. I will compare their scores to any of Tom’s schools, without the paddle. Then maybe the data will wake you up.
Our reluctance to use the word “beating” in reference to severe spanking is a relatively recent phenomenon. In any case, it’s all a matter of the degree of force involved. I reckon some people have “beaten” their carpets with less force and intensity than they’ve “spanked” their kids–possibly with a carpet beater (carpet spanker?)
It doesn’t have to be anywhere near as extreme as what the Romans did to Jesus. Certainly, if it’s hard enough to leaves bruises it qualifies as a beating.
In my country we call spanking beating and violence. Kids are fine people without cruelty from teachers and parents. We have little crime compared to the U.S.
To traumatize children is worse than bruises. PTSD in many cases means life long suffering.
You may have a lower crime rate, but don’t you have other things that are legal there that are still illegal in the U.S. such as certain drugs. As I said before.. it is a societal difference. You run your society much different then we run ours. How do you discipline your children? Have you visited the U.S. and spent any amount of time in a class say in the inner city or in a rural area? We do not live in a Utopian society and never will. Humans are not made for that.. read your history. As for human rights for children, they have rights, but they are still children.. which is the opperative word. They don’t have the knowledge to dictate all of their action and sometimes as hard as we try to teach them, some are just hard-headed and need a heavier approach. Not all children can be reasoned with just like not all adults can be reasoned with.
We have the same legal system concerning drugs as you have.
We discipline children by talking!
What about children having a mental disorder which makes them “difficult”? Is spanking a good medicine?
Children with disabilities are more spanked than other children in American schools. Is that OK?
This is not true every where and there are laws that deal with students with disabilities. Students with mental disorders are also treated differently. WE don’t treat everyone the SAME. When you talk about a school, they can only deal with what they are given. That includes if the parent felt it necessary to inform the school about any issues the child may have. Parents cannot be left out of this equation. It is not only the school that spanks children and it is up to the parent to decide whether they want their child to be paddled or not.
As for talking.. like I said.. you cannot reason with ALL children, just like you cannot reason with many adults.
Children must learn that there are consequences for what they do, a knowledge that is not being taught because more and more the hands of people who deal with children on a daily basis are being tied.
Since your country is so wonderful why are you here. You are right, America is not your country. Remember most everyone in this country left from places like your country a long time ago. Americans do not want to live in a contry like yours. That is why people left the old world for the new world. If your country is so great then why aren’t people flooding the borders to move there. The truth about Norway, its not a very free place to live. Sigrun, why are you here in America?
I am not in America.
People left Norway when the contry was very poor and the state was very religious and didn’t tolerate other beliefs than the lutheran state church. Things are different now. Norway was the first country in the world to have a children’s ombudsman.
Some people bruse just by a light touch. If you “beat” your rug with less force than a teacher paddles. Then you have some dirty rugs. Unless, you make everyone take off their shoes before entering the house. Which ever it might be, don’t get caught beating that rug. Someone might sue you for violating the rugs rights.
All right, I’ll qualify my earlier statement. If a spanking is hard enough to leave bruises ON A CHILD OF AVERAGE SUSCEPTIBILITY TO BRUISING, it qualifies as a beating.
Ama: Here is one report telling children with disabilities are spanked more: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/us0808/
Concerning children with mental disorders: I many cases no one knows that a child is mentally suffering, because its far more invisible than other disabilities.
In many cases the parents are the cause of that suffering, because of incest and other maltreatment.
Ok.. I glanced at the study that you recommended. Major point.. the ACLU is not the best people to be reading anything from. They are very prejudice aganist anyone, especially their own people. Also, 181 people for a national study is NOT a great gasp of data. It doesn’t give you an accurrate aggregate of data to correctly justify the any of the conclusions that they come to.
Also, focusing on only two states out of 50 doesn’t give you an accurate picture of the entire United States of America either. IF you are going to argue a principle on science or studies, then you better have a credible study to use that is not as restrictive and more objective then the one you have cited.
Kids don’t need discpline. It’s immoral, we should just put them in an ISS “time out.” If nothing else, it’ll prepare them for prison.
Love the sarcasm Travis. lol And unfortunately that is what happens to many children who are never disciplined at home and that school can only do so much.
