# Alabama Schools Paddle Kids With No Way For Parents To Opt-Out



## Bob Hubbard (Nov 11, 2010)

*Alabama Schools Paddle Kids With No Way For Parents To Opt-Out*



> Here's an type of opt-out list we don't often write about: Corporal punishment in schools is legal in lots of states, but if you assumed parents _could_  always opt-out, you'd be mistaken. According to a report from WHNT in  Alabama, one student was beaten until he was bruised because he failed a  science test.


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## Bruno@MT (Nov 11, 2010)

Anyone who beat my kid for failing a test will get the same treatment.
This doesn't even have to do with discipline.


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## Carol (Nov 11, 2010)

bruno@mt said:


> anyone who beat my kid for failing a test will get the same treatment.
> This doesn't even have to do with discipline.



*bingo. *



> principal bell says all kids should always be given alternatives to  paddling such as in-school suspension. But payton says he never received  that alternative. Payton said,* "he just lectured us about how his dad  beat him and said that's what i am going to do to you."*


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## CoryKS (Nov 11, 2010)

There may not be a way to opt-out, but there's always a way to suggest that it might not be a good idea.  Just sayin'.


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## Empty Hands (Nov 11, 2010)

Alabama, eh?  Shocking.  Next thing you're going to tell me that Floridians do weird stuff (*waves*).


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## Carol (Nov 11, 2010)

Empty Hands said:


> Alabama, eh?  Shocking.  Next thing you're going to tell me that Floridians do weird stuff (*waves*).



But...we knew that....  :lol:

http://www.amazon.com/Weird-Florida-Charlie-Carlson/dp/0760759456


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## geezer (Nov 11, 2010)

Beaten for failing a science test? What'd he do? Write that the earth _isn't_ flat?


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## RandomPhantom700 (Nov 11, 2010)

I can't really add much that hasn't been said, other than this is pretty much the embodiment of why I object to corporal punishment in a school setting.  I wonder how often students with ADHD, dyslexia, or other learning impairments receive this punishment, and what lessons they're walking away from it with?  

I hope the mother's efforts result in something, that teacher should not be in any position of dealing with children.


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## Sukerkin (Nov 11, 2010)

What an odd story.  

I am actually in favour of corporal punishment but fully support the right of parents who dont want their children to abide by a schools discipline to take their offspring elsewhere.

I know it's a subject Bruno feels strongly about (and it's one of the rare occasions where I think his opinions and mine occupy opposite ends of the spectrum).   But in this case it certainly doesn't sound like a discipline problem.  That sort of physical 'encouragement' doesn't belong in a school.


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## Ken Morgan (Nov 11, 2010)

Until I had kids I was indifferent to CP, it didn&#8217;t affect me, so I didn&#8217;t give it much thought. After I had kids and they went to school, I remembered some of the friggn crazy teachers I had, and decided that there was no way I would allow any teacher to use CP on my children. Now after courses and classroom time coming out of my *** for the last year and a half and being four weeks away from my M.Ed and teachers cert, I am more then ever certain that CP is not the way to go.

Many reasons why, but the one that has stuck with me the most is, why do we OK the use of CP on our youngest, most vulnerable and most impressionable members of society, our children, yet we don&#8217;t use it on our adult hardened criminals? If CP actually worked, we would use it as a means of controlling/reforming our criminal population, and yet we don&#8217;t, however we are telling our children that its OK to use physical violence to solve problems. 

Sounds kinda f***ed up to me.


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## Bob Hubbard (Nov 11, 2010)

I say if you let a teacher beat a kid for failing a test, the kids parents should be able to beat the teacher for failing to teach.  Personally, I'm ok with CP....within certain situations.  This isn't one of em.


