Spare the rod and spoil the child

Talking out of turn … that’s a paddling. Looking out the window … that’s a paddling. Staring at my sandals … that’s a paddling. Paddling the school canoe … ooh, you better believe that’s a paddling.

Turns out that corporal punishment might actually work. At least according to an article in Newsweek that looks at the remarkable turnaround in one school:

As punishment for a “major offense,” such as fighting or stealing, students are told to place both hands on the seat of a leather chair and brace for what [principal David] Nixon calls “a whippin’.” Before he begins, though, he sits the child down for a quiet talk about why he, or she, is in trouble. He tries to determine if a deeper issue, such as a problem at home, might warrant a meeting with a counselor. If the child shows remorse, Nixon will often send him or her back to class without a spanking. Otherwise, he makes sure he is calm, and he makes sure his elbow is still. Then he delivers “three licks” to the child’s rear end. If the child is a girl, then a female administrator does it. Some of the kids cry. Some are silent. Some want a hug. And after the child is sent back to class, still stinging, Nixon sits alone in his office and thinks about what the child has done, and what he has done. “If I could burn that paddle in my stove,” Nixon says, “I would. This is the worst part of my job.”

I was never paddled in school. I don’t even know if corporal punishment still happened at any of the schools I went to. But I do know that we believed it did. And that belief kept us in pretty good line. That’s pretty much the experience found in the article linked above. Once the kids know that there is an immediate, serious consequence for bad behaviour, misbehaviour dropped dramatically.

Food for thought.