The cane and the slipper

As someone who was subjected to illegal corporal punishment at school by a paedophile with a spanking fetish, 'nearly half of parents' don't know what they're talking about. You don't hit kids, and you certainly don't delegate hitting your kids to whoever happens to be teaching them this week.

As so many kids are physically (as well as emotionally, psychologically, sexually) abused at home there seems little point to this. It seems that some parents just want to abdicate all responsibility for their children. May be classes into how to be a parent should be part of the national curriculum.

I don't think there's anything good about physically punishing children. I wonder how many of these parents would be happy for an acquaintance, or indeed a total stranger to smack their child with a cane? They'd be up in arms.

I don't believe in teaching through fear of punishment and pain.

Shakesbear said:

May be classes into how to be a parent should be part of the national curriculum.

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You'd get a lot of jeering about the nanny state. Also, I fear they'd be ill-conceived, by some sort of clueless Tory gonk like Michael Gove and his civil servants, and then badly taught.

It seems that some parents just want to abdicate all responsibility for their children

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Nail, head, hit.

Actually, that article is quite misleading:

In total, 49% of more than 2,000 parents surveyed for the Times Educational Supplement were in favour, compared with 45% who were opposed.

....

And when parents were asked specifically about "smacking/caning children", support dropped to 40%, with 53% disagreeing.

"Education Secretary Michael Gove said: "The right every child deserves to be taught properly is currently undermined by the twisting of rights by a minority who need to be taught an unambiguous lesson in who is boss."

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Citation needed?

Interesting isn't it. There's a concerted effort currently by the Tories to get rid of our rights, especially our human rights; the rationale is usually that some miscreant is exploiting them in order to escape punishment or get rich. But Gove doesn't give us any sort of example - who is this 'minority', what rights are they 'twisting', and how?

It seems if the pols and the pundits just chunter away repeating this, and the media doesn't bother to examine it, the Overton window slides inexorably rightward, and we end up giving up our human rights.

"Education Secretary Michael Gove said: "The right every child deserves to be taught properly is currently undermined by the twisting of rights by a minority who need to be taught an unambiguous lesson in who is boss."

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That's the job of the parents, isn't it?

crunchyblanket said:

That's the job of the parents, isn't it?

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Well, surely, yes.

It's telling that Gove's thing is apparently that we should get rid of the right of children not to be hit by strangers, in an attempt to get them to recognise 'who is boss'. It's a microcosm of this government of patrician scumbags.

It's nanny statism in a shiny new jacket. Instead of telling you how to parent, we'll make it so other people will do it for you!

crunchyblanket said:

I don't believe in teaching through fear of punishment and pain.

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Well, I went to schools where this happened and it never did me any harm. Made me the man I am today, in fact. Character building, I call it.

Of course, I was never caned or slippered.

And I now live in Texas and carry a badge, so anyone lays a hand on one of my kids, I'll shoot them.

seun said:

This story is just another reason I feel the UK has gone back to 1981.

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So do you think we'll be seeing more of Kajagoogoo?

MarkEsq said:

So do you think we'll be seeing more of Kajagoogoo?

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No, they're too shy shy.




*tumbleweed*

Slipper? Is this used when they have Cinderella for a teacher?

Back when I was in school in Scotland, I used to get "the belt." I vastly preferred that to any other form of punishment because, even though it hurt quite badly, it was over and done with very quickly. It also became a point of pride to take the belt without flinching and not allowing it to make the slightest difference in your behavior. There were some teachers who really enjoyed administering it and would belt kids for minor reasons. I once witnessed a ten year old kid getting the belt for untidy handwriting. He had mild cerebral palsy and he really couldn't help it. I don't think it was good for teachers to have corporal punishment as their crutch. I had teachers that even the worst kids wouldn't mess with because they were so respected - and they didn't need "the belt" to earn that respect.

I had teachers that even the worst kids wouldn't mess with because they were so respected - and they didn't need "the belt" to earn that respect.

