To Spank or Not
219 years after Poland, 135 years after Belgium, Metro bans paddling
by Liz Murray Garrigan
In 1783, Poland outlawed corporal punishment in schools. The Netherlands did it in 1820, Italy in 1860 and Belgium in 1867. Nashville did it this week. Actually, in the context of the United States—and the South in particular—this week’s formal decision by the Metro school board to remove paddles from the city’s learning institutions is somewhat ahead of its time.
Every industrialized nation in the world prohibits the practice of paddling in schools—except the U.S., Canada and one state in Australia—according to the National Coalition to Abolish Corporal Punishment in Schools.
Meanwhile, across the country, 27 states have banned corporal punishment altogether, but, of course, Tennessee isn’t one of them. In fact, U.S. Department of Education data from the year 2000 shows that Tennessee is the fourth worst state in the country, judged by percentage of students struck by educators (4 percent).
“I think it’s amazing that we’re still having the debate,” says school board member Patricia Crotwell, who notes that there were about 1,000 instances of paddling in Metro schools last year. “We’re supposed to be turning out productive, law-abiding citizens, and I don’t think you get there by whacking them.”
In this country, there’s something about the question of whether to “whack” ill-behaved kids in schools that creates a deep political divide between Republicans and Democrats. In Nashville, we mostly have the latter, which is why the school board has officially banned the practice.
But that the issue is so political is, in and of itself, engaging. Religious paddle peddlers cite Proverbs 13:24, which says that “He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.” During the presidential debates, George W. Bush said he thought there was a place for physical discipline in schools, going so far as to support a “Teacher Protection Act.”
Meanwhile, the anti-paddlers condemn the practice as crude and ineffective, arguing that it causes children to be aggressive and more likely to abuse their own children, spouses or others. There are reams of research providing credibility that children suffer, as opposed to benefit, from such punishment. Murray Straus’ 1994 book, Beating the Devil Out of Them, for example, says that states with corporal punishment have higher rates of student violence than those without it.
Research aside, all over the country the issue has had spank-happy Republicans foaming at the mouth over liberals who think the hands-off approach is far more progressive. Both sides of the debate are actually comical, because they so perfectly play out their assigned roles—wind them up and they spew their respective clichés.
“It fits my stereotypes of Republicans, but then again I’m a Democrat,” Crotwell quips.
Liberals are troubled by the idea that places of learning need to be able to use force to operate. There are, of course, practical issues as well, short of the kind of shield law in Texas where teachers are absolved from liability if they hit students for disciplinary reasons.
Meanwhile, most conservatives hold dear the ideas of accountability and “personal responsibility”—to resurrect a political mantra—and would just as soon have their children enrolled in schools that apply corporal punishment to keep offending students in line.
For Nashville’s pro-paddlers, there are always Catholic schools.
Political exit
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charles Smith’s campaign insists that we should “assign no significance whatsoever” to the fact that heavyweight political consultant Ben Chao is no longer on the payroll. Chao’s involvement gave the former state education commissioner and dark horse candidate some needed credibility in the face of better-funded opposition.
Smith is a refreshing voice who, for months now, has been calling Democrat Phil Bredesen and Republican Van Hilleary, regarded as the giants of the race, “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,” presumably because their approaches to the state’s fiscal management seem identical.
Smith’s campaign says that Chao’s contract simply expired and that he had been recruited for a “fixed timetable” to get the campaign up and running.
Outfitting Satcher
Former Meharry Medical College president David Satcher always cut an impressive figure when he was in town and looks even more formidable as the U.S. surgeon general in his navy blue uniform with lots of gold braid. As surgeon general, Satcher is the nation’s most visible doctor and has been outspoken against the imperatives of knee-jerk, right-wing morality when medical knowledge points in other directions. Consequently, Satcher hasn’t been invited back for further service by President George W. Bush’s administration.
While Satcher is quietly going off to a position at Morehouse College, he won’t have to bid a complete farewell to the spiffy uniform, The New York Times reports. Noting that he liked the uniform so much he said he wanted to sleep in it, aides presented him with a replica version ofpajamas as a going away present.
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