Why We Keep Going Back

Yes, it's time to find those binders and start looking for a place that sells graph paper. It's time to go back to school. Not the real, get up out of bed and face the day kind of back to school, but the start to cope with the reality of teacher-student interactions and all the ways that disappointment and joy can radiate out from those. Like the way you can talk to a room full of kids about the missing stapler and it suddenly becomes a chat in the principal's office with angry parents about calling their kid a thief. Things can change in a hurry, best to be prepared.
Like in Memphis, where the school board recently rescinded their use of corporal punishment. “Quite frankly, I’m scared to use it,” board member David Reaves said. “You could easily wind up in court. I think it’s in our best interests that we eliminate the paddle.” It is curious to me how, in 2013, there is still a public school in the United States that would even consider this option. Not that there aren't rooms full of teachers and administrators who have considered it. Over the years I have had a number of parents take me aside and let me know that it would be "totally fine" with them if I needed to give their kid a swat. I have also considered this is advice I was given at the beginning of a year, long before all those previously mentioned joys and disappointments had blossomed fully. These kind of interactions usually tell me more about the parent than the kid, but I'm just as glad that the option has been taken off the table long before I ever got there.
What's left over in the corporal punishment bin? Well, in Memphis there was some relief expressed by the board that coaches could still have their student-athletes run laps as a consequence for behavior unbecoming. It should be pointed out that this district had to take the question up because a smaller district had been merged into Memphis proper. Students in Memphis didn't need to worry about getting a "whuppin'" since way back in 2004.
Nine years ago. In the twenty-first century. Teachers and administrators were still allowed to spank their students in Memphis, Tennessee. Of course, a quick search of Al Gore's Internet tells me that there are still a number of places where spanking students is still policy. Did you guess Texas? I suppose it makes sense, even though ninety-seven of one hundred of the country's largest school districts have banned corporal punishment, in some Texas way that I can't fully comprehend.
As a teacher, this is where I start to shudder at the anticipation of endless seminars and in-service instruction on the proper ways to paddle your students. Next week I'm going to be immersed in a week-long training about delivering our math curriculum. I'm not guessing that we will have time to consider how to do this and mete out just the right smack to the kid who isn't quite ready for school. But I guess there's still so much to learn.