It was just before naptime and my kindergarten classmates and I were told to line up for our bathroom break that we normally took right before our 20 minute nap session.
For the past hour I had to go really badly, but the teacher would only grant us permission to use the bathroom during line-up time.
Just hold it! she barked.
We were all lined up against the wall in front of the restroom. About a handful of us doing twists, turns and other wobbly movements because we were made to wait for hours and were trying any seemingly silly maneuver to hold it in. It was finally my turn. I ran into the bathroom and barely had time to shut the door before I felt it start to trickle down my leg.
I tried my hardest to wipe dry the wet spot that formed on my light blue jeans and to stretch my favorite purple butterfly shirt down to the max to cover signs that I hadn’t quite made it to the toilet in time. All to no avail.
My 5-year-old anxiety was through the roof.
I can’t walk out of the bathroom like this, I thought. All of my classmates were lined up right in front of the restroom and they would surely see.
My mom was a huge fan of the MacGyver T.V. show and I thought to myself, what would MacGyver do? What would MacGyver do?
My eyes darted around the bathroom, left, right, up and down. I tried to find something, anything to cover the mistake I’d made. Tears began to slowly roll down my eyes — I was so upset that my teacher didn’t allow me to relieve myself when I’d earlier expressed the need.
Then there was a knock at the door. Then another, this time much louder.
It was the teacher. “What are you doing in there? Stop playing around. You’re not the only one who needs to use the bathroom!”
I panicked and looked around one more time in a last ditch effort to save myself from any kindergarten ridicule. I grabbed a piece of paper towel and held it up to the wet spot, figuring that maybe I could cover myself long enough to just get back to my mat and lay down. Feeling a little relieved that I’d found a somewhat viable solution that wouldn’t have me at the center of classroom fodder, I opened the door.
Smack!
The paper towel fell from my hand, my wet spot exposed.
I grabbed my face.
The teacher, who was standing right in front of the door, had slapped me.
“You were taking way too long!” she yelled. “I told you all no playing around in the bathrooms!”
I held my hand to my face, tears streaming down my eyes, as the other students and I stared at her in complete shock and dismay.
In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its Ingraham v. Wright decision that corporal punishment in school settings is constitutional, leaving states to decide whether to allow it.
Corporal punishment is defined as the use of physical force to discipline a child by causing deliberate bodily pain or discomfort in response to “undesired” behavior.
As of today, 19 states allow public school personnel to use corporal punishment to “discipline” children from the time they start preschool until they graduate 12th grade. These states are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.
This begs several questions:
- How is discipline defined and who gets to define it?
- What sort of infractions would lead a school personnel to use corporal punishment as a way of disciplining a student? Who gets to choose these infractions?
- Is corporal punishment used against some kids more than others?
Methods of corporal punishment in schools vary, including spanking or paddling a child using a wooden paddle. Others include slapping, whipping and other violent acts.
In 2021, a mother sued a South Carolina school district after her son was allegedly beaten by his high school teacher. The mother alleged that the teacher flipped over her son’s desk while he was seated and then proceeded to drag her son across the floor by his arm.
According to the South Carolina Department of Education’s website, “the governing body of each school district may provide corporal punishment for any pupil that it deems just and proper.”
But, what is just and proper and who gets to determine it?
How can parents send their kids to a school that has legal authority to harm their child for whatever reason it deems just and proper?
In some school districts, those “reasons” that warrant corporal punishment include some pretty standard situations in which kids of all ages might find themselves, including being late for class, failing to complete assignments, forging a parent’s signature, cutting class and interfering with classroom instruction.
As parents, haven’t we all been there?
Seriously, what parent can consciously fathom their child being hit by a teacher because they walked into the classroom 10 minutes late, signed their parent’s name on a field trip permission slip or whispered something to a classmate during class? Or, in my own experience, was perceived to be taking too long in the bathroom (because she wet herself, thanks to the teacher)?
In one case, a kindergartener was asked on the first day of school in Mississippi if he knew his home address. When he responded no, his teacher pulled out a paddle and hit him repeatedly.
