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Advocates for it could at least stop being cowards and call it inflicting physical pain on children.
(lemmy.world)
The usual suspects: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming
"Corporal Punishment," what a lovely, soft language term to legitimize literally terrorizing children through violence.
There were always rumors of those things when I went to school in California in the seventies and eighties, especially how the principal would drill holes in it so he could swing faster, but I never saw one with my own eyes or knew any kids who had endured it.
I raised my daughter in Texas (long story that and I apologize though she didn't seem to mind). I don't recall any mention of paddles throughout her school years. I honestly have no idea if they get used anywhere in the state.
The only paddles I ever saw of that ilk at any age were decorative fraternity paddles many, many years after they'd ceased any and all actual use.
I'm curious how often this happens in these states.
Edit: Looked to Texas law on this, and parents have to opt OUT of it in writing each year. So you opt out in first grade, you have to do it again in second grade, etc. I never received such notice.
Edit edit: Jesus Christ:
Texas here, every year we had a form that was sent home with us that our parents had to sign if they didn't want it.
I knew one kid who got the paddle. They were given the option to go to in school suspension or get corporal punishment. He chose the later.
Other than that, nobody else ever had corporal punishment, and I never heard of anyone else getting to make that choice.
I wonder if we were in one of the four districts that have banned it. I genuinely never saw that form or even heard a whisper about paddling.
Maybe. I was in a really small town, but it was a good district that was fairly liberal, all things considered. We always used to joke about what would warrant it, since we were all aware it was a possibility. The form could have been a deterrent tactic, I suppose.
Just send a letter back that says... "I'm not opting out, if you hit my kid, you're opting in"
Ditto. I went to a public school in a state that allowed corporal punishment. It never happened and was never even threatened as a punishment outside of our 80 year old history teacher who'd joke about it "still being legal." Even if its technically allowed, the possible shitstorm a school administration could face for it makes a great deterrent (you know, besides basic decency). Things don't need to be illegal for people not to do them.
ETA: Our student handbook did outline the procedure for corporal punishment though. Some of the steps I remember was that it required the written permission of a parent being given per instance, no cross-gender spankings (i.e. no male teacher-female student), punishment couldn't be given by the same teacher who wrote for it and it couldn't happen in the classroom in front of the other kids.