Commenters on the AJC Get Schooled blog fiercely debated corporal punishment in response to a newspaper investigation that found Georgia public schools, mostly in rural areas, still administer about 45 paddlings per day. Here is a sampling of comments under the poster’s chosen screen name:
Lil: The more we adopt liberal "thinking" on school discipline, the worse it gets.
Dg: I have multiple students who — less than a semester into their high school careers — have already been suspended multiple times. I have spoken to the parents and administrators involved. They don't seem to get it. However, the reformers have gotten hold of my job and, regardless of how much time these students miss (one is serving his third 10-day suspension), I have to "grow" these students. If I don't "grow" them, I am labeled ineffective, and the state may refuse to renew my certificate when that time comes. If it were just one student, I wouldn't be as concerned about my livelihood, but with the number of discipline issues that are missing significant class time, I really do have cause to be concerned. We've got to do something different than what we are doing, because what we are doing isn't getting through to the children.
SouthGa: A complex problem for today's world. Both extremes are passionate in this argument, but these are different times that need better options than corporal punishment.
Math Teacher: I don't believe an educator has any business putting his or her hands on any student or child. Parents, not teachers, should spank or paddle their children who aren't old enough to understand the magnitude of their wrongdoings. I met a retired principal who once got snared in a legal situation that cost him around $10,000 to get out of and to be exonerated. He had allegedly "reddened" a high school boy's buttocks from a paddling. In the heat of the teacher/administrator's anger, it's too tempting to paddle a child to discharge frustration.
Cobbmom: I have worked in a school district that used corporal punishment. A parent demanded that I paddle her child for acting up in class. It just about killed me to do it. I had tears, and the principal came to console me.
TryReason: An adult should never hit a child. It's unnecessary and teaches the child that force is the way to deal with people. Anecdotes aside, statistically, when looking across the general population, there are too many negative outcomes associated with adults who were spanked, hit, beaten, whatever term you want to use, as children.
Ralph: If anybody beats one of my children with a board, that person will answer to me and my lawyer. These rural Georgia counties are still in the 19th century, and the country needs educated, organized, attentive people, not fistfighters and gunslingers. Those days are over, and those who have not evolved or are refusing to evolve should be isolated — and that includes their children. Children who disrupt a classroom or attempt to bully other children are usually imitating their parents.
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