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## Carol (Nov 11, 2010)

> Until I had kids I was  indifferent to CP, it didn&#8217;t affect me, so I didn&#8217;t give it much  thought. After I had kids and they went to school, I remembered some of  the friggn crazy teachers I had, and decided that there was no way I  would allow any teacher to use CP on my children. Now after courses and  classroom time coming out of my *** for the last year and a half and  being four weeks away from my M.Ed and teachers cert, I am more then  ever certain that CP is not the way to go.
> 
> Many reasons why, but the  one that has stuck with me the most is, why do we OK the use of CP on  our youngest, most vulnerable and most impressionable members of  society, our children, yet we don&#8217;t use it on our adult hardened  criminals? If CP actually worked, we would use it as a means of  controlling/reforming our criminal population, and yet we don&#8217;t, however  we are telling our children that its OK to use physical violence to  solve problems.
> 
> Sounds kinda f***ed up to me.





Because it is not about solving problems.


There isn't much difference between this teacher and the MA teachers  that long for a chance to beat on their students as hard as they think  their senseis beat on them back in some days gone bye.  This is not about efficient study habits, or effective teaching methods.

It is about power.  Specifically, the power to beat out one's frustrations on someone weaker, the same way a parent or teacher pounded their frustrations out on them when they were younger, smaller, and weaker.


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## Sukerkin (Nov 11, 2010)

I have never been convinced by that argument, Ken.  You are not teaching that violence solves problems, you are teaching that actions that break the rules have meaningful consequences.

For some kids, corporal punishment is not necessary, they learn the limits of their freedom to do what they want in other ways.  For others, physical punishment is the only tool in the box that acts as a deterrent.  For most kids, the very fact of it's existence is sufficient i.e. you don't have to beat all students in a school to quivering hunks of meat for it to be an effective deterent to disruptive behavour.  MAD with a cane rather than a nuke .

Without it, you have schools run by the kids rather than by the teachers.  You (plural form of the word) may disagree with it on some moral plane but there are practical reasons why it is being reintroduced into English schools after a near 30 year disasterous experiment in it's non-use.  

Without meaningful sanctions you have no control.  Without control you have no discipline and without discipline you have a mob learning nothing other than that they can do what they wish regardless of what is expected of them.

We all pay the price for that in the end.


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## WC_lun (Nov 11, 2010)

I'm not against Cp within certain limitations. When I was a kid, the paddle was used quite frequently.  I know its hard to believe, but I even was on the recieving end more than a few times.   As log as it is used judiciously and with rules in place to keep teachers from crossing the line into abuse, I'm okay with it.  However, paddling a kid because he failed his test is complete BS.  That is not a dscipline issue and that teacher needs to be paddled now.


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## Ken Morgan (Nov 11, 2010)

Sukerkin said:


> I have never been convinced by that argument, Ken. You are not teaching that violence solves problems, you are teaching that actions that break the rules have meaningful consequences.
> 
> For some kids, corporal punishment is not necessary, they learn the limits of their freedom to do what they want in other ways. For others, physical punishment is the only tool in the box that acts as a deterrent. For most kids, the very fact of it's existence is sufficient i.e. you don't have to beat all students in a school to quivering hunks of meat for it to be an effective deterent to disruptive behavour. MAD with a cane rather than a nuke .
> 
> ...


 
A smack on the behind of a two year old having a temper tantrum at the mall is one thing, having some deranged teacher or principal swat a child with a paddle or cane is differnet. 

There are multiple ways to put limits on children, violence is the easy route.


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## Blade96 (Nov 11, 2010)

why couldnt people just find out whats bothering the two year old having a temper instead of hitting them. Maybe she tired? or impatient with waiting in a long line? Kids dont have the patience of adults. 

and 'without it schools would be run by the kids' I call bs on that. We dont have it in schools in Canada and our schools are just fine.


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## Ken Morgan (Nov 11, 2010)

Blade96 said:


> why couldnt people just find out whats bothering the two year old having a temper instead of hitting them. Maybe she tired? or impatient with waiting in a long line? Kids dont have the patience of adults.
> 
> and 'without it schools would be run by the kids' I call bs on that. We dont have it in schools in Canada and our schools are just fine.