OK, everyone who insists spanking and beating have no overlap, read the news article posted at http://nospank.net/lynch.htm. You’ll notice that the two words are used interchangeably through the report. How can this be?
Now Tom, you know better than that. You know that it is the discretion of the writer as to the words he or she uses. It doesn’t mean that they are using them correctly either. Those of us who agree with the use of corporal punishment are not saying that bad incidents do not happen. We know they do. Let the states, school districts and parents in the respective communities make the decision, not the federal government. The Federal Government has enough to deal with of greater importance at this moment. I want a FREE America for my daughter when she becomes an adult, not a country where we are dictated to for every little thing that they believe will hurt us.
OK, so in your opinion which word was correct in the context of that article, “spanking” or “beating”?
Also, what would be your reaction if your daughter was paddled severely at school, leaving bruises?
Honestly I don’t know, concerning the article. It is talking about sexual and physical abuse, not what we are talking about in a public school.
As for my daughter. I am notified everytime she is even close to getting a paddling, before she gets one. I make the decision if she gets paddled for the discipline problem and by whom. If she ever was paddled aganist my wishes and severly enough to leave bruises, yes I would be highly upset as a parent. Then I would go through the chain and get done what I need to, all the way to the department of education if need be. I would also not allow my daughter to be paddled there again. On that note though.. she has been paddled before and I knew before hand she was going to be. It was just enough to get her attention, and that is what it is for.
Well, just don’t be surprised if “going through the chain” turns out to be a dead end. That has been the experience of most aggrieved parents. A 9-year-old boy in Texas, for instance, was paddled so severely that he bled, and when his parents complained the school board and state authorities just circled the wagons to protect the teacher and the district from liability.
But getting back to the the news article: You took the position that spanking and beating are totally separate things. That’s a general statement going beyond the debate over public school policies.
The element of sexual abuse in this case should not prevent you from answering the question of whether the principal’s behavior should be referred to as spanking or beating.
On the other hand, you’ve characterized it as not just sexual abuse but also *physical* abuse. How did you reach that conclusion? By what definition of physical abuse do his actions qualify?
You who support spanking: The children who will develop PTSD, Complex PTSD or other disorders because of the spanking – who should pay for their therapy when they get older and perhaps suffer so much that they are unable to work, the spanker or the victim?
We pay for that already so that is nothing new. It is called taxes.
Do taxes cover psychotherapy???
That is why your sick philosophy should stay in the Old World (Europe). We live in the new world. Our ancestors left the Old World because such sick philosophies floating around Europe. Read the Bible it states “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” You can not argue with GOD.
What “sick philosophy” are you talking about?
I don’t think God wrote the Bible. Besides, in addition to being a slave driver and child beater, Salomo was an idolater and a polygamist of monumental proportions. If you’re searching the Bible for a guide or a model, you could find better than Solomon.
Yes.
I am concern you do not believe the Bible is a creditable source. It is obvious that you believe in a Freudian style philosophies(the isms). All those guys were wrong, just look what they did to Europe. The biggest thing about their sick philosophy is its anti-Christian accepts. The total goal of these sickos(like the teacher from Europe that sexually abused the kids in the link above:) is to spread their perverse ways throughout the world. It is their sick philosophy that has led to the moral decay here in America. To you who are blinded by belief in these sick philosophies, I will pray for you to one day know the true comfort, love, and warmth of the Christ.
Using religion to justify abuse of children is blasphemy!
Ok Tom, let me try to clarify. The author of the article quoted several different people who were using both words “spanking” and “beating.” I cannot begin to assume what these people went through or how they choose to characterize these unfortunate and haneous events that they endured. This is not just one person who is making clear what they perceive is the difference between a “spanking” or a “beating.” I only know what I perceive to be the difference because of my own experiences. This is the somewhat gray area because not EVERYONE is always going to agree on the difference, IF they perceive there is one. If they BELIEVE it is the same thing, then they have their own opinions on the matter at hand.
As for going through the chain of command. There is a right and wrong way to do it and unfortunately most people do not know this process so the actions they take actually hurt them instead of help them. Again, it comes down to the point that the Federal Government has no RIGHT or BUSINESS telling a state and its people how to discipline its children. Leave it up to the states and the LEGAL RESIDENTS of those states to decide.