Tag: education

samcarter34:

lj-writes:

Is it just me or does spanking seem to address precisely none of the issues proponents say it does?

“It teaches them respect!” It teaches them to defer to someone bigger and stronger than they are. I’d say that’s more fear than respect, and it’s why children whose parents rely on spanking can get completely out of hand when they’re big enough to fight back.

“They’re too young to understand when they’re told it’s wrong!” But old enough to comprehend the precise nuance and meaning of being hit, evidently.

“Nothing else worked!” When I look at stories of spanking allegedly working, it generally shows other parenting methods being used ineffectively and poorly. Obviously everything else has not been tried, at least not correctly. Maybe learn to parent better instead of using spanking as a stopgap.

“Oh they’re a difficult kid!” And hitting them makes them less difficult? It could make them more compliant, but that’s a poor replacement for helping them with their problems and a shitty parenting goal in general.

“It teaches them violence is wrong!” I… what?

There’s been dozens (if not more) psychological studies that all basically point to spanking being a bad thing.

In a behavioural modification class I took, the prof talked about it during the part on positive punishment. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t stop the behaviour in question from happening, it just teaches the subject to try to avoid being caught doing it, and it results in higher chances of negative and violent behaviour later in life.

In addition, I don’t think a lot of these studies even capture the amount of harm it does to the kids who don’t visibly act out because they don’t stand out as much. I suspect there’s a silent majority who, instead of turning violent/addicted/otherwise visibly troubled, are instead neurotic, afraid to try anything new or to open up to people because they associate being “found out” with punishment and pain.

Descriptions of violence against children below

And that’s to say nothing of the bystander effect on kids who are not spanked, or not as much, but watch a lot of it happening to others and internalize the “lesson.” I grew
up with a hell lot of spanking at both home and at school. I had my
palms struck with rulers, I had my legs switched, I watched boys and
girls be hit with mop handles by teachers, I watched them being slapped
and punched.

This parade of violence against children was terrifying and humiliating. It helped scare me into
compliance but none of it at any point helped me become a better
or more respectful person. The violence taught me that I should keep my head down and not be noticed, that I should not speak out against the abuse of others or I’d be hurt myself, that I must never admit to mistakes or ask for help because being known as less than perfect meant pain, that I could not trust authority including my own parents. It wasn’t the only thing that messed me up but the physical violence was part of a climate of coercion and authoritarianism, the shadow in which all other interactions took place. We all knew the authority over us was backed up by threats of physical force.

The damage of spanking and physical abuse–and there is no clear line between the two, it’s on a spectrum of violence–is not only supported by science, there is reason to think the science, clear as it is, actually underestimates how widespread the negative effects are. It’s not just the people who were hit and now engage in violent behavior themselves. It’s also the people who got off “easy,” like me, and the people wouldn’t hurt a fly but live in a constant fog of fear and shame. None of these is more or less worthy than another, of course, nor are the types mutually exclusive. What I’m saying is that the damage is so much more extensive than can be easily captured in a study.

The people who want to argue that spanking is “culture” and therefore good or sacred or some shit can go to hell, too. Corporeal punishment IS part of my culture, and more and more people are realizing how damaging it is. There has been a huge public debate for years about this, from students filming teachers’ abuse to proposals for rules to ban corporeal punishment in schools and even at home. Culture is not always good, and it is not immutable. We can do better, and we must.

fandomsandfeminism:

misanthropicfeels:

trilies:

oncerbat:

trilies:

fandomsandfeminism:

oncerbat:

fandomsandfeminism:

So many Pro-Spanking advocates talk about how they “Deserved” to be hit by their parents because they were “a bad kid.” And it makes me so sad.

You weren’t.

You weren’t a bad kid, and you didn’t deserve to be hit. Maybe you were a difficult kid, maybe you struggled with boundaries or rules or expectations. Maybe you had bad behavior much of the time. But you, yourself, were not and are not a BAD person for that, and you didn’t EARN violence. You didn’t have it coming. It shouldn’t have happened to you. 

This is exactly the type of thinking that leads people to believe they don’t deserve Hell because they think they’re basically good-hearted.  There is a stark difference between discipline and abuse! 

Dont hit children.

http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/23732-spanking-does-more-harm-than-good

@oncerbat I’ll bite. In your words, what is the difference between discipline and abuse? At what point does spanking go over the line?

It’s not necessarily the acting of spanking itself, but the reason for spanking.  I was spanked as a kid, and I have not suffered any form of psychological trauma into adulthood. Consequently, those who aren’t spanked are usually the ones who feel entitled to everything and get offended by practically everything as well. 