 

Education and the raising of our children is primarily the parents responsibility, and many parents push it all off on the education system to do it for them. Children spend maybe 15% of a year in the classroom, they don't take responsibility for their kids at home, so how can they expect the school system to do it for them? Look at the high achieving kids in any school, generally, they have parents who support them at home, teach them manners, disipline and show them love, the ones who act out and do poorly generally have parents who don't take time to raise their own children.

Poverty and a lack education are the real serious issues within our societies. Solve those and many of our other issues will go away.


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## Bruno@MT (Nov 12, 2010)

Sukerkin said:


> I know it's a subject Bruno feels strongly about (and it's one of the rare occasions where I think his opinions and mine occupy opposite ends of the spectrum).   But in this case it certainly doesn't sound like a discipline problem.  That sort of physical 'encouragement' doesn't belong in a school.



Actually, we are not so much in disagreement.
I realize that there are times when cp is appropriate. We use it rarely, but we do have it as an option. About the only times when we use(d) it is if they hit/kick/bite other people (usually each other) with the intent to cause pain.

While we are generally not easily angered and not super strict, we insist on our kids being polite, and if one slaps the other and we see it, she gets a slap on her hands or her bottom and then gets 'corner timeout' until the message has gotten through.

Even in schools, I could accept cp for disciplinary purposes, as long as there some strict basic rules. The reasons for cp would have to be known up front. They would have to be documented, there would have to be at least 1 witness or evidence that it was warranted, and performing the cp would need to require witnessing by the school counselor or similar, to avoid abuse. At all times, abuse should be actively prevented.

The key word would be discipline. Not performance. There can be a multitude of reasons for failing a test or failing to understand a topic. Some people are just not wired for mathematics, but they are ace in languages or social sciences. Regardless of how much you spank someone, they will not get a different set of brains. It is abuse.

It is no different from what was done to left handed people here, until only 25 years ago: their left hand was tied behind their back in school, and if they did something with their left hand, they were slapped. I know people who got this treatment, and now they can't write decent with either hand. Not to mention they got turned off from school in general.


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## Andy Moynihan (Nov 12, 2010)

With regard to the original incident:

That particular teacher needs to be arrested, then that kid's parents need to be allowed into the cell with HIM, each bearing a paddle, at exactly the moment the cell cameras suddenly experience a malfunction for an unexplainable 10 minutes.

As far as the argument that we don't use CP on our prisoners so why should we use it on our kids:

Personally, I think we SHOULD use CP on our prisoners for crimes less than rape, murder or home invasion. As far as the crimes of murder, rape and home invasion, I don't think we ought to HAVE prisoners. *draws thumb across neck*

As far as CP in schools provided it is directly ralated to discipline, with rules such as Bruno laid out:

I say give it a year. If it produces no discernible results, drop it, if it DOES produce results, make it national.


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## Sukerkin (Nov 12, 2010)

Blade96 said:


> and 'without it schools would be run by the kids' I call bs on that.


 
No need for that, duck . By all means say you disagree with me and why but it's not kind to call what I write "********" without finding out first what I am basing my views on.

There is a certain amount of 'Daily Mail' exageration of the problem, certainly and the cases of extreme loss of disipline (as in large enough to make the national news) are rare. But it is a very real problem which has lead to great difficulty in recruiting teachers - I believe that similar problems exist in 'inner city' schools in the States too ... or is that just the result of my having seen "Dangerous Minds" too often .

Anyhow, we are drifting into generalities with regard to discipline in schools rather than the clearly wrong example of the use of corporal punishment that the OP specifies.


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## Blade96 (Nov 14, 2010)

Sukerkin said:


> No need for that, duck . By all means say you disagree with me and why but it's not kind to call what I write "********" without finding out first what I am basing my views on.



Awwwe. Everyone is nice here so i wont say that anymore if you dont like that. I'll just say we agree to disagree. I hope thats better. :angel:


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## Sukerkin (Nov 14, 2010)

Thanks *Blade* :tup:.  

I do confess tho' that that reaction of mine was probably a little 'thin-skinned' of me - I took what you said as being more insulting than you meant it I fear .

