Family Wee Aly September 22, 1963
The NEW school year finds the na
tion in the midst of a growing con
troversy over a pertinent question:
should teachers have the right to spank
unruly students
It is a thorny issue that deeply concerns all
parents, and not necessarily because their own
children may be spanked. In many areas disci
pline has become an acute problem, and educators
warn that, unless the minority of disorderly stu
dents is curbed, entire classes will suffer. As one
principal says: "When one or two create dis
turbances daily, they halt the learning process
for 80 or 40."
The debate to spank or not to spank already
involves many educators, legislators, and experts
in human behavior. Congress itself is sharply
divided on the issue. Even President Kennedy
has spoken out on the subject, only to be opposed
promptly in his point of view by the chief U.S.
education official!
President Kennedy does not believe teachers
should use corporal punishment, but the U.S.
Commissioner of Education feels that the disci
plinary problems in some places are now so bad
that spanking is warranted.
Mr. Kennedy said: "We are rather reluctant to
see other people administering corporal punish
ment to our own children ... So I would not
be for corporal punishment in the school, but I
would be for very strong discipline at home so
we don't place an unfair burden on our teachers."
Francis Keppel, the new Commissioner of Ed
ucation, favors giving schools limited authority
to use physical punishment, however. He would
permit principals to wield the rod "under con
trolled circumstances."
The issue is especially heated in Washington,
where the House of Representatives has passed
a bill authorizing District of Columbia teachers
to use "reasonable force" to make students be
have. The District, which does not have self-rule,
is governed by Congress.
This measure was strongly backed by Carl F.
Hansen, Washington's superintendent of schools.
On the other hand, the Rev. George Hagmaier,
associate director of the Paulist Fathers Insti
tute for Religion in American Life, terms the
plan "a monstrous perversion of sound teaching."
In most states, school boards have the author
ity to ban or allow spanking by teachers in
their own districts. And because of the rising
discipline problem, the number of schools per
mitting corporal punishment of students has been
increasing steadily.
Only recently Milwaukee educators asked per
mission to use corporal punishment because of a
series of assaults on teachers by pupils. In Lake
Charles, La., 150 parents, describing themselves
as "worried, scared, and mad," demanded bet
ter discipline at a junior high school.
They told a school board that a minority of
students was seriously disrupting classes by be
ing openly disrespectful to teachers and using
profane language.
"Reasonable corporal punishment" has been
approved in many California districts, and the
trend in that state now runs to the use of rulers
and straps. Berkeley, Calif., frowns on paddles
but has voted that teachers may "shake, strap,
or spank" pupils.
How do teachers feel about spanking? The Na
tional Education Association conducted a country-wide
survey and discovered that 72 percent
favored "judicious" use of corporal punishment
in the elementary schools, while nearly 60 per
cent approved of physically disciplining unruly
high-school students.
It is interesting that almost as many women
teachers as men voted for spanking.
The debate now raging frequently waxes elo
quent and emotional. Here are the reasons being
advanced for and against the use of the rod, the
ruler, and the paddle:
FOR SPANKING
1. Corporal punishment is often the only
possible way discipline can be enforced effectively
in a classroom.
Pro-spankers point out that there are some
wild youngsters who will ignore all other forms
of punishment and respond only to the persua
sion of the whack. For example, Rep. Graham
Purcell of Texas, a former juvenile-court judge,
says it's sad but true that "many youngsters
understand nothing less than physical punish
ment" The view is shared by a number of
authorities, who add that the alternative is an
archy in the schools. "And then," says a Con
necticut teacher, "nobody learns anything."
2. Some children interpret less drastic
forms of disciplining as teacher weakness and
misbehave all the more.
