Writer supports spanking at school

Rational people,

Notice “framer’s” way of trying to frame the discussion about something other than the topic at hand.  It is also called the “straw man logical fallacy,“ attributing an argument to someone that they have not made.  His use of race and ACORN whenever I post are excellent examples of this fallacy.

Read more about the Straw Man Fallacy at:

http://tinyurl.com/yzbersh

Back to the topic at hand:

BEATING CHILDREN IS BOTH PRIMITIVE AND BARBARIC.  DOING SO CONSTITUTES CHILD ABUSE AND SHOULD BE REPORTED TO THE AUTHORITIES.

farmer, that’s your trip, not mine.  I have rarely posted on race issues.  Perhaps you should talk to your shrink about your obsession.  Do you also hear voices that the rest of us don’t?

bbart (Race Hustler),

How could you possibly post here, and not bring up race?  Are you not feeling well?

Come on, now.  Be yourself. Show us how you can twist the issue and make it about race.

I hope you feel better soon.

BTW, Mr Shaffer, if YOU have a child and you “beat him with the rod,“ you have just committed child abuse. It is the moral duty of your family or your neighbors report you to the proper authorities for prosecution.

Educators and Parents Worldwide are in Desperate need of training/Public Service Announcements in the Media, especially television and internet, to learn effective, non-violent discipline methods to teach children why what they did was wrong and to model appropriate behavior.

The TRUTH is that school children are treated differently in our great nation based on where they live. A middle school student in Texas DIED by having his chest crushed when his teacher sat on him to restrain him, a Texas high school student suffered deep bruising and welts to his lower back, buttocks and back of his legs when he received 21 “licks” with a wooden canoe paddle, which broke during the beating and had to be taped to continue the beating, a 9-year old Georgia 3rd grader suffered deep bruising injuries when he was paddled with a WOODEN PADDLE 3 TIMES IN ONE DAY (Decatur Co., GA affirmed Corporal Punishment Policy 9/17/09 for school children) and a Publicly Funded Charter School in Memphis, Tennessee physically punishes middle/high school boys and GIRLS weekly during a ceremony called “Chapel” by hitting them with wooden paddles and/or whipping their hands with leather straps IN FRONT OF ALL THE OTHER STUDENTS AS A DETERRENT to publicly induce shame, humiliation and fear! The school employees in the above actions have LEGAL IMMUNITY and are STILL paid by our tax-dollars to be ENTRUSTED with the care and education of our children!

Shocking News Headlines of Children suffering severe injuries by abusive practices in schools are all too common in states that allow paddling.  Corporal Punishment of Children in Schools is an outmoded, ineffective and dangerous practice that has been banned in more than l00 countries. It puts school districts at risk for lawsuits for paddling injuries, which is the main reason many districts already have abandoned it.

A recent news headline reads, “Nearly 60,000 spankings in Miss. schools last year.“ “Ouch! For the second time in a month, a school district in Leflore County has been hit with a lawsuit from a student alleging injuries from a paddling.  An 11-year-old is seeking $500,000 from the Greenwood Public School District in a suit filed Monday in Leflore County Circuit Court. The child’s attorney, James Littleton, said photographs show deep bruising on the then-10-year-old’s buttocks and that he also suffered possible kidney damage.”  “It was just unreal the abuse that this child took at the hands of a teacher,“ Littleton said. Paddling has been a hot-button issue of late in Leflore County. Just last month, the guardian of a 6-year-old kindergartner filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the Leflore County School District for alleged paddlings. It was reported that a state legal adviser, who told Bristol, Tennessee Director of Schools Gary Lilly that while school principals who paddled students were legally protected from allegations of assault, they were not immune from accusations of inappropriate or improper touching.

School boards are asking for trouble to sanction a practice that is intended to inflict pain.

Make no mistake: beating schoolchildren on their pelvic area with a wooden board causes more problems than it corrects—if it corrects any at all. Teacher-training programs do not include instruction in the “correct method” for hitting students. Zero tolerance for weapons and violence is the standard that should apply to everyone in educational settings. Teachers included.

What corporal punishment does accomplish is to degrade the teaching profession, drive good people away, and make the teaching field a safe haven for the dangerously unfit. Its net effect on schools is a negative one. The more that schools indulge in paddling, the higher the dropout rate, along with all the social ills that follow, e.g., gang activity, addiction, mental health problems, unemployment, etc.

The time is long over due for our lawmakers and education policy makers to apply the zero-tolerance rule universally. When paddlers complain, as some inevitably will, they should be advised to look beyond their classroom walls and see how schoolchildren are managed violence free throughout the civilized world. They should look and learn from the 30 states where corporal punishment in schools is forbidden by law. If they can’t learn, they can’t teach.

Research on toddlers and other studies following children into adolescence found physical punishment was bad for children and made them more likely to show anti-social behaviour. Children who were exposed to physical discipline most frequently were two to three times more likely to show anti-social behaviour as an adolescent, including things like getting into fights, being disobedient at home or at school, general delinquency and being in trouble with teachers. “It seems highly likely that children exposed to violence would themselves use violence in reaction to situations. Violence begets violence is a lesson from history not just child psychology.

Children are the most vulnerable members of our society. Adults have constitutional and legal protection from physical violence. Why are children still waiting?  Physical punishment of schoolchildren is NOT education’s “Best Practice” as it is ILLEGAL in 30 states.

Over 50 National Children’s Health and Education Organizations have issued position statements to OPPOSE SCHOOL Corporal Punishment including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Bar Assocation, the National PTA (Parent Teacher Association), National Education Association, Prevent Child Abuse America and the NAACP, among others.

School Corporal Punishment is a SERIOUS HEALTH AND SAFETY risk causing stress and impaired learning for all school children and school employees subjected to or witnessing school corporal punishment.  U.S. Congress is currently holding hearings on Abusive and DEADLY practices in SCHOOLS and MUST ABOLISH Physical/Corporal Punishment Nationwide of ALL Children in ALL Schools, The Cost is $0. 

School paddling bans must be tied to federal funding.  Doesn’t it just make sense for all of us to keep our hands off of other people’s children? Don’t ALL AMERICAN SCHOOL CHILDREN DESERVE Education’s “Best Practices”?  Pushing for anything less than an outright ban on all forms of classroom abuse reveals a gap in the administration’s professed commitment to making schools better, safer, and stronger.