Show KATHLEEN NORMS Should Schools Abandon TN THE CALIFORNIA college town at a movement was recently inaugurated to restore the old custom of whipping as a punishment for refractory children in It appears now to be a lost and Berkeley's mothers and fathers are drawing a long breath of relief mingled with But that Isn't the whole even to those of us who can remember the frightened helpless tears of small boys ordered to report to the principal's and the swollen hands and tear-swollen eyes of gentle little girls who had felt Teacher's merciless we regard that cold impersonal beating of our loved youngsters as a relic of an admission of the failure of school discipline and But it isn't the whole The story includes children who simply cannot be reached by any other means than that of of breaking of the of physical pain and There are many such Unmanageable Child They are children who have had no home training at They do not know the words They are sent to school to be gotten out of the nobody at home ever suggests that they try to make the teacher's task that they do their home work that they leam to They don't know what school They don't know that civilization has painfully developed and that every hour in a school is paid for by taxpayers and that Amer- the unmanageable child ica spends millions upon millions every year to give every one of her little sons and daughters training in educational e. athletic development capability to accept the right calling in when it offers Every teacher of the grade school classes knows the unmanageable Sometimes it Is a more often a The boy is a smarty He isn't afraid of he have to obey anyone He laughs Joyfully if he Is dragged bodily into His his affect all the other He knows how to the and he punishes her through weary exhausting her energies and delighting in increasing signs of her A certain put back into a class of was such a He bullied smaller answered the teacher with veiled and one dy thrust out his foot as she walked down the The a fell and the boy's grinning denial that he had done It filled the smaller boyi with Bit Right Person A long time ago I was substitute teacher for a week in a small private In the school was a named Stuart was a blubbery sort of child who had been left entirely to oriental and had had his own way all his Stuart threw Ink pulled kicked the shins of smaller and finally took up his stand In the and for three days would not come into Twice I dragged him and twice he made himself heavy in the mysterious way a child and it was with difficulty that I could pull him off the Meanwhile school hours were and the other children stood about The board of church folk arrived in a body to Stuart's elegant mother was among She was the one who asked If a teacher was not expected to win the love of the And she went to put a motherly arm about Stuart bit his mother's wrist until the blood I was we all But I felt that if Stuart was going to bite he had chosen the right and responsible It seems to me that if we parents are going to ban physical punishment in school and I believe we should that we should also find the solution for the teachers' problem when one of those completely incorrigible children comes There Is no such thing as a naturally bad |