Study makes a case against paddling, finds link between corporal punishment, failure to graduat
Source: Chattanooga Times Free Press
Kids who are paddled at school are more likely to be black, more likely to be poor and more likely to be boys. And that's why a UTC professor studying the issue says schools should rethink their policies on corporal punishment.
Poor and minority children already face an uphill educational battle, with lower overall academic achievement and lower graduation rates.
And Darrell Meece, an education professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, says paddling only makes things worse. His dive into data on corporal punishment found that kids who are paddled are three times more likely not to graduate high school.
"Children who are living in poverty, children who are in minority groups are less likely to graduate in the first place. We know that," he said. "Corporal punishment exacerbates that, it makes it even less likely that they graduate. These are vulnerable kids already."
Read more: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/nov/11/long-term-study-makes-a-case-against/
19 states still allow corporal punishment in schools. Many will argue that this is one "tool" among many that educators can use, and so they should have access to it. Others will argue that they were paddled and turned out "OK" (I was paddled as a child in school, but I also never sat in a car seat, never wore a bike helmet, and rode in the back of my Dad's pickup truck). My response is that if someone developed a "tool" that made building houses less expensive, but 20 years later half of the houses that were built with that tool had fallen down, we wouldn't want to use that tool. There would be many people who could say "my house was built with that tool and it is still standing fine." but I wouldn't want to build my house with it. My take is that today the children with the least social capital are the most likely to experience paddling in school. We know that these also are the children who are least likely to graduate. We can show them that school is a predictable, safe place for them to be, or we can show them that it is scary place where people will hit you to get you do what you want and you probably don't want to be here in the first place.
= new reply since forum marked as read
and ingrained in this culture. Black is bad, white is good is still the logic of many. Until we get to a point of seeing all as human beings, bleeding the same red blood. and away from labels of color and such, we will stay mired in our circular firing squad. Will we ever wake up? I hope so before a fascist dictator finds the key words to slip in under the radar and.........
http://www.unscientificamerica.com/
There is, perhaps, a hundred years of well-substantiated science which shows that punishment, defined and distinct from positive and negative reinforcement, can change behavior but also creates unwanted behaviors and aggression, almost all of it destructive in some way, and nearly always perpetrated by the powerful against the smaller and less powerful. It is administered by people we call bullies. It's irrelevant whether they are parents or dog owners or whomever, when they resort to punishment they are satisfying an inner urge for aggression, perhaps born of a deep-seated sexual frustration or inability to deal with being weaker than everyone in the life around them, going beyond simply changing behavior, doing nothing more than beating up on the weak. Not much difference between them and some mass murderer, they just prefer, many times, to do their cowardly work behind closed doors.
People who use punishment deserve every consequence that can be mustered against them. They are no better than the lowest, most despicable criminals in our society. That includes the teacher who hits a kid, (such as the ones ion Boston who soaked switches in vinegar to beat black children because, as they said, "their skins are tougher, you know"
, or the pathetic bully of a parent who smacks the kid on the tuckus.
If the goal is changing behavior, they should get a book, read up on behavioral theories taught in the most basic of college courses, and move their thinking out of the 18th century. Or just join the rest of the people who deny that the earth is getting warmer and that vaccines cause autism, and quit being a lying hypocrite.
I never understood this mindset. You beat the crap out of an adult it's assault - beating children is acceptable and even desirable. And folks wonder why children grow up to be violent? Gee ... I'd have to think about whether there's a connection ...
State statistics for levels are here (it isn't very fresh data):
http://www.stophitting.com/index.php?page=statesbanning
This compares graduation rates in the 19 states that allow schoool-based corporal punishment vs. those that do not, controlling for % of children who qualify for free lunch:
My take on it is that currently the children who have the least social capital are most likely to receive corporal punishment at school. Poor rural white kids and poor black kids. We already know that. We also already know that there is an achievement gap between poor black kids and white middle class kids. That isn't a causal connection. But it exacerbates it. It makes a bad situation worse. It is one factor among many, but it makes a unique independent contribution.
- There may be hope for us yet. Maybe.
K&R
