At the risk of trying to create some thread balance once again (SSM thread marches on OT...)

Can I make an observation about claims that certain CP policies are effective and work? I will deal with effective first. To be effective surely the aim is to reduce the level of offending to manageable levels. There are two ends of the school behavoural spectrum, those (state sector) usually attended by children of parents from relatively affluent backgrounds to those that cater for children with a proven track record of bad behaviour, such as those that used to be called Approved Schools, later to become EBD (educational and behavioural difficulties) in the UK. If we ignore these and deal with the mean average educational establishment, there would not really be all that many canings taking place (if it were to be re-introduced), providing we reserve the penalty for "serious misbehaviour". Given known male and female 2009 behaviour patterns, there would perhaps be less female offenders than male. This would not amount to a huge number of events where headteachers have to apply the old grey matter in making a decision to cane or not to cane, thereby reducing "risk" to an absolute minimum.

The so called "risks" of "damage" by caning female (or male)students seems to be well over-cooked, I have to admit to being cynical about "research" and "statistics". As a basis for policy neither have covered theselves with glory in recent times. I am curious about what "indicators" researchers have used to indicate a negative effect. Someone on the forum may have inadvertently hit it on the head when they talk about girls being "distressed", I too have seen this effect, but later analysis showed that this was just a girl being awkward in the extreme and using some very well known tactics to avoid punishment (not corporal at my schools). Very often girls would behave in the most outrageous manner towards a teacher precisely because they knew that little could be done about it. How did we know that it wasn't genuine distress? Because of the supercillious smirk on their walk back to their seat! As Jenny has already remarked such behaviour to avoid punishment was just not available to boys and neither would it have been tolerated.

Also, to be assessed as effective, repeat offenders would be minimal. This seems not to be the case, when looking at either old UK punishment books or Dr D's running list. Dr D's regime looks like a script from an old BBC Wack O! programme. One has to ask why? Could it be that the old adage "to be effective CP needs to be sufficiently severe" is not being adhered to? We have some quite contradictory statements from Oz...

"canings here hurt and hurt a lot"
"many boys cry as a result of being caned"
"six of the best will result in about a minute of extreme pain"

On the other hand....
"canings here, even a severe one, will result in only transitory redness of the skin"
"matron on examination of a boys bottom could find no evidence of the previous days caning"
"even six of the best will not result in any welts from the cane"

How on earth does this stack up? Back in the enlightened 60's I was the recipient of a few normal and a more severe caning (outlined in a previous post). Any so called normal caning would leave you marked with welts that would take up to a week to clear (remember that the flesh at a young age marks much more easily and evidence will remain for longer). Communal showering during games lessons revealed that this was quite normal. The more severe caning I received, left me marked for more than three weeks, but was not viewed by my parents or anyone else as being abnormal or cause for complaint. So what really constitutes effective in terms of severity? Given that the goalposts have moved somewhat in the last forty years, (Dr D recognises this), can any worthwhile caning ever be given if we are to avoid the Jimmy Edwards scenario. Those of us on the forum that have had the experience of the cane (sorry A_L) may be able to give opinion based on their own experiences. I don't think for one minute that my experience was out of the ordinary.

Now to deal with the matter of CP working or not. Does society in general and the educational system benefit from its use?
Slightly OT but relevant, the matter of Judicial (and scholastic for that matter) CP in the Far East. Of course they (Singapore and Malaysia) claim that their brutal methods are working. The evidence says otherwise. For an island state with a population only the size of Manchester, they flog thousands every year. Yet their offender figures are no better than other Far Eastern developed countries that do not have such draconian measures. If we were to transpose this to the UK for instance, we would be ankle deep in blood in no time. Away from such extreme regimes, those that still use scholastic CP, Dr D's school for instance, can they really claim that their schools, and their students behaviour are any better than in those where CP has been abolished?

