Teachers given cane go-ahead at Bundaberg Christian College
By Ainsley Pavey
Sunday Mail (Brisbane)
March 29, 2009 12:00am

THE cane is still being wielded at some Queensland schools where parents sign legal waivers to give teachers the power to hit their children.

The corporal punishment option is offered at some of the state's fastest-growing independent schools as part of their strict behaviour management strategies. Religious beliefs are used to justify discipline at some schools.

With more than 55,000 suspensions handed out at state schools last financial year - a jump of more than 20 per cent in two years - Independent Schools Queensland has reported growing support for private schools catering for the "disengaged and at-risk" school sector.

Bundaberg Christian College principal Mark Bensley said corporal punishment had become a drawcard for some parents because of a "lack of boundaries" at other schools.

"A growing number of parents come to our school and say the school got their attention because it uses the paddle," Mr Bensley said.

"If they choose to not sign it (the waiver), they are not refused enrolment. But a very significant majority of parents sign because they like that we understand the need for boundaries, fairness and consistency."

Mr Bensley said the plastic paddle - shaped like a table-tennis bat - was a "last resort" when suspensions, detentions and warnings had failed.

The school, which has 600 students in Prep to Year 12, gave the paddle 10 times last year and seven times in 2007, he said.

"I would never use the paddle unless we have spoken to both parents and have their blessing for it to be used," Mr Bensley said.

"It is always administered in a loving way. In fact, we pray with them afterwards."

Corporal punishment was banned in state schools in 1995 by a decision of Cabinet but was not written into law. Parents, teachers or guardians are allowed to use "reasonable force" in disciplining children.

The 109-year-old law was applied in a case involving a Gold Coast high school teacher last year who was acquitted on an assault charge after he admitted slapping a Year 8 student.

But State Attorney-General Cameron Dick warned that Section 208 of the law that relates to the matter was "by no means a carte blanche authority for teachers to use physical force to manage students".

Colin Krueger, principal of Mueller College at Rothwell on Brisbane's northern outskirts, said the school used the cane at the request of parents.

Parents are asked to sign a consent form as part of enrolment which gives teachers the power to use "firm but fair" discipline "administered in a spirit of love according to Proverbs 13.24, 22:6 and 22:15", which promote the "rod of discipline" to "correct the foolishness raging in every child".

Mr Krueger, principal of the school for 19 years, said using the cane on a child "depended on the circumstances".

"If kids are persistent and we have tried every other avenue, it will be administered if parents request it. We haven't used it for a couple of years," he said.

"I've had many kids come back to me and say 'Thank you for giving me the cane'."

After the interview with Mr Krueger, the school's board of directors contacted The Sunday Mail and said the cane had been banned at the school because of "negative publicity" but declined to say when the decision had been made.

Caloundra Christian College also has a strict disciplinary policy. What the school calls "corporal correction" is followed by a time of "restoration and prayer".

ISQ acting executive director David Robertson said behaviour management policies were a matter for schools.

"Discipline policies are developed by schools in consultation with their parent communities," he said.

Several parents of students at Mueller College told The Sunday Mail they supported the school's discipline policy.

"The school does do a good job. Problems are quickly sorted out," parent Julie Wilden said. "We had it (the cane) when we were kids at school and it never hurt us."

Spokesmen for Catholic Education and Brisbane Anglican Schools said corporal punishment was banned at their schools.

Principal Mark Bensley and pupils celebrate the appointment of a new Carrier of the Cane.

There seems to be a bit of confusion here. Towards the end of the report it says the school no longer uses corporal punishment. Furthermore did they use a cane or a paddle, both are mentioned.

It is good news that the pupils are in favour, I'm sure most pupils would prefer a return to corporal punishment as long as it was used fairly as seems to be the case here.

From Prospectus, page 11. Corporal
punishment by paddle or cane will be given in private, though the fact they have been
so dealt with will not necessarily be secret.

http://www.bcc.net.au/dmdocuments/2008/Prospectus%202008.pdf

A tennis bat, is that what we here call a ping pong paddle? Crocodile Dundee: You call that a knife? You call that a paddle?

I've never cared for religious rationale as opposed to order and respect motivated CP. The Nuns never did it under that pretext nor do Hebrew schools where the Book of Proverbs and the Hebrew Scriptures, whole spre the rod mentality comes from. I imagine some of that componet of fundamental protestantism is operative in the popularity of this form of domestic punishment and "christian" school thinking and may account for parental approval for it in Southern public school but it isn't a part of the stated reasons in public school handbooks that are order and respect motivated.

It could be the cane on the hand and the paddle on the bottom?

I think the possible confusion over whether paddle or cane is used arises because there is more than one school mentioned in the report. The state of play according to the article appears to be:

• Bundaberg Christian College: Has used the paddle (plastic table tennis bat type) fairly infrequently for some years and is continuing to do so. Despite the title of the article I can see no actual reference in it to this school either switching to the cane or bringing it in as an additional means of punishment. Some people, possibly including the author of the article, refer to all school corporal punishment as 'the cane'.
  
  
• Mueller College at Rothwell: The Principal, Mr Krueger, said the school used the cane ocasionally on parental request. Subsequently the school's Board of Directors said the cane wasn't used due to 'adverse publicity'. The moral of the story is never trust a reporter and never talk to the media under any circumstances, which you'd expect a man who'd been a school Principal for 19 years to have known!
  
