Lets Get Political

[Skarpen]

21 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Hmm, an 8oz bar of soap accelerated to 25mph in a sock = 10.44 foot pounds. That probably equivalent to getting punched by a child? 

I think you vastly underestimate the speed and acceleration here. Those things hurt like hell.

[213374U]

7 minutes ago, Skarpen said:

I think you vastly underestimate the speed and acceleration here. Those things hurt like hell.

Yep. A soap bar inside a sock works on the same principle as a whip. Conservation of momentum means the soap bar is traveling much faster than a (child or otherwise) fist ever could.

Make the sock long enough and the soap bar hard enough, and you have a perfectly good sledgehammer:

Perfect tool for "imparting discipline", if you ask me.

[smjjames]

4 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Yep. A soap bar inside a sock works on the same principle as a whip. Conservation of momentum means the soap bar is traveling much faster than a (child or otherwise) fist ever could.

Make the sock long enough and the soap bar hard enough, and you have a perfectly good sledgehammer:

Perfect tool for "imparting discipline", if you ask me.

'Hard' doesn't neccesarily equal 'heavy', a nut is hard but it's not heavy.

[213374U]

True, but that's not terribly relevant. If the thing at the tip of your "disciplining implement" is that much lighter, it will travel that much faster, again by virtue of momentum conservation*. How heavy is a bullwhip's tip? How fast does it travel? How much does it hurt?

The really important factor is how long the sock is.

 

*apparently it's even more complicated than that, but eh

[Malcador]

PVC pipe works best.

[Calax]

12 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Congress can stop this at any time. That is THEIR power he's abusing. My biggest hope for a Trump Administration would be for Congress to recall that it is in fact a co-equal branch of the government and looking the other way when the executive does things the executive cannot do is unacceptable. Still waiting on that one. 

 

Some of them do get it... not enough on either side though

They do, it's just that the opposition to the executive are always the ones who fight that point while the party that has the executive just shrugs and stamps the paperwork. It's getting worse given the current possibility of criminal issues in the Office but it's just a log flume ride we have to stick with.

[smjjames]

6 minutes ago, Calax said:

They do, it's just that the opposition to the executive are always the ones who fight that point while the party that has the executive just shrugs and stamps the paperwork. It's getting worse given the current possibility of criminal issues in the Office but it's just a log flume ride we have to stick with.

That assumes the log flume ride has an ending.

Anyways, stopping Trump from using it as a threat in the way he does is a different thing than stopping him from implementing it and the tariffs have been indefinetly suspended since a deal of some kind has been reached with Mexico, details haven't been revealed yet.

[BruceVC]

10 hours ago, injurai said:

TIL instilling a sense of fear to maintain boundaries (with physical pain) is not a looming threat. I also learned that it is the only way to maintain boundaries for some people, and no other solution or consideration has merit.

Enjoy yourselves South Africa.

I am disappointed by the lack of support for the notion of corporal punishment as a form of helping to create boundaries for kids  and therefore it becomes a component for effective learning, I am not convinced by comments opposed to corporal punishment. Here are some links I would like people to read who have an interest in this topic..after reading this tell me  how corporal punishment shouldnt  be part of the solution. May I just add, sorry to ostensibly sound rude , some of you guys cant live in " first world country ivory towers  " and think you can achieve results in society without perceived difficult decisions, this is one of them 

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/schools-south-africa-death-trap-government/

https://www.iol.co.za/news/sa-school-violence-shock-1896532

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-06-15-schools-are-so-violent-teachers-live-in-fear/

 

[Skarpen]

The problem is people tend to think their solution will work for everybody everywhere. The suggestion that detention or expelling will work on kids that are capable of murder is a cruel joke at best. And one that US is refusing to learn even after each incident they go through.

I didn't know the problem was so deep BruceVC. It seems the solution would need to go way deeper and broader than corporal punishment in school. Who would punish a pupil in this manner if the threat was being i.e. stabbed by the kid or a group of them? It seems SA lost ground rules and morals they had before. After all it's the country of Nelson Mandela. 

I think SA must really analyze what happened and what led to this situation before looking for quick solutions. Defining the problem is the first step.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Skarpen
spelling

[Skarpen]

 

On 6/7/2019 at 8:02 AM, smjjames said:

TBH, the whole Mexico tariffs and the fact that they are supposed to increase each month makes them sound far more like blackmail/extortion than any kind of economic reasoning. 

