Corporal Punishment in the Classroom

Corporal Punishment in the Classroom
Corporal punishment is a discipline method in which an administering adult inflicts pain upon a student (usually using a paddle) in response to a student's offensive behavior. Nowadays regulations have been created as to how many “swats” can be inflicted, by whom, and with what instrument. It is still used in many U.S. schools as a disciplinary method against disobedient or defiant students. Although corporal punishment is no longer tolerated in the military, prisons, or mental institutions, 21 states still allow corporal punishment in full or in part according to the U.S. Department of Education. Every year, more than 223,190 students are being subjected to this particular form of punishment in public schools, and a disproportionate number are minority students, male students, and students with disabilities. Research has also shown a correlation between the use of corporal punishment and increased school truancy, dropout rates, violence, and vandalism schools. Principal Sid Leonard, from Toledo Ohio states, expresses his feelings against corporal punishment: "The same ones kept coming back for more. It wasn't working. Hitting children did not seem to improve their behavior. It seemed in fact to be reinforcing the very behaviors I was attempting to eliminate." Advocates of corporal punishment view it as a fast and effective procedure as opposed to a time consuming suspension. Father Philip Berrigan, a teacher at St. Augustine High school in New Orleans, expresses how beneficial corporal punishment served him as a teacher: "Sometimes we sent a student to the principal's office for a paddling, and I have seen a marvelous clearing of the air with a simple whack on the butt. The offending student realized without resorting to guilt or subterfuge, the seriousness of his transgression." While suspensions take kids out of the classroom for days, paddling could be done within fifteen minutes.
I believe that the practice of corporal...