The most common defense of corporal punishment in the schools is that it is used rarely, discreetly, and only as a last resort, after all other means of correction have been tried. This is a dearly held delusion.

Definitive data cannot be produced to prove or disprove such claims since no national survey has been attempted. The few statistics which do exist are suspect, since confessions of minimizing numbers to appease local prejudgments are fairly common.

The United States Office of Education and a number of other federal agencies have been approached since 1975 with the suggestion that a nationwide assessment be made of the amount and kind of corporal punishment in use, but the idea has never been implemented. What might be learned from a complete study is suggested by a look at three mini-surveys done in Dallas, Texas; Miami, Florida; and in the state of California. The high number of reported incidents in those surveys provides a shocking glimpse of what may well be going on in many other places.

Lacking better data, we have turned to other sources in our effort to document that corporal punishment is used often and harshly. Since November 1972, End Violence Against the Next Generation, Inc. has published The Last ? Resort, a newsletter which collects and disseminates information about corporal punishment. Readers have responded with descriptions of incidents known to them, with copies of local newspaper articles, editorials, and letters to the editor, as well as with reports of bills introduced into state legislatures, local school board debates and decisions. A subscription to a newspaper clipping service, begun in November 1976, has produced an avalanche of articles from all over the country.

Corporal punishment in American schools is a national disgrace. It is not rare. It is not used only as a last resort - and as bad discipline, it drives out good.

Winnowing through this mass of material, we have retrieved enough tales of scabrous behavior on the part of presumed educators to convince all but those most determinedly blind because they refuse to see. Corporal punishment in American schools is a national disgrace. It is not rare. It is not used only as a last resort - and as bad discipline, it drives out good.

Coaches Are Toughest
Many of the cases that "go public" are accusations of cruelty by athletic coaches. Raymundo Castro was required to do pushups over an open knife by Coach Bill Vanhorbieke, claimed the Asociacion Educativa de Padres Mexicanos (Fresno Bee, 1974). A follow-up story recounted the outrage of Fresno, California coaches at a presentation on ABC television which dealt with high school football injuries. In the documentary, a Florida high school coach was shown slapping and tossing his players around physically. The anger of the Fresno coaches against ABC was for using an "extreme example" and for making all coaches look like "oafs, dummies and unconcerned with the welfare of the players." The Fresno Bee chided them for not recognizing an "extreme example" and oafishness in their own back yard. It then added to the story the fact that Raymundo had been told that the knife would be used every day until he did the pushups right. But it was the reporter, not the coach, who discovered that the nine-year-old had suffered an accident some years before and one of his arms could not be fully extended.

In Sarasota, Florida, a coach at an elementary school was incensed because five boys caused him to waste fifteen minutes of class time. He required them to stay after school. If this had been taken as time to have a confidential talk about cooperation, the uses of team time, or some such pertinent topic, there could have been little objection. Instead, Coach McGary used a gym class rope to tie the nine-year-olds together by attaching it to their belts. He "strung them up like clothes on a line," said the state attorney's office. McGary then allegedly fastened the rope to his motorcycle, started the engine and dragged the boys through the parking lot. He later treated them for cuts, scrapes and bruises. Their clothes were torn. The coach was charged with a misdemeanor (San Francisco Examiner, 1976).

Coaches sometimes think they are a law unto themselves.

In Brunswick, Georgia, a new school board ruling requires that if any physical punishments are to be administered, it must be by the principal or assistant principal and there must be a witness. Coaches sometimes think they are a law unto themselves; Coach Ben Young felt free to paddle without attention to protocol a fifteen-year-old who had forgotten his gym shorts. His reasoning? The boy had asked for it. Therefore it was not punishment. It was just a reminder. When the father brought pictures of the bruises, the coach said, "If there were any marks on him they were the result of scabies. He was always scratching himself." Was the coach suspended for breaking the rules? No, the boy was.
(Brunswick News,1976).

With coaches, corporal punishment seems more in the nature of an initiation or coming-of-age rite than a serious effort to inculcate learning. In Washington State the penalty for the last man in a cross-country squad was a "hacking" (Seattle Post, 1973). In Corry, Pennsylvania, for kicking the ball high enough to hit the ceiling during the game of kickball, a paddling was in order (Times-Observer), 1976. When a father complained, he was assured that this was not considered punishment; indeed it was nothing more than a harmless diversion. The coach described it as a "ritual purely for laughs," even though it resulted in raised welts and bruises. No one asked the recipients if they thought it was funny.

