I have taught many a unit on punishment or juvenile justice. While the topic is certainly interesting, I find that I am increasingly drawn to stories around punishment that impacts my students more directly, namely spanking.
Full disclosure, as a parent, I do not spank my children. I was, however, spanked or at least threatened with spanking as a child. What makes this a powerful topic to explore as a reader and writer is how decidedly ambivalent I feel.
Digression: for me, the most interesting argument work I do with students is around topics about which I feel ambivalent. In thinking about this, I think, perhaps, it's because argument is best where there is a level of ambiguity, nuance or doubt. Arguing about facts is useless. But arguing about what facts indicate is always way more interesting.
Five Thirty Eight ran a piece on spanking in light of the arrest of Adrian Paterson found here. What they highlight are the changes in trends of people who support spanking. The tables provide an opportunity for students to look at how the support has changed and who has stronger preferences. For a stats nerd, they also provide a link to a regression analysis to see the connection between the various characteristics, which could allow for a quick discussion of causation vs. correlation.
These trends, though, need to be viewed with some more analysis. This Po Bronson article from Time Magazine adds some context. It's an excerpt to the excellent book that he and Ashley Merriman wrote called NurtureShock. This piece is trying to examine if outcomes are better for children who have never been spanked. I think he makes some assertions around progressive parenting that are worth probing.
When I read the chapter from NurtureShock with students, we discussed the question of whether or not children should be spanked. I was fascinated at my students' responses. I think I assumed that they would be anti-spanking, but many made compelling claims that it was necessary to teach children right from wrong. I think when I teach this again, I may try to find one more text (two texts feels like a too flimsy set), perhaps a short story, or an excerpt from Huck Finn that deals with spanking.
