Dear Educator:

Where do teachers in your state learn the proper method for battering a student on the buttocks with a weapon? They haven’t learned that in any teachers’ college as far as I could discover. The practice just isn’t taught. However, members of every other profession that involves physical contact with a subject are trained, tested and certified. From surgeons and dentists to barbers and manicurists - all are required to perform according to recognized standards. Safety is key. But no such standard applies to the beating of schoolchildren on their buttocks with boards.

As you read this, children are being traumatized in the schools of your state. Every day some go home with injuries. (See link to page of photos below.) And it’s not uncommon to find teachers with a flair for sadism employed in places that give them free reign to indulge this perverse appetite.

With all due respect, I suggest that this problem warrants your immediate attention. Surely you would not need a letter like this urging you to take action against an employer who, being displeased with your performance at work, attacked you physically and sent you home bruised.

The solution is not complicated. The debate over the pros and cons of so-called “corporal punishment” is passé, and any literate person with access to the Internet can become an expert on this issue almost instantly. Most of the civilized world has already done that. More than 100 countries prohibit pupil beating, and 31 of them have broadened that prohibition to protect children at home.

What’s holding back progress in your neighborhood?

Sincerely,

Jordan Riak, Exec. Dir., PTAVE