The Importance Of Corporal Punishment In Schools

Properly educating our children is an important task. Parents do what they can to provide their children with the knowledge they need, but the bulk of the job of educating our youth falls to teachers, principals and other educational professionals. Parents put their faith in these experts to treat children properly and teach them well. We also charge them with keeping good discipline in the classroom environment. Each teacher has their own manner of doing this.

But when it comes to raising and treatment of children, opinions can vary widely as to what’s best (what’s correct). Perhaps the widest variance of opinion amongst people, even professionals, has to with what is appropriate punishment for bad behavior, particularly the appropriateness of corporal punishment. Even more contentious is the discussion of whether or not the professionals we rely upon to educate our children should be allowed to use corporal punishment to discipline them.

There are those who support corporal punishment in schools and those who do not. The disparity in thought on the matter is reflected in the fact that 19 states allow the corporal punishment in schools and the remaining 29 banning the practice (Nies). No Federal ban on the practice exists and the Supreme Court has upheld the right of individual states to such decisions (Morones). Those who support its use, believe it to be effective. As writer Adam Cohen points out, there is a long held notion from the bible of “spare the rod and spoil the child”, amongst corporal punishment advocates (Cohen).

In Marion County Florida, for instance, a corporal punishment policy was voted upon by the school board and it passed by a 3-2 vote (Morones). School Board member and 14 year veteran elementary school p...

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...se there is so much emotion surrounding the topic. Gordan Bauer and his colleagues state that “Dispassionate discourse is difficult to attain with such an emotionally charged topic... In scientific research, here emotionalism is presumably minimized, considerable gaps exist in the literature which preclude the possibility of making conclusive statements about the impact of physical punishment in school settings (Bauer, Dubanoski and Yamauchi 285).”

The old saying is that it takes a village to raise a child. The “village” is currently divided on the subject of using corporal punishment in the educational institutions in this country. Whatever the point of view, each seeks to find the best practice for raising and educating children. Respectful debate should be the course for deciding the issue, so that all sides can be considered and assessed on their own merits.