Where are we in School Discipline?

Reading this week’s “Time Magazine”, I was shocked! Not because of the majority of the article and who it applied to, but to one state that was part of nineteen.

Nineteen states have laws that allow teachers to punish children – by using a wooden paddle to spank them.  Someone claimed it was a good way to enforce discipline and an effective deterent…. So is a cat-o-nine tails and a bull whip. We are talking about a piece of wood the sole purpose of which is to inflict pain and it is used in elementary schools!

Frankly I hope in middle and high schools the children would grab the paddle and do something obscene with it. But elementary students are too young to recognize abuse or fight back.

Now to the crux of the issue -- most of the states are in the south (doesn’t make it right)  and some might say its their culture (considering a lot of my relatives were from Virginia Arkansas and Kentucky and five were signers of the Declaration of Independence, I can argue that).

But one of the states shown in the article is Indiana! Indiana, our southern border state and often the state that we look to for support and vice versa in issues before the Congress. Forget current political ideology (yes, I am being polite). Are we going so far as to be using the same tactics as some Southeast Asian States? 

I pray not. Disipline is important, in fact it is imperative, and our children simply do not have the respect we did for our teachers (and probably our parents) but that is the fault of their parents. Don’t believe it? If I was sent home or kept, or being bad in school – well I would still have the scars and not from a teacher.

Here is the point: using as paddle to enforce discipline is wrong and the fact that our neighboring state  does it is shocking and disappointing. I expect more from Indiana, and I have many friends that I dearly care about there. 

For the record, it is just as onerous in the other 18 states, but as some one wiser than me said “one step at a time”.