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Schools, Kids and Whippings
Sierra Times ^ | Dorothy Anne Seese

Posted on 05/20/2002 9:54:04 AM PDT by Sir Gawain

Schools, Kids and Whippings
no, I can't agree with that!
By Dorothy Anne Seese
Published 05. 19. 02 at 21:42 Sierra Time

Because of the lack of discipline among school kids these days, some folks honestly believe that bringing back classroom "whuppins" is going to solve the problems created by parental failure, "easy" ways out of personal responsibility, federalized education where the agenda overrides parental authority, where schools blacklist "problem" parents who are, for the most part, those who disagree with flaky school policies, and a great deal of federally-sponsored racial bias.

To which I say, bullschwacky!

Okay so I don't have kids of my own, but I had two parents, a war-zone home, and I have friends who do have kids. Discipline begins at home. Respect for authority begins at home. The knowledge of right and wrong begins at home. Instruction about the value of a good education begins at home. In fact, life begins at home!

No whuppins at any school will instill in any child the values that parents fail to teach or teach properly. It might make for more dropouts, runaways and resentment, including a few more school shootings or other acts of violence, because we're living in a violent era that didn't exist when I was growing up. Oh yes, some violence has always existed ... but not on the scale we see it now. Today's headlines injected onto a 1950's front page of a city newspaper would cause collective cardiac arrest.

Letting federalized teachers whip the daylights out of kids in school because they have religious beliefs opposed to certain teachings in the schools might make more drones for the Great Senseless Society, but it won't produce better kids and it will not enhance education. It won't stop school violence but it may increase it.

My mother and her siblings grew up in an environment where grandpa "ran the home" and he used a double razor strop to whip his frail daughters and one son. When granny tried to intercede on behalf of the kids to talk to them, grandpa would threaten her with "stay out of this, Emma, or else." That isn't being the man of the house ... it's being a brute. (As a side note, once granny got over being intimidated, she gave him "hail columbia" for the rest of his living days and told him over and over "I was too young and dumb to know I'd married a crazy man." She gave no quarter and spared no insult, but she did stay married. When he died, she shed no tears.)

My mother was dead-set against corporal punishment as the standard way of training children. She felt there were times it was needed, and I got a few wooden coathangers swatted across my back, but from as far back as any memories exist, mom first tried talking to me, then if I didn't get the point, she was good at intimidation. My dad didn't like me, my mother knew it, and would not let him lay a hand on me. Once, when I was 14, mama and I were having a somewhat heated discussion, and without warning he interfered long enough to backhand me across the jaw and send all 103 pounds of me sprawling across the living room floor and into a chair. Of course, this is the same dad who dumped mom and me in Arizona when I was in my early 20's, demanded a divorce, and went about his womanizing and the booze my mother wouldn't let him drink.

The school issue was never a concern when it came to corporal punishment. I went to California private schools, was a good student, corporal punishment was not applied. Rather, the headmistress of the school sent for the parents for a "conference" when the kids were a problem. At least I didn't have to be terrified of school ... and I do not like to be hit. There are some kids that people feel like blistering until they cannot sit down for a week, I've met them all through life, but look into their homes and generally the problem is readily discernible. Delinquent parents. Or just plain mean parents like my dad and my grandpa.

Bringing back corporal punishment into federalized schools allows for all sorts of options for teacher abuse. Race bias is one of them, and it exists. It also exists in the workplace, as I found out all too soon when I went to work for the State of Arizona in 1992 where Hispanics were favored. I have no doubt that kids whose parents are trying to bring them up with values of abstinence, a drug-free life, belief in God, and respect for proper authority would meet with some federalized teachers who would beat the daylights out of them at the slightest mention of any of these precepts. We're also talking about the same federalized system that calls it a crime in some states for parents to discipline their kids with a swat on the behind when they act up in the store.

Neither the school nor the government have the job of parenting children, and the parents of this nation should make sure they never do, because they are trying to do just that.