Some coaches have heard the word and are changing. From Renton, Washington: "The old discipline method of coaches giving an obnoxious kid a whopping with the tennis shoe is gone . . . The philosophy behind the [new] procedure . . . is to have a student take responsibility for his or her own behavior" (Record, 1977). And from Alexandria, Louisiana, "It has been traditional to whip junior high school football players at Buckeye High for making poor grades, but the practice has been discontinued . . ." (Daily Town, 1977).

The custom of cruelty as a deterrent begins before kindergarten.

The tales of coaches misinterpreting their mandate to develop character by "hardening" their charges is giving way far too slowly. But they are not the only ones who misuse their authority over children. The custom of cruelty as a deterrent begins before kindergarten. Tony Johnson was two years old and it was his first day at nursery school. He cried when Mother left, not uncommon behavior for two-year-olds. That evening as his mother prepared him for bed she discovered that his back was covered with twenty-five to thirty welts, red and swollen. The teacher, Mrs. Webb, was miffed at having to explain to a judge, "I have never received a complaint before and I've been in the business for fifteen years!" She had switched him "a time or two" for crying (Nashville Tennessean, 1976).

HOW MUCH IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT USED?

There are very few published reports of corporal punishment statistics. Three areas of the United States are represented in the following accounts:

California: In 1974, a report mandated by a resolution of the Legislature of the State of California included responses from 92% of the school districts (but did not include the City of Los Angeles). Reported were 46,022 cases of corporal punishment in the 1972-73 school year, with only five percent of these in the high schools (Riles,1974).

Dallas, Texas: The school system in the city of Dallas recorded 24,305 paddlings for a school population of approximately 330,000 during the 1971-72 school year. This represents an average of over 2000 incidents per month. The number of unreported incidents may have been many times that number, according to student stories (Duncan,1973).

Miami, Florida: Miami area newspapers gave extensive coverage to the 2,892 school paddling incidents reported for the first 45 days of the 1975-76 school year.

Blacks Paddled Most: The statistics collected by the Dade County Public Schools for a U.S. Office of Civil Rights survey indicated that Black students, especially Black females, were being physically punished in highly disproportionate numbers compared with White students. Although only 28% of the county's student population is Black, 67% of the students receiving corporal punishment were Black. (Miami Herald, 1976)

The figures showed that in schools in the administrative area which includes most of Miami's inner city and enrolls the system's highest concentration of Black students, corporal punishment was used twice as often as in the other 5 areas. In the district as a whole, about 60% of the male students paddled were Black, as were 80% of the female students. (Miami News, 1976)

During those 45 days, for example, Northwestern Senior High School recorded 193 paddlings, or four to five every school day. At Westview Junior High the self-reported score was 307; that means that if there is a seven-period day, not a class period went by without someone taking a beating. On the other hand, 99 schools (out of 242) reported no instances. Either they managed to conduct school without fear, force and pain, or they were ashamed of their occasional lapses and chose not to confess them.

Considerable publicity went to a Mr. "K," who proudly displayed a fan of paddles from the closet where he kept the old ones after they had been fully inscribed with the signatures of the victims. He claimed he paddled with "love," although psychologists have labelled the paddling of the anal-erotic area as symbolic sodomy. His words? "Like a mother stroking her little child."

"Eat Them or Bend Over"

The most widely reported corporal punishment story was the cigarette eating case. Told with a variety of humorous headlines was the incident involving Principal Hightower of the Hume High School in Hume, Missouri, whose standard response to boys caught with cigarettes in their pockets was: "Eat them or bend over." In all the years of his little joke, no boy had ever chosen to do anything but to accept the swats. But Bill Adkins and Terry Weatherman were made of sterner stuff. They took the dare and ate eighteen cigarettes between them. Both became ill. Terry developed a kidney problem, and Bill had to be hospitalized for an aggravated ulcer condition. His mother, Katherine Adkins, demanded that Principal Hightower be fired. The school board predictably backed the principal, who announced that the penalty would continue unchanged.

Mrs. Adkins was subjected to harassment from the community. Night riders buzzed her home in the woods and attempted to nudge her car off the road. The Adkins family had no well or other source of water except truck delivery. The water supplier, a member of the Hume Board of Education, refused to haul her weekly supply and persuaded his competitor not to serve her. She refused to send Bill to school and had been warned that he could be sent to a State Training School as punishment for truancy. The American Civil Liberties Union agreed to take the case, to ask for an injunction to prevent further impositions of the penalty of ingesting poisons and to secure damages for the beleaguered families (Nevada Herald, 1976). The issue became moot when Principal Hightower announced his resignation to return to farming and both families moved from the town.

