- checking login information
Loading...Can It Still Be True: Child Abuse at School?
Most parents, and indeed most teachers and students, see schools as a safe haven. Not so for one special education child at a Texas high school.
Fourteen-year-old Cedric was a student in a special education classroom in Texas in 2002. After years of neglect and malnutrition, the youngster had been taken in by a foster family. On this particular day, Cedric didn’t feel like doing his work, and to discipline him, his teacher chose to delay his lunch. Infuriated by his lack of cooperation, the teacher also put him in a face-down restraint and sat on him in front of the class. As U.S. Representatives George Miller(D- California) and Cathy McMorris (R-Washington) explain: “Cedric said repeatedly that he could not breathe. He died minutes later on the classroom floor.”
This is not an isolated incident. According to a Government Accountability Office report issued in May, over the last twenty years there have been hundreds of allegations of school personnel using restraint and seclusion in abusive ways on children, many of them students with disabilities. (The practices are meant to be used in emergencies when the students are a danger to themselves or others.)
“Something is very wrong when our children are at risk in their own classrooms,” said Miller, the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “In some cases, the abuses these kids are suffering are nothing short of torture inflicted at the hands of the very staff we entrust with their safety.” For this reason, Miller and McMorris on December 9 introduced into the House of Representatives legislation to regulate the use of restraint and seclusion in schools, while Senator Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) proposed a similar law in the Senate.
Until now, there have been no federal laws to prevent this child abuse at schools. The Children’s Health Act of 2000 regulates how and when restraint and seclusion can be used in medical settings and community facilities, but classrooms are not covered. And state protections for students are all over the map. Education in the U.S. has been largely a matter for individual states, not a federal issue.
Astonishingly, twenty states in the U.S. still allow paddling of children with a wooden paddle for discipline in school.
What’s wrong with the education system in this country? Every industrialized country in the world now prohibits school corporal punishment, except the U.S. and Australia. (In Outback regions only) Yet here, not only do twenty states permit corporal punishment in public schools, but in the 2006 – 2007 school year, 223,190 school children in the U.S. were subjected to physical punishment. And that’s just the cases that were reported.
As the National Assocation of School Psychologists states, “Corporal punishment negatively affects the social, psychological, and educational development of students and contributes to the cycle of child abuse and pro-violence attitudes of youth.” Shouldn’t this be a no-brainer for anyone involved in education?
It’s a sad statement on the U.S. that there has to be a school law banning the use of mechanical restraints, prohibiting the use of restraints that restrict breathing, and forbidding staff members to deny students water, food, clothing, or access to toilet facilities in order to control behavior. But at least we can thank Representatives Miller and McMorris, and Senator Dodd, for introducing this legislation that will begin to address this issue, by outlawing the worst cases. And then we can wonder: what do educators think they are achieving by physically abusing a child?
A school discipline policy should be designed to guarantee the safey of students and staff, create an effective learning environment, foster respect for others, and teach students how to resolve conflicts.
Corporal punishment achieves none of these goals, so why is it still around?
What do you think should be done to deal with this?
Read more: abuse, challenged, child abuse, corporal punishment, education, school discipline
Suat Eman/FreeDigitalPhotos.net danobrienmuzika via flickr/creative commons
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
Recent Comments from Causes
Didn't think Death Valley would be #1, but it is. Thanks for the story.
Bless them all, dogs and their beloved owners.
Did I miss something ?where and how is it art?? to slowly slit a poor animals throat? he must be a rotten…
meet our writers
147 comments
+ add your ownI've volunteered many hours in group homes for the most mentally ill/emotionally disturbed children in the state of Pennsylvania, and in one of those group homes use of mechanical restraints was common. It was very well regulated, but it was still very common. Then I spoke to someone at an equivilant facility in NY, who said they do not use restraints unless a child is being an immediate threat to their own safety, or the safety of someone else. These are kids who are much more mentally ill than anyone you're going to find in a public school. And they use no corporal punishment and virturally no restraints. It can, and must, be done like that everywhere.
SCHOOL PADDLING IS JUST SO WRONG!
The schools that still do this are saying its ok to hit or kill your kid, if the police was to take me to court I just say its ok to do this a school, so why not at home?
Guys it is 2010 get you act together!
sad that what´s said
child abuse is not the best way to make children become obedient! sometimes, the extreme method causes adverse effects. i think it is cruel to treat children like this. children are very vulnerable. child abuse must not be the only or the best way to educate. thanks for this article!
this is sad
By saying Child Abuse is happening in schools, I find educators take offence. Why? When you hear about child abuse in a home, do you take offence? Child Abuse DOES happen in schools just as it can happen in a home. Not every school just as much as it is not every home. Not every parent, just as much as it isn't every teacher. By taking offence, you make it about you and not the child it is happening to. By taking offence, you are denying its occurrence. Your feelings of defensiveness are more important than what is happening to the child. I find educators say nothing about what they see because they themselves may get in trouble from their peers/ administrators. Child abuse in schools is hidden. I find educators have nothing to fall back in terms of tools and strategies to manage behaviour since the strap went out. When behaviour is out of control in a classroom, abuse may happen simply due to frustration, the same reason abuse happens in homes. Keep in mind that abuse is not just physical & sexual, both types that people conjure up in their minds when they hear abuse. It is yelling, isolation, exclusion, public put-downs (making examples of a child) and just plain NOT TEACHING a child what they need to know to become healthy happy contributing members of society.
Child abuse in schools is not just physical. I started a cause on facebook "Stop Child Abuse in Schools" because my son with Autism was not TAUGHT. When an educator does not teach, that is neglect as much as it is if a parent doesn't provide care for their child. When that same educator is provided with training, specific curriculum, recommendations from professionals in the field of the disability, strategies and tools to teach that child and STILL do not teach...that is WILFUL neglect. That educator has now made a conscious decision to not teach. Due to the impact education or lack of education has on ANY child's current and future life...I see this as abuse.
I am a teacher in Australia and have been teaching for 18 years. Corporal punishment has not been allowed under any circumstance throughout my career. I have not heard that this is different in outback areas as your article states - i find it hard to believe that it would be happening anywhere in Australia. I should point out that I, as the teacher, have been subjected to name calling (words that shocked even me!), and I have been spat at, kicked and punched by students (in Kindergarten!!). I have also been hit by flying furniture as i put myself in front of the other children in the class to protect them from being hit!
Hitting children teaches them that hitting is acceptable behavior. Hitting children shows children how to terrify other children, and later, as they get older, other adults.
Teaching children that violence solves problems is a big lie. Humankind has been doing it for centuries, and it STILL IS NOT working. When will we learn?
login to add your comment
use your care2 login
add your comment