Texas city revives paddling as it takes a swat at misbehavior
By Michael Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 16, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 05964.html
/rantTEMPLE, TEX. -- In an era when students talk back to teachers, skip class and wear ever-more-risque clothing to school, one central Texas city has hit upon a deceptively simple solution: Bring back the paddle.
Most school districts across the country banned paddling of students long ago. Texas sat that trend out. Nearly a quarter of the estimated 225,000 students who received corporal punishment nationwide in 2006, the latest figures available, were from the Lone Star State.
But even by Texas standards, Temple is unusual. The city, a compact railroad hub of 60,000 people, banned the practice and then revived it at the demand of parents who longed for the orderly schools of yesteryear. Without paddling, "there were no consequences for kids," said Steve Wright, who runs a construction business and is Temple's school board president.
Since paddling was brought back to the city's 14 schools by a unanimous board vote in May, behavior at Temple's single high school has changed dramatically, Wright said, even though only one student in the school system has been paddled.
"The discipline problem is much better than it's been in years," Wright said, something he attributed to the new punishment and to other discipline programs schools are trying. Residents of the city's comfortable homes, most of which sport neighborly, worn chairs out front, praise the change.
"There are times when maybe a good crack might not be a bad idea," said Robert Pippin, a custom home builder who sports a goatee and cowboy boots. His son graduated from Temple schools several years ago.
Corporal punishment remains legal in 20 states, mostly in the South, but its use is diminishing. Ohio ended it last year, and a movement for a federal ban is afoot. A House subcommittee held a hearing on the practice Thursday, and its chairman, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), is gearing up for a push to end the practice once and for all. She plans to introduce legislation within weeks.
"When you look that the federal government has outlawed physical punishment in prisons, I think the time has come that we should do it in schools," she said.
[...blah, blah, blah...]
This topic came up yesterday on many radio and news shows, and I was fascinated by the responses. Since corporal punishment in schools has been on the decline (if not banned) for the past 40 years, I question whether anyone under the age of 40 can have an informed opinion on this subject, yet that didn't seem to inhibited many youthful callers who expressed their "opinions". Thankfully, two of the shows I listened to had hosts who promptly dismissed the younger respondents.
One gentleman called in, identifying himself as 56 years, then stated he had been paddled once in grade school and the incident had "ruined his life". When questioned, he elaborated that he had difficulties with holding jobs, relationships, anger management, and general depression. Pressed further, the man admitted to being heavily medicated, and took tranquilizers every morning to get through the day. Tongue-biting followed the terminated call.
Akin to politics, this issue similarly follows our country's current trend: Extremists on either sides, the "fix-everything-with-counseling-and-pop-psychology" tree huggers on one side, and the trailer park trash "a-beatin'll-fix-anything" venters on the other, with 1/3 of the non-committals in the middle displaying apathy and more worried about the last episode of "Lost".
More germaine; is there a problem that needs to be "fixed".
This week, in a CA central valley town north of Sacramento, an "Amber Alert" was issued over the alleged abduction of a 14 year old girl from in front of her school as she stood waiting to go in Monday morning. The suspects (4) were driving a brown sedan. This alert went out over highway signs throughout the state, as an emergency broadcast on all radio and T.V. stations, and every public agency is notified and participates in the search.
The girl was Elvia Flores.
When the alert was issued, I commented to the person with me that "she ran off with her boyfriend". The person, a friend's wife, was upset that I would be so dismissive and lectured me on my insensitivity. In my defense, I remarked that the original intent of the Amber Alerts has been nullified by it's abuse, principally to pursue child custody dispute "abductions" or "child runs off with friend" cases: And in most CA cases, the participants are hispanic (which I'll discuss later).
As is the case with many of these situations, the girl turned up a couple of days later, 63 miles away, told a lie to Law Enforcement that found her, when cornered with the lie, made up another lie, and once cornered again, finally came clean and admitted to "cutting school" to be with her boyfriend.
http://cbs13.com/breakingnews/elvia.flo ... 38633.html
The BF, of course, has been arrested, and the girl "may be charged with filing a false report".
In early Amber Alert cases, the associated "search" and coordination costs easily ran in the millions per day. Considering the hundreds of local L.E. agencies who mobilize staff to pursue the search, not including all the media and State Office of Emergency Services resources involved. Currently, IMHO, having seen most of the Amber Alerts fizzle into "non-abductions", most L.E. agencies take the alerts "with a grain of salt", and while attentive to them, few (excepting the primary agency) will allocate any additional resources.
But back to the issue...
...why, knowing about the Amber Alerts and the repercussions, would a child disregard community laws and commit this offense, just to "cut school and be with her boyfriend"...
...and why would her 18 yr old boyfriend allow this to occur (yes...I know...ass. But he could have called a friend or made an anonymous call to L.E. saying she was with friends and halted the Amber Alert)?
Lack of accountability.
For the past 40 years, if a child misbehaves, and an adult threatens to "spank" or punish a child, it's not uncommon for the child to reply that they'll call the cops and report the adult for child abuse (and that's more real than I have time to verify on this board). Counselors, child-psychologists, no'er-do-well liberal politicians, and pop-culture Icons (Oprahs), have villified corporal punishment, and in fact, any form of "punishment" as barbaric, asserting every attitude "ailment" can be properly resolved through empathetic guidance and intellectual analysis.
This "lack of accountability" problem that has developed stems from the social work/psychiatric community's "one size fits all" approach in dealing with people: Analyze, categorize, apply fix.
Yet in doing so, while retaining "stick and carrot" methods, they remove one of the tools from their bag of tricks: The "attention getter" (corporal punishment).
Corporal punishment is not a means to "inflict pain" as it is a means to communicate the message that inflictor is displeased to an "extreme" level and the behavior inciting the punishment was "extreme" and cannot be repeated.
When dealing with "undeveloped" people (children, white trash, entitlers, GSU fans, jellyfish...) words and concepts often cannot convey (are received) with their intended purpose. Think of the infant learning about "hot". Words, explanations, even self-sacrificing demonstrations, do not illustrate the concept which is often only learned when the infant accidentally touches something hot and feels the pain. Similarly, extreme misbehavior, resulting in foreseeable significant cost to society (including potential death to the people who risk their lives responding to the misbehavior), cannot be conveyed to the ego-centric (undeveloped) individual.
Until (unless), there is a "shock" stimuli, "awakening" the undeveloped person's senses, NO message will be received, and no communication can occur.
Hence, the necessity of utilizing corporal punishment, IN SOME CASES, becomes necessary to enable communication.
Yawn... This was covered in great detail in 1764 by Cesare Beccaria
I got paddled on at least a weekly basis for about half of elementary school. Had little effect one way or the other. Cost of doing business.
