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KKxyz3,59957
The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?
<s>gentile</s> genteel = civil, considerate, courteous, cultivated, cultured, polite, refined, urbane, well-behaved, well-mannered
The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?
The question as to why the paddle became so popular in US schools remains a mystery. There is no such doubt as to why the cane became popular in British-tradition schools throughout the British Empire / Commonwealth. The schools were largely modeled on the English “public” schools.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1 … 4v19n01_04
Child & Youth Services Volume 19, Issue 1, 1998, pages 35-54
The Public School in 19th Century England: Social Mobility Together with Class Reproduction The Industrial Revolution raised England to a leadership position in industrial capitalism. which brought change in land ownership and created pressure for social mobility. The newly-rich, emerging from the middle classes, attempted to integrate with the upper class. One of the central ways of attaining this aim was to send their children to the aristocrats’ traditional boarding schools, the so-called public schools. This tendency led to the establishment of new schools and expansion of the existing ones.
The public schools traditionally encouraged withdrawal and isolation from cities. They preferred country life for the sake of moral education. distance and isolation supposedly making the educational process easier. The students were continually exposed to teachers, religious leaders, and prefects and were wider constant pressure to achieve learning objectives dictated by the classical curriculum and to behave in an exemplary manner in public (Weinberg, 1967).
In spite of the schools’ strictness and moral education, however, they were not without organizational and administrative irregularities. Student dissatisfaction with the physical conditions, the lack of teachers and decreasing in educational activities resulted in repeated riots. These disturbances continued for almost 100 years, until a string of reforms were introduced by Arnold in 1828.
[. . .]
The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?
The kind of discipline a school system practices it related to the system of controls in the total social system, according to DAVID W. SWIFT. The author is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawaii.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1 … 7209338961
David W. Swift
The Educational Forum, Volume 36, Issue 2, 1972, pages 199-208
Changing Patterns of Pupil Control DISCIPLINARY methods in American public schools have changed drastically during the past century. Punitive measures of earlier times have been replaced by a concern for the feelings of the child, and corporal punishment has virtually vanished. Although this new approach is generally assumed to be the result of increased public enlightenment this is only part of the story. Gentler discipline emerged not simply for altruistic reasons but also as a matter of expediency: it alleviated urgent custodial problems confronting the school and its personnel. Traditional disciplinary methods had sufficed in the small simple schools of a preindustrial society, but they were no longer satisfactory in large urban systems where, as we shall see, the consequences of disorder became far more serious. A new approach to control was needed, and the progressive ideas of John Dewey and other educators satisfied this need. While humanitarianism played a part it was far from the only factor present. (ref 1).
In a broader context this can be seen as one aspect of the change from simple “folk”, gemeinschaftliche, “communal” societies to complex gesellschaftliche, “associational” societies (ref 2). Social control in the former is relatively straightforward and effective; in the latter, according to many observers, control is weakened by urbanization, the division of labor, and the rational, impersonal organization of many spheres of human activity (ref 3).
The first part of this article examines discipline in earlier, traditional times, suggesting reasons why harsh methods were acceptable in the simple village school regardless of their consequences for the student. The second part examines pupil control in the modern, urban era, suggesting problems which required a departure from former methods (ref 4).
[. . .]
1. For a discussion of discipline in European schools, from medieval to modern times, see Philippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood (New York: Random House, 1962), pp. 241-68.
2. Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, trans. by G. Simpson (New York: Free Press, 1947) ; Fibrin A. Sorokin, The Crisis of Our Age (New York : Dutton, 1941 and GcorSimmel, Sociology, trans. by Kurt Wolff (New York: Free Press, 1950).
3. Fly Chinoy, Society, 2nd ed. (New York: Random House, 1967).
4. Although the precise date dividing the two periods is not crucial in a “before” and “after” analysis of this sort, 1870 provides a convenient cutting point. The transition from simple, localized society, still revolving around primary, kinship types of relationships, into more complex, impersonal, national forms of organization, was suggested by a number of events, both in education and in the larger society. The establishment of a U.S. government agency concerned with education, state court decisions permitting taxation for extending education to the secondary level, the proliferation of fulltime school superintendents, and legislation providing for unification of many separate school districts all appeared, or became prominent, around this time.
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holyfamilypenguin4,5593
The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?
KK HAVE YOU SUBSCRIBED TO THIS RESOURCE. AND IF SO, IS IT WORTH IT?
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willyeckaslike
The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?
KK
You pose the question as to why the paddle became so popular in US schools remains a mystery.
Yet you dismiss the use of the cane in British schools as
schools were largely modeled on the English “public” schools.
That to me, shows that British schools were not capable of looking at the problem they were faced with, and lacked original thought about creating good classroom behaviour, they took the easy way out and just followed the “public” schools like lost sheep
If you doubt why the paddle became so popular in the US, which is a good question, surely should you not also doubt as to why the cane was used in “public” schools in the first instance, which is of equal veracity.
