Krissii Rankin

Autumn Neyome
Lasaun Cassell
May 7 2014
English 12 B

Corporal Punishment

One of the most famous Supreme Court cases involves a child named James Ingraham,
and his school principal. In 1977 a 14 year old freshman named James Ingraham was sent to the
office in school for acting rowdy in the school auditorium. The principal decided that his
punishment be five swats of the rear with a paddle. When James appealed and refused to be
punished, the principal changed the decision of five swats, held James down and gave him
twenty swats. James later had to receive medical attention and miss school for ten days due to
severe bruising. James mother sued the principal under his violation of the Eighth Amendment
protections against cruel and unusual punishment. Corporal punishment is a discipline method in
which a school faculty member deliberately inflicts pain upon a child in response to a child's
unacceptable behavior and/or inappropriate language. The case of James Ingraham vs. Wright
was taken to Supreme Court, where it was ruled to not violate the Constitution for physical
discipline at school. The impact that this case had on the rest of the country gave the decision of
allowing corporal punishment to the State and local districts. (Jacobs 1).
Corporal punishment should never be considered the correct form of punishment, or the
right way to discipline kids. It is morally wrong to hit a child for discipline, especially if it is the
child of someone else. Principals across the country who are swatting the rear ends, faces, hands,
legs, thighs, and arms of kids they barely know is just wrong and indecent. It needs to be the
parents job to correctly and non-violently discipline their own kids in order to make effective
discipline and set the child forward with the correct way to act in mind. Corporal punishment is
Krissii Rankin
Autumn Neyome
Lasaun Cassell
May 7 2014
English 12 B

legal in 19 states and is accepted from kindergarten to high school and it does not seem
reasonable to paddle a kindergartener just for acting rowdy. The teachers and principals in
schools across the country that allow corporal punishment are punishing the children of other
adults by hitting them, and it is considered fine in the eye of the state. However, if a parent was
to hit their kid in the same manner, they would be arrested for child abuse, and have their
children taken away from them. If a small child does anything worse than acting rowdy, then it
should be dealt with by the teachers and parents by taking something away from the student that
they enjoy, and learn what it right and what is wrong. By hitting a kid for punishment, they learn
that the adult is upset with them, that they did something wrong, but will not know what they did
wrong. Thus, hitting a child is not effective in preventing future misbehavior and it the teachers
or administrators have failed at their job because they were not able to enforce the rules or
expected behaviors of the students.
Corporal punishment is now legal in the states and local districts of schools that allow it,
and also in prisons. Although the paddle is to be used on the student that breaks the rules
regardless of race, sex, disability, and religion, statistics say that according to the population of a
state, the number of black vs. white students that receive corporal punishment varies. Also,
According to the Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights {DECOR}, more than
223,190 children were struck in school from 2005-2006. The DECOR also found that corporal
punishment does not raise the academic success of the kids that receive it; it actually stays
neutral or lowers. In the state of Tennessee, when the student is being enrolled in school, there is
a form that the parent or guardian must sign to give permission for corporal punishment. This
form is in the in the schools code of conduct and is pretty explanatory for itself being just yes or
Krissii Rankin
Autumn Neyome
Lasaun Cassell
May 7 2014
English 12 B

no. Many parents will give the school full consent to use corporal punishment because they feel
like that is effective discipline and do not want their children misbehaving in school and that
might work, but there is actually no benefit to this form of punishment. There have been cases
when a teacher hit a child that was on the "Do Not Whip" List, and the teachers were held
accountable afterwards.
Some parents would rather pull their children out of school. The parents are giving up
their jobs to homeschool their kids because they know that they are not able to protect them once
they are dropped off at the school gate. When a child tells a teacher about being hit or abused at
home, that teacher is obligated to report the incident. If a teacher does not report what the child
tells them and someone else finds out, the teacher will lose their job. Also, if a student tells a
teacher about being hit or abused at home, but they do not report it, if something bad happens to
the child- that guilt is on their conscience. So, it is okay for teachers to hit their students, but they
must report their students families if they hear them say that the same thing is happening in their
household. Parents should be teaching their children the correct way to act in and outside of
school, how to take care of their self, and how to care for others. Teachers should be enforcing
the rules of the school, teaching the kids what they are supposed to learn in school, and teaching
them without using a punishment method.
No child goes to school with the intention of stirring up trouble. Normally when a child
does something unruly to get in trouble, it is because of a situation that was thrust upon them,
and they did things under the pressure to resurrect what they had been brought in to. Every
school is capable of disciplining a child through non-violent techniques. When people look into a
mirror, they see their face the most. By seeing ones face all the time, one will connect that to the
Krissii Rankin
Autumn Neyome
Lasaun Cassell
May 7 2014
English 12 B

