Corporal Punishment in Schools: Has it Always Been

Legal?

Gina Tangelo

World History II

Louis Herbst
May 22, 2016
Tangelo 1
 Tangelo 2

There are many social problems going on in America today. One of

those problems is that corporal punishment is still a problem in schools

because even though it is outlawed in 28 states, there are still 2 states that

either allow some form of this type of punishment or would not mind if it

happened in schools. The main problem with this situation is the social rights

of children and how they are viewed. While looking and analyzing this

problem, some specific questions come to mind: How do parents feel about

this type of punishment? Are there societies that think this is allowed? Why

was corporal punishment not made illegal in all states instead of just 28? And

even with that, is it illegal in just schools or also at home? Is this looked at as

abusive? Ever since the fifteenth century, corporal punishment has been a

norm in schools and yet starting in the seventeenth century real challenges

to power and authority could be seen until it was eventually abolished in

most countries and states. The real question is: How has corporal

punishment been viewed over time as well as how has the change of this

certain mindset impacted the regulations regarding corporal punishment in

schools?

Over 110,000 students were victims of corporal punishment in the

2013-2014 school year. U.S Secretary of Education John King Jr. sent a letter

to school officers to get rid of the corporal punishment.1 This letter talked

1 Rebecca Klein, "Obama Administration Calls On Schools To Stop Abusing

Kids." The Huffington Post. November 22, 2016. Accessed April 20, 2017.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/corporal-
punishment_us_58337528e4b030997bc0efad.
 Tangelo 3

about the statistics of this punishment and how it does not impact all

students equally as well as how it is not disciplining children but is rather

making it more likely for them to be aggressive.2 Though only sixteen

percent of the student population is made up of black people it is said that

over one third of students who were given corporal punishment were black.3

It was also seen that black girls were 2.9 times more likely to get physically

disciplined than white girls.4 The letter written showed a social type of

challenge because this letter did not give legal guidance but rather a general

reasoning for banning corporal punishment. King wrote the letter because of

the social issues that arose rather than this being a social challenge. Social

rights of children, more specifically the rights of black students and black

girls, was being challenged by the schools and people thought that this

needed to be told off. Even with all these different types of statistics, how

children were viewed in the West and how that has changed over six

centuries will be addressed in this paper.

The problem of corporal punishment in schools and in general can be

traced all the way back to the fifteenth century. Starting in the fifteenth

century, it was enforced that children go to school and learn about their

future profession.5 Though in the beginning Italians didnt value the concept

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 "Children," Italian Renaissance Learning Resources, accessed April 30,
2017,
http://italianrenaissanceresources.com/units/unit-2/essays/children/.
 Tangelo 4

of childhood or consider that children needed educations,6 they later on

made all students go to school or have tutors and that was what they would

do until they were about twenty-one years old.7 The way children were

brought up was through corporal punishment because it was the norm. 8

Children were said to be anticipating this type of punishment not just from

parents but also from teachers and neighbors if they were misbehaving.9 It is

said that There is no reason to believe that, by definition, the father who

dispensed corporal punishment to his child could not love that child, as well.

At the same time, there were parents who abused their children, just as there

are today. Pain was the medieval way of showing that actions had

consequences.10 The use of this type of punishment was an action taken to

shape behavior even though discipline could get out of hand and be taken to

court for example. If it did, it would come to the attention of the community.11

Though legal action was almost never taken, the awareness of neighbors

6 DeCourcy Hinds, Jess, "Children of the Renaissance: A Guide for Educators."

Pratt.edu. Accessed April 30, 2017. https://www.pratt.edu/uploads/DeCourcy-
Hinds-Florence_Project_08.pdf.

7 Children.

8 Snell Melissa, "The Medieval Child, Part 4 - The Playful Years - Play."
ThoughtCo. March 20, 2016. Accessed April 30, 2017.
https://www.thoughtco.com/medieval-child-the-playful-years-1789123.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.
 Tangelo 5

made a huge impact alone. An example of this is when a random man

decided to help a young boy being beaten by two store owners, this being a

social challenge since it was supposed to be normal to beat a child if he did

something wrong no matter what it was or if they were related or just known

by walking down the path with each other multiple times. This random man,

however, stood up for the boy without knowing him at all.12 The store owners

ended up charging the random man for damage and this man accepted to

pay the fees, meaning that he did not in any way regret what he did.13 All in

all, people of this time, whether it was parents, teachers or neighbors,

thought that a child misbehaving should be disciplined using corporal

punishment so they could be ready to face the real world. This type of

punishment, however, would only get worse in the following century.

