Part 2 Discipline: Can corporal punishment bring back discipline?

Armand Fusco:

What is the real underlying reason why schools put up with disrespectful, outrageous and uncivil student behaviors? Unfortunately, the culture of victimology is the insidious philosophy that permeates the school and the societal landscape e.g. troubled kids are not responsible for their actions—they are viewed, instead, as victims of school and society’s injustices.

A book by psychotherapist Alice Miller, The Truth Will Set You Free, claims that: “all human wretchedness, from terrorist atrocities to everyday unhappiness…can be traced back to childhood ill-treatment—specifically humiliating punishment inflicted on children by their parents.” There is only one problem with this philosophy—it is not based on provable facts because there are too many variables that take place that cannot be separated out as being a factor or not.

Sacrificing the education of the vast majority by acceding to the anti-social behavior of undisciplined students may seem like an irrational system, but that is the system. As a result, the need to placate those who believe that undisciplined behaviors are justified put at risk the education of the majority of students who want to learn. So what’s really happening is that the majority of students then become the victims because they are cheated out of a better education. Since there is absolutely no logic or common sense to this lunacy, “desperation” sets in and forces desperate actions to be considered.

An essay, The Need to Change the U.S. Education System, is most forceful in stating: “The first thing American education system needs is appropriate corporal punishment to enforce regulations.” Of course, the present societal culture and political correctness find such an approach abhorrent, but there is a creeping attempt to bring back the use of corporal punishment.

Part 1 Discipline: Has school discipline become undisciplined?