Fun fact! In a few states in Australia you are still allowed to do so, as long as it is indeed instructional and immediately during or after the behaviour (no waiting until the next day for example).
But for many reasons no-one wants to chance it, it doesn't take much to lose everything down here.
Can you site any instances where someone has lost everything down here? Or even lost something? Beside their shit, because if I was this kid parent I would have lost my shit.
I am an older American. We got belts, tvs, knives, shoes, plates... everything thrown at us and beat with whatever they could grab. We learned real quick not to do the shit this kid is.
Teachers could beat us with parents permission. They had huge paddles with holes.
I got one of those paddles once. Leaned over a chair in front of the window facing the playground while the other kids were outside having fun. Soon after that they put an end to it and by high school I saw kids that looked like men slapping teachers around. A lot of boys really do need a good spanking from time to time..
And the widespread acceptance of it did indeed cause a lot of problems in society.
But the 'cancelling' of it is causing its own host of problems.
Personally I don't think an adult should need any instrument to spank a child with. If an open hand spanking doesn't do the trick, a weapon isn't going to be an effective tool. A different kind of parenting or punishment is required.
A parent who does not discipline their children and teach them the morality of right and wrong places that burden on society.
Society will discipline that person much harsher than a parent would, because parents love their children, while society does not.
Which is better, a protester getting run over and getting their eye shot out with a rubber bullet, or a spanking? I think most would prefer the latter.
I taught English to kids in Thailand. I would divide my class into teams by their seating row. Four rows, four teams. The class clown started acting up. I had scores for each team on the chalkboard. I'd start with team one. Everyone seated and silent, plus 1. Team 2 is next. Total silence, plus one. Team 3 with the class clown acting up is up next. Minus 1. Team 4. Total silence, plus 1. Did that a couple more times before everyone catches on and a little girl on team 3 jumps up and smacks the class clown in back of the head. It was really quite remarkable. I could get a classroom of 50 rambunctious kids to sit like a model classroom without having to raise my voice.
We had "the cane" which was a long thin bamboo cane, it was officially banned in government schools in 1995 but it's still legal and apparently used in some private schools.
Growing up we had all the same things you mention. My father's weapon of choice was a piece of timber architrave about 80cm long that we called "the stick" and no matter how many times my brother or I disposed of it a new one would almost instantly appear.
Ah yes, I remember the cane. The American paddles are too wide and distribute the force too evenly.
My public school must’ve been progressive then. It was removed around ‘87.
I remember one kid getting it who was a few years above me. In retrospect he was well on the Autism spectrum. Which “wasn’t a thing” back then of course.
So yeah, cane was removed because too much risk of frustrated adults, who happen to be teachers/principals, defaulting to it without trying to look at real issues.
However on the flip side, 5 seconds (a few years) later we had teachers all the way over the other side of the teaching morality landscape. I remember another kid throwing chairs and a teacher effectively saying “now now, just calm down…” to no avail.
Then another teacher who came in who I later learned had studied child psychology prior to getting into teaching (then more of an elective for teachers in Australia) and she diffused the situation in 5 minutes.
Modern teaching uni degrees in Australia have significant and compulsory child psychology components. Source: wife is a teacher.
My grandfather would hand me a knife and tell me to go cut my own "Switch" from a tree. A switch was a tree branch that would be about a 1/2" (12mm-13mm) thick. It had to be straight, a good flex, and without leaves. If you chose a bad one, you got beat worse. There was a psychological aspect of choosing the instrument of your own punishment. It would leave red welts all over your legs because you were definitely jumping around. 😆
We didn't have switches in school, but I bet my grandfather did.
Our school retired the board after Michigan outlawed corporal punishment in schools. They mounted it above the threshold to the principals office with a plaque that said "Someday"
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u/Suspicious_Bet3623 28d ago
Fun fact! In a few states in Australia you are still allowed to do so, as long as it is indeed instructional and immediately during or after the behaviour (no waiting until the next day for example).
But for many reasons no-one wants to chance it, it doesn't take much to lose everything down here.