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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!ucbvax!decwrl!kaiser@furilo.DEC (Pete Kaiser, 225-5441, HLO2-1/N10)
From: kaiser@furilo.DEC (Pete Kaiser, 225-5441, HLO2-1/N10)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: corporal punishment in schools
Message-ID: <329@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Sep-85 08:43:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.329
Posted: Thu Sep  5 08:43:45 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Sep-85 05:47:14 EDT
Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 31

I've been meaning to jump into this one, but every time I've tried to write
something down on the topic, I've been nearly struck dumb by the gulf between
people's attitudes.  Sometimes it appears we're hardly talking about the same
thing.

Forging on ...

Quite a number of respondents have supported having kids physically punished by
school personnel.  Is it their own kids (those who have any) they have in mind?
Can they seriously picture their own kids behaving badly enough to warrant such
punishment?  What kind of behavior is that?  Or is it really other people's kids
they picture being punished this way?  Several of the respondents have described
inner-city classrooms; is this where their kids go to school?  It's simply dif-
ficult for me to believe that people advocating corporal punishment for kids in
school are really dealing from their own decks.  De facto they seem to be advo-
cating something for somebody else's kids, not their own.  No fair.

I'd like to address this only to respondents who actually have children: picture
the adults you know, excluding ones you know well -- friends, relatives, and
colleagues.  For which of them would you trust their judgment to decide that
your child should be punished physically?  Which of them would you trust to do
this in a way that will leave your child knowing that justice has been done, and
no vindictiveness was meant?

I can tell you which I trust to that extent: none.

---Pete

Kaiser%BELKER.DEC@decwrl.arpa
{allegra|decvax|ihnp4|ucbvax}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-belker!kaiser
DEC, 77 Reed Road (HLO2-1/N10), Hudson MA 01749  617-568-5441