Teachers should be allowed to discipline students, eg use a ruler for a cane.

First and foremost, we need to identify and evaluate the tools of discipline/education that a teacher in our present day has at their disposal. There are, as a matter of fact, a considerable amount of ways in which a teacher can address his/her student's misconduct: 1. Warning - if a student were ever to do something that is not aligned with school policy, the teacher would inform the student of their misbehavior firsthand, and then cautiously demand the student to stop before he or she gets into further trouble. 2. Referral - a teacher would write a student up if they continue to be school inappropriate. This paper is then given to the principal or assistant principal, where then the student is called down to receive counseling or further punishment. 3. Detention (In School Suspension) - disciplinary action in which a student is placed in a designated area for a certain period time either during school, after school, or during the weekends. While in detention, a student is required to do homework, think about their actions retrospectively, be very very bored, etc. 4. Lunch Duty - similar to detention but instead of staying in a classroom, a student has to walk around with a trash bin to pick up other students' garbage and uneaten food in the cafeteria. 5. Suspension - this punishment is given to a student if the infraction that they've done was quite reprehensible. They are mandated to be excluded from school grounds for a period time, from days to weeks. 6. Expulsion - the most serious disciplinary action of them all, expelling a student involves permanently withdrawing said delinquent from the school and sometimes, terminating the student's educational career completely. As you can see, there are several important details that can be drawn from the list. For one thing, there is more than one kind of disciplinary action. Teachers are not left defenseless in dealing with children without the use of corporal punishment. Another thing to note is that the further you go up in the line of punishments, the more serious they get. There is a trend and system available to a teacher so that he or she can choose how many or which punishment to use for each specific student or situation. For instance, say you have a student that talks out of turn in class. The reasonable thing to do is to give that student a warning and if the student doesn't stop, then you can enact further discipline. If there was however, a student who brought a gun or some other lethal weapon to school, then you skip the first five actions altogether and expel that student. I don't think how that second one would go down exactly, but you get my point. With these punishments and the differences between their levels of harshness, a teacher is more capable of looking at individual students and see what kind and arrangement of punishment is right for that student. In addition to the variety of discipline, there is also the issue of contemporary culture and the increased value of humanitarian ideals. From ancient times to the mid 20th century, corporal punishment was a culturally accepted from the household to the schoolyard, to the prison cells. It was tradition that any person who took an authority role was allowed to use physical punishment on people below their status or age. However, our current way of life and philosophy is very different from those prior. Back then, hierarchies were established for survival and efficiency. They needed things like feudalism and slavery to ensure societal maintenance .To make sure these systems and forms of government didn't deviate, they had to command with an iron fist, which meant barbarism and yes, physical punishment. During feudal times, civilizations didn't have the time to think about the minor "right or wrong" issues, as they were too busy fighting plagues and warding off sea raiders. It wasn't until the Renaissance that people began to delve into art, academics, and philosophy. Transitioning to colonial times, Enlightenment ideas were spreading like wildfire across the Western Hemisphere. These ideas were composed of thoughts and notions that spoke of equality for all and for everyone to be on the same grounds of humanity and opportunity. We, as developed countries, are on a course towards a future in which everyone wants to be the same. Its unrealistic, I know, for everyone can't be the same. It would be nice for society to stop at a limit, one that would prevent those radical liberals from causing anarchism, but given our Western Culture and liberal way of thinking, implementing corporal punishment in the education system would simply not work. Could they have worked if we changed our path of societal development? Maybe. I'll talk about how Eastern culture is successful or seems successful in their use of physical punishment in the next round. My last point is efficacy. Referring back to my first point, in order for punishments to be effective, they need to have the capacity to be both flexible and strict. A teacher must be able to change the level of punishment from lenient to harsh, at a moment's notice. If a teacher were to use corporal punishment, how will he or she regulate the severity of the punishment so that it can be suitable for that specific situation? Do they change the amount of pain to inflict on a child? (I just cringed while typing that, BTW). Is the number of strikes determined by how serious the infraction was? These regulations and assessments within the range of corporal punishment cannot be physically observed by the teacher or the school. How would they now that 10 strikes is fair for cursing in class when they can't precisely observe the effect of the punishment. Yeah, the kid could be crying and bruised, but how much more would it be different from 15 or 20 strikes or even near to the point of bleeding? There's also the issue of the educational aspect of corporal punishment. If a kid spoke out of turn and the punishment was 1 or 2 strikes, does the punishment help the student improve their character? No, because there is no thought or instruction behind the punishment. The teacher just hits the student, expecting the student to not break the rules. And because the student deosn't learn from the experience, he'll do it again and will be struck another blow. Corporal punishment is polarized; it can be either very psychologically and physically traumatic or just annoying and fruitless. And dont get me started on the difference between the physicality among teachers. Would it be fair if one kid get hits by a male teacher and a kid in another class to gets hit by a female teacher? I don't think so.