The 'Ungovernable'

By GEORGE OSTROM

Am alarmed at growing number of calls from schools to police for help with “ungovernable” juveniles. Montana now has a law against corporal punishment of students no matter how “out of control” they are. The only time a teacher can even touch a student is when it is deemed “necessary for the protection of the student, teacher or other students.” Such “placing of hands” must be done in a “reasonable manner.” That is the Montana law. There is not a Federal Law to that effect, With that background, let us recall my column from Feb. 22, 1989, before the “ungovernable problem” got so bad:

One of the fastest fights I saw in grade school was at Camas Prairie my first year, 1934. It was between the principal and a 17 year old seventh grader. Some of the details are hazy, but as I recall, the six foot student only got in one punch. The best right thrown by the super knocked the student over a row of desks and put an end to the fracas. After that, there was just the business of tossing the kid out in the yard where his horse was tied.

Principals at schools in those days often seemed to be hired more on their ability to defend themselves than for knowledge of readin’ writin’ and ‘rithmetic. The point was clear, “Either You Come to School to Behave and Learn Something or You Get Thrown Out.” When they threw you out a Camas Prairie, they went for distance. There was practically no juvenile delinquency and very few discipline problems in either grade or high schools.

This subject of “corporal” punishment in schools is a hot one in the legislature. Last commented here on this subject in May of 1985 when it was outlawed in New York. NOT a model state for low crime rates.

Now (1989) we are dealing with it here in Big Sky Country. Hordes of people descended last week on Helena to testify for SB378 which would outlaw physical disciplinary measures in the public schools. The teachers and administrators seemed to generally favor the bill with school boards against it.

A school psychologist from Billings, Mark Taylor, said children who observe corporal punishment at school, stop believing it is a safe place and often are so frightened they can’t concentrate on their studies. Ridiculous and illogical! I personally found the opposite at Camas Prairie. After that big mean kid got clobbered, I concentrated on my studies knowing bad behavior wasn’t safe, and was never insubordinate to a teacher. Also got good grades.

My experience as a reporter and father of four shows that most student fears come from undisciplined bully students, not from the teachers and administrators. If you want to have kids feel safe in a school, make good fair rules, enforce them, and get rid of the trouble makers.

Down in Helena, Kathy White told the Senators that corporal punishment is just “child abuse made legal.” Kathy has a serious semantic problem. There is quite a difference between giving a misbehaving child a few swats on the seat of his pants, or breaking his arm.

The corporal punishment in school issue and the permissiveness in the criminal justice system are all part of the same social movement. They are advanced by idealists who live in a world we would all like to see but they ignore the reality of unpleasant aberrations which are part of human personalities. The argument is always the same clich/ as was used in Helena last week. “Violence begets violence.” All you have to do is visit the site of a Nazi concentration camp or even a county jail to learn, “There are those unfortunate souls among us who do not understand, respect, or yield, to anything except physical force.”

I am sorry Mark. I am Sorry Kathy. God knows, any of us would change that fact if we could.