Corporal punishment has no place in 2018… right?
Not according to a school in Georgia, which is petitioning to reinstate paddling as a form of discipline for its students.
The charter school in question is run by superintendent Jody Boulineau. She explains, “In this school, we take discipline very seriously. There was a time where corporal punishment was kind of the norm in school and you didn’t have the problems that you have.”
About a third of the parents asked have granted permission to the school to paddle their children if they step out of line. “I’ve heard, 'Great, it’s about time, we’re so glad that this is happening again, they should’ve never taken it out of schools,’" claims Jody, "all the way to ‘Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe you are doing that.'”
The problem with Jody's enthusiasm is that paddling has been thoroughly shown to be troublesome in school. One journalist breaks down why.
Most of this has been proven for decades.
How much authority do the teachers have to determine what earns a paddle and what doesn't? And who's going to determine that they're being fair?
With regard to the death penalty, statistics show that minorities are sentenced far more often than their white counterparts for identical crimes.
What she's referencing here is that, if a parent doesn't agree to allow their child to be paddled, then they will be suspended for several days instead. That puts increased pressure on some households to accept a rule they might disagree with.
Not to mention that it's ineffective.
There's no evidence that paddling is beneficial in any way, shape, or form.
This might be the most shocking stat of all.
Because it's such a quietly widespread practice, if you feel strongly about changing the system, these moments when stories get popular is the time to speak up.
Just like police officers, many teachers are fantastic and have the best of intentions — but not all.
There's really no effective way to implement this and make sure it's fair to all students. Not to mention that not everyone is on board with physical punishment of this nature.
People who haven't followed this issue were shocked to learn how widespread the practice is.
We bet you didn't know this was still happening in so many places, either. We didn't!
We'll just let this tweet speak for itself…
Many commenters shared their own experiences with paddling.
Drilling holes in the paddle apparently makes it sting more — which is a fun fact no kid should have to learn while bent over a desk.
It's also potentially damaging. Who knows what these children are going through at home?
Most stories don't have a (somewhat) happy ending like this tweeter's. Maybe the best policy is this:
Preach.
Or better yet, let's just eliminate paddling altogether.
