to wonder about "Bring Back the Cane!!!" debate

[Mitmoo]

It's on R5L this morning apparantly almost 50% of parents and a lot of kids have said they think the cane should return to school. I'm not sure who they asked but surely if you're hitting kids with implements you've already lost the plot?

You're kidding? As a serious debate? We don't flog criminals in this country (and a good thing too) and yet we should do it to kids? What was r5l thinking?

how many people did they ask - 50% of GB population? I am very suspicious of percentages (and caning)

Yeah! State sanctioned child abuse. Great idea.

Ridiculous. As a teacher I would never even contemplate deliberately harming a child and would never, even if it was legal, work in a school where adults were encouraged/allowed to treat children in this way.

well what we are doing at the moment definitely isnt working is it so maybe its time to rethink

The army are not allowed to torture terrorists (rightly). Why should we be allowed to torture our children?

NO child of mine would be setting foot in a school where corporal punishment was used.

No way never, ever in a million years would I ever have allowed a teacher to hit my child with what is basically a weapon.

I don't think "rethinking" and "introducing child abuse" are quite the same thing. And actually, despite what you read in the Daily Mail and similar papers, most school children are fairly well behaved and get through school without causing too many problems. Kids are always going to be naughty from time to time, and yes, some can be downright disruptive in schools. But I don't think hitting people with sticks is ever the solution to a problem.

I'd be interested to know who they asked, and how they worded the question, to get 50% of parents to agree. And I suspect any children who agreed only meant "there are some troublemakers in my school and I don't think the teachers deal with them very effectively", rather than having thought through the implications in a meaningful way.

If that happened, imagine the boom in home ed?

Maybe it's a gambit to push people into setting up free schools?

So it would be ok to hit a child with a stick? What about adults? Maybe they could introduce caning at work so if you are caught slacking on MN then your boss could give you a whack too.

In fact, maybe everyone should be given a cane so that if an old lady holds you up in Tesco counting out her coppers you could give her a quick whack across the back of the legs and tell her to get a move on.

they probably asked 10 people and 5 of them agreed. They didn't ask everyone, thats not how it works.

All these people agreeing, are only probably in favour of other people's children being beaten with sticks. If it was their own child they would quickly change their tune.

I deffently don't think the cane should be brought back, i do think there is a lack of disapline in schools and there needs to be some form of punishment but nothing physical. I think punishment's can be wrongly used for example a child may have bad behaviour due to sn's (ADHD,ASD'S) using a form of physical punishment would be more harmful and unfare. No one should be allowed to physicly harm our children.

The strap was used when I was in primary school, I'm not that old , I don't remember it being used past about P3, it taught me feck all. However being slapped was seen as a bit of a status thing and it hurt, really hurt.

Playing devils advocate here, if a child was not naughty, it should not get punished. Therefore if the child doesnt want to receive a punishment that they do not like, they will not misbehave, and there would be no need for any punishment to be administered.

When I was at school, it was still legal to give pupils the slipper if they misbehaved badly. It rarely happened, because pupils knew that it might happen and it had the effect of being a deterrent to bad behaviour.

despite what you read in the Daily Mail and similar papers, most school children are fairly well behaved and get through school without causing too many problems

I would disagree, as I have quite a few friends who are teachers, or who work in the education sector, and over recent years the problems with pupils, their attitude, and the "you cant touch me, I know my rights so you cant make me do anything" view is an increasing problem.

Right so caning children, but not child abusers. Great thinking, you can break any law you want and face no physical punishment, but a child misbehaves breaking no law and an adult can hit them.
besides do you think a teacher is going to be able to cane a 5'10" teenage boy who is telling him to fuck off. people keep saying teachers get physically intimidated in some schools, so I do not think these same kids will just stand there whilst they get caned. I know if when I was a teenager if a teacher had tried to hit me, I would have hit them right back.
I suspect it will end up with bad teachers using it on kids who are not a threat, but have minor misbehaviour problems.

Up here in Scotland "Punishing with a belt, cane or other implement" were made illegal in 2003. If society thinks its not ok for parents to do these things, why would it be ok for teachers to do them?

nah, my Mum went to school when corporal punishment was still allowed and still remembers that one of the teachers just used to pick on the children he didn't like and cane them (primary school level). The other teachers hated him so much that when he finally retired one knocked him out cold outside the school for being so horrible. Caning is a BAD THING.

But as I said it hurts, not stings, not itches, not is "uncomfortable" but hurts a lot. I'm 37 and I remember how much it hurts and I was hit once in P2, the whole class was strapped for being noisy when the teacher left the room. By the way I was 5 in P2.

Anyone who would consider deliberately inflicting harm on a child has no business working with children. It is child abuse, without a shadow of a doubt. It's not the same as a frustrated parent giving a kid a little smack (although I am not in favour of that either), it is deliberately inflicting harm on someone who you are supposed to be looking after.

Squeakytoy.
What nonsense, my children have Asperger Syndrome, my son (16) was asked recently what he'd done his homework on. His answer was 'Paper'. Should the teacher have been caned for asking the wrong question? Or should ds have been punished for being rude? He wasn't, he was answering the question, as he saw, it correctly. However, in a school situation where the cane is used, that could be perceived as 'being naughty'.

There are so many circumstances where behaviours are different, all you are in fact teaching a lot of kids is to be scared because they don't understand. That's hardly healthy is it?

You can never bring back corporal punishment (whether it should have been abolished, without something in its place, is another question).
In truth, I don't think parents really want the return of the cane, but they do want sanctions for disruptive pupils that work.
DD1s, ordinary comp, has complex levels of detention, suspension, internal and external exclusion. The problem is that the trouble makers don't give a toss about being put in detention even though it's after school and really boring. Clearly their parents don't care either (or they make excuses for being late and don't tell them).
School clearly doesn't want to have to suspend pupils for repeat minor crimes and damage their education.
BUT these pupils disruptive behaviour damages the education of others.
DD1 has learnt no French for two years because of this kind of nonsense, I know you can't cane the pupils with no intention off shutting up and giving the teacher a chance to teach, but the school seems to have no effective sanction at all

The same children were always caned at my primary school so it can't have been much of a deterrent. Looking back on it, the children who were punished this way were the ones who never sat still or could not read aloud properly so the teacher was punishing those who had special learning difficulties.