I was paddled in school 37 years ago. Why is the practice reviving?

According to the World Health Organization, corporal punishment “triggers harmful psychological and physiological responses. Children experience pain, sadness, fear, anger, shame and guilt, and feeling threatened also leads to physiological stress and the activation of neural pathways that support dealing with danger.” So, the use of physical discipline as a means of temporarily stopping or altering undesirable behavior has long-term consequences.

If those reasons weren’t enough to protect children in schools, Black students, male students, and those with disabilities were disproportionately subjected to physical punishment in school, according to a 2018 U.S. Government Accountability Office report that looked at corporal punishment data from the 2013-2014 school year.

How can this still be happening to children in 2022? Aren’t they faced with enough these days in the classroom? I am not saying there shouldn’t be consequences for their actions. Absolutely not. Children learn much of what is socially permissible in school among their peers and in the classroom with their teachers — spending one-third of their 24-hour days in public school spaces. However, in an age when bulletproof backpacks are on the back-to-school shopping list, when our children have to take cover under their desks during active shooter drills — or even more tragically, they’ve witnessed school violence — students shouldn’t have to worry about being spanked or paddled by school personnel. Our children deserve better.