Now, before I start sounding like I've gone soft-headed on bringing up kids, I am a believer in discipline beginning at the earliest age. This idea that kids need to get in touch with their inner selves and be given free reign for all sorts of acting-out is nonsense only a new-age society would promote. Any parent with that philosophy isn't fit to bring up children anyway, and that seems to be the way "Taliban John" Lindh was allowed to express himself. Advice from the Spock of Star Trek would be better than the advice Dr. Spock gave in the 60's about how to let kids run wild and grow up without any respect for authority.

However, as nearly as I can tell from the reports that I receive from folks who have kids attending highly federalized schools and their battle to keep the kids from calling 911 at the slightest hint of discipline (where did kids five and six learn about that?) -- the first place to begin with corporal punishment is with delinquent parents, and the second place is with leftist teachers who instruct kids on their "rights" against home discipline.

Originally, public schools were there to educate children in specific courses such as language, spelling, arithmetic, history, civics, and other "school" subjects to prepare them for either college or the workplace. All other child-rearing was to be done at home. Living day in and day out in any home environment will, intentionally or unintentionally, transfer to the children the values modeled in the home. That's how we got the welfare dynasties. The values of society as reflected in the neighborhood in which kids are brought up will also transfer, which is why so many thoughtful parents today are trying to get out of the city and into areas where they can keep a closer eye on the kids, their friends, and what's being taught at school.

When we can't trust our government with our immigration policies, our Bill of Rights or even our Constitution, should we trust them with the children? I would say at this point the statement of former president Ronald Reagan applies to the highest degree: "government is not the solution to the problem, government IS the problem."

Amen?



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
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To: philetus
I don`t remember addressing you. Mind your own business, you insignificant twit.

You made the mistake of talking about me. That makes it my business. Coward. Grow some balls.

101 posted on 05/21/2002 11:54:24 AM PDT by Protagoras
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To: ThomasJefferson
I don`t remember addressing you.

You have a bad memory. You did address me, you just did it like a girly man. You didn't do it to my face because you are a coward.

102 posted on 05/21/2002 12:11:03 PM PDT by Protagoras
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To: philetus
I don`t remember addressing you.

You have a bad memory. You did address me, you just did it like a girly man. You didn't do it to my face because you are a coward.

103 posted on 05/21/2002 12:11:57 PM PDT by Protagoras
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To: ThomasJefferson
a "girlyman"what kind of a response is that?

Someone who`s idea of sticking up for his kid when he gets whipped by another kid his age and size is to call the cops and his lawyer is not someone who`s opinion I care about.

104 posted on 05/21/2002 12:35:51 PM PDT by philetus
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To: philetus
Someone who`s idea of sticking up for his kid when he gets whipped by another kid his age and size is to call the cops and his lawyer is not someone who`s opinion I care about.

Please repost any posts I made that concerning this.

Do you routinely make things up out of thin air? Do you even follow what this thread is about?

PS, you are a girlyman because you haven't got the balls to address someone to their face. Instead you talk behind their back like a sissy.

Now post the statements you claim I made on the subject you claim I addressed or withdraw your BS charge and crawl back into your hole.

105 posted on 05/21/2002 12:44:33 PM PDT by Protagoras
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To: ThomasJefferson
My son was attacked by two students.

This is called assault.

If you know any good methods, they would love to hear it.

It should be refered to the police for criminal action.

106 posted on 05/21/2002 12:49:29 PM PDT by philetus
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To: philetus
Which shows you lied about the facts in your charge against me. A liar and a coward.
107 posted on 05/21/2002 1:14:45 PM PDT by Protagoras
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To: ThomasJefferson
What facts are those?
108 posted on 05/21/2002 1:20:09 PM PDT by philetus
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To: ThomasJefferson
Ah, I see that the "king of insults" is back!

You can read it and comment of course, but the post wasn't to you or about the topic so if you get involved you look like a moron. I'm quite sure that if Appy Pappy needs your pathetic help he will be sure to call on you.