From the Memphis Scimitar, (1976) comes the tale of two kindergarten teachers who had a tacking iron used to laminate name tags. It seemed a handy weapon and thus they began to use it as a "lesson on telling stories." Several children had their hands burned before the principal called a halt and fired the teachers. At the hearing the attorney for the dismissed teachers cross-examined the children, all five-year-olds, and tried to make much of their shy reluctance to speak up. He even accused the principal of having coached them and implied the dismissal had been racially motivated.

From the Oskaloosa Herald (1976) we read of a second grade Iowa boy whose face was slammed down onto his desk so hard as to permanently disable him. His father is suing. Children have been locked in the school vault, made to lie in a coffin-shaped box and been shut away from light and air in a variety of "time-out boxes" (Associated Press,1975).

Retarded children, in spite of inadequate language and understanding, are subject to the same paddling and slamming about as other children.

Retarded children are not immune. Those who live at home and attend school are not as hideously tortured as are some institutionalized handicapped. One such child was given a pants-down spanking on the driveway as he entered the school for the first time (Sunday Bulletin, 1977). Retarded children, in spite of inadequate language and understanding, are subject to the same paddling and slamming about as other children. In Martinez, California, some special needs children are even subjected to electric shock with cattle prods for grinding their teeth, and may have a squirt of hot pepper sauce shot into their mouths for disobedience (Los Angeles Times, 1977).

Leslie Ellefson and his father are suing a high school principal in La Crosse, Wisconsin for having thrown Leslie against a wall and puncturing his ear drum (Leader, 1976). The Tempe News (1976) reports another suit in Phoenix, Arizona which charges that a teacher recklessly grabbed Aquila Scott around the neck causing her injuries and a $600 medical bill. High school girls in Tecumseh, Oklahoma are paddled for the first offense of missing a class. When asked what position he required these young women to assume to accept blows on the buttocks, Principal Mihura found the question very funny and said, "I've considered several positions and rather lean toward stringing students up by their ankles, but since simply having them stand on their heads has such merit, we are still somewhat flexible on that matter" (News Star,1976).

Scatological Humor

The tales are endless, each one more bizarre than the one before. Yet what percent of the total instances of corporal punishment they represent is anybody's guess. We think of them as a tip of the iceberg phenomenon, but tip of the volcano might be a better simile. The rolling fury beneath this turbulent outpouring is reflected in our juvenile delinquency statistics, in the violence and vandalism that is wracking our schools, and in the enormous dissatisfaction with schools that is evident on every hand.

Some of the newspaper stories are distributed by wire services and are used by subscribing newspapers which choose to run them. Others are purely local items, such as reports on the deliberations of the school board tackling this "touchy" issue. Some incidents appear and reappear in succeeding editions, often with embellishments and sequels. The most popular stories are those that permit the punning propensities of the headline writer to move into high gear. I have also made the observation that when the circulation is small, joking takes precedence over seriousness. In other words, rural America still treats spanking as scatological humor. That is one reason why I doubt the findings of those who see school paddling as primarily a racist phenomenon. Rural America is predominantly Caucasian, and unless "poor white" is also labeled as a minority, I think we shall find that in general it is the children of poor and undereducated families who are more often physically punished, rather than the children of racial minorities per se.

Letters to the editor on this subject split about fifty-fifty. Those in favor of physical punishment are generally less grammatical and more angry. Those opposed (with exceptions) tend to be longer, more thoughtfully organized and better expressed. Editorials are less evenly divided, most (perhaps seventy-five percent) are calmly hopeful that physical punishment can be avoided yet discipline maintained. The twenty-five percent that favor more and stiffer punishment quote Proverbs, often incorrectly, evoke the good old days, or expand on the destructive nature of youth in a permissive society. Editorials in the newspapers of the larger cities, such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post, are strongly and eruditely in favor of total abolition. The Sacramento Bee headlined "Thousands of Better Ways" in answer to the tiresome question, "What's the alternative?"

Often the offenses of the children which lead to corporal punishment are so minor as to not even be considered status offenses: forgotten gym clothing, tardiness, unfinished homework, taking both cherry pie and a cookie on the lunch tray. But it seems to take outrageous actions by educators to break the tenacious American belief that schools are the royal road to success and that the teacher is always right. That being the case, we are forced to conclude that corporal punishment is an ubiquitous evil, even though middle and upperclass children may be comparatively immune.

