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?

Well, perhaps LD would, but me, I would expand this to note the development of the idea of which not beating students is a consequence, that being that children and adolescents are distinct types with mental developmental stages.  Children are not "little adults", they have different views, different needs, and different experiences than adults. 

Now, ths technically started at the turn of the last century, but even when I started school (mid 1960s), much of the knowledge created by Piaget and crowd had not yet filtered into American pedagogy.  Spanking students was still seen as a way to change student outcomes.

I lived in Florida in the 1960s, but in Thailand after that, and then in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe now) during the 70s.  Having been beaten myself, aka "six of the best", I can tell you that it never made me want to "learn better" or whatever.  It made me detest those bastards that used their position to hurt the least among them. 

We tend to hear stories from folks of my age and older who say "I got beaten and it never did me any harm!"  Shrug.  Maybe it didn't, I can't answer that.  But I've never heard one say, "I got beaten, and I suddenly liked school a lot more, and after that I became a good student!"  "Suddenly, algebra made sense!"

So assuming that's the purpose of corporal punishment,  it doesn't work. 

The other possible excuse for hitting children is that it serves as a deterent for the others.  It does.  It deters them from learning!  Research, as mentioned by LeyDruid above, shows that classrooms where hitting occurs creates students who are insecure,  lacking confidence, and therefore less able to learn. 

Now, I don't think you were arguing in favor orf corporal punishment, though you almost are, but you may be young enough to miss the historical scope which clearly places beating/spanking/corporal punishment as an almost integral part of education.  Well into the last 30 years.  I began teaching about 30 years ago (1986) and occasionally had parents assure me that I had their permission to spank their kids if they misbehaved.  And they were absolutely serious.

Quote from: eggieguffer on Yesterday at 04:55:05 PM
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?
Well, perhaps LD would, but me, I would expand this to note the development of the idea of which not beating students is a consequence, that being that children and adolescents are distinct types with mental developmental stages.  Children are not "little adults", they have different views, different needs, and different experiences than adults. 

Now, ths technically started at the turn of the last century, but even when I started school (mid 1960s), much of the knowledge created by Piaget and crowd had not yet filtered into American pedagogy.  Spanking students was still seen as a way to change student outcomes.

I lived in Florida in the 1960s, but in Thailand after that, and then in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe now) during the 70s.  Having been beaten myself, aka "six of the best", I can tell you that it never made me want to "learn better" or whatever.  It made me detest those bastards that used their position to hurt the least among them. 

We tend to hear stories from folks of my age and older who say "I got beaten and it never did me any harm!"  Shrug.  Maybe it didn't, I can't answer that.  But I've never heard one say, "I got beaten, and I suddenly liked school a lot more, and after that I became a good student!"  "Suddenly, algebra made sense!"

So assuming that's the purpose of corporal punishment,  it doesn't work. 

The other possible excuse for hitting children is that it serves as a deterent for the others.  It does.  It deters them from learning!  Research, as mentioned by LeyDruid above, shows that classrooms where hitting occurs creates students who are insecure,  lacking confidence, and therefore less able to learn. 

Now, I don't think you were arguing in favor orf corporal punishment, though you almost are, but you may be young enough to miss the historical scope which clearly places beating/spanking/corporal punishment as an almost integral part of education.  Well into the last 30 years.  I began teaching about 30 years ago (1986) and occasionally had parents assure me that I had their permission to spank their kids if they misbehaved.  And they were absolutely serious.

Not sure that punishment of any kind is supposed to make a kid feel better about learning, it's supposed to stop them from misbehaving. If you're worried that kids will feel resentful about receiving CP when they break the rules you could apply that to any kind of punishment. The lessons I liked most at my school were the ones where the teachers made it interesting, regardless of what punishment system they had in place.

It made me detest those bastards that used their position to hurt the least among them. 

This kind of comment suggests maybe you had teachers at your school who abused the system through having sadistic tendencies, which obviously no one would condone. Maybe that's what Ley Druid was getting at when distinguishing between CP and beating?

Research, as mentioned by LeyDruid above, shows that classrooms where hitting occurs creates students who are insecure,  lacking confidence, and therefore less able to learn. 

This comment brings to mind a kind of Victorian classroom set up where teachers wandered around swiping at kids with a cane when they mispronounced a word. Most schools in the UK used CP as a last resort and it was only ever administered by the deputy or head in private. Maybe things were/are different in the US Zimbabwe.  Although it existed at my school I never felt it as a presence in the classroom

I'm not arguing in favor of CP, as a Brit I know it's a pointless exercise -much the same as arguing to allow smoking in pubs again. It's just something that 's been consigned to the history books and will never come back. For Americans it's still an interesting topic. I'm pretty sure teachers try to make classes more interesting nowadays but at the same time no one would deny that discipline has deteriorated while general standards of numeracy/literacy don't seem to have improved. Whether that has any relation to banning CP I really don't know. But as I said earlier I wouldn't go around claiming it was a major educational development either. It's a lot easier to ban something than come up with a more effective alternative.

One of the more interesting threads in awhile. Let's try to stay on topic instead of bickering like little girls about semantics.

As in the question was Bin laden a terrorist or a freedom fighter, semantics can often be the central point of the argument.

Critical thinking is great, provided you have a basis in the facts.

I think the most important change in the last thirty years in much of the West has been largely negative--memorization is now considered a bad thing.

Dates, formulas, multiplication tables, irregular verbs, vocabulary, plant life cycles, --some things just have to be memorized.

Critical thinking is great, provided you have a basis in the facts.

I think the most important change in the last thirty years in much of the West has been largely negative--memorization is now considered a bad thing.

Dates, formulas, multiplication tables, irregular verbs, vocabulary, plant life cycles, --some things just have to be memorized.

Understanding trumps reciting facts:

My dad can cite dates to an incredible extent. Back home we always win quizzes because of this. However, if you ask him what the cause of the first world war was, he'd either give you a factoid and date, or not know. He wouldn't understand the context at all.

I'd much rather understand and have applicable maths, history and English over learning log tables, dates and quiz science.

Quote from: Haibrok on March 04, 2015, 12:12:30 AM

Critical thinking is great, provided you have a basis in the facts.

I think the most important change in the last thirty years in much of the West has been largely negative--memorization is now considered a bad thing.

Dates, formulas, multiplication tables, irregular verbs, vocabulary, plant life cycles, --some things just have to be memorized.

Understanding trumps reciting facts:

My dad can cite dates to an incredible extent. Back home we always win quizzes because of this. However, if you ask him what the cause of the first world war was, he'd either give you a factoid and date, or not know. He wouldn't understand the context at all.

I'd much rather understand and have applicable maths, history and English over learning log tables, dates and quiz science.

That is a particularly tricky question though. Dan Carlin has been doing an indepth look at World War One in his Hardcore History podcast, and he said something like, "ask 100 historians what the root cause of the war was and you're likely to get 101 different answers."

Which is to say that I agree with your opinion. It is much more beneficial to build a framework of understanding, a means to attain more knowledge, and the critical ability to sift the gold from the garbage, especially since so much information is widely online.

budget cuts seem to be working nicely.