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KKxyz3,59957
The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?
American Way
I have not subscribed tohttp://www.newspaperarchive.com/Default.aspx . I do not know whether such a subscription would be worthwhile. It may be the most comprehensive available but the coverage of different states seems very uneven as does the time spans covered. I presume most of the digitization has been done by local libraries or by the more substantial newspapers themselves. The quality of the images varies greatly as some are barely readable. It is unclear whether OCR text is accessible for down loading.
Willyeckaslike
You make some possibly valid points but they are largely about matters unrelated to the deliberate narrow focus of my research.
I note that USA is very litigious society with a strong anti-government, even local self government sentiment. The paddle was known from the days of slavery. Paddles of various kinds were common domestic articles. Possibly, the paddle was favoured by school teachers because it marked less than other devices such as the switch, and hence provided less evidence to concern parents or to present in law courts. Of course, a heavy paddle can cause internal injuries / deep bruising.
The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?
I grew up under the British CP tradition which may be why the American tradition, and its reliance on the paddle, seems anomalous to me. Perhaps it is the British tradition, and its strong reliance on British “public” (secondary) schools, that is anomalous.
In New Zealand secondary schools tended to follow the British “public” schools and caned on the buttocks. Primary schools set up by the government when education first became compulsory developed separately and strapped hands.
In the USA the emigrants presumably brought a diversity of customs and practices with them Schools were organized and managed by local communities and were probably little affected by outside influences especially in rural and conservative areas.
When did the word spank start to be used as a euphemism for much more harsh punishments?I have searched Google News archives for prison + spanking and found no hits for prison spankings before the notorious Elmira reformatory scandal erupted in 1884. Thereafter, the combination is much more common. It seems likely that warden Brookway used the term to make the severe corporal punishment sound more palatable to himself and others, and to indicate it was applied to the buttocks.
Many of the hits involve OCR errors (e.g. speaking = spanking) or spanking in the sense of “new” or “travelling fast”, or the two words appear on the same page in separate unrelated articles.
The newspaper archive is far from complete. It goes up to 1922 only. The degree of coverage varied through the survey period. The year 1909 had the most mentions of the word spank.
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holyfamilypenguin4,5593
The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?
KK. That is something that I have noticed in my research. Spanking has more than one meaning of course but is used in the non-corporal punishment manner, perhaps because of horses of course, of course in the 19th century. There was an increase in the time closest to the supreme court ruling in the latter part of the 1970’s as well. Students do not say I got spanked in school but will say that about home; they say I got paddled. In Catholic schools (including until 2001 prohibition in states where permitted) I got the ruler or I got the stick (yardstick). In 1971, recall my Catholic school example of the only African American fifth grade boy in that class (blacks being more often Protestants) was with the paddle that I did not see but heard about. Little did I know that boy would be paddled when I sent him to the office. I felt terrible at the time, perhaps because of my relatively dark color (I was called coon as well as beaver), but feel differently now.
As an aside, without becoming overly redundant, off topic or boring, boring Boring, the only girl (sorry KK), was an over the knee spanking in third grade and even as an eight year old was “fascinated” well before they were no urinals in theirs. perhaps not having a little sister. This was the same girl, with same sister who left without permission and ran to the girl’s lavatory (that’s what they were called at the time) crying because her father was Protestant and she was told they don’t go to heaven. I hope they have a tall fence up so she will never know she was wrong if she ever gets there? Maybe she need a urinal for she was such a Larry 1951 I won’t keep you busy.
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KKxyz3,59957
The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?
I continue my research into the origin of the US school paddle, a device always (?) made of wood. It may or may not be a derivative of the slave, fraternity or household paddle – there is still no clear evidence. The utility household paddle was always wood.
The leather paddle or strap has also featured in the USA especially in prisons and reform schools mainly before and after 1900. I have discovered a fraternity apparently used leather rather than wooden paddles. This may or may not give insight into the original of the fraternity paddle.
My posting above of July 23, 2011, 12:24 AM mentions a fraternity initiation carried out at a local prison. The paddle was not described but is likely to have been leather.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=g_ … 10,3784364
Daily Journal-World, Lawrence, Kansas – Monday 7 October, 1935, page 2, col 2.
Wielder of Leather Paddles Get Razzing Their act didn’t get over so well with crowd
Brothers ward team up
When the K men paddle a freshman that’s not hot news, but when they paddle one of their own members that’s something. Saturday’s football gathering saw many unusual things and along with those they saw a K man get a thrashing at the hands of his brothers.
The K man got the paddle because he doesn’t believe in the old K. U. custom of beating the newcomers. He appeared at the game sans sweater and leather paddle so just to remind him several of the other boys bent him over and pounded him good.
Generally the mob enjoys such a display of arrogance, but they didn’t Saturday and the paddlers got the well-known “bird” from the fans.
Two freshmen who forgot to wear their caps also were given the leather reminder, but paddling the K man didn’t go over as big with the crowd as the boys anticipated.