I was paddled in school 37 years ago. Why is the practice reviving?

As children all over the U.S. are heading back to the classroom, a Missouri school district and a North Carolina county are reinstating the use of corporal punishment. Nineteen states, including Missouri and North Carolina, allow for this type of discipline.

Corporal punishment can be defined as a school employee having the right to spank or paddle a child as a form of punishment to stop or modify undesirable behavior. Such behavior varies in severity from skipping class, inappropriate use of a cellphone, tardiness, violating dress codes, talking back to staff and faculty, bullying or taking a trip to the bathroom without permission.

This type of discipline is illegal in military training facilities, juvenile detention centers and as punishment for a crime — but children can still be struck in school. 

Corporal punishment should not be considered acceptable in schools and has been on a decline since the late 1970s, according to a 2016 study. Still, too many students face the possibility of being hit or spanked. The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that during the 2017-2018 school year, that number was more than 70,000. Any push to add to that amount is dangerous, potentially leaving lasting psychological and emotional damage to a child.

It’s been 37 years since I was paddled at the age of 13 after running away from the residential, Christian school I’d been sent to by my parents for being emotionally out of control and refusing to attend school. The man who hit me with a wooden paddle  — air holes drilled into the end for a “better swing” — was a hulking church deacon in a three-piece suit. He stood at 6 feet, 4 inches tall with broad, Neanderthal-ish features in comparison to my less than 5 feet-90 pounds waifish frame. “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” he said, followed by, “I’m doing this because I love you, little one.” Then came the first swing of three that lifted my body, bent at the waist over the back of a chair, off the floor. Large, knotted, blackberry-blue bruises rose on both sides of my buttocks, preventing me from sitting for days.

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States were given the power to allow corporal punishment in schools following the Supreme Court’s 1977 Ingraham v. Wright decision. It determined that the Eighth Amendment clause to the Constitution, which prohibited “cruel and unusual punishments,” didn’t apply to students enrolled in public schools. Children from preschool to 12th grade could be spanked or paddled in school.

Of the 19 states where corporal punishment is still legal, more than half are located in the Bible Belt region, a part of the country recognized by predominantly conservative politics and largely influenced by Protestantism. During the 2015-2016 school year, more than 92,000 students were paddled. The vast majority of the incidents happened in the Bible Belt. 

Biblical Scripture referred to by some Christians explicitly instructs the use of physical punishment where children are concerned. One version of the Bible reads, “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.” (Proverbs 13:24 NIV). This proverb blossomed into the “spare the rod, spoil the child” idiom. The Scripture and the idiom are considered foundational in supporting physically disciplining a child.

Organizations and professionals have continuously spoken out against the use of physical violence as discipline in schools for a variety of damning reasons. The American Academy of Pediatrics has called for the ban of corporal punishment in schools since 2000, citing the increased risk of “negative behavioral, cognitive, and psychosocial” impacts, along with the poor emotional outcomes for students who are paddled in school.

According to the World Health Organization, corporal punishment “triggers harmful psychological and physiological responses. Children experience pain, sadness, fear, anger, shame and guilt, and feeling threatened also leads to physiological stress and the activation of neural pathways that support dealing with danger.” So, the use of physical discipline as a means of temporarily stopping or altering undesirable behavior has long-term consequences.

If those reasons weren’t enough to protect children in schools, Black students, male students, and those with disabilities were disproportionately subjected to physical punishment in school, according to a 2018 U.S. Government Accountability Office report that looked at corporal punishment data from the 2013-2014 school year.  

How can this still be happening to children in 2022? Aren’t they faced with enough these days in the classroom? I am not saying there shouldn’t be consequences for their actions. Absolutely not. Children learn much of what is socially permissible in school among their peers and in the classroom with their teachers — spending one-third of their 24-hour days in public school spaces. However, in an age when bulletproof backpacks are on the back-to-school shopping list, when our children have to take cover under their desks during active shooter drills — or even more tragically, they’ve witnessed school violence — students shouldn’t have to worry about being spanked or paddled by school personnel. Our children deserve better.