Punishment in school?

[LordNyghthawk]

In first grade, my principal had the authority to spank students who misbehaved. She even threatened me and two others with it when we acted up and it kept us in line.

 

Now it’s not allowed, which is a pussycat system if you ask me. I never fought in school because to me, being suspended for 3 days was the end of the world and even if you were the one being picked on, if you allowed yourself to get into a fight, you and anyone else involved were out – no exception and they never wanted to listen to your reason for fighting.

 

And to the ones who it didn’t matter – those students eventually didn’t get suspended any longer. Habitual juvenile delinquents will eventually not get the wrath that the first time offender gets, because the first timer was supposed to be a ‘good’ student and knows better, whereas the delinquent just can’t be taught anyway.

 

Sad, sorry state of affairs all of this - I say bring back school punishment that means something – paddles and belts, and see if students won’t learn. My sister always says, “spare the rod, spoil the child” and it’s true no matter how you slice it up.

Being honest, when I have kids, if a teacher hit them, I would beat the hell out of the teacher. That's my child,not theirs. But what makes it bad, is when society says it's bad for a PARENT to discipline their own children. And of course, when people have children, and don't care enough to bother getting involved in their kids' lives.

[Xeniorn]

IMHO detention would work if it actually brought punishment upon the people. Like, denying them some rights. I don't know exactly how detention works since we don't have that in Croatia, but I'd make it so that the pupils are compelled to sit quietly and do some work studying or so. Refusal to comply with these rules would result in being escorted out of school, and repeating the offense would result fist with one or two warnings and if it doesn't work, then being transfered, to a extremely strict and unpleasant correction facility, that should be made obligatory for such students by the law so the parents cannot grease something up so to avoid it.

 

If it were that way, students with good parents would be stopped by the parents themselves when they'd be issued a pre-transfer warning, and students with bad parents would simply... be sent to a facility. It does sound strict but strict is what children need, especially in elementary school. Since high school is not obligatory (at least in my country, that is) in high school solving the problem is simple. Students that don't learn to behave are expelled which then reduces their chances to get to a good college, even to enroll to another high school. Redemption would, of course, be highly encouraged, but not in a sense that "he was good this week" means that he's alright now and his crimes have been cleared.

 

Also, it should be made so that the parents feel their kids' offenses as well, in addition to all of the above. In terms of financial expenditure.

 

I don't know if my ideas sound too utopian/fascistic/tyrannous but I've been convinced by life's experiences that the aforementioned methods tend to work.

[DecalMirror]

Not going much into it I just say: the bad guys are always bad guys and good guys always good. I've seen that so many times in my school.

[Vagrant0]

Not going much into it I just say: the bad guys are always bad guys and good guys always good. I've seen that so many times in my school.

Wow, that's a narrow minded statement if I ever heard one. Sure, on TV, and in other forms of fiction, this may be true. In reality however, it is not anywhere near that simple. People can do horrible things with a good motive in mind, and people can do kind and wonderful things with a bad motive in mind. By ignoring motive, and focusing just on the events, you are only getting a small picture of the individual. People don't wake up one day and decide to become a criminal without some reasoning behind why a criminal act was done. For teenagers and young people, this is often social pressure, the desire for attention, an act of frustration toward a society they don't fit into, or in the case of theft, need, or precieved need of the item. Granted thses things can also cause adults to take actions they normally wouldn't, but it is most often started in childhood when the sense of morals, self-restraint, and responsibility are low.

 

Yes, while the trouble makers in your school seem to be very one sided, they really aren't. If you looked, you would probably find that many of those kids have screwed up home lives. They just don't show it because it would make them look weak. The problem is that often these individuals gather into groups which encourage bad behavior, socializing that individual into a case where they become more willing to break the rules, in exchange for more social praise by their peers.

[Lord Slyther]

In first grade, my principal had the authority to spank students who misbehaved. She even threatened me and two others with it when we acted up and it kept us in line.

Being honest, when I have kids, if a teacher hit them, I would beat the hell out of the teacher. That's my child,not theirs. But what makes it bad, is when society says it's bad for a PARENT to discipline their own children. And of course, when people have children, and don't care enough to bother getting involved in their kids' lives.

No one should lay hand on another being. Period. It's called assault, and I SURE as hell ain't gonna allow any adult I don't know to hit me or push me around, because if they do, I will call the police on them, and sue them for assault. Same for me. If a teacher EVER layed his hands on my child, I will f***ing waste him! I won't allow people to touch my kid if I had one, and I was married with another woman. It is very wrong, and I consider spanking nowadays offensive and hostile. I will also call it assault. Who the hell do these teachers think they are to harm kids? They have no right.

