Pathetic or what

[Ian]

I was waiting for something like that, should have known better.

[Scott]

I find that waking up my kids with a slap across the face keeps them in line all day. 

    I shared that one with my kids - they didn't get how funny that was.

[Ian]

That was a good one vintly, yeh Scott, my son didn't think it was that funny either.

[cosworth151]

We'd have loved a slap on the hand Ian, at my school it was the rump that took the punishment in the bending position. 

Same here. We used to call it a "board meeting."

Spaghetti in chilli must be a Southern thing,my mother lives
in Baltimore and her friends never heard of it or liked it

Often, we would get a three day cycle: First day, spaghetti. Second day, chilli. Third day, spaghetti soup (the left over spaghetti and chilli mixed together & watered down enough to stretch it out.)

[Scott]

Don't remember much about it, but every Friday was Hot Dog day, so most kids who had brought their own lunch would bin it and get some dogs   

[lkjohnson1950]

A stroll down any shopping mall should be enough to demonstrate that the kids are in charge these days. Any teacher that dared to swat a child would have an irate parent demanding they be fired before the end of the day.

[Irisado]

While I agree with you in spirit (the problem isn't the thrown food, the problem is that the food was thrown), the practicalities are far more complicated.  Children learn their discipline from parents, teachers and other autority figures.  You can insist that teachers are stricter, but it still requires involvement of the parents.  If the parents raise kids who throw food, then the teachers will have to deal with kids who throw food. 

Sometimes the best solution to a complicated problem is just to remove the weapons.

I agree that the parents are critical in this too, I just didn't mention it in my previous post.  Schools in this country are going down the road now whereby the parents and children have all the power, and the teachers have none.  Weak ineffective heads who push bits of paper around desks, and just strive to meet Ofsted targets don't help.

On a separate point, the answer, incidentally, isn't to go back to corporal punishment.  Physical beatings don't work.

[John S]

On a separate point, the answer, incidentally, isn't to go back to corporal punishment.  Physical beatings don't work.

Well having received corporal punishment on about a half dozen occasions, from school and parents, I would contest that statement.
Certainly put me off repeating some of the misdeeds that I was implicated in, where as school detentions did not. 

 

[Ian]

I would contest that statement too John, the teachers ruled the school and you never argued with them, we never had detentions or lines, it was a swift stroke of the cane, and as you said, you behaved after that, plus you certainly never ran home and told your dad  because you would have got another one off of him.

[lkjohnson1950]

+1. In my day it was parents and teachers on the same side, now it's parents and children against teachers.

[cosworth151]

I had it even worse, Lonny. My dad worked at the elementary school I attended.

This story just made it on to the National Public Radio program Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. It's a weekly comedy news quiz. They jokingly referred to them as "granola ninja throwing stars."

[Irisado]

So, rather than explaining why behaving in the way in which they are is inappropriate, and actually talking to children, the answer is to beat them? Nope I can't go along with that.  It's just a different form of physical and psychological abuse.

You don't need corporal punishment to have effective discipline in schools.  All you need is teachers who are strict enough to enforce the rules, and successive governments to stop taking power away from teachers to enforce those rules.  The current model is skewed so far in favour of parents and students that it's not funny.

[Ian]

Sorry, but explaining the error of their ways just does not work, a simple analogy explains why.....

As a teenager you never gobbed off the big boy on the block because you would get a pasting.
A teacher is the big boy on the block, ergo, you gob him off and you get a pasting.

[lkjohnson1950]

Children are all different, some respond to a discussion, some will not respond without a smack on the bottom. You don't have to raise a welt, just remind them that you could.

[Scott]

Vast majority don't need corporal punishment, but the fear of it sure helps 

I think this thread has taken a big turn from what was really a tongue in cheek remark.