The sixteenth century was just a continuation of the horrible

punishments of the one before it. Schools were now offered to the upper

class and the middle class but only boys were allowed to go to school,

meaning they received all the punishments and were called Tudor Schools.14

During this time period, teachers at Tudor Schools in England were very

strict.15 Whenever a student would misbehave it would result in being given

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.
14 "Tudor Schools," Six Wives, accessed May 03, 2017,
http://www.sixwives.info/tudor-schools.htm.
15 Ibid.
 Tangelo 6

fifty strokes of the birch, a type of cane,16 sometimes even on their bare

bottoms.17 Another type of punishment was to get hit across the mouth with

a feral, a flat piece of wood with a hole at the top of it.18 Some pupils were

too scared to go back to school because of the beatings19 and some of them

just ran away.20 Boys from wealthy families were sometimes lucky.21 Some

families could afford a special friend called a whipping-boy.22 Whenever the

rich child was naughty, the whipping-boy received the punishment instead of

the rich child.23 There were some parents and students who wrote about this

type of punishment and why they did it,24 this going against social norms

since most people did not write any diaries about it. This allowed for people

to be able to look at these diaries and do research to be able to see how

16 Barrow, Mandy, "Tudor Children and Schools," Primary Homework Help,

accessed May 03, 2017,
http://primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/tudors/schools.htm.
17 Lambert, Tim, "A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHILDREN," Local Histories, accessed
May 03, 2017, http://www.localhistories.org/children.html.

18 Brigham, Alan, "Tudor School Days," Hullwebs History of Hull, , accessed

May 03, 2017, http://www.hullwebs.co.uk/content/h-
tudor/education/schooldays.htm.

19 Barrow, Tudor Children and Schools.

20Brigham, Tudor School Days.

21 Barrow, Tudor Children and Schools.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Pollock Linda A, Forgotten Children: Parent-child Relations from 1500 to

1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000).
 Tangelo 7

people viewed corporal punishment. This type of punishment changed

someone with the changing of expectations on how to raise children in the

seventeenth century.

Parents really started to open up about their opinions about corporal

punishment in the seventeenth century. First off, poor children were

expected to do jobs by the age of six or seven instead of going to school. 25

Parents were expected to raise their children to be good Christians.26 A

common phrase from the bible used at this time was: He spareth his rod,

hateth his son, but he that loveth, chasteneth him betime, meaning that

they were to discipline them when needed.27 Physical correction (whipping or

beating with birch rod) was only used if necessary and sometimes children

were banished from their parents presence for a while.28 During this century

there were some parents who opposed the punishments given in schools:

Moreover, most parents disagreed with severe punishment and were

prepared to intervene on their childs behalf.29 They wanted their children to

be given moderate instead of severe punishments.30 There are two great

25 Lambert, "A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHILDREN,"

26 "Raising Children in the Early 17th Century: Discipline," Plymouth

Ancestors. Accessed May 3, 2017.
https://www.plimoth.org/sites/default/files/media/pdf/edmaterials_discipline.p
df.
27 Ibid

28 Ibid.

29 Pollock, Forgotten Children.

30 Ibid.
 Tangelo 8

examples of parents who went straight to the headmasters of the school

because of complaints from their children. J. Erskine put a stop to the beating

of his son and after this, his son started to improve in school and was a

good boy.31 Morris went straight to the school and talked to whoever was in

charge about the situation and it was resolved quickly and efficiently.32 The

disagreement of beating children in schools went against the social norms of

the society and somehow did not lead to any consequences. This challenge

did however start to pave the path for more parents being able to go against

all the social norms. Of course, not everyone has the same experience.

Corporal punishment was certainly inflicted in schools; but not every

student was subjected to it, meaning that not every student had to deal

with being beaten for every little thing they did.33 The eighteenth century

was not much different than the sixteenth or seventeenth century since

discipline was still strict and so corporal punishment was normal.34 It was in

the nineteenth century that peoples views changed drastically against the

idea of corporal punishment.

During the nineteenth century, most parents wanted teachers to

enforce the rules of the classroom.35 Some of these punishments were

31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 Lambert, "A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHILDREN,"

35 "THE LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY ONE-ROOM SCHOOL," Heritageall.org.

Accessed May 15, 2017. http://www.heritageall.org/wp-
 Tangelo 9

getting beat with a cane instead of a birch,36 whipped with a ferula (rod or

ruler fifteen to eighteen inches long), spanked with hickory sticks, forced to

stand in a corner,37 or, what is said to be the worst one, being forced to wear

a cap with the word dunce on it.38 One parents going against the courts

and three judges for being against corporal punishment resulted in the

beginning of the laws being reconsidered. Her son Russel Carl Baker who was

attending a school in Gibsonville N.C. was disciplined for throwing a kickball

outside of the designated play time.39 She asked that he not be spanked

because she disagreed with corporal punishment and he was a frail child.40

The judges said: except for those acts of misconduct which are so antisocial

or disruptive in nature as to the shock of the conscience and students

should have the right to be warned in advance when certain behavior would

cause for a spanking.41 They also said that spanking should never be

employed as a first line of punishment but that the teacher should try other

ways before going on to spank the child, where another teacher would have

content/uploads/2013/03/Americas-One-Room-Schools-of-the-1890s.pdf.

