In a recent article, the Chicago Tribune reported that a basketball team’s assistant coach at Marshall High School on Chicago’s south side allegedly practiced corporal punishment by paddling athletes on his team. As I read the article, flashbacks of my youth raced through my head. To me, it seems weird that I forget many details about my youth except the names and faces of the people who have ever hurt me in my life.
My father was in the military, so my family and I relocated every four years or so, and all the schools I attended were public schools close to the military base. However, due to a certain incident, my view on adults and people with power had forever changed. I stopped trusting adults and started hating school when my family moved to Virginia where corporal punishment was allowed in schools during the mid 1980’s. Being sent to the principal’s office meant either your parents were going to be called for your misbehavior or you would get paddled. The paddling was either done by the principal or the vice-principal, and consisted of three licks of a wooden paddle to your bottom. Usually though, it was only a last resort if your parents could not be reached, which did not help me much seeing as how my mother worked for a real estate company showing houses, and my father was in the military, so the majority of the time they were not reachable, and during this time no one had cell phones.
A person would think that I would straighten up to avoid being hit, but it is hard to straighten up your act when you are always the new kid on the block. I was constantly getting in trouble for fighting, and because at the time my family did not have much money, I always wore hand-me-downs which the kids liked to tease me about and led to most of my fights. The more violence I displayed, the more of a rebel I became. I tried everything to be booted out of school, even on through high school. I know my mother feels awful for what I went through; by my fourth grade year, my mother signed a waiver to keep anyone from laying a finger on me. However, it was not the last school I attended, and I dealt with a few more issues like this in high school, but with a track coach.
My junior year of high school my track coach decided to use me as an example and started screaming in my face in front of the whole track team, trying to assert his authority. When I asked him to stop yelling at me, it enraged him even more, so I turned my back to walk away from the situation when the coach grabbed my arm. When he whirled me around he did not expect for my fist to connect with his jaw. Needless to say I was thrown off the track team and given ten days suspension and ten in-school detentions. Nothing happened to the coach then, but a few years later he was fired for other reasons.
These teachers, coaches, and administrators will forever be seared into my mind and, I imagine, into the minds of these players at Marshall High School. Sometimes I wonder what kind of a person I would have turned out to be if I had never gone through these experiences. Would I have gone to college earlier in my life instead of avoiding it for so long? For me, wondering is a waste of time; however, I do know that corporal punishment is an awful way to discipline a student, and that’s why it was outlawed in most states. It breeds bad behaviors and teaches a child to fear their mentors instead of looking up to them for guidance. I do not believe, however, that many schools or people are disobeying the law. It still may exist, and people should listen to their children and young family members when they express concern about their school, teachers, or coaches. It never hurts to take an active role in safeguarding your children, family, or friends.