To Spank, or not to Spank?

It’s finally here.

After three years of complaining to you about writing essays, I am finally writing (procrastinating) my last essay of my academic career. Any essay I write in the future will be for additional qualification courses, which I won’t count.

It’s almost bittersweet… I’ve so enjoyed my essay writing experiences…

…riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

I’ve written about everything under the sun. Some essays were really boring (John G. Diefenbaker), some were really easy (analyzing Walt Whitman’s poetry), some were really challenging (Critical and Ecological Literacy) and some were very emotionally taxing to write (female genital mutilation or Nazi medical research). I’ve written short essays and long essays (38 pages! I didn’t even know I knew that many words!) and good essays and… yes, bad essays. Don’t procrastinate! I feel like I know the essay pretty well… even though I still have to double check my sourcing every time. There should really just be ONE standard format for every source… it would make my life SO much simpler. *sigh*

When I hand in this bad boy on Thursday and check “Law Essay” off my to-do list, it is going to feel SO good. There may be dancing involved. Punch dancing even!

Mind you, this little paper almost feels like a joke. It’s only 6 pages, and it’s on a topic I actually find really interesting: whether or not corporal punishment should exist in the classroom. It’s a really heated debate, and there is a lot of information available on the subject. I feel like nearly every seminar I’ve been to this year has had one of two themes “Do Not Touch The Children” vs. “Do Not Hit The Children”. I’m not in favor of corporal punishment per say, but I do think that the limits it has been taken too are now too extreme. We went from teachers having the power to ‘cane’ or ‘strap students (can you even imagine!?!!?) to teachers not even being able to speak aggressively in the classroom. (not that I am an “aggressive speaker”, but see my point?) So, I’m trying to explore what brought us from one extreme to the other, and what might happen next.

What are your thoughts on the matter… should corporal punishment be completely removed from every classroom setting?

Shop Girl*