Now, if someone spanked kids for just about every minor infraction, then it might carry over into abuse, or if you spank your kid out of anger, but a slap on the bum is supposed to teach kids obedience where they are reminded of temporary physical pain for not obeying their parents, Parents should be feared by their kids. Feared does not mean I’m afraid Mommy or Daddy is going to punch me for no reason. I mean feared as respected. There’s a huge difference between someone who spanks their kid for lying to them vs someone who hits their kid in a drunken rage because they spilled something or spelled a word incorrectly. 

What does the non-spanking parent do when their child throws a temper-tantrum in the grocery store? I’m not a parent, but based on my past experience with my parents, I would say it’s perfectly justifiable and not abusive to spank the kid. Why? Because it teaches them respect in a way that’s quick and well-remembered. If you just tell the kid to stop, they’re probably not going to listen. 

Spanking is supposed to teach kids respect,self-control, and accountability among others. And it should be mainly used for young kids. 

I know this response will face backlash, but if you need further info, read this http://madamenoire.com/40373/8-reasons-to-spank-your-kids/6/ 

fandomsandfeminism has talked about alternatives to spanking here. 

With that said, I will say that my mother spanked me exactly the way you described as ideal: not out of anger, not for every little infraction, always after other punishments had been tried, and she made it clear what I was being spanked for. Heck, she was even sad a lot of times when she “had” to do it! 

So here’s a story: 

I’m in elementary school, and just learning more complicated math along the lines of division. I’m bad at math now, and I was bad at math then, so I wasn’t getting my homework. It made no sense to me. More than half my worksheet is blank. The logical thing to do would have been to go to my mother, right? Ask for help. 

Instead, I hid my homework, hoping desperately  that I could convince the teacher I lost it, because I was convinced that if I told my mother that I couldn’t do my math homework, she would spank me. And spanking, being hurt like that, was something I hated and feared more than anything else. The only reason I ended up showing it to her and my aunt who was visiting (at TEN AT NIGHT, when i should have been asleep) was because I realized in my anxiety that my teacher would tell my mother anyway, and I’d still get punished. My mother didn’t spank me for it, but that didn’t get rid of the thought in my child mind. 

So that’s what spanking taught me. 

It taught me to associate making mistakes or disappointing my parents with pain. It taught me to avoid going to my parents when I was confused, or had done something I thought was wrong. It taught me not to manage my anger in any true way but instead bottle it up, whereupon it would eventually explode, thus getting me in trouble anyway. 

And, again, because I cannot repeat myself enough: my mother spanked me in all the ways pro-spanking people say is the right way. She did it right, according to your logic, and I still am messed up by it, a fact I’ve only in recent years come to terms with. And I’m a full grown adult! 

A good friend of mine was also spanked, and said none of her issues, as far as she can tell, stem from that. However, she has talked about how damaging spanking can be at length, and I want to share a quote about it with you:

“It is, in fact, possible to spank sparingly, or within some realm of reason, or for kids to not come away from it severely damaged. But it’s possible in the way that winning the lottery is possible. The fact that people have beaten the odds doesn’t mean that the odds are in your favor. Or, in this case, your kids’ favor. You are literally gambling with your child’s emotional and neurological well-being, and their relationship with you, every time you hit them instead of finding a less violent alternative. Even if you are so in control of yourself that you never strike them purely in anger/frustration, and so enlightened that you’re always very careful and thoughtful about just when and how you hit your kids (that is the most ridiculous sentence I have ever had to type, dear god in heaven), you don’t know how your kid will react. You don’t know if they’ll be okay. You don’t know if they’ll come away with respect or fear or resentment or trauma, because that’s outside your control. And what you’re saying is that, frankly, the odds say it’s more likely you’ll damage your kid than not, but it’s worth the risk to you.”

I can talk more about the ways I’ve learned that spanking did me no favors, but hopefully you get the point here. “Discipline” does not mean “violence”. 

Aaaaand of course there’s the millions of normal people who are just fine from spanking AND aren’t little psychologically damaged from being properly disciplined lmao like what kid thinks “Oh, I’m bad at math! Best make things worse by not turning in my homework and failing!” Like? Did your mom not teach you to ask for help or ask for someone to help you learn something? Lmao XD

Emphasis on “properly” because you should know what actions lead to a spanking, and what to do to avoid those things.

Our generation is pathetically soft and sheltered and fragile, and that’s the fault of bad parenting. This generation is going to raise even softer, weaker kids (Well, those of us that choose to have kids) and they’re going to crumble and cry and falter at every little thing just like this generation does.

“ I need to hit children so they aren’t so soft and weak” is a pretty bad parenting outlook, to be honest.