In spite of all the debate, we may be a little closer to a workable consensus. I note Dr D's position moderating slightly to one where his "preferred option" would be one where CP would always remain on the agenda and available for girls at the same time as having a more flexible approach which didn't force a school to cane a boy regardless of circumstance. This has to be much more preferable to one that allows the cane for boys but expressly forbids it for girls. Just because Dr D can show from experience (a little in co-ed terms) and research, that the old blatantly discriminatory policies worked in broad terms, doesn't make them right.

Oliver S

Oliver_s

Given known male and female 2009 behaviour patterns, there would perhaps be less female offenders than male.

What is known? The number of offences or the number of reported offences? One of the "thoughts for the day" that appear when I login to my computer is a quote (I can't remember who by or the precise words but it's something like) "As far as I am aware, there have been no undetected errors in our system."

You might find a school punishment book recording that 10 times as many boys as girls where caned for smoking. Does that mean 10 times as many boys smoked? Many people will presume or claim that it does but, if they looked in at "smokers' corner", they'd see a very different picture.

I have to admit to being cynical about "research" and "statistics".

Great minds etc.

Just because Dr D can show from experience (a little in co-ed terms) and research, that the old blatantly discriminatory policies worked in broad terms, doesn't make them right.

Exactly. Sending children up chimneys worked. Keeping women barefoot, pregnant and chained to the kitchen sink worked. Slavery worked. I doubt many now would claim those practices were right.

Can I make an observation about claims that certain CP policies are effective and work? I will deal with effective first. To be effective surely the aim is to reduce the level of offending to manageable levels. There are two ends of the school behavoural spectrum, those (state sector) usually attended by children of parents from relatively affluent backgrounds to those that cater for children with a proven track record of bad behaviour, such as those that used to be called Approved Schools, later to become EBD (educational and behavioural difficulties) in the UK. If we ignore these and deal with the mean average educational establishment, there would not really be all that many canings taking place (if it were to be re-introduced), providing we reserve the penalty for "serious misbehaviour". Given known male and female 2009 behaviour patterns, there would perhaps be less female offenders than male. This would not amount to a huge number of events where headteachers have to apply the old grey matter in making a decision to cane or not to cane, thereby reducing "risk" to an absolute minimum.

First of all, reintroducing corporal punishment to deal with "serious misbehaviour" is almost certainly a bad idea. Serious misbehaviour is often a sign that there is something significantly wrong in a child's life. There are exceptions to this, but if you want to address the most significant serious misbehaviour, you need to go beyond punishment to solve the problems.

Corporal punishment is most effective when used with mid-level misbehaviour. Not trivial matters, but not the most serious matters either. Part of the reason why corporal punishment came to be viewed as ineffective in many cases during the 1970s and 1980s is because some schools were restricting its use more and more to the type of situation that doesn't work.

Yes, part of the aim of corporal punishment is to reduce the level of offending to manageable levels. This is most effectively done when it used to reduce the incidence of mid level offences. That reduces the amount of time spent dealing with these mid level issues, and leaves that extra time available to deal with the exceptional and serious cases.

The so called "risks" of "damage" by caning female (or male)students seems to be well over-cooked,

I don't believe they are.

I'm not a softie. I'm not the type of person who worries about reports that children are suffering existential angst because their tamagotchi died. I'm not the type of person who worries about research that tells me boys have a three percent higher chance of circling the sad face on the mood chart instead of the happy face on the mood chart, if they play more than two hours of X-Box a day. I'm not the type of person who worries about studies that claim a 3 point IQ drop if corporal punishment is used. For me to be concerned about what the data is showing us with regards to corporal punishment of girls versus the corporal punishment of boys, we are talking large effect sizes and significant negative consequences. And we're talking about effects we can see in over a dozen studies going back over 30 years including studies that weren't looking at this type of issue at all, but where the data is available so we can analyse it to see what it tells us.

I have to admit to being cynical about "research" and "statistics". As a basis for policy neither have covered theselves with glory in recent times.

