Assigned Blog - Reaction to a MTC member's focus paper

I chose AM's focus paper centered on corporal punishment, the use of physical punishment in schools by teachers or administrators on its students.  In his paper he goes to say that corporal punishment is upheld in the South due to traditional, cultural, and religious values. True, true, true.  The author of the paper did not necessarily agree or disagree with the enforcement of corporal punishment, but he did state the facts and opinions from various sources centered in or around the Southeastern region of the United States.  The author states, "Especially in the South, corporal punishment is still used as a means to deter, punish, and reform unruly students.  For the most part, corporal punishment is seen as an appropriate and adequate measure to discipline children."  I agree with this statement, and I am from the South.  Do I agree with this statement because of my demographics? Perhaps.  I was spanked as a child, and as I see it, I turned out pretty damn good.  Now, I am not saying that this reason is sufficient, or justifies spanking at home or in school, but I am saying that physical punishment is a deterrent.  When I rode my bike around my neighborhood for 3 hours without telling my parents, I returned to an ugly site.  Guess what?  I never did it again.  Yes, other forms of punishment worked, but nothing hit home like a good whuppin from my mom or dad.  I can see why many people are against corporal punishment though.  They can say, "I wasn't spanked as a child, and I turned out just fine."  Some may say, "I was put in time-out," or, "I wasn't allowed to watch tv when I misbehaved."  After watching the documentary LaLee's Kin in class, one of my classmates curiously asked, "Is it real common that parents threaten their children with spanking that often in the South?"  My classmate was referring to LaLee's constant threat threat to her grandchildren, "You want a whuppin?"  Sometimes she would simply say, "Whuppin?"  Yes, it is.  To put it in context referring to Mississippi, where we will be teaching, as I told my roommate, sometimes spankings are the only form of punishment available to parents.  Some kids, in the documentary especially, don't have televisions.  They don't even have their own bedrooms.  How can their bad or disrespectful behavior be deterred by time-out if they do not have a place to go for time-out?  How can their possessions be taken away to deter their behavior if they barely have any possessions, or don't even care about them in the first place.  I am not a child psychologist, and in this case, I'm not even talking about corporal punishment.  This is something that is addressed at home, at the discretion of parents.  In the case of corporal punishment within schools, the author of the paper mentions, "suspensions merely give kids a vacation," and that, "Detentions have no effect, and the students carry these 'punishments' as badges of honor in their negative peer group."  I have seen this first-hand, as I'm sure all of you have.  Getting detentions is "cool".  Being suspended is "sweet".  The class clown got his own page or was at least referred to in the yearbook for Pete's sake.  At times, he/she was voted on for that position.  I could ramble for hours.  All positions aside, this paper only illustrates a part of the reasons why corporal punishment is upheld in the South.  These quotes, were pulled from citations within Am's paper, so to reitterate, no position on the issue was chosen.  The paper focuses its attention on numerous people on the side for corporal punishment, but demographically places its strongest approval for in the South.  Do I agree with this assumption? Yes.  Corporal punishment exists mainly in the South.  According to surveys, parents spank their children mainly in the South.  Is it right?  Moral? Effective?  Just?  Those are completely different questions that this post is not answering.