“Reintroducing corporal punishment in government schools doesn’t sit well with me, if only for the fact that I’ve had the pleasure—sarcasm, of course—of meeting some rather unsavory characters currently employed in K-12 government schools.”
I’m with you there. The only time that I ever got whacked was in seventh grade for being caught playing table football (where you make the triagular football and flick it back and forth on the table) after being told not to do so while in study hall. Granted, I didn’t listen the first time but the punishment wasn’t commeasurate with the offense. I was taken out to the hall right outside the classroom and whacked where everyone could hear what was happening. Besides hurting like hell, it was humiliating. It wasn’t like I had a history of being in trouble or was a bad student. Also, the decision who got whacked and who did not was extremely arbitrary. It really served little purpose. OTOH, a more reasonable and less humiliating punishment would have been after school detention. Interestingly, in eigth grade, there was a kid who was supposed to get one whack and afterwards put his hand on his rear when the teacher whacked him again and broke his wrist. I don’t know how that was resolved (this was in ‘77). Today, I’m sure the out of court settlement would been considerable.