Ingraham Vs Wright

31. Ingraham v. Wright: THE AFTERMATH and WHY IT MATTERS ...

MEMO TO BILL H.: Thank you for defining “jokari” paddle for us. Your teacher set out to make an impression -and she did! The proof of that was that your behavior changed for the better after ALL other strategies failed. That is the way we are at TWP -the paddle is a LAST resort to avoid a suspension. As to the comment “…a target she couldn’t resist!”, I think that is hyperbole -Paddling students is considered by most teachers as a “chore” and could easily be “resisted” if only the student would just behave! As to Wendy, she tried to get out of using the paddle but kept receiving nothing but lies in return. The lesson: Do not ever LIE -because while Wendy is mild-tempered and easy-going- she has her tolerance threshold.

Jokari Paddle: A small wooden oval shaped paddle shaped like a badmitton racket. Measurements are 16″ to 18″ long, 6″ wide, and 1/4″ to 3/8″ thick. The shape is similar to mine (Renee) but mine is smaller at 8″ to 9″ long, 5″ wide, and 1/4″ thick. Because of Jokari’s size, we at TWP would probably rate the Jokari Paddle as SOMEWHAT INAPPROPRIATE.

MEMO TO ALL: Check out Portland.indymedia.org and Network54.com -The former is an anti-c.p. forum whom we at TWP challenged and the latter is somewhat “pro” who had some nice things to say about what TWP is trying to do.

: THE AFTERMATH

and

WHY IT MATTERS

This famous (or infamous?) U.S. Supreme Court case decided in 1977 was one of those “accidents” of history that wasn’t supposed to happen. This case came about after the nation had gone through an unpopular war, racial unrest, and a scandal called “Watergate” which led a President Nixon to become the first in U.S. history to resign from office. After all that, one would have thought the U.S.A. was ready to get off the roller coaster ride known as “social change.”

History: We have commented on other posts about the Ingraham case itself as well as the differences between World and U.S. corporal punishment. Suffice to say, the history of discipline in U.S. schools cannot be cast in a “before” and “after” frame of reference. Rather, one must remember that, as a large frontier nation in its founding, the U.S. was and remains a decentralized country -especially in education. In the earliest times, the local governments were what people looked to first, not a distant state or national capital. One of the biggest examples of this was education, which was always considered a local perogative even with various state constitutions mandating state/local support for schools. But nowhere in the U.S. Constitution will you find a reference to education or schools despite the existence of the U.S. Department of Education. So, it can be concluded that education, by history and tradition, is seen primarily as a state/local function, not a national mandate.