Corporal Punishment Debate in US Public Schools

After videos of shock therapy being used on disabled students surfaced in 2002, the issue of allowing corporal punishment in schools remains a huge question mark today. A total of 19 states today allow varying degrees of corporal punishment in public schools, according to the Center for Effective Discipline. Over a million cases of corporal punishment are reported annually. Parents and educators are divided on the issue—does punishment promote discipline, or does it cause lasting negative effects? What are the repercussions of these measures?

 

Above: Nineteen states (in red) have laws permitting corporal punishment in schools
In the 2005-2006 school year, 223,190 school children in the U.S. were subjected to physical punishment. This is a significant drop of almost 18%, continuing a steady trend from the early 1980’s.

(Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights http://ocrdata.ed.gov/)

 

In 2002, corporal punishment extremes were unveiled after school staff from Judge Rotenberg Center, a special needs school near Boston, was caught on tape strapping an 18-year-old autistic student to a table and exposing the student to multiple rounds of electroshock therapy.

While the school states the student was “acting aggressively,” security camera recordings showed the punishment occurred as a result of the student refusing to remove his jacket in class.

Click for JRC Shock Therapy Video

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kafoYdtyBP4)

 

Juan Mendez, United Nations special rapporteur, recounts an incident in which he was subjected to torture by electric shocks in 1975 by the Buenos Aires police. Mendez then expressed his concern about electric shock practices on autistic students in schools. “I feel very strongly that electricity applied to a person’s body creates a very extreme form of pain. There a lot of lingering consequences including mental illness that can be devastating,” Mendez said.

JRC is allegedly the only school in the world to subject disabled and disturbed students to shock therapy, in a system also known as “aversive therapy”.

According to the Guardian, one of the few media organizations to witness the school in operation, nearly half of the student population carries a shock generator in a backpack or around their waist. Students are required to wear the devices at all hours of the day. These devices are activated by care attendants through remote-control zappers, which send electric shocks to students’ arms and legs.

This is not the first time the UN has pressed for investigation of the school. JRC continues to use shock therapy today. In 2010, the incidents were revisited, as was corporal punishment. Today, schools most commonly use paddles as a form of punishment. In an interview with NPR news, education reporter Sarah Gonzalez of StateImpact Florida provides an example. She explains, “It’s a wooden board, and it sure looks like it hurts. Picture a really short rowboat paddle, a rectangle with a handle about 16 inches long, five inches wide and half-an-inch thick. Students at the high school get paddled about twice a week.” Cole Long, a senior at Holmes county High, continues, offering common reasons for punishment. “Oh, doing stupid stuff, you know, throwing papers, throwing pencils, a couple times for cussing and then back-talking. I used to be a really wild child.” Cole considers spankings as a way to teach discipline and respect, but others beg to differ. Other children expressed fear of punishment after being exposed to acts such as paddling and isolation.

(Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights http://ocrdata.ed.gov/)

Other concerns are also raised regarding the overall healthiness of the practice, such as how this affects students in the future of their education. A baseline survey on the prevalence of corporal punishment conducted by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child revealed that 33% of parents consider corporal punishment the main cause of students dropping out of schools. It also suggested that despite teachers’ qualifications and numerous training sessions on alternatives to corporal punishment, majority of them believed in the effectiveness of mild to moderate punishment.

The educator side sheds a certain concern upon the situation. Najeeb Anjum, a principal from Pakistan, shares his thoughts on the issue on the International Herald Tribune. He writes, “The collusion of parents with students aggravates the situation. Instead of reprimanding and disciplining their children, parents take sides. I am not trying to defend any excesses committed by teachers on their students but unfortunately, we are looking at this issue with a jaundiced eye.”

On the other hand, there are still parents and educators alike concerned about the measures our public school system has resorted to today.

Luis John Castro, a resident of the US territory of the Northern Marianas Islands, remarks, “While I firmly believe that discipline is a true virtue to have when forming a great mind, to do it in ways such as extreme forms of corporal punishment like shock therapy is already too much. When we were growing up, the most extreme corporal punishment we ever got was getting smacked on the wrist with a ruler. Over time, it was realized that there are other ways to enforce rules other than by fear of physical force. I think corporal punishment where the subject’s life is at risk is not only uncalled for, but inhumane.”

Norman del Rosario, a parent of two sons, ages 16 and 9, responds. “In life,” he says, “proper communication will solve any differences. Violence is not a solution, and will never be. Punishment, to me, has the same meaning as hatred. It’s always a two way street, takes two to tango. As a parent, I firmly believe that if you truly communicate well, then everything should be resolved.”

In early 2011, fashion designer and parent Marc Ecko began Unlimited Justice, a lobbying effort to persuade lawmakers to outlaw corporal punishment against children in public schools. Thousands of children every year report injuries so severe they seek medical treatment. Ecko created an iPhone app for Unlimited Justice that garnered 100,000 downloads in its first two days. In an interview with the Huffington Post, he mused, “How do we live in a country where we can outlaw peanuts in almost every classroom, but paddles are still okay?”

There are many different perspectives and issues that arise from the concept of corporal punishment. It seems, however, that the US is inclining towards minimizing the practice as times change. Is it healthy? Is it safe? Is it effective? What will the next decade bring for families and educators working together? Perhaps alternatives and exhaustive research on the overall effects would be greatly helpful to these answers, on all sides.