I got a shotgun, and a rifle, and a 4 wheel drive
It never ceases to amaze me that I can still be shocked by the ignorance of people. I recently read an article about paddling in schools. For you civilized people who don't know what paddling is, it's when a principal paddles the bottom, sometimes the bare bottom of a child. This is yet another reason why I hate religion and people who use The Bible to act like fucking idiots. When referring to the virtues of paddling or spanking, people always quote religious bullshit.
"The Lord said, Spare the rod, spoil the child, and I think he knows a lot more than those bleeding-heart liberals," said Pat Ebarb, police chief in Noble, Louisianna commenting on paddling in schools. (This fucking moron is the chief of police!)
Though it gets little attention, corporal punishment in schools remains legal in 21 states, most in the Southern states. Some paddling states, like Mississippi and Alabama, paddle at or near double-digit percentages of children. And legislation pending in Congress as part of President Bush's education package could expand the practice by giving teachers and principals broad protection from liability for disciplinary actions.
This is an excerpt from a New York Times article about Megan Cahanin, a 10-year-old girl, paddled at her elementary school in Zwolle, Louisianna:
Laid out on the kitchen table, the snapshots of 10-year-old Megan Cahanin make a grim collage. They are not of her sweet face, but of her bare behind. There are 12 in all, taken, her mother says, day by day as the doughnutshaped bruises on each cheek faded from a mottled purple to a dirty gray.
Megan's father, Robert Cahanin, recalls that when he first saw the bruises, hours after she was paddled by her school principal for elbowing a friend in the cafeteria, he collapsed on the floor, crying. Then he picked up the phone and called the police, the school board, the governor, his lawyer.
"It hurt me more than it hurt Megan," Mr. Cabanin said. "You don't hit on my baby."
I'd like to put these rednecks who paddle kids on a desk and paddle their white trash, flea bitten, redneck bare asses.
For more information on paddling, go here. To write a letter to your state representative, you can download a form letter here.
Posted at May 4, 2003 11:20 PM
Comments
I live in Melbourne, Australia, and spent the first 8 years of my schooling life in Catholic school and I'm shocked that this sort of punishment still exists in schools. The only sort of school-administered spanking/paddling/belting/whatever that exists here is maybe in the schooldays nostalgia of some of my more dinosaur-like teachers.
Passing on more humane teaching/punishment techniques and resorting to violence is just astonishing; bible-bashing the issue so it sounds legit is beyond logical rationale for me.
Zwolle is approx. 15-20 miles from where I live, and I know (of) several people involved with this case. I can't even begin to delve into the true injustice of this story, but lets just say that if the little girl's last name had been different, say Sepulvado, Ebarb, Procell, etc, the principal would have been strung up in a tree by now.
I don't think people who live in civilized areas can fully understand what we put up with EVERDAY. Alot of communities around here are still what you might call "clannish", it's all about who you are and who your grandparents' were.
But just for the record, I did receive a paddling in my brief stint with public education. I was in kindergarten, had just turned 5 years old, and got a paddling along with several other girls for "talking on the carpet". See, when you got through with an assignment you were supposed to go sit (silently) on the carpeted area in front of the blackboard until everyone else got through. What really griped my ass was that I wasn't even talking, I was just listening, which was NOT against the rules. Needless to say my parents and even my grandparents had a few choice words(and death threats) to say the teacher, principal, and school board after that.
Coming from a Catholic school education, you might think that we were subjected to this behavior. However, I recall no time that this paddling ever happened. I think it's more of a 'state of mind' problem than a religious one.
I went to Catholic school in Miami until I finally came to California and entered the public school system. Kids were paddled over the intercom. I was hit in the head with a hole puncher, pulled out of my seat by my hair, and shaken by my pig tails. (Mind you, this was all in elementary school). I never told my Italian father because I knew that he would come to the school and kill the nuns along with the principal. Catholic schools today do not have the sadistic nuns they used to. They leave the abuse to the priests.
Holy crap. I'll count my blessings then.
This is some fucked up shit Toni, I'm with ya in giving these asses a taste of their own medicine
I actually live in Alabama and have lived before in Mississippi, and at no time did I or anyone I knew receive a paddling. I got in plenty of trouble, but the worst thing that ever happened to me was after school detention. I know everyone thinks the deep south is so backward, but we do have civilized areas, and in those areas we don't paddle our school children.
I know this doesn't happen everywhere. The point is, it shouldn't happen anywhere.
i can't believe this is still going on. anybody ever even think of laying a hand or a paddle on any children in my family, and they will get to discuss the religious justification of corporal punishment with the lord, in person.
I used to go to school in New Mexico where they paddled us. Each classroom had a paddle with " 'Board' of Education" written on it. As if paddling us was going to instill in us education?
I grew up in a time when teacher's could paddle students. Believe me, we did not have the kinds of issues you hear about now. In states like California, where paddling has been banned for several years, there are students spitting in teachers faces, cursing at them, kicking, punching, and disrupting class. We've come a long way from the nostalgia days when teachers had control of the classroom. Sending a teacher in the classroom without her paddle is like sending a policeman to the streets without his gun, mace, or baton. The only recourse he would have would be to yell and shake his fist at unruly citizens.
People want to say that we are becoming more civilized by banning paddling, but the evidence over the past 60 years has shown the opposite. The teachers, not the students, are the people who live in fear. In many schools, they are giving self-defense classes for teachers (and these are in non-paddling schools). Why would teachers need to defend themselves if they aren't 'hitting' kids to begin with?
As far as making death threats against teachers who paddle, this is just plain hyprocrisy. It's like saying, "I don't believe in violence, but I'll kill you if you paddle my child." Actually, to kill a teacher would do you a disserve. You would be spending the rest of your life in jail while that teacher rests in peace.
These new methods of dealing with students are not working. Suspension is a vacation for most students. They spend it watching TV. Detention is one big party. The same kids get suspended or put in detention time and time again. And these are supposed to be more effective ways of dealing with kids?
I have to admire the 'morons' who want to bring back paddling and restore some authority to the teachers. Maybe it'll take us back to the 1940's when people were more safe, as the crime statistics have proven time and time again.
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I live in Melbourne, Australia, and spent the first 8 years of my schooling life in Catholic school and I'm shocked that this sort of punishment still exists in schools. The only sort of school-administered spanking/paddling/belting/whatever that exists here is maybe in the schooldays nostalgia of some of my more dinosaur-like teachers.
Passing on more humane teaching/punishment techniques and resorting to violence is just astonishing; bible-bashing the issue so it sounds legit is beyond logical rationale for me.
Posted by: Jack at May 5, 2003 4:24 AM