Also if a kid is scared to admit to failure and to ask for help, hitting them for failing is going to help them feel less scared, right? …right?

dannyboisideblog:

West Virginia teachers just shut down the ENTIRE STATES SCHOOLS.

They went on strike.

They worked with churches, community centers, and food banks to make sure that students who rely on school to be a safe place or for a meal will still be able to get them.

They are one of the lowest funded states for education. Many teachers working retail and food service on the weekends.

They can’t properly make lesson plans when they can’t feed their own children.

They can’t teach all day to kids after working all night to pay bills.

They can’t watch their students education suffer because they are not being paid enough to live.

They are demanding better funding to schools.

They are demanding pay raises.

They are demanding better health benefits.

They are demanding the safety of their students.

Students in multiple counties led a support system for their teachers. Wearing purple to support them and hyping up social media.

Elementary School Ditches Andrew Jackson for Mary Jackson, the First Black Female NASA Engineer

mindblowingscience:

An elementary school in Utah has traded one Jackson for another in a change that many say was a long time coming.

Jackson Elementary School in Salt Lake City will no longer be named for Andrew Jackson, the seventh U.S. president, whose slave ownership and treatment of Native Americans are often cited in the debate over memorializing historical figures associated with racism.

Instead, the school will honor Mary Jackson, the first black female engineer at nasa whose story, and the stories of others like her at the space agency, was chronicled in Hidden Figures, a 2016 film based on a book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly.

Continue Reading.

Elementary School Ditches Andrew Jackson for Mary Jackson, the First Black Female NASA Engineer

sciencedog13:

timetravelrabbit:

roqo:

Reminder that protesting is worth getting suspended for

#yeah a walkout is disruptive but you know what’s more disruptive? FUCKING SHOOTINGS

My school explained that the reason they’re doing this is actually to keep students safe. If you were planning on shooting a bunch of kids, wouldn’t you do it when you know a ton are going to walk out of class at the exact same time on the exact same day?

The students who walk out know the risk and they’re taking it. They’re not letting the threat of armed terrorists keep them from exercising their constitutional rights, because literally nothing else has worked. The alternative is to wait and wonder if today is the day some asshole decides to shoot up their school, and they have decided that is no longer a tolerable option.

segashark:

fandomsandfeminism:

segashark:

ausernamethatisnottaken:

segashark:

fandomsandfeminism:

People who crow about how “historical accuracy” means historical narratives should be all white are boring and ignorant.

We live in a world where Japanese Samurai were part of the Mexican colonial militia in the 1500s (http://happenedstrangely.blogspot.com/2012/02/aztecs-and-samurai.html?m=1 ) and an Arab traveller witnessed and documented a Viking ship burial in Russia in the 10th century ( https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/604698?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents )

History is grand and strange and true periods of isolationism and ethnic hemogyny are rare.

Who are you even talking about I’ve never heard people complaining about this, do you have anyone in specific who does this?

I don’t know if you’re being purposely ignorant, but this shit happens all the time. Also applies to those who complain about “forced diversity” in fantasy films

Congrats you found one tweet about some random fucker complaining. Also were there any black romans? I don’t know.

You said you have NEVER heard people complain about this. They provided an example of someone complaining about it. Don’t shift goal posts. 

And yes, there were Black Romans. The Roman Empire included, like, parts of Africa. 

You found one twitter post that doesn’t constitute it happening “all the time” as they call it. I actually read that wiki link they gave me and Africans were slaves in the Roman Empire not free citizens.

On Africans being slaves in the Roman Empire: First of all, you’re just factually wrong. Second of all, your fundamental assumption–that the categories of “slave” and “free citizen” in Rome were unchanging and tied to our modern conception of race–is also wrong. Your sentence itself simply makes no sense in the Roman context.

On the first point, Africans born free Roman citizens:

Septimius Severus, born in modern-day Libya to a father of Punic and maybe Berber ancestry and an Italian mother, rose to Emperor of Rome. He is one of at least six African Roman emperors. Is that distinguished enough for you? Free citizen enough?

Marcus Cornelius Fronto, also a Libyan, was a Roman citizen from birth and a prominent scholar and rhetorician, said to be second only to Cicero.

Lusius Quietus was a Berber prince whose family gained Roman citizenship for his father’s service to Rome. He became a Roman general and governor of Judea.

On the second point, Africans who were slaves but became free, showing the falseness of your assumption that you can only be one or the other:

Publius Terentius Afer, a slave of Berber descent, was freed for his considerable talents and became a celebrated playwright.

Marcus Tullius Tiro was a slave and personal secretary of Cicero who was later freed. He invented a method of shorthand and wrote and edited a number of books.