Well it might be so, but apparently it worked. Trump apparently struck some kind of deal with Mexico. If the perception of such a deal would be in his favor he might just won the second term.

[Guard Dog]

31 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

I am disappointed by the lack of support for the notion of corporal punishment as a form of helping to create boundaries for kids  and therefore it becomes a component for effective learning, I am not convinced by comments opposed to corporal punishment. Here are some links I would like people to read who have an interest in this topic..after reading this tell me  how corporal punishment shouldnt  be part of the solution. May I just add, sorry to ostensibly sound rude , some of you guys cant live in " first world country ivory towers  " and think you can achieve results in society without perceived difficult decisions, this is one of them 

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/schools-south-africa-death-trap-government/

https://www.iol.co.za/news/sa-school-violence-shock-1896532

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-06-15-schools-are-so-violent-teachers-live-in-fear/

 

A punishment is effective if the one receiving it perceives it as something to be avoided. The problem with corporal punishment is if you are using it with sufficient force to injure a kid it IS abuse. And if it is not hard enough to injure then the kid will figure out real quick (as I did) that it is preferable to other forms of punishment. So ultimately it is self defeating. 

You can make the argument that prior to a certain age it might be effective but there will definitely be diminishing returns. The other problem is kids need to understand WHY they are being punished. Otherwise the entire exercise is pointless. If they are young enough for corporal punishment to be effective are they mature enough to know why you are using it?  I don't know the answer... never had kids. Just posing the question.

I will tell you to never use it on dogs because they definitely won't know why you are hitting them. That is certainly self defeating. If you didn't catch your dog doing whatever it was that pissed you off just let it go. Ten seconds after the fact they have forgotten they even did it. 

[Guard Dog]

1 minute ago, Skarpen said:

 

Well it might be so, but apparently it worked. Trump apparently struck some kind of deal with Mexico. If the perception of such a deal would be in his favor he might just won the second term.

It's possible he may not have intended to go through with it in violation of the trade deal he negotiated himself. This may have all been brinkmanship on his part. In that case he got something for nothing. Kudos to him I guess. What he actually got from Mexico remains to be seen.  A "promise" to do better in stopping the train of illegals may amount to nothing. It does give him a PR win though and that isn't nothing in this country. 

[Skarpen]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

A punishment is effective if the one receiving it perceives it as something to be avoided. The problem with corporal punishment is if you are using it with sufficient force to injure a kid it IS abuse. And if it is not hard enough to injure then the kid will figure out real quick (as I did) that it is preferable to other forms of punishment. So ultimately it is self defeating. 

You can make the argument that prior to a certain age it might be effective but there will definitely be diminishing returns. The other problem is kids need to understand WHY they are being punished. Otherwise the entire exercise is pointless. If they are young enough for corporal punishment to be effective are they mature enough to know why you are using it?  I don't know the answer... never had kids. Just posing the question.

I will tell you to never use it on dogs because they definitely won't know why you are hitting them. That is certainly self defeating. If you didn't catch your dog doing whatever it was that pissed you off just let it go. Ten seconds after the fact they have forgotten they even did it. 

I think corporal is one of the punishments that work better as looming threat rather than something to be exercised regularly. And as I mentioned before one solution don't fit all. There are some kids who will behave because they fear even the threat of being hit and there are those that will not be afraid or even proud of getting beaten wearing it like a badge of honor. Kids are like people because they are people. 

I agree that the component of understanding of punishment is desired if you want to teach people something. But it goes both ways. The kids needs to be able to understand the concept also. And the psychology tell us they are not able to do that for a handful of early years.

For the dog example if you don't want the dog to go in a certain room or hop on the couch you smack them with something or get them away every time they try to do that. Your point is for him not to do that, and he won't. Whether the dog understands why he cannot do this or that is irrelevant as he will just obey the rule to avoid being punished.

