{"id":1144,"date":"2008-08-20T22:25:20","date_gmt":"2008-08-21T02:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/?p=1144"},"modified":"2008-08-20T22:25:20","modified_gmt":"2008-08-21T02:25:20","slug":"its-a-southern-thing-hitting-kids-in-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2008\/08\/20\/its-a-southern-thing-hitting-kids-in-school\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a Southern Thing: Hitting Kids in School"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following conversation took place in the 80s, at Riverdale Junior High School:<\/p>\n

“Well, Mr. Blacknell, you’ve got a choice.\u00c2\u00a0 Detention, or three licks.”<\/p>\n

“Three what<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

“Three licks.”<\/p>\n

“uhh . . . “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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).\u00c2\u00a0 I’d just moved to Georgia (from West Germany), and I was still having a bit of trouble with the accents.\u00c2\u00a0 But even putting aside the accent in this case, I didn’t know what the hell a “lick” was.\u00c2\u00a0 And as I came to understand that “lick” meant hitting me with a long wooden panel, I was . . . gobsmacked (not a Georgia word, btw).\u00c2\u00a0 Never in my life had any adult, aside from my parents, ever even *looked* like they would threaten me with physical violence.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

As in so many other things, it doesn’t seem that much has changed<\/a> in the 20-something years since then:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

[ . . . ]<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And we wonder why we’ve got a problem with violence in this country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following conversation took place in the 80s, at Riverdale Junior High School: “Well, Mr. Blacknell, you’ve got a choice.\u00c2\u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-society"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}