36 Lambert, "A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHILDREN,"

37 "THE LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY ONE-ROOM SCHOOL."

38 Lambert, "A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHILDREN,"

39 Mouat, Lucia, "Discipline in School." Section of Individual Rights and
Responsibilities Newsletter 3, no. 1 (1976).
http://www.jstor.org/stable/43871997. Copy

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.
 Tangelo 10

to be around, and if parents requested it a letter explaining why their child

was being punished.42 After all of this, some U.S. people looked into European

examples, one of them being one from Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg. He

said that corporal punishment should not be used for academic errors and

this idea was then added into schools and teacher were creating better

spaces for children to learn.43 These small changes in the way people

thought lead to the fundamental changes in the law in the following century

that would change corporal punishment in schools forever.

The twentieth century brought changes that shape up how corporal

punishment is viewed in most countries in the world today. In the beginning

of the century, there was not much progress made. Teachers were still

allowed to hit children.44 It was said that corporal punishment was

problematic and could lead to abuse,45 hence why many parents started to

be opposed to the idea. A lot of students never learned from the

punishments they were given and instead became more aggressive and felt

as if they were being given more stress.46 In Dublin, Ireland, the Minsters of

42 Ibid.
43 "School Discipline History," Findlaw. Accessed May 15, 2017.
http://education.findlaw.com/student-conduct-and-discipline/school-
discipline-history.html.

44 Lambert, "A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHILDREN,"

45 Glavin, Chris, "Historical Attitudes to School
Discipline." K12academics.com. N.p., 05 Feb. 2014. Web. 21 May 2017.
<http://www.k12academics.com/education-environment/school-
discipline/historical-attitudes-school-discipline#.WSInXlPyuHo>.

46 Klein, Obama
 Tangelo 11

Education were always against even considering banning corporal

punishment in schools.47 There were times that teachers were being fined for

beating children, for example one teacher was fined twice for inappropriately

abusing a child.48 It seemed that the Department of Education would do

almost nothing to solve the cases of teachers abusing students and took

months or even years to even respond to complaints about this type of

punishment.49 A small growing group in the 1940s started to complain to the

pages of the Dublin newspaper and brought awareness to the concerns that

parents had that the Department were not responding to.50 The paper

received hundreds of letters and this lead to the Minister trying to create a

compromise before not caring anymore and letting the teachers hurt the

students again.51 The argument of corporal punishment in schools came up

again and again until it was finally abolished in 1982. Writing letters to the

press about issues lead to corporal punishment eventually being banned

since the Minister did not want anything to do with it and yet he changed his

mind after the issue kept being brought up. Even though all of this

happened, the Parliament in England banned the cane in most state

47 Maguire, Moira J., and Samus . Cinnide, "'A Good Beating Never Hurt
Anyone': The Punishment and Abuse of Children in Twentieth Century
Ireland." Journal of Social History 38, no. 3 (2005): 635-52.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3790648.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
 Tangelo 12

secondary schools in 1987, and abolished corporal punishment in private

schools in 1999.52 The conceptions of strict corporal punishment were

replaced with more sympathetic views of the child as an individual.53 It

became banned in many countries and instead different forms of discipline

were used like detention, suspension, and expulsion if the student

misbehaved.54 Laws were created under the idea of abolishing corporal

punishment and have been incorporated into our view of discipline today.

In conclusion, even certain normal parts of society can change with collected

voices. Today, most countries in the West have banned corporal punishment

not just in schools but overall and have considered it a crime. Though in

Asian countries there are a lot of people who still use corporal punishment,

though not as often, there have been changes made to the way global

societies view corporal punishment over all. Small actions to challenge power

and authority and the social norms starting from the fifteenth have been

challenges worth making since later on in history what these people wanted

was given to them, even though it was in spirit. Corporal punishment may

still be a problem in twenty-two other states in the United States, but these

problems do not go unnoticed as people are trying to fix these problems by

bringing national and global awareness about the topic. The whole world

52 Lambert, "A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHILDREN,"

53 "Pioneer Sholes School," School Discipline. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2017.
<https://pioneersholesschool.org/pages/discipline.html>.

54 Glavin, "Historical Attitudes to School Discipline

 Tangelo 13

may not change their views on this issue but the problems arising from it

might be abolished.
 Tangelo 14

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 Tangelo 15

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Tangelo 16