Is it that serious?

I hope you're not being serious about that.

Caning...? We abolished corporal punishment back in the 1980's and I'm appalled that we took that long to do it. It should have gone out with the Victorians.

You don't beat patriotism into children. It's an utterly abhorrent thought.

And the view from this side of the pond is that even having a pledge at all smacks of brainwashing and indoctrination. Even the Victorians didn't have that. Not even at Eton..!!

Come now you've "known" me long enough to pick up on my sarcasm.

We ended corporate punishment in schools around that time as well, although it is sadly still practiced in the home by many.

I thought I've heard of some places where the parents can sign off, and agree to allow corporal of their kids.


... aside from:
In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its Ingraham v. Wright decision that school corporal punishment is constitutional, leaving states to decide whether to allow it. Nineteen U.S. states currently 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 (Center for Effective Discipline, 2015). A total of 163,3331 children were subject to corporal punishment in these states’ public schools during the 2011–2012 school year.

dotGOV site

For the corporate punishments at home, are you referring to the discipline methods (i.e. spankings)?

Thanks. I thought all states had ended it, at least in the public school system. But apparently just the bluer states eh? California has already ended it by the time I got into the profession in 1992.



Corporal punishment, and yes. Stupid auto correct.

For the most part I agree with you, although, as a teacher, I demand that students think for themselves. In fact I tell them expressly if they tell me what they think I want to hear I will mark them down. I want them to think critically and use information in a logical way to formulate and defend their own opinions.

You should have been my student. I think you would have liked it

I suggest you are fairly atypical. I had a professor once who expected us to think. All of the intellectual bulimics who memorized and regurgitated the information were at a loss.

I think I will start a 'who was your best teacher' thread.

Sadly, yes. When students tell you "I've never had a teacher like you before," it is simultaneously nice but extremely irritating. There are other teachers like me - one of my best friends is exactly the same. But they're far too rare. And it is getting dangerous these days to encourage thought in students. You know as you do it that you put your career on the line. One complaint from a student that someone picks up on and it's over. And sadly, that's not hyperbole.

And yes, the "good" students who can recite the teacher's message do struggle. At least for awhile. Some get the hang of thinking though. And once you get someone to start thinking it is hard for the system to unthink them...