…At least that’s how they’re starting to feel in Central Georgia. According to this article in the AJC, some schools in Central Georgia will be bringing back the paddle. Here’s an excerpt of the article:
The Twiggs County school board reinstated its corporal punishment policy this summer to allow students to be spanked to curb misbehavior.
Some board members felt that in many cases, detention for students or a scolding wasn’t working.
“We had a policy but we weren’t using it,” said Ethel Stanley, one of the board’s five members. “Sometimes smaller kids will obey better if they have a paddling. The more you give them rope, the more they try.
“It’s something to deter them,” she said.
Last year, Twiggs County schools reported more than 300 student misconduct incidents and 62 fights, according to a state report. The system has about 1,100 students.
At least two board members said student discipline problems are also a factor in higher-than-normal teacher turnover this past school year, and officials are trying ways to improve student achievement.
Most of the system’s source of misbehavior comes from middle-schoolers, said Levi Rozier, Twiggs County’s campus police chief.
“That’s when they’re finding themselves,” Rozier said.
But for the deterrent to work, teachers and principals will need to be consistent when correcting students’ behavior, and parents will have to accept the change, he said.
“It has to be bought in by parents,” he said.
Twiggs parents will have to sign a permission slip for their child to be paddled by an administrator, and witnesses will have to be in the room, Stanley and board member Johnnie Moore said. There also will be a meeting to inform parents of the changes, Stanley said.
The teacher part of me agrees that sometimes you do want to paddle- and maybe even bust a kid in the head. I was paddled in school, and I was spanked at home. I think I turned out alright. However, the other teacher part of me doesn’t want to be placed in a situation where the parents are angry at me for spanking their child, even if they did sign the permission slip. There’s always the chance they could feel like you went too far or that the child’s behavior doesn’t warrant a paddling.
On another blog on AJC.com, a reader commented that there would also probably be a racial component, where black parents wouldn’t want a white teacher paddling their child. I’m not too sure about the racial component- I think all parents are hesitant about letting someone else lay hands on their child. Period. Anyhow, this could be very interesting. I wonder if they keep statistics about who’s paddled and for what. I’d like to know that information.
life beyond the well... 