It's similar with kids when they don't understand some concepts. If you don't want you little kid to touch hot or sharp kitchen equipment you just punish them whenever they reach for those as talking is pointless to a certain age. You want the cause reaction response from a kid. Kid have to know if I touch it I will be punished. When they grow up more you can reason and explain things as they will be more prone to understand some concepts.
For people who think explaining things is a better way I respond that smacking the hand that reach for hot pot or knife is less traumatic than explaining the concept of burns or cuts. Especially if some creative parent will use examples or presentations.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

A punishment is effective if the one receiving it perceives it as something to be avoided. The problem with corporal punishment is if you are using it with sufficient force to injure a kid it IS abuse. And if it is not hard enough to injure then the kid will figure out real quick (as I did) that it is preferable to other forms of punishment. So ultimately it is self defeating. 

You can make the argument that prior to a certain age it might be effective but there will definitely be diminishing returns. The other problem is kids need to understand WHY they are being punished. Otherwise the entire exercise is pointless. If they are young enough for corporal punishment to be effective are they mature enough to know why you are using it?  I don't know the answer... never had kids. Just posing the question.

I will tell you to never use it on dogs because they definitely won't know why you are hitting them. That is certainly self defeating. If you didn't catch your dog doing whatever it was that pissed you off just let it go. Ten seconds after the fact they have forgotten they even did it. 

You make some good points in this post and I appreciate the dog discipline analogy as it is relevant. 

But on the school discipline problem. Why is it so hard for anyone  to understand  "  dont attack teachers" , "dont rape fellow pupils " and " when a teacher tells you something you need to listen " . Surly most of these things are inherent in our natural system of right and wrong, effectively our moral compass? But the issue is when their is a sense of impunity and you think you can get away with it then you think there are no consequences. Which is not how  life is 

I also dont have kids but 2 of my brothers do and  many of  my friends and girlfriends who are mostly single moms and there kids dont serious discipline problems 

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Skarpen said:

 

I didn't know the problem was so deep BruceVC. It seems the solution would need to go way deeper and broader than corporal punishment in school. Who would punish a pupil in this manner if the threat was being i.e. stabbed by the kid or a group of them? It seems SA lost ground rules and morals they had before. After all it's the country of Nelson Mandela. 

I think SA must really analyze what happened and what led to this situation before looking for quick solutions. Defining the problem is the first step.

Its important to remember context, this breakdown of discipline probably only applies to about 20 % of the  total number of public schools. Not private schools and in the problematic public schools its only a small number of pupils...not the majority who just want to learn and get a good education. But its still a problem we need to address 

[Hurlshort]

[213374U]

It is priceless to be lectured on the inner workings of discipline and punishment by some schmuck who clearly doesn't give a toss about rules and breaks them simply because he can. The irony is, I dare say, rather sharp.

[injurai]

I wonder why Bruce is so concerned in using corporal punishment as a form of "no kid left behind." I also can't help but think that once allowed, it would be deployed very differently towards black and white students. Even in America where that violence is not allowed, we see passive aggressive forms of interference by racist administrators towards black students. The will is out there, and allowing corporal punishment with the self-governing jurisdiction of schools makes it's usage a sadist tyranny, akin to martial law. Any such policy would be disproportionately directed at "undesirables."

I cannot fathom why one can't just leave kids to learn life lessons directly by the consequences of their own actions. If they are truants let that bite them in the but. It's not only punishment enough, it teaches the lesson better. Beating kids who "really need it" tends to have the reverse affect of making them rebel even harder. It's the same thing with forcing down religion or other prudish values. Often it turns kids into rebels. If the kid is abusing others, well the policy against violence in school is perfect grounds for expulsion.

[Skarpen]

59 minutes ago, Hurlshot said:

Restorative justice looks like a way to keep bullies to keep bullying and prevent victims from standing up to their oppressor. Evil.

11 minutes ago, injurai said:

I wonder why Bruce is so concerned in using corporal punishment as a form of "no kid left behind." I also can't help but think that once allowed, it would be deployed very differently towards black and white students. Even in America where that violence is not allowed, we see passive aggressive forms of interference by racist administrators towards black students. The will is out there, and allowing corporal punishment with the self-governing jurisdiction of schools makes it's usage a sadist tyranny, akin to martial law. Any such policy would be disproportionately directed at "undesirables."