What Do Parents Want?

The story of Mr. Charlie and Popsicle Pete is unusual only in that the principal who told it was openly amused at his solution to the problem of punishment suited to the three classes of students in his school. Many American educators have the grace to be ashamed of their differential punitiveness. Not so the wielder of Mr. Charlie.

"This," he said, swinging a twenty-four inch plywood paddle with his initials drilled in holes through the center, "is Mr. Charlie. If any of the big bullies from the other side of the tracks gets out of line, he gets it. They know it. In fact, they ask for it. I've tried giving them a choice of swats or detention, and they choose swats every time. It's over with in a hurry and they go out knowing they've paid for their fun and they feel better."

"Now this," he went on holding up a studded ping-pong paddle, "is for the middle class boys. They're not so tough but they overstep bounds every so often. It stings enough to remind them to think twice next time."

Then he laughed. "This," he dug about in his desk drawer among the pencils and paper clips, "is Popsicle Pete." He brought out a tongue depressor. "I used to have a real popsicle stick but now I use this; they're about the same size. This is to slap the wrist of the Lakeside boys." He sneered. "If I ask them 'swats or stays' they choose detention every time and then Mama drives down to get them. Of course, they're pretty popular with the teachers and almost never get sent down."

He was surprised at my astonishment. "You mean you openly treat boys differently depending on where they live?"

"Sure," he said defensively. "I try to go along with what the parents want. That's good public relations."

Whatever the merit in catering to neighborhood customs, it is true that there is greater reliance on spanking among poor families than among the wealthier and better educated. (Gil, 1970; Welsh, 1976) This may account for some of the classism inherent in inflicting more corporal punishment on these same low income children when they misbehave in school. But there are also complex racial and cultural components to be considered.

The racial and cultural concomitants of corporal punishment have two antithetical aspects: (1) The victimization of minority children, and (2) the folk beliefs held by many ethnic groups about the indispensable role of corporal punishment as part of their cultural heritage.

It is widely held that minority children suffer more at the hands of school disciplinarians than do white children, and it has been documented that they are disproportionately subject to suspensions and expulsions. (Children's Defense Fund, 1975) An analysis of portions of the data collected in 1976 by HEW's Office of Civil Rights indicates that similar patterns hold true for corporal punishment, especially of Black students. Are minority children, therefore, feeling the effects of personal and institutional racism, or merely receiving the type of discipline their parents prefer?

A Matter of Class, Race, or History?

Are Afro-Americans harder on their children at home? Is it true that severe physical punishment is so much more customary among Black parents that their children "don't understand anything else?" There may be some justification for such statements. When asked what they would do if a five or six year old child did not obey instantly, twenty percent of White parents replied that they would "spank until he couldn't sit down" or "hit him with a belt," but sixty-seven percent of the Blacks said they would be that rough, sometimes or usually. Among Whites in the study, poverty and poor education made a considerable difference, the poor and less educated being more prone to use violence than those who had had some college or who had a middle class income. Among Blacks, however, this education and income differential did not hold. (Blumenthal, 1975)

This attitude apparently carries over to the schools. "If you can't hit them, you've got to put them out. But that way they are denied an education. This plan to forbid spanking in school is a racist plot . . .!" said a southern Black educator in a moment of frustration. One can sympathize with his determination that Black students must not be denied an opportunity to remain in school and learn, but at the same time deplore his unfortunate belief that he has only a choice of two evils.

At the Mott Jr. High in the Bronx, N.Y. two coaches with temporary appointments were named deans of discipline and stalked the halls with leather straps and a thick wooden paddle known as the "smoker," hurting and humiliating the students, sometimes offering them a choice of licks or suspension. If they braved the licks, the two suspended them anyway. The coaches thoroughly enjoyed their jobs and special prerogatives, grinning and laughing as they swung the "smoker" and stepped on fingers. All the participants in this tragedy were Black: the students, the deans, the principal who appointed them, and the citizens commission members who investigated. Also involved were the NAACP and the Metropolitan Applied Research Center, whose Kenneth B. Clark noted that "some Black parents sought to justify the use of corporal punishment even as they were denying it was used." (Metropolitan Applied Research Center, 1974)

In Black Rage, Greer and Cobbs trace the origin of child beating in the Black community: "Beating in child rearing actually has its psychological roots in slavery." "The child is admonished to obey the teacher as he would his parents and the teacher is urged to exercise parental prerogatives including beating. In this the parent yields up his final unique responsibility, the protection of his child against another's aggression." "As the parents urge [the teacher] not to spare the rod, that same parent is telling volumes about the life that child had led up to this moment. The parent tells of a child both beloved and beaten, of a child taught to look for pain from even those who cherish him most, of a child who has come to feel that beatings are right and proper for him, and of a child whose view of the world, however gently it persuades him to act toward others, decrees for him that he is to be driven by the infliction of pain." "Pity that child."