"The only way children will have respect," de
clares Rep. G. Elliott Hagan of Georgia, a pro
spanker, "is if you make them respect you." An
Indiana educator agrees heartily and adds this
pointed observation, based on 32 years' expe
rience as a teacher and principal: "Few things
engender so much healthy respect so quickly
as a stinging smack when it's deserved. If a
youngster who is a real behavior problem just
gets extra homework or is told to stand in a
corner for his misdeeds, he's likely to think he
has the teacher licked and will proceed to walk
all over him. But he is apt to change his mind
very fast when confronted with the business end
of a paddle."
3. There isn't nearly as much emotional
damage from corporal punishment as some peo
ple fear.
Some psychologists state that the only time
emotional harm results from a spanking is when
it's unfairly meted out Dr. Peter G. Cranford,
an Atlanta psychologist, declares in his new book,
Disciplining Your Child: the Practical Way, that
if discipline is "fair, consistent sure, and not
brutal, only good can result"
4. British children who attend what we call
private schools are widely recognized as among
the best-behaved, best-mannered in the world.
It's no coincidence that these schools permit
caning of offenders.
The rod is never spared in these institutions,
not even when the sons of the highest-ranking
personages are concerned. Recently, during a
House of Lords debate on a proposal to permit
whipping of boy criminals, a number of eminent
peers cheerfully admitted receiving stinging
blows for offenses when they were young. While
there certainly are hijinks at these schools,
wide-scale discipline problems are virtually non
existent there.
5. It works!
A number of teachers and school officials re
port from experience that class-disturbing dis
obediences are apt to decrease or stop entirely
when the teacher has the authority to use or
threaten physical chastisement
AGAINST SPANKING
1. Corporal punishment merely lets the
teacher work off steam.
Alfred D. Buchmueller, executive director of
the Child Study Association, says: "The very
thought of a great big teacher spanking little
kids is unpleasant. Teachers have a hard job and
become frustrated and hostile. This is under
standable. But spanking just lets the teacher re
lease his anger and does not teach the youngster
the principles of sound discipline he needs."
2. Spanking is a handicap to learning be
cause you can't beat education into a child.
Dr. Allan Fromme, a New York clinical psy
chologist declares that physical punishment
"only teaches a child to fear and hate the person
who beats him." Resentment builds up not only
against the teacher but against whatever he
stands for and is trying to impart Thus learn
ing ability decreases. "The most effective teach
er," asserts Dr. Fromme, "is not the one who
is hated but the one who is loved."
3 There are a number of alternatives to
spanking that are not only more acceptable but
more effective.
One better technique is separating the offender
from his pals and other Btudents, declares Dr.
Lawrence E. Vredevoe, professor of education at
the University of California at Los Angeles.
Isolate him; make him work by himself and have
no contact with fellow students between classes
or at dismissal time. "When the troublemaker is
removed from contact with his gang, girl friend,
or just others," says Dr. Vredevoe, "he soon
longs to go back with the group."
Gerald W. Anderson, principal of Union Free
School District No. 1, Babylon, N. Y., offers
these as more effective alternatives to spank
ing: special types of schools to handle cases of
gross misbehavior, calling in parents for con
ferences, and suspension from classes. "Despite
what people may believe," says Anderson, "a
youngster will hate rather than welcome suspen
sion. All his friends are in school, and he has
nothing to do. Then, on returning to school, he
is forced to work much harder to catch up. We
have found suspension a most effective method."
4. Spanking will only make a martyr of the
unruly student.
The whipped youngBter will end up being a
big Bhot among his friends, who will rally to his
cause and thus build more opposition to the
teacher, educators point out Harl B. Douglass,
director of the college of education at the Uni
versity of Colorado, writes: "Corporal punish
ment serves to antagonize not only the pupil
punished but other pupils as well, to arouse the
martyr attitude, and usually to arouse parents to
fever heat"
5. It does NOT work!
Following a study of many public and private
schools, Dr. Vredevoe reports that "corporal pun
ishment was found to be unsuccessful in improv
ing discipline." He has many backers.
As the debate grows warmer, one fact emerges:
the school spanking issue, once considered old
fashioned, has come vigorously alive.
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