Sir Frank Peters :
Renowned organizations and professional individuals throughout the United States of America have joined forces and are preparing to mount a robust campaign on the Donald Trump administration to end corporal punishment in all schools.
No less than 84 eminent and well-established organizations, including the American Federation of Teachers, and over 200 individual professionals including psychologists, teachers, headmasters, judges, lawyers, and other distinguished persons like best-selling authoress and Founder of the Center for Effective Discipline Nadine Block, have signed the appeal that calls for a total ban on corporal punishment to school children.
The National Women’s Law Centero, which is spearheading the campaign, appealed this week to all local and state educational agencies and policymakers to “address the damaging use of corporal punishment against our nation’s schoolchildren.”
The letter reads: “It is important to eliminate the use of corporal punishment in both public schools and private schools, and assist in creating a safer learning environment for every child. We urge policymakers to ensure that our schools are places where students and educators interact in positive ways that foster students’ growth and dignity.”
In the latest statistics, more than 109,000 students were subjected to corporal punishment in public schools in the 2013-14 school year.
“Hitting any student should be an unacceptable practice,” the statement reads, and goes on to point out that corporal punishment of adults has been banned in U.S. prisons and military training facilities. Furthermore, that every state has animal cruelty laws that criminalize the beating of animals, but bizarrely many states allow students to be subjected to corporal punishment!
The National Women’s Law Center proposes that eliminating the use of corporal punishment in schools will assist in ensuring the safety of all students and educators and suggests schools and educators be given new tools to foster a positive school climate by encouraging the use of school-wide positive behavior supports to help improve academic outcomes.
The appeal concludes:
“All local and state educational agencies have a significant interest in ensuring a positive learning environment for the nation’s students. By eliminating the harmful practice of corporal punishment and implementing positive, evidence-based policies, local and state leaders can help students achieve access to a safe and high-quality education.”
Best-selling American authoress Nadine A. Block, who has spent 25-years campaigning against corporal punishment across America and wrote the eye-opening best-selling book Breaking The Paddle: Ending School Corporal Punishment, described corporal punishment as inhumane, ineffective, archaic and inexcusable.
“It serves no useful purpose whatsoever, but causes untold damage to the developing minds and bodies of children,” she said. Block asserts that children should have the same right by law that all adults have – the right to be free from physical harm. The Bangladesh High Court shared that same vision in 2011 when Justices Md. Imman Ali and Sheikh Hassan Arif outlawed the barbaric practice of corporal punishment in Bangladesh schools and madrasahs. They described corporal punishment as “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and a clear violation of a child’s fundamental right to life, liberty and freedom”.
The collective hope is that 2017 will be the year that commonsense prevails, overthrows the ignorance and barbaric practices of corporal punishment, and the rights and dignity of children will be honoured and upheld.
Sir Frank Peters is a former newspaper and magazine publisher and editor, an award-winning writer, humanitarian, a royal goodwill ambassador, and a human rights activist.
In its quest to prevent corporal punishment to all school children in the USA, the National Women’s Law Center is joined hand-in-hand by the following organizations: Academy on Violence and Abuse, ACLU, American Academy of Pediatrics,
American Association of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, American Association of University Women, American Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO), American Humanist Association, American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, American Psychological Association, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Americans Against Corporal Punishment in Public Schools, ? Association of University Centers on Disabilities, Attachment Parenting International (Atlanta Chapter),
Barton Child Law and Policy Center (Emory Law School), Center for Civil Rights Remedies (Civil Rights Project at UCLA), Center for Effective Discipline, Champion Women, Child Safe of Central Missouri, Inc., Children’s Advocacy Institute. Children’s Defense Fund, Clearinghouse on Women’s Issues, Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth, Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights, Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, Dane County District Attorney’s Deferred Prosecution Program, Dignity in Schools Campaign, Division 7: Developmental Psychology, American Psychological Association, Education Law Center-PA, Family Services Network, Futures Without Violence, Girls Inc., GLSEN, Gundersen Health System, Gundersen National Child Protection Training Center, Gwinnett Parent Coalition to Dismantle the School to Prison Pipeline (Gwinnett SToPP), Integrated Clinical & Correctional Services, Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Lives in the Balance, Massachusetts Citizens for Children, Minnesota Communities Caring for Children, Home of Prevent Child Abuse MN, NAACP, National Alliance for Partnerships (NAPE), National Association of School Psychologists, National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), National Autism Association, National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools National Disability Rights Network, National Down Syndrome Congress, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI), National Organization for Women, National PTA, NC Child, NCLR (National Council of La Raza), Nollie Jenkins Family Center, Inc., Otto Bremer Trust Center for Safe and Healthy Children, Parent Trust for Washington Children, Partnership for Violence Free Families, Prevent Child Abuse Illinois, Project Knuckle Head, Psyc Health, Ltd., Rights4Girls Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, Self Works, Sister Reach, Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), Southern Poverty Law Center, Stop Spanking ORG, TASH, Tennesseans for Non Violent School Discipline, The National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence Across the Lifespan, The Parenting Network, TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project), U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law Juvenile and Special Education Law Clinic, Upbring Women’s Law Project, Youth Service, Inc.
