It is still legal in Texas for teachers and administrators to spank their students with a paddle, but one lawmaker is on a mission to change that.
In Texas, under the current law it is legal for school officials and teachers to “use force within educator-to-student relationships necessary for discipline,” but a Houston state representative, Alma Allen, has filed a measure which would change that. Under the new legislation “no school district employees would be allowed to give students corporal punishment, including hitting, spanking and paddling, as a form of discipline.” According to the Houston Chronicle, Representative Allen, who is a retired teacher and principal, has been trying to eliminate corporal punishment in Texas schools since she joined the Legislature 8 years ago.
During the last legislative session, Allen introduced a measure that was approved by state lawmakers which “gave parents the power to provide a written statement stopping the school district from using force,” when disciplining individual students. But opponents argue that these types of laws “micromanage classrooms” and take away the control of school districts from the local governing authorities. Currently each district is allowed to “use their own discretion to implement corporal punishment.” Texas would be the 32nd state to outlaw the use of corporal punishment in schools. Many of the larger cities in Texas, including Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin have eliminated the use of “paddling” as a form of discipline, but many of the smaller districts still allow it.
Do you think teachers and school officials should be allowed to use corporal punishment to discipline students?
How would you react, as a parent, if your child was paddled at school?
Do you think passing legislation of this sort is “micromanaging classrooms”?
Photo: TexasExplorer98/Flickr
No, no,no, no, NO! This whole notion is DISGUSTING to me! I never laid a hand on MY child….violence begets MORE violence, it has been PROVEN! We are civilized….we can use our brains! We teach our children not to hit, so why on EARTH would it be okay for someone to HIT your child? That is ABUSE! It also teaches children that hitting is the only way to solve problems. I am happy to be raising a NON-VIOLENT daughter who uses her WORDS! Remember WORDS? That’s what intelligent civilized humans use!
Barbara, well, I don’t see myself as on a high horse – more like trudging along in the weeds. However, I appreciate your description of your day. Certainly, the challenges such a job posting entail are overwhelming, and your efforts, praise-worthy. Which to me, has little to do with the ethics of corporal punishment. To me, either corporal punishment by the educational authority is ethical, or it is not. Race, SES, gender … is it OK if it is a 14 year old black guy from bad circumstances, but not for the 12 year old white girl with two professional… Read more »
I was spanked when I was a child, for specific types of misbehavior. I don’t feel that I was abused. But I don’t think it was very productive either. It taught me to behave not because good behavior is a good idea, but only because bad behavior would bring pain. I spanked my own kid a few times. Never again. Before he would spank me, my father would say, “This is going to hurt me a lot more than it’s going to hurt you.” I didn’t know what he meant until I spanked my own kid. The look of utter… Read more »
Randall, I agree wholeheartedly with your description of tantrums. I found that once the kid was in tantrum mode, it was impossible to teach them anything – the emotion had to be reduced first. Eye contact helps a lot, and a firm hold/hug does too – a bit like a receiving blanket needs to be snug around an infant, physical touch can penetrate a lot of emotional states. While I was not prepared to use physical force under ANY circumstances on my kids (my own background made this impossible for me), I could accept spanking as a parent’s last line… Read more »
Let me clarify that I don’t believe in corporal punishment, but there were certainly days when I thought about it, and all of you who like to get up on your high horse and pretend that you’ve never had less- than-honorable intentions towards someone? You need to try teaching a high school class. I substitute taught for two years, and trust me, it’s not the same. I actually resigned from teaching just this last year. Granted, I taught mainly at-risk classes and, granted this wasn’t every day, but here is a breakdown of a day I had right before I… Read more »
It’s said that violence begets violence. I was in a fight in middle school and to remedy the situation the principal saw fit to paddle me but he had to get my mother’s approval. She said yes. I didn’t get into another fight. Not only was I paddled, I was put in ISS (in-school suspension.) ISS is like solitary confinement but instead of a cell, it’s a walled off table like in a library. It’s been about 20 years but I still remember the day.
If a teacher touched my daughter, they would find themselves in the hospital in short order. It is NOT OK.
Yes! Absolutely agree!
I don’t think I was ever spanked. Somehow my parents worked out a system in which they never needed to get physical. The threat of disappointment, or just a withering expression on my mom’s face, was all it took. A sore butt goes away, but The Face I seared into my brain. Psychological torment is generally more effective, and the body shows no scars….
Besides being Child Abuse via application of other Texas laws, the execution of physical punishment ought not happen for one, and ought not be dished-out by freakin public school teachers! Holy God! I have not found a school teacher I would trust to water my garden, let alone touch my child.
Then teachers should definitely NOT be allowed to arm themselves with firearms. They can’t be trusted with a paddle, but they can be trusted with a Glock?
If any person is facing certain death, they DO have the RIGHT to protect themselves. THAT is an entirely different thing that disciplining a child and you know that.
