Ryan Martis

English 150
Essay 1
2\2\2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Word Count: 902
Corporal Punishment in Schools
In the United States there are 20 states that still allow corporal punishment in schools. Corporal
punishment is defined as a punishment where physical force is used to cause pain or discomfort. Some
examples of corporal punishment include spanking a child with a paddle, striking a child with a belt,
slapping a child, slamming them to the ground, dragging them across the floor, or grabbing them by
the arm or neck with enough force to cause bruising. The use of corporal punishment has led to serious
medical conditions such as severe muscle injury, blood-clotting, whiplash damage, and hemorrhaging.
People against corporal punishment believe that such violence against children is never justified.
Supporters of corporal punishment explain that the reasons for the use of corporal punishment are
logistical and financial. Corporal punishment is basically free. The schools dont need to pay anyone to
watch the children during detention. Supporters of corporal punishment also like the fact that corporal
punishment is quick to administer. The teachers could immediately punish students that broke the
rules. Although the use of corporal punishment is cost effective to schools, it has also had an extremely
damaging effect on the students. That is why I believe corporal punishment should not be allowed in
schools.
One reason that corporal punishment should not be allowed in schools is that the teachers have shown
bad judgment when administering punishment to children. First of all, there is no comprehensive
definition of corporal punishment under U.S. state or federal law. That fact gives teachers a lot of
leeway on how and when they can punish children, and in many cases the teachers take the
punishment too far. With no clearly defined laws teachers could do whatever they wanted to as
punishment, and call it corporal punishment. For example, children have suffered from severe injuries
at the hands of their teachers. Such serious injuries are not justified as any punishment and would be
considered child abuse under any other conditions. Another example of teachers showing bad
judgment is that children with mental disabilities have been disproportionately punished more than
other students. In Tennessee children with mental disabilities are being punished more than twice as
often as much as children without mental disabilities. In many cases of corporal punishment of the
mentally disabled, the disabled children were being punished for displaying behaviors common to their
condition. For example, children with autism have a hard time understanding appropriate social
behavior, which leads to the use of corporal punishment by their teachers when it is not really
necessary. Not only children with disabilities, but minorities are also disproportionately punished with
corporal punishment methods. For example, African American students make up 17.1% of public
school students, but account for 35.6% of students punished in public schools. One Mississippi teacher
acknowledged the racial disparity saying that they could not paddle some children as much because
the marks are easier to see on lighter skinned students. Some parents were forced to give up their jobs
and home school their children because they could not trust the judgment of the teachers.
Another reason corporal punishment should not be allowed in schools is that it is very detrimental to
the students. Studies have shown that students who have been subjected to corporal punishment do
worse academically than other students. Those students dont want to go to school and one student
stated that after he was paddled by his teacher he lost respect for him and stopped listening to him.
This led to a decline in his grades. There are many cases of children who developed problems with fear,
anger and depression after they had been punished. The embarrassment of being punished in front of
your piers can sometimes be more damaging than a fist or a paddle. The use of violence against
students in schools creates a threatening atmosphere that hiders the childrens ability to learn, even if
they are not the students that have been punished. Teachers beating students if front of their piers
spreads fear into all the students that watch, because they know that any lapse in judgment and they
could be in that position. While all states show improvements in their American College Testing (ACT)
scores, the states with the highest rate of corporal punishment have shown the smallest improvement
of all schools in the United States from 1994 to 2008.
Still corporal punishment has many supporters and there own justifications for using corporal
punishment. One reason some prefer corporal punishment is that a student could be quickly punished
and sent back to class to continue learning, as opposed to being suspended and sent home. Corporal
punishment also saves time and money for the schools by not needing after school detention, or
weekend detention. These proponents of corporal punishment are wrong to believe that striking
children and possibly permanently damaging them is justified for any reason.
The schools should consider more than their own inconvenience when they evaluate the corporal
punishment system. The damage, both physical and emotional, done to the children should not be
worth saving time or a few dollars. The teachers have abused the power that corporal punishment has
given them, and the students have paid the price. Because of these reasons I believe that corporal
punishment should not be allowed in any school in the United States.