The Life of a Story in Progress 005: Corporal Punishment, the Episode that allows Children to be Beaten

Simon, turn the wayback machine to the year 1968. Thank you.

It is 1968; I’m in the 7^th grade and attending Thomas A. Edison Junior High School in San Angelo, Texas. To get to school, I had to take public transportation. This began with a walk to the bus top that was about 2 miles away from my house. The bus cost 10 cents one way. Everything in Texas is spread out far and wide, so the school was far way. It was at least a 45 minute ride to the school. 

 The school was big and consisted of several different buildings. Most of my classes were in the main building. The first half of the year went OK, although it was a BIG change from elementary school. (Bellaire Elementary, remember?) There many pep rallies for sport teams, probably football.  Everyone would buy red and white paper pom poms and wave them around. 

Gym was a BIG DEAL and there were a lot of programs. Running, gymnastics, dodge ball, trampolines, rings, rope climbing, boxing, volleyball, basketball, football, baseball and a score of other activities, NONE of which interested me. Suiting up for PE was mandatory and strictly enforced. If you didn’t suit up, you got one spat. 

 

What is a ‘spat” you ask? A spat is getting your butt smacked with a big paddle. Corporal punishment in school was the norm. This was a big surprise to me, because this didn’t occur in elementary school and didn’t happen in Massachusetts.  The day finally came when I forgot my gym clothes and got a spat. It hurt a lot more than I had imagined it would.

The second half of the year didn’t go so well. I seemed to be getting a lot of spats for stupid things like talking in class; whether or not I actually had. The teachers decided what a punishable offense was and determined if one had occurred. The teacher was required to get another teacher to witness the abuse presumably so that there wouldn’t be a question of its administration. The rule was there to protect the teacher, which is interesting because someone must have thought that hitting children was a risky business, possibly ending in a lawsuit. Not surprisingly, spats were embarrassing, demoralizing and traumatic (especially the first time). 

My parents weren’t proponents or beating children in school. The straw that broke the camel’s back came when I reported to my parents the frequency of fights in the hallways. One such fight resulted in a kid being taken to the hospital because of a stabbing.  The next year, they enrolled me in a Catholic School. (Sacred Heart Catholic School)

Believe it or not, 19 states still allow corporal punishment in schools. Some allow it for students as young as 4.