YES!! It is totally fine to spank kids. I was spanked my whole life and i thank my parents today for it. I needed discipline and direction and the kid i was i didnt want to listen to anybody. Everybody needs a spanking even adults. so many adults i run into today that i see should of gotten disciplined at an earlier age because they think they can do and say whatever they want until they run into the wrong person that eventually has to teach them and if they are lucky theyll just walk away with a black eye…… Read more »
I know of a case in Louisiana where a young girl was so bruised after a paddling at school that her parents took her to the ER where the physician examined and felt compelled to call the police to report the childmabuse. It turned out that Louisiana law absolves school employees of any criminal or civil responsibility regarding corporal punishment.
My mother would get her knuckles rapped with a bamboo stick if her answers were wrong or if she misbehaved in China in the 40s….
She also left China on a train to go to Hong Kong before the Communists really started to go into full swing (she was considered part of the evil “landlord” class and would have been persecuted if she had stayed)….
I guess if you want to bring up robots who adhere to the rigid dogma out of fear and brow-beating, then sure go ahead and paddle them….
My daughter was spanked by her kindergarten teacher for talking during nap time. Up until she was maybe 3, I would swat her butt, rarely, but she hadn’t had any physical punishment of that nature since she was old enough to discuss whatever had happened. A raised eyebrow would get her to stop whatever she was doing. So when that teacher spanked her, I was upset. My daughter was already having a rough time, since she was painfully shy. I was surprised that she was feeling comfortable enough to talk to another student, but I had to find out about… Read more »
Barbara, I work as a substitute teacher. I know how challenging kids can be. Paddling is not acceptable. I agree that some kids can be very difficult and push your buttons.
What is the answer? Very hard to expel or suspend them these days (mother is a teacher), can’t dock their grades, what exactly can be done?
The answer is discipline measures that are related to their bad behavior. Helping them understand with words, examples, stories, or metaphors that show them why what they did was wrong or objectionable, rather than just saying that it was, and they should behave because you told them so. Example: a child is throwing food in the lunch room. Rather than being physically punished for disobeying when they are told to stop, they should be taken aside and talked to. Would you like it if someone threw food at you? What if Johnny over there is allergic to peanut butter, and… Read more »
What happens when the child doesn’t give a damn about hurting others? Your method relies on trying to invoke their empathy but what if that child does NOT want to have empathy for the victim? What measures are taken then?
Therapy.
I am strongly against any type of corporal punishment towards children. Teachers or principals should not be allowed to hit or paddle children. Adult like that should not be allowed to work with children. If a teacher did that to my child, I would go honey badger on them.
I do not think it should be allowed, I’d pull my child out of school should it happen, and I’d probably run for office just like Rep Allen.
Let’s check in with the practical side of things. Does paddling actually achieve the goal of making children in Texas better behaved? Let’s try to find evidence to test whether or not this actually works. The crime rate, both among schoolkids and among the population that grew up under the paddling system, is still pretty high. I can’t say that paddling kids makes Texas more violent, but it clearly hasn’t made Texans more law-abiding than anywhere else. I bet dollars to donuts that the majority of the state’s prison population overwhelmingly supports the use of paddling on schoolchildren. It didn’t… Read more »
It is never, ever, ever, EVER acceptable to hurt children. It’s not acceptable for parents to do it, it’s not acceptable for children to do it to each other, and it’s certainly not acceptable for educators to do it. There are other proven effective ways of disciplining children and helping them learn. Violence begets violence, and in a society with an epidemic of bullying in our schools, we do not need to be teaching our children that violence is the way to get what they want from other people. I am appalled that only 32 states have outlawed it! If… Read more »
It isn’t so much that violence teaches children that violence solves problems (it rarely does, and spanking underscores that — how often did any of us actually stop doing anything because we feared a spanking?). More troubling, the children involved see the real reason — not their own misbehavior, but the parent’s frustration and anger. It teaches children that frustration and anger justify violence, even if it won’t actually solve the problem at hand. That is a great deal more dangerous. If they only used violence when it would solve a problem, that violence could be controlled. If they are… Read more »
“how often did any of us actually stop doing anything because we feared a spanking”
I did when younger. Wasn’t until I grew up and became a lil more hardened that it didn’t bother me, pain tolerance went higher. Hit me now with a paddle and I’ll probably give the evil eye. You’ll be amazed at how well behaved some people become after a spank, but for others it may do nothing.
All discipline methods would be considered violence if done to an adult. It’s not ok to force your partner to look at a wall, goto their room, lock them in, withholding money, taking away toys/objects they like/want, grounding them, etc are ALL considered abuse if done to another adult so why is it ok for a child? Because children need some form of discipline to be molded into decent citizens.
Having have lived in Texas during my elementary and junior high school years, I remember those swatting days. I know one thing – I got swatted ONCE and never got swatted again. I went from a B- average to an A+ average in ONE semester after that. Effective? Hell, it worked for me.
They used the cane here, when I was 6 I was caned by the principal on the ass/lower back and ended up pissing my pants out of fear, had to sit in them all day in the principals office. It’s lucky that some of my cousins didn’t know this happened otherwise that principal would probably be in hospital. One of my uncles was hit by a teacher at school, after his father found out the father went to school and unleashed some corporal punishment of his own on the teacher. I’d be tempted to do the same thing, the only… Read more »