I cannot fathom why one can't just leave kids to learn life lessons directly by the consequences of their own actions. If they are truants let that bite them in the but. It's not only punishment enough, it teaches the lesson better. Beating kids who "really need it" tends to have the reverse affect of making them rebel even harder. It's the same thing with forcing down religion or other prudish values. Often it turns kids into rebels. If the kid is abusing others, well the policy against violence in school is perfect grounds for expulsion.

The level of self centered 'muricanism ego of this post is astounding. Did you really just implied that government of SA will discriminate agains black students?! And that blacks are undesirables in SA?! Dude read a book or something.

And you imply to leave murderers and rapists to "learn life lessons" and that expulsion is punishment enough? Wow, just wow.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Skarpen
spelling

[Guard Dog]

1 hour ago, Hurlshot said:

Sorry but this is the kind of touchey feely hooey that drives people back to spanking. I don't think corporal punishment is effective because it is not something to be feared. Punishment SHOULD be a thing to be dreaded and avoided. Sitting down and "tawking abowut ow feewings" is only going to encourage aggression and misbehavior. The fatal flaw in this idea is that the misbehavior is not understood to be misbehavior. Maybe that is true in a small percentage of the time but most of the timekids being bad know they ate being bad. 

[injurai]

You don't deal with murderers and rapists ad hoc in the classroom kangaroo courts. You lock them up and use the full force of the law and due process.

Only an idiot could think I implied that. I suggest that people with ulterior motives push policy that has an air of deniable plausibility, but has an intended disproportional target in mind. I call out the risks of giving schools that sort of power over students, I claim that racist teachers will act out those policies indiscriminately on their own volition. I use the term undesirable as seen in the eyes of the perpetrator of corporal punishment, which points out the broader scope of those disproportionately targeted by those who take up sadist tyrant mantel of judge jury and cane wielder.

[Skarpen]

11 minutes ago, injurai said:

You don't deal with murderers and rapists ad hoc in the classroom

If I'm not mistaken some schmuck just went on trial for not dealing with a murderer ad hoc in the classroom. So there's that 

[Hurlshort]

14 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Sorry but this is the kind of touchey feely hooey that drives people back to spanking. I don't think corporal punishment is effective because it is not something to be feared. Punishment SHOULD be a thing to be dreaded and avoided. Sitting down and "tawking abowut ow feewings" is only going to encourage aggression and misbehavior. The fatal flaw in this idea is that the misbehavior is not understood to be misbehavior. Maybe that is true in a small percentage of the time but most of the timekids being bad know they ate being bad. 

First off, corporal punishment is simply off the table. The idea that we will beat better behavior into children doesn't fly anymore. There are loads of studies and evidence that support that. Ask any pediatrician, or child psychologist. Much like with vaccinations, I tend to trust the people with an education on the subject. So yeah, let it go. Just because we got spanked as children and turned out alright doesn't mean it is the best way forward. https://www.aappublications.org/news/2018/11/05/discipline110518

So the next popular discipline strategy is exclusion. Detention, suspension, etc. Seems like a good idea to remove a problematic child, as it definitely will make it easier to teach the rest. I've used it plenty of times and it is far and away the most commonly used in the US education system. Parents using timeouts, sending kids to their room, grounding, etc. Again, this is common, simple, and pretty easy to understand as a punishment. I've used it wit my kids as well.

But is it the best way to teach better behavior? Is my kid really learning a lesson when I send her to her room? Not really. We have to sit and talk it over. She needs to take responsibility for her actions. We need to work on ways to repair and prevent in the future. It's more work for both of us, but it is hopefully more effective in the long run. I fail to see how that is touchy feely.

Our prisons are full of repeat offenders, so it might be a good idea to question how we handle discipline as a whole in this country.  

[Skarpen]

Sure. Let's follow the US specialists who took the country from kids having rifles in their car without an incident to mass school shootings in a single generation lifetime. 

[Guard Dog]

1 hour ago, Skarpen said:

Sure. Let's follow the US specialists who took the country from kids having rifles in their car without an incident to mass school shootings in a single generation lifetime. 

Wow. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. 

You do have a point that it did happen. I graduated HS in 1989 and there were shotguns and rifles on racks in cars driven by students. We went shooting after school more than once. But you cannot even draw a straight line between the two times through any one cause.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Guard Dog