Corporal Punishment

Corporal punishment is a very controversial topic that is being discussed amongst educators across the nation. Corporal punishment refers to any physical form of punishment, but in this case it refers to in schools. Currently there are many different terms used to label corporal punishment, for example, it has been called spanking, paddling, caning, lashing, popping, smacking, whipping or beating. Each term carries its own different meaning, but they all represents some form of corporal punishment.

Corporal punishment involves the deliberate infliction of pain upon a child, by an adult, as a result of the child's misbehavior or perceived misbehavior. It has been proven scientifically that the effects of it can be detrimental to the emotional and educational needs of children.

The most ironic thing I found pertaining to corporal punishment was that most people, (myself included) do not know that it is still common practice in some public schools in the United States. Many states have outlawed it because it was thought to be cruel and outdated. Some of the punishments were very cruel ranging from having students hold a dictionary over their head for an excess amount of time, paddling in front of school assemblies, to football coaches striking players with wooden paddles for not getting good enough grades. All of these practices seem unnecessary, cruel, and demeaning; but all of them were within the means of the law. Almost half of the states in the U.S. have refused to pass legislation banning corporal punishment in public schools. And in most of these states it is still very common practice.

Studies show that there is a regional pattern in the states that have not prohibited corporal punishment. It showed that all the states in the Deep South (Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisana) still had corporal punishment as law in public schools and that it is enforced in all these states. The pattern also covers Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Arizona. It extends from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachian Mountains, so you can not say it only goes on in the south. But the South is the only region which is dominated by states that permit corporal punishment. Currently Arkansas is ranked as the worst state in reference to corporal punishment. In Arkansas, one out of every eight students is physically abused by their teachers, compared to the national average of one out of every 28 students. In Florida it was found that black students are twice as likely to be beaten then white students. Students in private schools are more likely to be beaten than public schools, while teachers in so-called Christian or Catholic schools hand out the most and the worst beatings.

Many, studies have shown that corporal punishment cause serious physical and psychological harm to large numbers of children. Each year in the U.S. thousands of children require medical treatment as a result of corpora punishment administered in schools. According to National Coalition to Abolish Corporal Punishment in Schools, school-inflicted corporal punishment has even caused the deaths of seven children--including a kindergarten girl. Among the emotional problems that can result from corporal punishment are depression, withdrawal, sleep disturbances, avoidance of school, learning problems, loss of self-esteem, and delinquency.

Corporal punishment also provides children with a poor role model of adult behavior by teaching them that the use of physical violence against smaller and weaker persons is