Speaking as an educator, the only decent basis for policy I have seen in education is research based. The vast majority of problems in education are caused when policy is set based on political ideology and nothing else. That's why this issue is important - because the whole argument about 'equality' is a political and ideological argument. We never get decent results when that is the primary drive behind educational policy. I haven't seen it once in fifty years. There's nothing wrong with the ideology or political belief being a starting principle ("We want genuine gender equality - what can we do that will actually achieve it in reality, not just in theory?") but it can't be the overall criteria for assessment.

The clearest example of this that I can point to, is the fact that there's a growing body of research suggesting co-education is less effective as a form of education for both boys and girls and that it leads to greater differences in performance (as well as underperformance) than single sex schooling does. Co-education has some social advantages (at least when done well) but educationally speaking, it creates more differences between the genders than anything else.

I am curious about what "indicators" researchers have used to indicate a negative effect. Someone on the forum may have inadvertently hit it on the head when they talk about girls being "distressed",

No, they haven't. 'Distress' is not one of the factors that is considered in the research, The negative effects that are being looked at are (and this is not an exhaustive list), levels of serious aggression, behavioural problems, psychopathology, hostility, antisocial pathology, attachment issues, and substance abuse.

Also, to be assessed as effective, repeat offenders would be minimal. This seems not to be the case, when looking at either old UK punishment books or Dr D's running list.

Well, I don't know what you are looking at.

As I said the other day, the last time I did a full analysis was 2006. Of our outgoing sixth form that year, about 70% had been caned in their six years in the school. Of that approximately 70%, over half had only been caned once. 94% had been caned three times or less. Only about 6% of boys who had been caned had been caned more than 3 times in six years. That indicates to me a high level of success - especially over half only being caned once.

Dr D's regime looks like a script from an old BBC Wack O! programme.

We have over 1000 students in the school. We generally have somewhere around 1000 recorded disciplinary incidents a year. Only a distinct minority of those lead to the use of corporal punishment.

As somebody who was teaching in the era of "Whacko!", there was much, much more caning going in a lot of schools back then than we have now. I don't believe our 'regime' is anything like that. We also record things a lot better now.

has to ask why? Could it be that the old adage "to be effective CP needs to be sufficiently severe" is not being adhered to? We have some quite contradictory statements from Oz...

Contradictory? No, they just reflect the fact that not all canings are identical. Most canings today do not result in significant marking - that's not absolutely always true, but it is generally the case. Are they as painful as they used to be? I can't say for certain, but my view is they are as about as acutely painful as they were in the past, but there are less chronic effects. By observation, I have little doubt that boys find them painful enough to be effective.

How on earth does this stack up? Back in the enlightened 60's I was the recipient of a few normal and a more severe caning (outlined in a previous post). Any so called normal caning would leave you marked with welts that would take up to a week to clear (remember that the flesh at a young age marks much more easily and evidence will remain for longer). Communal showering during games lessons revealed that this was quite normal. The more severe caning I received, left me marked for more than three weeks, but was not viewed by my parents or anyone else as being abnormal or cause for complaint. So what really constitutes effective in terms of severity? Given that the goalposts have moved somewhat in the last forty years, (Dr D recognises this), can any worthwhile caning ever be given if we are to avoid the Jimmy Edwards scenario. Those of us on the forum that have had the experience of the cane (sorry A_L) may be able to give opinion based on their own experiences. I don't think for one minute that my experience was out of the ordinary.

No, it wasn't. That's how I was caned. And it's how I caned for a long time. But I am of the opinion now that those canings were more severe than they needed to be to be effective. Why?