Beating in child rearing is thus seen as a corollary of the life of the slave, the peon, the dispossessed. This explanation is particularly relevant in a situation like Guadalupe, California, where the State Senate Select Committee on Children and Youth (Dymally, 1973) and the California State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights conducted an investigation.

The town was found to be a feudal enclave where the five percent Anglo farm owners ran roughshod over the ninety-five percent Mexican-American agricultural workers by threatening them with loss of jobs and deportation hearings when they protested the treatment their children were receiving in school. There were numerous examples of abuse. One child told that he had been held head down in the toilet bowl while the teacher flushed it. Another teacher was accused of grabbing the children around the neck with the hook he used as a prothesis for a missing hand. (California State Advisory Committee, 1973) California Rural Legal Assistance pursued the case, which was settled when the school board agreed to get rid of the three most punitive teachers, hire a new superintendent and add bilingual counseling. (Ortega v. Guadalupe, 1973)

In that town, "the debate over corporal punishment was but a minor expression of a profound conflict in the community between the Anglo establishment and the Chicano farm workers who, although a majority in number, are a minority in power and economic status. The Anglos control the farms, the major stores, and, of course, the schools. Opposition to corporal punishment implied support for Cesar Chavez, and, at a more fundamental level, much of the support for corporal punishment rested on racist attitudes toward Chicano children." (Feshback, 1973)

"Cultural Heritage"

On the other hand, however, are the sentiments expressed by a Chicano educator, who is the principal of a school attended primarily by Mexican-Americans, and is a member of the Human Relations Committee of his state teachers' association. He was aghast at the thought of abolishing the spanking of children when the matter came up for consideration at a convention.

We spank our kids. It's part of our cultural heritage.

"Among our people, that's the way we do it. We spank our kids. It's part of our cultural heritage. You can't change that!" He was genuinely naively, upset. Everyone in the room turned to look at him. "I don't knock them black and blue or anything like that. But our kids, if they need it, they get it. That's the way their parents want it. They tell me, 'If my kid don't behave, you spank him.' " He repeated, shaking his head in disbellef that anyone should challenge what to him seemed inevitable, "It's our culture. That's the way we do it."

His sincere conviction that the way he handled children was a special ethnic trait of his group sounded strangely like the nursery school supervisor who was asked why she permitted aides to hit children. "Among these people," she whispered, "that's the way they do it. They strap their children. It's a part of their cultural heritage." She cocked her head knowingly. "I don't spank them. I wouldn't dream of it. But if you interfere with Black culture, you're a racist."

We don't take no guff from kids.

The same sentiments in almost the same words came from the fiercely-set jaw of a doggedly independent Okie whose blue eyes and faded hair are standard in the beautiful Blue Mountains. Here casual cruelty to children is a matter for hilarious laughter. The paddling principal grinned. "Don't tell me how they do things in Los Angeles," he said, believing apparently that it was different there, which it was not. "Up here we don't take no guff from kids. We aren't paid to take any lipping off. If a kid gets smart, he gets clobbered. That's the way we do it. It's our culture, you might say. You can't change that."

Poor Brown, poor Black, poor White, all the dispossessed, the staunch traditionalists, the authoritarians in awe of power and having none, squelch their children with blows. They are proud of it. Each is ignorant of other ways, convinced that their group knows the "right" way, and fearful that others conspire to weaken the fibre of the "character" they have beaten into their young, as they themselves were beaten. [Emphasis added]

In the end, it just might be an attack on racism that will put an end to swats in school. There is a special distaste about permitting one's child to be upended by a male of another race. The complacent acceptance that the school knows best may wither as parents become more involved in challenging the abuse of power that is prevalent in many school systems today.

To quote President Jimmy Carter, schools as well as nations need to be reminded that "a quiet strength need not be proven in combat."