AIBU to be shocked that this still goes on in the USA? Trigger warning: corporal punishment in schools

[WoolieLiberal]

I feel completely sick seeing this. Apparently corporal punishment is still legal in the Deep South.

Sick fucking country!

So glad to be British.

amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/04/16/us/georgia-school-paddle-video/index.html

Sadly no surprise to me. Perhaps says a lot of my opinion of parts of the United States.

I thank my lucky stars my parents emigrated with us kids in disgust at Civil rights atrocities and then Vietnam. Privileged we came to the U.K.
it’s a frightening place.
Agree there are pockets without some of the worst aspects (Apols to much of the urban east coast, New York Boston Chicago Denver(ish) etc for calling you ‘pockets’ bykwim.

Yup. It's not everywhere, and parents can sign a waiver so that their child won't be punished in such a way if they choose, but sadly it's still very much a practice in some communities.

I spent nearly a decade working as a teacher in Texas and when I first qualified, I turned down a few job offers with school districts where corporal punishment was definitely a thing---mostly very small, very VERY rural areas.

My friend was sent away to boarding school when he was 7. (UK). He was beaten regularly by teachers. After the beating he had to shake hands with the teacher/abuser and thank him for the beating and for correcting his behaviour.
His parents paid for this!

dementedma

Yes, the UK used to have wives listed as 'chattel', it engaged in the slave trade, it hung people, it denied the poor education, sent children down mines and up chimneys, it had people transported across the word for stealing a loaf of bread etc etc ...............thing is we are meant to be more enlightened now, signed up to the Human Rights Act and value little children as innocent human beings to nurture and protect.

History has taught us what not to do and brings shame on us for every being so inhumane as a society. This is meant to be a more enlightened age (though clearly even the 21 century has its shame to learn from).

That’s the point. These things happened long ago (slave trade was banned in 1807 but the effects are felt to this day).

Beating small children with fucking big sticks is STILL HAPPENING because the state wants to do it in backward Deep South states.

Me either. I'm disgusted.

So hold on. The five year old is being spanked because he missed 18 days of school?

And the mother agreed to that to avoid her arrest?

So all parties favoured the most vulnerable party getting the punishment for missing school?

I can't watch the video.

Putting aside the sheer barbarity of beating a 5 year old for anything - why would a child of 5 be punished in any way for missing school - it’s a parents responsibility to get them there. (I thought the beating was for spitting on another child)

Showed this to MIL (70s, from Yorkshire) and she didn’t see the problem with it.

Said the boy was probably a little shit who had been warned that if he spitted at other children he’d get beaten then went and did it anyway.

She said he’d learn his lesson and never do it again and it was normal when she was at school and if we had it here there’s be less stabbings and mugging.

I couldn’t look at her after and had to make excuses to leave.

DH was never hit with a stick as a kid but got smacked when he was naughty and didn’t think it harmed him but what the actual fuck???

Are all pensioners like this???

Many people think there has been a decline in discipline in schools. Some people put it down to lack of corporal punishment. Some feel the same way about rising crime and think we need more severe punishments, even the death penalty.

Bringing about civilisation will acting uncivilised clearly has never worked and will never work. If it did - there would be no crime in the USA, Saudi, Iran, China, Pakistan etc.

Are all pensioners like this???

No, but IMO many are firmly in the "it did me no harm" brigade when it comes to corporal punishment.

Poor little boy

I don't blame the mother though. It is a terrible choice but if she didn't let them do it she would have been sent to jail. Who knows what would have happened to her son then, if she is a single parent without any kind of support.

Who would be prepared to carry that out on a little 5 year old kid though? Such sickos. I wonder about the time frame as well. How long between the little boy spitting at someone, and them hitting them with that bat.... Would he even be able to connect the 2 things in his little mind, at that age?

I'd be scared to be hit with that bat as an adult, let alone as a 5 year old being hit with a bat by a fully grown adult.

Pour little thing, and such cruel, cold, heartless adults administering it.

Another friend told me that in some American schools they not only do this but the whole class has to address you as “Charlie” for the day.

Is there any truth in this? I didn’t think it could get any more twisted.

It’s a wonder all sane Americans don’t escape to Canada, the real land of the free!

Well - in a country that spawned Trump and voted him into power - anything is possible.

Escaped slaves would seek safety in Canada, and it was a place of refuge in The Handmaid's Tale.