School district in Temple revives paddling

From the Houston Chronicle:

One school district in central Texas has brought back the paddle as a way to restore respect and discipline in the classroom.

Although most American school districts have banned corporal punishment, Texas doesn't seem to believe in sparing the rod. Of the estimated 225,000 students spanked in schools in 2006, the latest available figures, nearly one-fourth were from Texas.

But Temple is unusual in that after banning the practice, the school district revived it last May at the request of parents who were nostalgic for the orderly schools of yesteryear. Without it, there weren't any consequences for students, according to Steve Wright, Temple's school board president.

More here.

So most of my radical critique of American education concerns the dramatic effectiveness of the unrecognized curriculum. The recognized curriculum deals with reading, writing, math, history, and various other traditional school subjects. The unrecognized curriculum deals with everything else. Taking roll, being seated in your desk when the bell rings, speaking only after you've been called on, wearing the proper clothing, busy work, all the many punishments endured when deviating from desired norms, and a whole lot more, all these things comprise the authority and obedience curriculum that nearly all American schools, public and private alike, rigorously pursue.

Students may, or may not, master the recognized curriculum. Indeed, many students graduate from high school as functional illiterates. But almost all students master the unrecognized curriculum. That is, you may not, after completing school, understand the difference between, say, democracy and capitalism, but you will most certainly understand that there are rewards for doing what you're told, and punishments for disobedience.

Teachers complain that students these days are disrespectful, or unruly, or out of control, whatever. Never mind the fact that teachers have always said this. After spending six years in front of a high school classroom, myself, my own take is that teachers aren't willing to use the disciplinary apparatus available to them. That is, they're not working hard enough to maintain order, and blame the kids for teachers' unwillingness to be the fascists that the job requires them to be.

In other words, beating children isn't really necessary.

But consider how corporal punishment figures in the unrecognized curriculum. What does it teach? Corporal punishment teaches children that it's perfectly acceptable for the strong to brutalize the weak. That violence isn't simply acceptable: violence is desirable. That it is better to be an oppressor than a victim. Indeed, that the world is divided into two groups, those who oppress, and those who are oppressed. That hitting is better than discussion. And on and on. I'm sure you get the point.

In the end, all that corporal punishment does is create a population that is very comfortable with the notion of torture. And that an individual ought to be tortured if he doesn't do as he's told. Given the deplorable state of our prisons, and the collective yawn offered by the US public in the face of widespread military torture scandals, it seems we already have such a population. A revival of corporal punishment stands to make things much worse.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$