And the insults just keep flowing from your mouth like water from a faucet. Actually, FReepers regularly comment on other FReepers posts. I'm very surprised that you apparently have never noticed this. So according to you, just about everybody on Free Republic is a moron, right? To repeat what I said in my previous post to you, this is a public forum and everybody's posts are open for comment, whether you like it or not. If that bothers you, too bad. Speaking of pathetic, your posts reflect back on you, and judging from the tone of your posts, you seem to have some unresolved issues.

I've been here a lot longer than you so I know what goes on here, apparently you do not. People don't usually get involved in comments which are made specifically to others posters.

It doesn't matter how much longer you've been here on FR. And yes I do know what goes on here. People regularly get involved in comments that aren't specifically made to them, but rather to other posters. If they didn't do this, what would be the point of setting up a public forum like this. So posters can send personal messages back and forth without anybody else commenting on them? Just think how absolutely boring that would be. If somebody wants to carry on a private conversation with another poster, they can use FReepmail.

You seem to have an unusal interest in my butt muscles.

Actually I couldn't care less about your butt muscles. I was just trying to figure out why you appear to be so uptight and standoffish as reflected by the tone of your comments that you've posted on this thread. Maybe if you tried to relax a little bit and not take every comment that other posters send your way as a personal challenge to your manhood or your intellect, maybe you would come across to other posters as more human and less robotic in nature.

Please recount the insults specifically, not including the ones made to you which were in response to your attacks on me.

I've included below a list of some of the "gems of wisdom" that you've posted on this thread. I'm not necessarily classifying all of these as insults, but taken as a group, I feel that they properly reflect on your character and your mindset.

"Please don't slip down to the lowest denominator. It's beneath you."

"If you want to make the wager, do it, otherwise you are just listening to yourself talk."

"General statement, hard to discern the meaning because of the lack of context."

"If you don't understand that you don't understand much."

"Good, I'll have your kids working in my yard this weekend and if they stop for even a moment I'll kick the crap out of them."

"Mind your own business."

"If you have an argument to present on the topic of the thread please make it or go play in heavy traffic."

"You insignificant twit."

"Just a little back and forth between two old posters here that need not be explained to people who are not involved."

"...but the post wasn't to you or about the topic so if you get involved you look like a moron."

"I'm quite sure that if Appy Pappy needs your pathetic help he will be sure to call on you."

"Now go play in traffic."

"Good teachers don't jump to conclusions. It is obvious that you weren't a good teacher."

"Coward. Grow some balls."

"You did address me, you just did it like a girly man. You didn't do it to my face because you are a coward."

"Instead you talk behind their back like a sissy."

"Now post the statements you claim I made on the subject you claim I addressed or withdraw your BS charge and crawl back into your hole."

109 posted on 05/21/2002 2:01:08 PM PDT by usadave
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To: philetus
Thomas J sounds like someone who got beat up a lot by other kids at school.

LOL!!!

110 posted on 05/21/2002 2:03:31 PM PDT by usadave
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To: Jakarta ex-pat
Sounds a shame you quit teaching. Keep smiling, Philip

This is too funny. To this day I still have students who got a "whupping" from me come up and thank me for it. Said they were glad that someone cared. Heck, I even had a kid bring me a rose for the spanking he got. He became my staunchest ally among the "bullies".

He was one of the tuffs in the school and no one had ever really stood up to him before. He threatened any kid in class that they had better behave for me or he would meet them after class. Said, "this woman cares about you and you'd better listen to what she has to say!" I still see that young man to this day and would you believe, he has his own company and is an upstanding citizen in the community!

111 posted on 05/21/2002 7:46:49 PM PDT by Pure Country
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To: ThomasJefferson
Now you can tell me if it is still allowed anywhere in Illinois since you claim to know so much about it.

For what it is worth. Corporal punishment was banned in Illinois in 1993. Also, most of the banning is in the liberal states....Calif. New York, Illinois......go figure! Guess you live in the right state for your frame of mind.

Consider your children "protected". Only problem is that now all the teachers have available to them is to "PLAY WITH YOUR CHILD'S MIND". Myself, I'd prefer that they just swat their rears. Much safer. A little physical pain goes away, mental manipulation doesn't.

112 posted on 05/21/2002 8:11:57 PM PDT by Pure Country
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