Rowing is back-to-school fashion

Sstudents returning to classrooms this fall in Ozarks City
Cassville, Missouri, may be on better behavior than usual. That’s because the local school board has reinstated corporal punishment, otherwise known as driving, to discipline bad behavior.

scourge
policy
it’s not like the old days of law and order in the classroom. Parents and guardians must give signed consent to allow their children to be subjected to a paddle swing “when other means of discipline have failed,” including detention and suspension. And they can withdraw at any time, regardless of what their child has done to warrant a physical check.

Cassville will also keep the beatings out of sight of other children and include a second adult staff member as a witness. Hitting the face or head is not allowed and there is no word on whether a video recording will be kept. Individual directors have discretion as to when and to whom the back penalty option should be exercised. The board’s policy manual states, “A staff member may use reasonable physical force against a student for the protection of the student or other persons or to protect property. Restraining students in accordance with the district’s student seclusion and restraint policy is not a violation of this policy.”

The directive has naturally sparked a wave of outrage on social media, along with protests from some educators, including one who called corporal punishment an “extremely inappropriate and ineffective practice.” However, the superintendent of the 1,900-student Cassville district said the no-canon move was made in response to concerns expressed by parents, staff and students who say misbehavior at the school has gotten out of hand.

Missouri is one of 19 states (mostly southern) that allows physical discipline of students, which is supported by a 1977 Supreme Court decision (

Ingraham v. Wright
) which says that a corporal punishment does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, so long as it is not “unreasonable” or “excessive.” From the latest
federal records
available, about 4,000 schools nationally reported using some form of corporal punishment.

I vividly remember and feel the sting of my driving in 1962 at the stern hands of my grade school principal, Miss McDonald. Orders had gone out for students not to walk around the ball field after a major snowstorm, perhaps out of fear that some kindergartener would disappear in one go. A couple of second graders and I were fired up about the ban challenge – how could we not! We were paraded in front of our class and instructed to bow, which wiped any lingering smirks off our faces. I can still hear the bun-haired Miss M. breathing deeply and through her nose, just before she whacks my bottom twice with her board, which she grips as hard as a Federer arm. Her paddle had a leather wrist strap, a sign of how often it was used.

Several prominent medical and behavioral groups, including
American Psychological Association
, have long opposed school corporal punishment, arguing that in addition to the risk of injury, such punishments are disproportionately applied to minority children. There is also concern that hitting children, even in a controlled manner, causes more defiance and aggression, which is why many professionals support positive reinforcement to modify unruly students.

But as long as it is administered fairly and with restraint, the mere threat of ritualized driving can control disruptive students who will not respond to other types of driving. If anything, I think Cassville is making a mistake in removing punishment from the classroom. Although I never felt remorse or guilt for trespassing on the snowfield, as I might feel for cheating or swearing, I experienced the extreme humiliation of being flogged in front of my friends and classmates, an injury far greater than the driving itself. By sequestering actors to any beaten-down script, Cassville misses the powerful effect of public, peer shaming, which can be a real deterrent to future misconduct, or at least rule-breaking.

I may have scored some bravery points with my friends the other day. And I continued to incite my share of mischief, sometimes to the point of school decorum. But the fear of repeating the red-faced embarrassment of an all-around paddle show was more than enough to keep me from going rogue. Hopefully, this will keep some of Cassville’s doofuses from doing the same, even if they do get slapped in private.

Allan Ripp runs a press relations firm in New York.