On Corporal Punishment

1985 NCTE Annual Business Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Background Proposers of this resolution cited numerous organizations which were insisting that all children have the right to a humane education, free from fear and physical punishment.  Informed opinion, they said, maintains that such punishment produces no lasting benefits and can cause serious physical and psychological damage.  Be it therefore Resolution Resolved, that the National Council of Teachers of English condemn cruel, degrading, and humiliating treatment of students and call for an end of physical abuse and corporal punishment of all students in schools and other institutions where they are taught or cared for; and           that NCTE urge school districts and governing boards to provide inservice training in alternative and educationally sound classroom management and humane and just student discipline, and urge colleges of education to require preservice education that includes the same.