  
• Caloundra Christian College has a 'strict discipline policy' and sometimes uses 'corporal correction'.

In my book only one of the named spokespersons emerged with any credit from the article. That's David Robertson, acting executive director of ISQ (presumably Independent Schools of Queensland?) who said 'Discipline policies are developed by schools in consultation with their parent communities', or in other words, mind your own darn business. Everybody else, including the quoted parent, should have had the sense to keep their mouths firmly closed.

American Way, I am in full agreement with you regarding the religious element. I agree entirely with the use of school CP, at least up to age 14 or so. However if CP is to be used it should be because the school or parent believes that in the context it will be effective with that particular child. It shouldn't be used just because the Bible says so. The idea of praying with a child after beating him or her I find, for some reason I can't quite define, rather objectionable.

I'm not happy with your 'Crocodile Dundee' dismissal of the plastic 'ping pong' paddle. It is described as 'shaped like a table-tennis bat'. The dimensions are not stated. It could in fact have an 'impact area' two feet in diameter and an inch thick, though I certainly hope it doesn't! In any event, even if it is fairly small and light the school may feel that merely imposing the enforced humiliating ritual of CP on a child is a sufficient short sharp shock without causing too much damage or pain. I certainly wouldn't disagree with that principle.

Rather than cause Mr Turing extra work I have to say that after a re-read I can still see nothing in the article (other than the title) which specifically says that Bundaberg Christian College uses the cane. However, as I now note American Way says, the school's prospectus does indeed say that both cane and paddle are used. My guess would be a light-weight paddle for younger children and the cane for older children, but of course the implement may vary with the offence.

The prospectus is clearly dated 2008, so I am puzzled why an article dated 29 March 2009 should be titled 'Teachers given cane go-ahead at Bundaberg Christian College'. Even if (as is I suppose possible) the cane was only introduced for the 2008 academic year, I'd still prefer a newspaper to be rather less than 15 months behind with its reporting of events!

In my earlier post I was tempted to comment less than respectfully on the hats worn by both Principal and pupils in Big John's photograph. I am glad that I didn't. Living in the UK it is easy to forget that there are parts of the world where these precautions are essential, as a note at the bottom of page 11 of the prospectus very explicitly states. For those looking for the corporal punishment notes in the prospectus they are not, as American Way states, on page 11, that's where the hat note is. Instead you will find discussion of paddle and cane on page 13.

The hat issue is a fairly contentious one in schools here. Nearly all primary schools now require children (and staff as well as a good example) to wear hats outside in summer. With the high rate of skin cancer in Australia, it really is a serious health issue in the summer. And we're constantly being told by the experts that this practice should spread into secondary schools, but a lot of secondary schools are really having a hard time dealing with this issue. Queensland is, in a sense, lucky (New South Wales is too, to a somewhat more limited extent). The fact that they are much hotter than the southern states meant more schools have retained hats as part of their uniform without interruption. Here in Victoria, nearly all independent secondary schools used to require hats as part of their uniform until the late 1960s or early 1970s, but they were then abandoned by nearly all schools. Reintroducing them is much harder than if we'd retained them.

For a lot of schools, the issue is that they believe their students would simply refuse to wear them. Schools where discipline is already a problem don't want to start another battle with the students that failure to win would simply further undermine discipline. For other schools (mine included) we're pretty confident we could persuade our students to wear hats (although we're not sure we'd like the extra tension that might create), but our question is what type of hats to introduce. The hats that kids are more likely to tolerate wearing easily are fairly modern, fairly casual designs that most definitely do not go with our traditional uniforms. But going back to the old style of hats - well, frankly, even a traditionalist like myself thinks they'd be slightly over the top. And then there are other issues - children who ride bikes to school need to wear helmets, nowadays - they didn't have to last time we had school hats.

It's not an easy issue.

The last time I visited Melbourne, I remember taking the tram from Bundoora into town, and being surprised when a posse (that's the only way I can describe it!) of ticket inspectors boarded. Looking back, I don't think the surprise was caused so much by the fact of there being an inspection, or indeed of the inspectors' aggressive approach to their task, but rather by the "cowboy hats" that they were wearing. This was in the winter time (and, I think, three years ago -- it was at the time of the Great Banana Shortage) but I don't remember too many other people wearing hats.

The point of this rather discursive ramble is that the wearing of hats, like any other choice of clothing, is largely culturally determined. And schoolkids are particularly tuned in to culture. If you want to gets the kids to wear hats, have a campaign for everyone to wear hats, and get the main role models signed up for the advertisement campaign. It's cool to wear a hat!

Oh, by the way: Another_Lurker, don't worry too much about my workload. My to-do list is processed on the RIRO principle (random in, random out)!

Hi Alan Turing. You say:

don't worry too much about my workload. My to-do list is processed on the RIRO principle (random in, random out)!

Oh dear, that's yet another thing we have in common! Sadly I sometimes get taken to task for it. Very gently though, 'cos I'm usually doing favours for free. Last night my posting here was interrupted by no less than two phone calls tentatively enquiring about outstanding bits of web sites. Happily the RIRO principle means that I don't have to do anything about them until they randomly reach the top of the random pile.