He was asked the same question the following day. He responded no and was hit again.
The paddling occurred for months until he told his mother what was happening.
We send our kids to school to learn, not to be harmed for simply being kids, little creatures whose brains are constantly developing, even up into their mid-twenties.
Through the lawful continuation of corporal punishment in schools, what’s the message schools are sending to students?
Legally allowing school personnel to physically and mentally harm students for “infractions” lessens the opportunity for students to learn and grow in ways that promote understanding and critical thinking skills. It instead increases students’ stress levels and contributes to behavioral and emotional issues that can last into adulthood. Corporal punishment is linked to a wide range of negative outcomes for children across countries and cultures including adverse physical and mental health, impaired cognitive and socio-emotional development, poor educational outcomes and increased aggression and perpetration of violence.
Countless studies show that dialogue and adult modeling can have a much greater impact than physically “reprimanding” a child.
And for the parents, what message are these school systems sending them?
That it’s OK for parents to also hit their kids when things get tough or when their kid questions them or refuses to be compliant? That it’s OK to cause their kids physical harm when they are late coming home from a friend’s house or when they don’t complete their chores at home?
And what if this school “discipline” is based on stereotypes and biases? Are there any safeguards to protect students from being arbitrarily targeted based on their racial, ethnic, religious, gender or other identity?
One study showed that students of color and students with disabilities are more likely to be struck by an educator. In particular, black boys are about twice as likely to receive corporal punishment as white boys, and black girls are three times as likely to receive corporal punishment as white girls. And in more than half of the schools that practice corporal punishment, educators hit students with disabilities at a higher rate than those without disabilities. LGBTQ students also face higher rates of corporal punishment.
What happens in these cases and in cases when things go “too far”?
What happens when arbitrary, unjust reasons for causing harm to a child go unaddressed and unchecked?
Like in Oklahoma, where the courts ruled in favor of a school district after an elementary-school aged autistic student was paddled so hard that it left deep marks and bruising in his skin.
During play one day, a little girl my daughter met on the playground seemed a bit unnerved. Her mom had given her $2 to buy snacks at school but the little girl had somehow misplaced it. The girl, with tears in her eyes, told my daughter, “my mom’s gonna spank me.”
My daughter’s response: She’s going to WHAT?
My daughter had no idea what spanking was. Thankfully, I’m not a parent who physically “disciplines” her kids. And my kids don’t go to schools that are allowed to do so either.
My daughter, unlike millions of other kids all over the world experiencing the trauma of adults taking out their anger, frustration and disappointment out on them, had no clue what it means or feels like to be hit or spanked or slapped by a parent or authority figure in the name of so-called discipline or love.
However, the sad fact is that kids all over the world, in their schools, homes, care and work settings, and even the penal system, are victims of corporal punishment. They are intentionally physically harmed by adults who aim to exert a sense of control, power and authority.
And it comes with a cost — an overwhelming burden on domestic and global physical and mental health services, a perpetual cycle of societal violence and heightening risks of self-harm, suicide and addiction.
Last month, the World Health Organization designated corporal punishment as a public health concern, calling it “the most prevalent and socially accepted form of violence against children.”
Corporal punishment can, and has, led to abuse, even death for many children.
It’s time that parents and adults stop and reflect on how and why physically harming a child is seen as a good option, whether at school or at home.
And we must clearly understand that it’s not just their bodies that are impacted, but also their brain, their mind, their heart and spirit.
Maybe after such introspection we might come to understand that corporal punishment isn’t really about teaching a child a lesson, guiding them or making them a better person.
It’s not really about “sparing the rod and spoiling the child.”
After some real reflection we should hopefully realize that adults are consciously or subconsciously exhibiting hurtful behavior they likely learned and experienced when they were a child. We should realize that they just might be using kids as outlets for pent up, emotional aggressions or prejudices.
And we as parents and adults alike should engage in some necessary unlearning and healing to help and save our children.