Taking a Punch for Corporal Punishment

I appreciated seeing a photograph of Alex Wall with this News & Record article about Anytown.

(I couldn't find Alex's photograph on-line--just the article--and I don't think he's mentioned in the article.)



I might have this wrong, but I believe Alex is the only student who has ever punched me during my 11 years of teaching.



I'm certain that only one student has ever punched me; I'm pretty certain that Alex was that student.



(During 11 years of teaching, I've now taught more than 1100 students, and that doesn't include other students I've gotten to know at my school but never taught. Needless to say, it's becoming harder to keep clear my memories of all those students.)



Don't worry about Alex punching me, though.



I asked for it.

Literally.

And though the punch didn't feel good, he didn't hurt me too badly. (The sting only lasted a couple of minutes, as I recall. I don't recall going home that evening and suffering any.)



Alex was a good student and a positive young man.



Back then, he was a pretty small guy with glasses.



I picked Alex to punch me because of his size; I didn't think he'd hurt me too badly.



After asking him to come to the front of the classroom, I gave him instructions along these lines: "I want you to hit me in the stomach with enough force for me to feel the punch but not enough to hurt me." (I'm paraphrasing, but I believe that's approximately what I said.)



I was trying to demonstrate something about corporal punishment, about how its use--for it to be considered acceptable and effective--needed to inflict a certain amount of pain without actually causing a child any permanent harm.



I wanted to demonstrate how hard it is for someone to measure how hard they hit someone--with just that perfect degree of intended force, not too hard and not too soft but just right.



(Kind of reminds me of Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear, of Goldilocks fame.)



At any rate, Alex took me up on the offer more than I intended and delivered a pretty hard blow.



He didn't knock the wind out of me or anything, but I definitely felt the punch.



But as indicated, I'd asked for it.



I was trying to use the demonstration to make a point about how hard it is to balance hitting a person hard enough to punish and deter without hitting hard enough to hurt a person permanently or seriously.



I'm not sure if I fully conveyed what I was trying to teach.



This incident occurred during my first few years of teaching, and it represented an attempt to capture my students' attention and make a point.



I think the demonstration achieved the first goal, of gettting my students' attention. (Imagine witnessing such a thing: someone providing another person an invitation to punch him in the stomach without fear of retribution.)



I'm not so sure that I got across the ultimate point I was trying to make.



I still am not generally a fan of corporal punishment, whether it's administered by parents, school administrators, or other adults.



A friend of mine in college said that's what was wrong of me: that my parents didn't beat me enough when I was growing up.



I preferred to believe that my parents did something right in raising me that made it generally unnecessary for them to spank me or use other forms of corporal punishment.



I might have earned a spanking or two that I didn't receive at home, but as far as I can remember, I never did anything at school that would have warranted a paddling. (And back then, corporal punishment was an option in the former Greensboro Public Schools.)

My parents never put it like this, but I grew up thinking it was almost a sin to cause problems or be disrespectful at school.

Knowing that I developed that philosophy about how I was supposed to act at school, I definitely feel inclined to give my parents considerable credit.



While I think student behavior is getting worse in our schools--in some cases, much worse--I prefer to think that we can come up with better options than corporal punishment.



Older and wiser, I won't be providing any future students a free punch for the sake of making a point or delivering a lesson.