Many of the most vivid memories Roald Dahl recounts in Boy: Tales of Childhood involve instances in which school officials punish him and his classmates by hitting their bottoms with a cane. The use of physical harm intended to cause pain as a tool for disciplining schoolchildren is known as school corporal punishment.
While corporal punishment (derived from corpus, Latin for "body") refers to any painful punishment inflicted on people in situations of confinement, particularly prisoners and slaves, school corporal punishment is physical punishment carried out by teachers or school officials against students. Historically, the punishment methods used against children tend to be either spanking with a hand or slipper, paddling with a wide wooden paddle, striking with a wooden ruler or yardstick or leather strap, or beating with a rattan cane.
School officials around the world have long used corporal punishment to discipline misbehaving students. In the English-speaking world, the authority to carry out corporal punishment came from in loco parentis, a common-law doctrine that placed teachers "in place of a parent," giving the teachers authority over children while they are at school. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry states the aims of corporal punishment as halting an offense, preventing its recurrence, and setting an example for others. However, the AACAP cites research that corporal punishment may be more harmful than helpful, in part because it shows children they should settle interpersonal conflicts with force.
The organization is among many voices calling for an end to corporal punishment in American schools, as the practice is still legal in almost half of states. Elsewhere, campaigns against the practice have precipitated legal reforms on human rights grounds. Bans against school corporal punishment now exist in Canada, Kenya, South Africa, India, New Zealand, and all EU countries. While certain areas of the US and Australia have bans against the practice, nation-wide reforms have not been put in place.