meaning of inner-self. When a kid is hit in their face or their metaphorical meaning of their
self, the self-confidence they once had is decreased and intimidation replaces respect for the
adult that struck them. Hitting a child can result to nothing more than just hurting that kid and
making their parents angry. Hitting a child or "swatting" with a paddle is no different than hitting
a kid with a belt. Every parent and child should have the right to a safe childhood. Although it
might not occur as often, punishing a kid by beating them is a form of child abuse and this does
not even need to be an option for punishment in schools. Sending a kid to school, with the
knowledge that the faculty of the school has no legal right to touch the child, and they will not, is
what every parent should feel. Changing that feeling of tranquility and mutual respect which a
parent has for the school should never happen.
Once a child is "hit" for physical discipline, the barrier will be broken between feeling
safe and always being cautious. Children all react differently to punishments; however the
mental consequences are frequently the same. Hitting a kid will cause direct physical harm,
negative impacts on mental and physical health, poor moral internalization, increased aggression,
increased experience of violence in adults, increased antisocial behavior, poor cognitive
development, and damage family relationships. It is also possibly that if a child is inflicted with
corporal punishment that they will respond negatively and only get worse behavior. Granted,
some parents might say Oh yeah, if their acting up, go ahead and hit them, but the parent will
mostly guarantee that if they allowed their kid to get punishment like that and saw their kid with
bruises and welts all over their rear, they would be very upset. The parents of children that allow
corporal punishment also might get upset if their kid is getting hit in a worse way than they do
in their household. Parents have hit their children as a form of punishment since the beginning of
Krissii Rankin
Autumn Neyome
Lasaun Cassell
May 7 2014
English 12 B

time, but that does not always mean that it is correct. It cannot be that complicated to discipline a
child without hitting them. The effects of hitting a child can change their entire life, but
especially if they are also being abused at home. By being abused, a child's life can change
forever. The effects of abuse vary from each child, but most children can have anxiety,
depression, dissociation, difficulty concentrating, academic problems, withdrawn from
connecting with others, flashbacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, increased hyper vigilance,
difficulty sleeping, and recurring dreams. Doctors across the entire country will tell parents that
they should not hit their children as a form of punishment because of the harmful after effects.
Children have very tender skin, and when it is hit with a strong force it is very likely to severely
bruise.
The Federal Government must make corporal punishment illegal. The decision of school
discipline should not go to the state and local districts. The guidelines for school discipline
should be the same in every state because everyone is always going to have an opposing opinion
on how to raise a kid. If corporal punishment is made illegal in schools, then parents can send
their children to school without worrying that their children will be hit. Parents should feel like
their children are being protected from harm, rather than feeling harm from their teachers
administrators. If a school faculty member uses corporal punishment after it is made illegal then
they can have a federal charge on them and be out of a job. That would be a good way to keep
teachers from using the violent punishment, and it will be a good way to rid the teachers that
want to violently punish the kids. It has been proven that schools have had higher tests scores
and accelerated higher than the schools that still inflict corporal punishment.
Krissii Rankin
Autumn Neyome
Lasaun Cassell
May 7 2014
English 12 B

It has also been proven that the side effects of corporal punishment can cause a horrible
life of abuse and misleading actions from those who receive it- especially to a child that is
already being abused within their own home. The child will feel completely terrified, scared, and
alone, getting abused at home and school; the child will feel like they do not have anywhere else
to go to feel safe. Corporal punishment does not solve the problems that kids go through to cause
trouble in school, and there is no benefit from it. This violent punishment in schools is morally
wrong and needs to be made illegal in all fifty states. Schools should not have any type of right
to harm a child, whether they have broken any rules, or disrupted the learning process, it is not
right to hit a child. A child is not capable of defending their self when an adult is purposely
trying to hit them.
The Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights has found that the majority of
states that still allow the use of corporal punishment are in the southern states and the numbers of
children who have received the punishment has not decreased. The violence that occurs in school
is not just from students, but also from school faculty members hitting kids in their face, hands,
buttocks, thighs, and arms. Corporal punishment hurts the kids, angers the parents, and makes
the children postulate that violence from adults is fine. Once corporal punishment is illegal, the
violence in children will decrease, schools will become more peaceful from lack of child abuse,
students will get along more with their peers, and school faculty members will not have to go
through the hassle of beating children all the time.