The paddle was and is used in both elementary and high schools in parts of the US South. School boards dominated by parents and female teachers (“schoolmarms”) may have had an important role in popularizing the paddle in elementary schools (emulating domestic or home punishments).  Sports coaches may have influenced the practice in high schools from about 1910 onwards when sport became part of the curriculum, possibly emulating college fraternity, sports team and military practice.

In the half century from 1880 to 1930 the American high school was transformed from an elite, private institution into a public one attended by the children of the masses. In 1880, less than 3 percent of the national high school age population was enrolled in high school. By 1930, some 47 percent of the nation’s children of high school age were enrolled in public secondary schools. The proportion was smaller in the South with Blacks were largely excluded until the 1920s.  Many of the first Black high schools focused on trade skills rather than academic studies.

It is likely the high school paddle became established in white high schools during this period of growth.

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is a sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Education responsible for enforcing Federal laws prohibiting discrimination. The OCR, which was founded in 1966, collects and publishes statistics based on data of uncertain and likely variable reliability supplied by individual school districts. The information includes the proportions of male and female students of different races, with and without disabilities, who are expelled, suspended or spanked (= “disciplined”).

The discrepancies in punishment rates seem to be taken as evidence of discrimination rather than of disparities in behavior, needs or of cultural expectations.  It is assumed that those paddled do not benefit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_for_Civil_Rights

Parents had and have more control of US schools than parents in other jurisdictions. They likely favoured the use of customary domestic punishments over those borrowed from elsewhere.

High school sports coaches had and have a big involvement in the US South. I have discussed this above in a number of recent posts.

Those under pressure often “double down”* rather than change their practices or beliefs, especially if they feel insecure.

* Strengthen one’s commitment to a particular strategy or course of action, typically one that is potentially risky or dubious..

Migrants tend to bring their customs, traditions and practices with them. These may or may not meld with those of the receiving community depending on how well the existing inhabitants (if any) are established and the degree of assimilation with them.

Did the proclivity to paddle school children in suspension-adverse rural Texas arrive with migrants or did it develop organically after their arrival? Who were the first settlers to arrive in numbers?
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Texas declared its independence from Mexico in 1836 and became a State of the USA in 1845. Attracted by the rich lands for cotton plantations and ranching, tens of thousands of immigrants started arriving from other parts of the U.S, and from Germany. The Germans were a disparate lot.

East Texas became an extension of the Deep South, settled by “old stock” Anglo-Americans from Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana, pro-paddle states.

Central and Northern Texas, by contrast, were peopled mainly by “Upper” Southerners, especially Tennesseans, Missourians and Arkansans.

West Texas was settled a little later, largely by migrants from the eastern half of the state.

Texas planters established cotton plantations in the eastern districts and used slaves. The central area of the state was developed more by subsistence farmers who seldom owned slaves.

Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt (a professor of social psychology at the University of Virginia) studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we’re left, right or center.

Liberals and conservatives demonstrate large differences in openness to experience and new ideas.

The newborn’s mind comes with much organization prior to experience, although that organization is plastic and molded by experience.

·         1. Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm

·         2. Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating

·         3. Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal

·         4. Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion

·         5. Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation

Conservatives tend to value the five domains relatively equally. Liberals, in contrast, value the first two domains much more than the latter three.

The degree to which moral and political values are genetically inherited rather than inculcated by the family or community is unclear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory

Post #690, 27 June 2017
viewtopic.php?f=198833&t=2749&p=45192

DMP’s liberty foundation is a sixth item added to Haidt list as explained in the Wikipedia article whose hyperlink is given above. It is not to be confused with various organizations called Liberty Foundation.

Newspaper articles such as the following from 1906 are interesting in a number of ways.

The two cases below were judged by the editor to be of a sufficient novelty to be worth publishing. However, readers were apparently familiar with the spanking paddle and its use not to need these to be explained or justified. Ditto, the beneficiaries (those spanked).

The reports are positive and pro-paddling.

News of threatened paddling crossed state lines (Ga to Tx).

The court and police borrowed paddling from parental use at home. Schools likely did likewise.
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The Waxahachie Daily Light (Texas) Col. 4, page 1, 20 July 1906

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-1/

Keeps Order with a Paddle
Noisy Boys, not Impressed by Threat, Flinch from Spanking
 
Atlanta, Ga., July 20. -A unique method of preserving order and ridding Whitehall street of the noisy Fourth of July firecracker was adopted by Policeman Berry, who does duty in that busy thoroughfare
 
Numbers of small boys imbued with the idea that Whitehall  street was the proper place to shoot firecrackers and make other Fourth of July noises and the fun started early in the day. Policeman Berry realised that he had a job on his hands and ne sought a plan by which he hoped to most effectively rid the street of the disturbance.
 
Finally, bright idea flitted into his brain. Going to a fireworks stand in procured a piece of board and converted it into a hefty looking paddle. And then armed with this new weapon of police warfare; he started out on a crusade.
 
Wielding the paddle, the officer informed the small boys what they might expect if they shot any fireworks in the street. This warning had more effect than a threat to arrest. The boys feared the paddle and they fled. It was necessary for the officer to touch up only one or two of the little fellows lightly to impress on them the meaning of his threat
 
The paddle crusade worked so successfully Officer Berry was not compelled to enter a case against any of the boys for shooting

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Daily Public Ledger, Page 1, 25 October 1906. (Maysville, Kentucky)

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-1/

HOPEFUL SPECIMENS
 
Two Young Street Arabs Get a Good Paddling Yesterday
 
There was another spanking bee yesterday afternoon in the room in the rear of the Police Judge’s Court.
 
The youthful subjects were Parker Combess and Everslade Thomas, whose fathers applied the paddle in a vigorous manner.
 
Though small and delicate, and not ever eight years old, they have at this early stage in life earned the reputation of being holy terrors and toughs and a pest to the neighborhood in which they reside. They are the same two who, about a year ago, forced an entrance to a poor woman’s home in West Second street and wantonly destroyed her household effects as well as a week’s supply of groceries, and for that offense they also received a good spanking.
 
According to stories told by the Police their misconduct and petty thefts have been numerous and of wide range. They are regular street Arabs and have been permitted to roam at will without parental restraint.
 
There are numerous other lads of tender age who may be found any day in the week aimlessly roaming the streets, picking up evil knowledge and adapting the manner of life of elder bums and corner loafers.
 
There are a few cases, perhaps, where the conditions are such that the father is not altogether responsible for the neglect of his child, and in that event he is unfortunate and deserving of pity.
 
Whose fault is it that all such as above mentioned are not in school acquiring the rudiments of an education?
 
The law has wisely provided for a Truant Officer whose duty it is to seek after just such subjects. Such an Officer would clear the streets of their presence and increase the number attending school.

Other cities of less wealth and population than Maysville are experiencing the benefits arising from the presence of such an Officer. How is it this city is deficient in the matter, when the law in regard to the same is imperative?