Innovations in the Discipline of Children

February 03, 2005
From my History of Childhood and Education Reading: In an 1833 book, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody's Record of a School, there is a school teacher who makes his pupils whip him for their own punishment. According to the teacher, "What at first they did it very lightly," Alcott demanded of his weeping pupils "if they thought that they desereved no more punishment thatn that? And so they were obliged to give it hard." Now I wonder if that was an effective disciplinary device. Would that work long term? Would it traumatize some students and turn others into sadists? Or would they all come out pacifists? Any teachers out there want to try this out:-)

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