Jennifer Faliero and her like-minded colleagues on the Hillsborough County School Board have not done their homework on corporal punishment. Why else would they be backing this discredited discipline method that has no educational value and usually ends up doing more harm than good?
We can sympathize with Faliero's desire to control unruly kids, including the ones she calls "brats." But if school board members want to help quiet Hillsborough's classrooms, they should be out championing the more effective and less damaging ways of changing bad behavior. Those alternatives may not be as quick and cheap as a paddle to the buttocks, but they have been shown to pay dividends for generations in the form of healthier children and the well-adjusted adults they are meant to become.
Urged on by Faliero, the board recently voted 5-to-2 to support the use of corporal punishment as a last resort. As parents, board members are free to use or advocate spanking if they so choose. But they are making this decision as school professionals. As such, they have a duty to consider and heed the best available research on corporal punishment. With few exceptions, child-behavior experts oppose spanking in schools because it is ineffective, at best, and harmful, at worst.
While spanking may subdue the child temporarily, it does nothing to resolve the underlying anger or conditions that are prompting the misbehavior. To the contrary, corporal punishment usually succeeds only in fueling aggression over time, increasing the likelihood the child will grow into an abusive adult. It can also harm students physically as well as emotionally. Even moderate spanking can send shock waves along the spine that cause invisible, yet lasting, damage.
"[T]he vast majority of the evidence leads to the conclusion that corporal punishment is an ineffective method of discipline and has major deleterious effects on the physical and mental health of those inflicted. No clear evidence exists that such punishment leads to better control in the classroom," wrote the Society for Adolescent Medicine this year. That position is echoed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of School Psychologists and a host of other professional groups.
That tide of expert opinion helps explain why most states have banned corporal punishment in schools, as have all European nations except England. Though Florida continues to allow the practice, few in Hillsborough were advocating its use before Faliero began pushing for the paddle. What Faliero fails to appreciate is that there are more effective methods of discipline that mold child behavior through instruction rather than fear.
Of course, she and the other board members would have known that if only they had done their homework before speaking.
