The Smack Down

I was spanked growing up. Not often, in fact I could probably count how many times, and there probably isn’t anyone I know who wasn’t spanked at some point. Everyone has different views how to discipline their own children, but I’m sure most would agree that they’d sooner smack a teacher in the face themselves than let that teacher touch their boy or girl. At least that’s what my Mom said when she was called once asking if I could be paddled at school. I think I had to write an essay instead.
I don’t like corporal punishment, I certainly don’t think there’s a place for it in school, and at my school it seems especially brutal sometimes. 6 year olds have been slapped with sticks for things that would call for reductions of Gold Stars or Time Outs with kids I’ve worked with in the past.
I can’t make it stop. I can remove myself from the situation, I cans ay I don’t like it, or that I don’t agree with it, but I cannot make it stop. It’s not seen as a problem or an issue, and it’s even a Ministry of Education rule somewhere that teachers aren’t supposed to use corporal punishment, but there are no consequences if they do. So in the end, at my school, it bothers me and me alone.
Sometimes I even convince myself that maybe it’s what works here. Then I find myself sitting in another classroom listening to a kid screaming, blood curdling, horrible sounds, and remember that it actually worked they would know their ABCs. Instead, I talk to a Mom about her kid not coming to school for over a week because he was afraid of being hit by the teacher.
There’s a theory that some people have that when kids are spanked it’s fine discipline as long as you show them the same amount of love and affection to create a balance. So you smack your kid, then give them a hug, you pinch their ear, then be sure to give them kisses…something like that. I can buy that with your own kids, like I said, I was spanked and not scarred for life, but I also know there are better ways to discipline. But with the “Balance System,” even if it’s true, you can’t keep the balance if the kid is getting hit at school and no positive reinforcement to balance it.
Much of the time I wish I wasn’t in a school here. I can’t deal with this kind of ignorance to education methods. It’s not ignorance for lack of being informed either; it’s a choice of the culture, society, and school system. Working at this school is like working with a large dysfunctional family, all the adults screaming at kids who just don’t respond to any of it, except the crier here and there. Stuck in house and being the one sane person who can hear everything but has unfortunately lost her voice.
I’m not talking about kids acting up and being wretched, we’re talking about kids who are shy and don’t want to answer questions, or don’t know, and get hit for looking out a window. I literally probably wouldn’t have survived this kind of school when I was a kid.
Then again, did teachers in America stop hitting kids because it was wrong or because they would lose their jobs? Another chicken or egg question I guess.