In my defence, certain turns of phrase are more insulting in some cultural contexts than others ... so, as always, societies to blame :lol:


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## Blade96 (Nov 14, 2010)

Sukerkin said:


> Thanks *Blade* :tup:.
> 
> I do confess tho' that that reaction of mine was probably a little 'thin-skinned' of me - I took what you said as being more insulting than you meant it I fear .
> 
> In my defence, certain turns of phrase are more insulting in some cultural contexts than others ... so, as always, societies to blame :lol:



Yeah. I didnt mean it as insulting. 

and yeah, I'm on a internet forum. with people from god knows where. why didnt I think about the culture thing. bleh.


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## Ray (Nov 14, 2010)

The US used to be #1 at putting out HS grads.  Now we're number 12.  We have a generation of people who feel "entitled."  Kids know they don't have to follow the rules, they don't have any consequences for bad behavior.  My son told the principal of one of my grandchildren that he didn't think kids should have their cells phones on them during school.  The principal said he agreed, but the other parents in the district insist upon being able to call their kids any time and any place. 

Generally, my 5 children feared disappointing me more than they ever feared a beating.


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## MJS (Nov 14, 2010)

Bob Hubbard said:


> *Alabama Schools Paddle Kids With No Way For Parents To Opt-Out*


 
Back in the day, I'm sure there were teachers or nuns if you went to a religious school, that would give you a whack if you were screwing around.  Hell, I remember getting a smack or 2 on the *** from my parents when I was bad, but theres a huge difference IMO, between a few whacks on the ***, and child abuse.  Funny though how in todays world, the kid will threaten to call the cops on you, God forbid you smack your kid on the ***.  Go figure.

So, is it safe to assume that this state approves of child abuse?  I mean, if a kid was hit so bad, he was bruised......


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## Bruno@MT (Nov 15, 2010)

MJS said:


> Back in the day, I'm sure there were teachers or nuns if you went to a religious school, that would give you a whack if you were screwing around.  Hell, I remember getting a smack or 2 on the *** from my parents when I was bad, but theres a huge difference IMO, between a few whacks on the ***, and child abuse.  Funny though how in todays world, the kid will threaten to call the cops on you, God forbid you smack your kid on the ***.  Go figure.
> 
> So, is it safe to assume that this state approves of child abuse?  I mean, if a kid was hit so bad, he was bruised......



I also know several examples that I witnessed then that I would classify as child abuse today. How about literally kicking a kid to the back of the class? Or slapping him upside the head? Or any of a large collection of examples I could make?

Let's not kid ourselves, ok? Plenty of abuse has happened in the name of school discipline. In our catholic school system, more than plenty actually. So unless there are safeguards in place to prevent abuse, I think the schools should not be trusted with CP in any way, shape or form. They've proven themselves to be incapable of handling the responsibility.


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## MJS (Nov 15, 2010)

Bruno@MT said:


> I also know several examples that I witnessed then that I would classify as child abuse today. How about literally kicking a kid to the back of the class? Or slapping him upside the head? Or any of a large collection of examples I could make?
> 
> Let's not kid ourselves, ok? Plenty of abuse has happened in the name of school discipline. In our catholic school system, more than plenty actually. So unless there are safeguards in place to prevent abuse, I think the schools should not be trusted with CP in any way, shape or form. They've proven themselves to be incapable of handling the responsibility.


 
Perhaps I'm reading this wrong, and forgive me if I am, but upon first look, it seems to me, as if you're taking my post as actually condoning what the school is doing.  Not the case at all.  My point was simply that yes, back in the day, teachers, esp. in the religious schools, did whack students, and also, when I was growing up, if I misbehavied, my parents gave me a whack on the ***.  Child abuse by my parents...no, IMO, theres nothing wrong with a whack.  

As for this article....no, I'm not in any way, shape or form, advocating that a school today, hits a child.  My comparison was simply that that state is giving the green light for teachers to hit kids, so I have to wonder, do they okay a parent beating their child?


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