Bring back corporal punishment

[noblegiraffe]

If we're heading back to the age of grammar schools, then let's also bring back corporal punishment. I understand that the suggestion is supported by 42% of people who voted a certain way.

Any supporters on here?

No point in going into teaching now if you're a sadist.

No, these days you have to be something of a masochist...

They were still caning at my primary in 1984. I remember very clearly being sat in the front row whikst a boy was being caned out the front. His palm split and I was splattered with blood. NIce!

The problem is that corporal punishment in schools gives the message that it's OK for parents to hit their children. Whereas you might be able to establish some controls over 'official' corporal punishment (note, I am not saying that corporal punishment even in controlled form would be desirable) this does not apply behind closed doors. Once it's sanctioned to punish children in this way, it opens the door for parents to feel it's normal and acceptable and to 'beat the living daylights' out of their children if they so choose. I speak from (bitter) experience.

I find it interesting how people will always react badly on here to suggestions about bringing it back. But if you get threads about bullying you always get people saying "tell them to hit them back" or "I'd go and get them" etc.

Would people feel differently if it was brought back for bullying?

I don't like the concept. However I do think that in schools at present there is a lack of a "big" sanction for persistent behaviour that effects others-bullying is the big one.

It has to get to a huge level before exclusion is considered. I don't think corporal punishment is the answer, but I do think there is an aspect now that it can be very difficult to deal with someone who is determined to do harm to others, particularly with words.

Lets be grateful we only had a referendum on the EU then , and not the death penalty.

Witchend the boys at my school who repeatedly got the cane in no way changed their behaviour as a result. It was brutal, and did nothing to decrease violence in the school (it just didn't get into the papers then).

Corporal Punishment is bad both for those receiving it and for those giving it. If a teacher hit a student they would be betraying any trust between students and teachers. (And when I was at school very few teachers could carry out corporal punishment.)
I wouldn't want to be in a society where children could be hit at school.

I know noble doesn't mean this.

I would leave education before I hit children, as I hope would any decent person.

two 7 year olds (for example) duking it out (retaliation after bullying) is very different than a 40 year old adult rapping the knuckles of a 9 year old for swearing.
corporal punishment doesn't work in the home or in schools.
large classrooms, large schools (where the teachers and staff don't know the family) along with inclusion of all children regardless of their ability to learn is probably more of a problem than how their family voted.
but I've only skimmed the thread and am confused about the political undertone along with the concept of corporal punishment....

I am of two minds on this. I grew up in the southern United States where paddling often still goes on in schools. I also work in southeast Asia and there has been a debate in Vietnam about spanking. Some pupils will actually prefer a spanking rather than having their name marked down in their reports. Some teachers do take discipline too far though. Others will just give a smack on the hand. Other people think that corporal punishment is totally wrong. One lady runs an orphanage, and not even the police can scare the teenagers who continuously Rob money for Internet gaming.

Isn't it though that children who prefer to be physically punished at school rather than have their parents know are likely to face worse punishment at home? So it's not really like they 'prefer' spanking - they're choosing a lesser beating over a bigger one.

It's so outdated, this notion that children and teens misbehave out of pure selfishness and that even if that was true, that hitting them will somehow make that drive go away. We have access to so much more research now. I don't understand why this would even still be debated.

Botts, I don't think that's the case with this particular group of students since it was 15 of them who chose corporal punishment over their names being written down on their school record. They were highschooler's and nanny are pressured to get high exam scores. I don't think they wanted bad marks on their school records

I don't know about China or South Korea, but maybe the students would choose the same.

If I remember correctly, it was the parents who actually complained about the teacher in this case for over disciplining the group of students.

I just found this. I think it is only limited to the 130 though.

blog.educationcareers.ie/2013/corporal-punishment-banned-in-seoul-south-korea/

City not 130. I know Singapore stopped corporal punishment in schools some years ago and the pressure on students is also very high

That's interesting as teachers did not hit children in 1978/79. I was in infant school in the UK then (state school)

I was caned in primary in the late 70s, I also saw people caned at high school - it was done on the stage in front of all the school.

Whether you were caned or not depended on the teacher, some did it, some didn't. One nun was known as 'Sr Mary Thwack 'em'.

I live in a Southern US state in which corporal Punishment is technically legal.

However it is explicitly prohibited by our local school board and I'm not aware of any school board in our location that practices it.

I'm also not aware of any families who use it to discipline their children at home.

Any adult who raises their hand or a weapon (what else would you call a cane or a strap) to a child is despicable.

Secondary teacher here.
Why on earth would I want to hurt children?

If you cant control a class without the threat of the cane, dont teach.
I'd not work in a school that allowed it.

still got memories of this at school in 70s amd 80s. My parents didn't seem bothered - as they too had been whacked at school.

Dad still jokes that his hand was sore from how hard he smacked me at home. seemed normal at the time and he clearly sees nothing wrong with that then.

I could never imagine ever raising a hand to my children (and had to say something when my cousin did to her DC - she said "wait til yours are 4" yet when my two boys reached that age the thought was still abhorent and always has been).

Thankfully those Draconian school days are gone. I say Draconian, but it was the 80s and ruler was still being wielded by teachers...

Plunkette I spent a few years in Hickville so unfortunately spanking was totally OK.

I also spent six years at a residential school and spanking was technically not allowed but some teachers did it anyway. A few years before I enrolled at that school, they were allowed to use the belt on students.

Lavenderose: 'pop'? It's about the 42% of leave voters that voted for corporal punishment.

But beyond that, it is a valid perspective on the whole context of the 'bring back grammars' debate. The Golden Age of Grammars was a time when children were beaten in schools. So what if the chances of getting caned in a girls grammar were small? What do you think was happening in boys secondary moderns? And grammar school kids had been beaten in primary ( yes, even my shy well behaved Dad) and had watched other children getting the cane.

The class system was far more delineated then. Harsh and hierarchical. Social mobility meant something when it defined whether you worked below ground or in a pit head office. Whether you got to beat other people's children as a teacher, whether you got adressed as Sir or Mr in your working and home life, or by your first name.

Corporal punishment was part of a powerful system of keeping people in their place. Grammar schools were part of that context.

What does social mobility even mean when plumbers earn twice the pay of a teacher? NEET and working above average wage are the defining poles now, surely?

Corporal punishment is of course anachronistic, grammar schools are anachronistic. That is what I take to be NobleGiraffe's point.

I do think a hardcore of leave voters have a nostalgia for the Britain of the 1950s, and the cane with it.

For other people's children, natch.

My kids went to a primary school with a few monstrous teachers who used bully tactics and fear to achieve class discipline and while my dcs were hardworking and well behaved they became increasingly distressed about the way the teachers were dealing with the unruly pupils - other parents reported the same. So while you may think that the other parents and pupils would enjoy the bullies being smacked, I think the reality is that violence towards children would affect everyone in the school community.

I am 44 and i don't know anyone 'state' school educated under 50 that had any Corporal Punishment inflicted on them ! (not counting a teacher grabbing 'Dick Head' boys by the neck , which did them no harm at all) .

To my eyes it was 'rare' and therefore i find it interesting the posts that seem to suggest corporal Punishment ( Caning and the slipper ) were daily happenings.

I'm over 50. Went to a state school. No it wasn't a daily event . Maybe 5+ times a term that I knew about. Bloody horrible way of running a school.

I'm only 38 and remember kids being hit on the knuckles by a ruler in a state school.