 

The only thing you should do is talk it out with your child. Ask him how his day was. Talk it out calmly. Give him a suitable punishment if he deserves it, but don't hit your kid!

[LordNyghthawk]

I'm old school, and think spanking is a proper form of punishment....for a PARENT to do. But you also have to tell the kid what they're being punished for. Modern society today says it's bad to punish a kid,or do anything to "bruise" their ego. Including telling them "No". That's where a lot of problems develop. I lived in a house where the legal guardian of a 14 yo boy would not even punish him for theft, not going to school, refusing home school lessons, etc... I tried telling her that this would lead to worse and worse behaviour, and sure enough, the boy started breaking into my ,locked, room constantly. Reasoning with her or the boy just did not work. Luckily, I was able to move out within a few months, but I was still finding stuff missing months afterwards. The rare times the boy was foolish enough to try it when I was home, so I caught him, he acted surprised as hell that I would take back my property even when he was in the middle of using it...

The upshot is: I blame the kid mostly, there are plenty of people around that he could have taken examples from to be a better kid, but didn't. I also blame his guardian for refusing to even talk to him about it, much less punish him for it.

[Xeniorn]

Physical punishment is alright IMO as long as it is within reason. There is no excuse for injuring the child, but it's perfectly alright to use physical superiority to control the child. The child otherwise gets imprinted with the illusion of being intangible and might have illusions of superiority.

 

For the record, physical punishment is not something I favor, being physically punished myself when I was a child I know it's not a pleasant thing and has some bad side effects. I believe physical punishment is indeed an OK method to use as a higher-degree control achieving act, and it's to be done only after asking in a leisure manner, asking in a strict manner, directly ordering and using the raised voice method. :) People tend to threaten their children with stuff like "you'll have your TV privileges revoked" or something like that, which results in kids not doing things because you control the TV. An when they get their own TV/allowance/freedom to go out at will they will stop listening. Physical punishment empowers the parent's authority, but authority must, of course, exist before being empowered, and p.p. cannot be used as an only means of creating authority.

 

**edit** I was talking about methods for parents, teachers aren't supposed to use such methods, because of many reasons.

[Lord Slyther]

Well, I don't look at physical punishment at the way you do. If my child broke in and stole some stuff from someone's house, I'd ground him for 2 months. Plus, he could get in trouble with the police. If the police needs to throw him in, then I can't do anything about it. I have to say 'Take him.', and step out of their way. I don't mess with the police, even if my kid is in trouble. But if my child needed a good punishment, I would ground him for 2 months, or even worse. An entire year. Something that serious should deserve a grounding, but I don't like grounding my child a whole year, but if he broke the law, I would have no choice but to do so. Tell me. Do you enjoy getting abused? Do you enjoy torturing someone you love so much? Even as the jedi say. "No one deserves death, even after what they've done", but the way I see it is "Nobody deserves physical torture, even after what they've done".

 

I don't agree with your reasoning. If you believe that physical punishment is a common thing, then you can think it that way, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with you. The past is a very cruel part. Even the Americans captured people from Africa, and turning them into slaves. Slavery is my enemy, same as it is in the Elder Scrolls series. The world is a bad place, but there are good parts of it. I hate the consequences that happened to kids in the past, where they were spanked in school, and I can never forgive the cruel past. Anyways, I'd rather take away my kid's favorite things away for a month rather than abuse him.

 

EDIT : Yes, the teacher has no right of touching the child of another family. He's not the teacher's kid.

[freddycashmercury]

I was spanked, and I thank my parents all the time for it! I've seen kids who's parents refused to spank them when they were younger and kids who's parents did spank them. Guess what? The latter children were nowhere near as unruly as the former. Until children are old enough to understand why what they did was wrong, spanking works just fine. I am fourteen. If my dad were to spank me now, I'd laugh. When I was younger, however, sometimes the only thing that kept me from doing something stupid was the fear in the back of my mind that my dad would punish me. It wasn't that I didn't love my parents, it was just that they were the rulers and I was a peasant. Now, it's more like they're the King and Queen, and I'm a Baron. Please note, I'm not saying spanking works everytime, just that it does work, and it's not as bad as some people make it out to be. It only works up to a certain point, as well. Child abuse is wrong, we definitely agree on that. Spanking isn't child abuse.

 

 

Also, I agree that teachers shouldn't lay a hand on kids. The parents need to discipline their kids, not the school district.

[Lord Slyther]

Well that's just the way I see it, freddy. If you believe that, then I got no problem with that. It's just the way I see it. I didn't say anybody had to agree spanking is wrong. Then can believe whatever they want.