The following conversation took place in the 80s, at Riverdale Junior High School:
“Well, Mr. Blacknell, you’ve got a choice. Detention, or three licks.”
“Three what?”
“Three licks.”
“uhh . . . “
I was standing in the assistant principle’s office, at the time, probably because I’d told a teacher she didn’t know what she was talking about (true in 9 out of 10 cases, in retrospect). I’d just moved to Georgia (from West Germany), and I was still having a bit of trouble with the accents. But even putting aside the accent in this case, I didn’t know what the hell a “lick” was. And as I came to understand that “lick” meant hitting me with a long wooden panel, I was . . . gobsmacked (not a Georgia word, btw). Never in my life had any adult, aside from my parents, ever even *looked* like they would threaten me with physical violence. Ultimately, though, I decided that three smacks to my ass were far easier to deal with than 60 minutes sitting in a quiet classroom after school. But it struck me then – as it does now – as an entirely ridiculous approach to discipline.
As in so many other things, it doesn’t seem that much has changed in the 20-something years since then:
Twenty-one U.S. states still permit the use of corporal punishment in schools. In Texas and Mississippi children as young as 3 are struck for transgressions as minor as gum chewing, the report says.
[ . . . ]
Citing U.S. Department of Education data, the report said 223,190 students nationwide received corporal punishment at least once in the 2006-2007 school year. This included 49,197 students in Texas, the largest number of any state.
And we wonder why we’ve got a problem with violence in this country.
silence dogood
Wow. I went to high school in the South, too, and if anyone had ever said something like that to me, I would have probably punched him in the throat. Oh, you’re welcome to your three licks, provided you can find your way off the floor.