Corporal Punishment
Throughout the history of education the most common means of maintaining discipline in schools was corporal punishment. While a child was in school, a teacher was expected to act as a substitute parent, with many forms of parental discipline or rewards open to them. This often meant that students were commonly chastised with the birch, cane, paddle, strap or yardstick if they did something wrong.
Corporal punishment in schools has now disappeared from most Western countries, including all European countries. Thirty U.S. states have banned it, the others (mostly in the South) have not. Paddling is still used to a significant (though declining) degree in some public schools in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. Private schools in these and most other states may also use it, though many choose not to do so.
Official corporal punishment, often by caning, remains commonplace in schools in some Asian, African and Caribbean countries.
Most mainstream schools in most other countries retain punishment for misbehaviour, but it usually takes non-corporal forms such as detention and suspension.
Read more about this topic: School Discipline
Famous quotes containing the words corporal and/or punishment:
“I am settled, and bend up
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“Routine physical punishment such as spanking teaches a toddler that might makes right and that it is fine to hit when one is stronger and can get away with it.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)