Because there is a limit to the amount of pain the human body can comprehend at any moment. I have actually made some study of the physiology of pain, though I'm far from an expert, but I have talked to experts about it. Basically once the nociceptors (the pain receptors of the body) have been fully triggered, it doesn't matter how much more force is applied, there will not be any more pain. A full bodied blow with a cane will overload the nociceptors to that level, but so will a much less severe stroke. The acute pain is the same from a stroke that leaves some temporary marking, and a stroke that causes severe bruising. There is a difference when it comes to longer term pain, certainly - bruises can hurt for days or weeks. Personally, my view is that that type of chronic pain is largely unnecessary and has little punitive value. Even back when a caning left me marked for weeks (and that did happen), the vast majority of the pain was gone in minutes. And it was that pain that lasted only a short period of time that made the difference to my behaviour certainly. And seems to with my pupils.

Now to deal with the matter of CP working or not. Does society in general and the educational system benefit from its use?
Slightly OT but relevant, the matter of Judicial (and scholastic for that matter) CP in the Far East. Of course they (Singapore and Malaysia) claim that their brutal methods are working. The evidence says otherwise. For an island state with a population only the size of Manchester, they flog thousands every year. Yet their offender figures are no better than other Far Eastern developed countries that do not have such draconian measures. If we were to transpose this to the UK for instance, we would be ankle deep in blood in no time. Away from such extreme regimes, those that still use scholastic CP, Dr D's school for instance, can they really claim that their schools, and their students behaviour are any better than in those where CP has been abolished?

Yes, I believe we can. My school has far less disciplinary incidents than most other boys schools of our size - including other schools with generally similar characteristics to our own. Our students also show in surveys (done independently of the school) that they feel safer here than in most schools, that they feel less class time is wasted by misbehaviour from other students than in most schools (and teachers who are also surveyed concur on that point). We have significantly levels of student injury due to fights, bullying than most schools (our accident rate is similar - personally I think that's because we also encourage more physical activity than most, but I can't prove that). We expel much much less, we suspend much much less. What we do works - and corporal punishment is part of what we do.

Doctor Dominum



'Distress' is not one of the factors that is considered in the research, The negative effects that are being looked at are (and this is not an exhaustive list), levels of serious aggression, behavioural problems, psychopathology, hostility, antisocial pathology, attachment issues, and substance abuse.

How does that explain the rapidly increasing incidence of those effects among girls who attended schools after the abolition of CP? Such things were almost unheard of in the days when girls were just as liable to be caned as boys. Many of those problems were also found among boys, but not so much girls, when boys were liable to be caned but girls we less likely to be.

By observation, I have little doubt that boys find them painful enough to be effective.

I found mine to be quite painful enough too, thank you. They were certainly painful enough to have a beneficial effect.

Our students also show in surveys (done independently of the school) that they feel safer here than in most schools, that they feel less class time is wasted by misbehaviour from other students than in most schools (and teachers who are also surveyed concur on that point). We have significantly levels of student injury due to fights, bullying than most schools (our accident rate is similar - personally I think that's because we also encourage more physical activity than most, but I can't prove that). We expel much much less, we suspend much much less. What we do works - and corporal punishment is part of what we do.

Much like my school. We didn't have many female bullies either - unlike some.

Dr dominum writes


Distress' is not one of the factors that is considered in the research, The negative effects that are being looked at are (and this is not an exhaustive list), levels of serious aggression, behavioural problems, psychopathology, hostility, antisocial pathology, attachment issues, and substance abuse.

Jenny replies

How does that explain the rapidly increasing incidence of those effects among girls who attended schools after the abolition of CP? Such things were almost unheard of in the days when girls were just as liable to be caned as boys. Many of those problems were also found among boys, but not so much girls, when boys were liable to be caned but girls we less likely to be.


I think Jenny this comes back to the interface of socialization , and power relations in the school and society in general . Its chicken and egg. Do we learn as a blank canvas, or is the background inscribed and necessary to make sense of our environment? If I whack you with my cane there are issues ranging from legitimacy to social power all of which are woken up alongside your poor old nociceptors!!!

If power relations are involved, how and in what was are the lines of flux distributed and disseminated ? Thereafter we are in the battle between social theory , clinical psychology and social psychology.........as they say in Texas ' way to go guys'