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An excellent point. When I left university I applied for some English PGCE courses (UK teaching degrees) Part of the application process was to mock-up a classroom scenario (I chose to illustrate The Hero's Journey using Neil Gaiman's 'Neverwhere') I was told, at the end of the process, that I was a natural and that I would be a stabilising presence in a room full of rowdy kids.

However.

I wasn't allowed to progress further because I didn't have a C grade in GCSE maths (this despite A* GCSEs, A grade A-Levels and a 2:1 in English, the subject I wanted to teach)

I can't help but think that if they stopped treating teacher training (ooh, alliteration) as a box-ticking exercise, it might work out better in the long run....

*is not at all bitter*

If I ever have children - an unlikely prospect at best - I would cane any adult that lay a hand on them, and I'm such a peaceful and unassuming man. I find this discussion strange, since here where I live parents can go to jail if they hit their children, and I don't see "the little monsters" running wild.

It's just an easy, knee-jerk desire to solve a problem that has nothing to do with disciplin.

crunchyblanket said:

I can't help but think that if they stopped treating teacher training (ooh, alliteration) as a box-ticking exercise, it might work out better in the long run....

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Agreed. You can have all the boxes ticked and still be a lousy teacher. Conversely, a teacher with talent and passion can be turned down for not having one of those boxes ticked. It's tricky, though. There has to be standards, but knowledge of the subject and teaching theory is no guarantee that the teacher will be any good at the job.

It's interesting that you can't just smack the bloke in the street with your shoe, even if he's acting like a knob, despite being an adult and therefore legally culpable for his behaviour. Whereas it's apparently a-okay to smack kids with objects if they act out.

Maxinquaye said:

If I ever have children - an unlikely prospect at best - I would cane any adult that lay a hand on them, and I'm such a peaceful and unassuming man. I find this discussion strange, since here where I live parents can go to jail if they hit their children, and I don't see "the little monsters" running wild.

It's just an easy, knee-jerk desire to solve a problem that has nothing to do with disciplin.

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Personally, I wouldn't even call it a desire to solve a problem. To me, it's nothing but frustration and a total failure of thinking. Endorsement of corporal punishment is, in my opinion, a sign that people are lacking parenting and management skills. In my view, the person who hits the kid is the one who is acting out.

That, or that they have fetishes.

seun said:

Exactly. Problem is, Middle England loves this way of thinking.

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What a coincidence. Middle America loves it, too. What is it about middles?

crunchyblanket said:

It's interesting that you can't just smack the bloke in the street with your shoe, even if he's acting like a knob, despite being an adult and therefore legally culpable for his behaviour. Whereas it's apparently a-okay to smack kids with objects if they act out.

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Well, of course. Kids are smaller than adults. I mean, who would ever advocate attacking someone with a wardrobe accessory if there was a good chance it would get them knocked out? Bullies aren't stupid, after all.

ETA: I'm trying to wrap my brain around this nanny state concept. Is it the contention of the British rightwing that it is nannyism and therefore bad to teach parents how to handle problem children, but it is not nannyism and therefore not bad to simply take over parenting and beat up other people's kids to impose their own idea of discipline? So you can't tell them how to discipline kids because that would be nannyism, but you can take over parental discipline and punishment because that's somehow not nannyism?

Or is it just that it's bad-nannyism if the state control is positive and non-violent, but it's good-non-nannyism if the state control involves hitting people to show who's boss (namely the state, which isn't at all acting like a nanny in doing so)?

muravyets said:

What a coincidence. Middle America loves it, too. What is it about middles?

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If it's anything like mine, it's getting thicker by the minute.

I has to Google "slipper" to find out it meant spanking.

There are American schools that still do this (with paddle or hand, administered by the principal). The parents have the option of signing an opt-out at the first of the year if they're opposed to the practice, but from what I saw in my short stint as a substitute teacher, most don't.