In Georgia schools they can legally paddle a student. Ouch.
It’s also legal in 18 other states, and with the Georgia paddlings going viral on the internet, thousands of schools are probably dusting off their own wooden truncheons to start wailing on the little rascals.
It’s called corporal punishment.
But I’m sure the practice won’t be coming to Hawaii. We’re the Aloha State, we can’t be whacking kids’ okoles with wooden boards. Where’s the aloha in that?
But it could be working in those other states, a couple good cracks might cure the class wisecracker. But there are side effects. Spanking a kid gives him red welts, psychological damage, resentment of authority, all those bugaboos the armchair psychologists love to bring up.
They say spanking Wiseguy Willie will ruin him for life, and they’re probably right.
Lord knows we don’t need any more troubled, disgruntled students on the loose, if you know what I mean.
But they’re on the right track, you need fear to run a school smoothly, a high school that is. The younger school kids just want to play, but the older ones have issues, egos, group peer pressure, and the need to be macho in front of the guys and girls. A heavy hand is needed to keep the rowdy ones in line.
I have taught as a regular teacher and sub for 35 years in almost every school on this island and I am here to say, a tough principal will keep order better than any paddle.
The principal is the captain of the ship and you need Captain Bligh or Ahab to keep the ship on course. When a nice guy captain tries to run the ship there is mutiny, disrespect, fights. You need a tough guy — and I’ll give you a good example.
In the 1990s at Waikea High in Hilo, the principal was Mr. Sakai. Even the teachers were afraid of him. A wiry Japanese-American man with slicked-back hair, a starched shirt and thin tie, he wore black slacks and shiny black shoes. When he walked the halls you could hear his shoes click and you shivered. If a student acted up in class all I had to say was, “You want to go see Mr. Sakai?” and he’d clam up with morbid fear.
There was hardly one fight or disturbance in the years he was there.
If you have to spank students it is admitting you’re weak without a plan. A tough principal with a good stink eye is all you need to maintain the ideal learning environment.
Georgia can keep its paddle. Do we really want one hanging in the principal’s office?
Not likely. Whacking kids’ behinds doesn’t fit the Aloha State.
Dennis Gregory writes a bimonthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com
