Should teachers paddle? educators split

A local newspaper in Pennsylvania, USA, in 1962, found local educators were split over whether the paddle should be used.

3 WHACKS LIMIT AT WARWICK

Should Teachers Paddle Students? Local Educators Are Split on Issue

Should school teachers paddle pupils for misbehavior?

Some Lancaster educators say no. Others give a qualified yes.

The split opinions are mirrored by disciplinary practices in city and county schools. In some schools paddling is permitted under certain conditions. In others the practice is greeted with frowns.

But there do exist in Lancaster county areas where school boards supply teachers with paddles – for restricted and supervised use

The “hickory stick” precedent In Lancaster county is strong.

In the early 19^th century local schoolmasters grabbed their oaken cudgel first and asked questions later. Today, teachers use their paddles as a last resort. But use them they do. And the question is: does physical punishment work?

“Billy” Butler, a storied schoolmaster of 18th Century Lancaster, had no doubts that it did. On more than one occasion he administered justice to sprightly pupils with a handy “shillalah”, a short, thick club.

A report of such pupil rehabilitation says that Butler took his shillalah and “as it fell with unerring aim and unabated vigor upon the backs of the offenders, assured them that though too late to apply the ounce of prevention, the pound of cure was still in order.”

About one month ago a similar but more restrained scene was re-enacted In a city school when a second grade child was paddled by a teacher. This paddling was condemned by city school officials, who said “It’s absurd,” and immediately ordered it stopped.

However, in Warwick Union school district, present-day paddling is not only condoned, but expected in certain cases and under specified supervision. In fact, the district provides the paddles for its school principals.

Pupil paddling in local schools is a touchy subject, in more ways than one. The division of opinion ranges from a flat “It doesn’t work” to an endorsement that “It helps make better citizens of our students.”

Dr. O. H. Aurand, city superintendent of schools, says, “Personally, I admit the necessity of occasional use but I doubt if corporal punishment has much longterm value in most cases It is my firm conviction that frequent and continuous use of corporal punishment by a teacher engenders a type of depravity in that teacher.”

Dr. H. K. Gerlach, county superintendent of schools, also has some doubts about the benefits of paddling.

“Corporal punishment should be used only as a last resort, and in limited doses.” Dr Gerlach said,: “I question whether it does work at all. It probably creates more problems in teacher-pupil relationships than it solves.

G Marlin Spaid supervising principal of Warwick Union, emphasizes that the paddling is done only as a last resort and always in the privacy of a principal’s office.

“Three swats is the limit,” Spaid said. “And the effect is more psychological than physical. Our philosophy is when students get out in life they’re going to have the same fact facing them – punishment for breaking the law. We believe that in some instances paddling might prevent a student from falling into the clutches of the law later in life.”

When teachers at Warwick Union feel that a student should be paddled, it must be done in the principal’s office.

“We’re not in favor of humiliating a student before his peers,” Spaid said. “And in cases that we’ve checked we’ve found that students who have been paddled almost never hold it against the teacher and the principal.”

Extracted from Lancaster New Era, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States, 30 November 1962

Picture credit: Collegeboy.

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