What have been the most important developments in education? Last 30 years.

Here are mine:

* The internet
* Youtube
* Powerpoint

None of that is as important as not beating the students. Seriously. Most of us didn't grow up in an environment where we were beaten in class regularly by the teacher, principal, or by other students at the will of an adult. Making classroom beating illegal and enforcing it has been the most important improvement in education over the past 30 years. Perhaps over the past 100 years.

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None of that is as important as not beating the students. Seriously. Most of us didn't grow up in an environment where we were beaten in class regularly by the teacher, principal, or by other students at the will of an adult. Making classroom beating illegal and enforcing it has been the most important improvement in education over the past 30 years. Perhaps over the past 100 years.

Whatever your views on corporal punishment, you can hardly claim that the standard of education has gone up as a resilt of abolishing it. Literacy and numeracy rates in the UK have gone backwards according to some surveys.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2449481/Education-crisis-Pupils-worse-maths-literacy-grandparents.html

It may be one of the most important developments in terms of allowing liberals to experience a warmer, fuzzier feeling that they are protecting the children better, but not much else.

Hey, thanks for NOT reading what I wrote. I didn't say anything about corporal punishments. I am talking about actual beatings. But thanks for paying attention really well when you responded.

Oh - I got one!  Ban of AC and heating in public schools ;)

Nah, your news article provides little actual information. I would suggest looking at the Journal of Adolescent Health, volume 32 issue 5 from May 2003 written by several doctors on this topic. (If you have access to a journal library, you can search it with this doi:10.1016/S1054-139X(03)00042-9)

One of the more impactful conclusions found in this journal article is:

Research notes that corporal punishment constructs an environment of education that can be described as unproductive, nullifying, and punitive. Children become victims, and trepidation is introduced to all in such a classroom. There is a limited (if any) sense of confidence and security; even those children who witness this type of abuse are robbed of their full learning potential 43, 46, 66, 67, 68 and 70. Students who are witnesses or victims of such abuse can develop low self-esteem, magnified guilt feelings, and various anxiety symptoms; such results can have baneful results in the psychosocial and educational development of these students 46, 49, 60, 62, 66, 67 and 71. When studies look at the milieu of these classrooms, one finds that all are subjected to less, not more, learning. Because of fear, the nurturing of open communication, so vital to effective education, is severely spoiled in such aversive settings.

Sorry, I switched off when I saw the terms 'abuse' and 'low self esteem'.

Not really inetrested in whether CP/beating is morally justified,  just saying in my country abolishing it hasn't produced better results. Another statistic you could throw out would be 40% of UK teachers quitting before 5 years at least partly due to 'unruly pupils' according to this report.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jan/15/ofsted-chief-teachers-quitting-scandal

Of course there are other reasons too but all I'm saying is that I don't think abolishing CP/beating has had such a positive effect as to clearly place it in a list of the most important developments in education. If you speak to the average Korean teacher, for example, they would argue it is one of the most important developments in the last 30 years for negative reasons.

Yeah, but the graduation rate has increased over the past 30 years in Korea and the United States. I cannot speak for the UK, but I assume that more people are graduating from high school than before. Yes, society says that it is more important to have that piece of paper than ever before, and it is possible that standards might be sliding a bit, but honestly, when my mom looked at her schoolwork from the 1960s and then looked at mine, I was two to three years ahead of most of what she was doing. She also didn't have a lot of critical thinking going on in school at that time, and that was in the US. I had a lot more essay questions and points where I need to support my conclusions, and my mom felt that it was more difficult and better prepared me for work than her schoolwork did as it, at the very least, tried to encourage me to think about my reasoning instead of blind memorization.

With that said, most of my family members who I have talked to about this, said that they believe that they would have had more encouragement in school if the teachers didn't randomly beat them in class or their classmates. Even in the 1990s I have seen teachers flip out and just beat a student, in the US, where it is still legal in some states. Have students gotten smarter overall? I have no idea, how could you even compare that when the cirriculum is so significantly different. Has it made schools seem safer overall for the pupils? Yes, I would say so. I remember the fear from my older cousins who hated school because they were worried about being beaten for a spelling mistake or forgetting to carry the one. And not worrying about beatings sure does make it easier to focus on learning if you have an interest.

oh look, a discussion about corporal punishment. i'm so glad this has come up because it's not like it's been discussed 1,592 times on this site in the past, now has it?

Who is discussing corporal punishment?

Who is discussing corporal punishment?

Um...We were discussing corporal punishment. You do know that beating someone is a kind of corporal punishment don't you? You know 'corporal' punishment isn't the one when they hang someone or give them a lethal injection don't you? 

Random, unprovoked beatings

Haven't they always been illegal?

So you think the most important educational development of the last thirty years has been a few schools in the US cracking down on a few teachers who abuse the corporal punishment system?