Family Forum / Parenting / Spanking / February 2004

A form of corporal punishment?

Well, the hands may become cramped and calloused.  Gimmee a break.

Posted on Thu, Feb. 19, 2004  


School debates disciplinary methods
At Cramp Elementary in West Kensington, an employee's job was shifted after he
used a repetitive-writing punishment.
By Susan Snyder
Inquirer Staff Writer

At Cramp Elementary in West Kensington, there's an argument about how students
should be disciplined, and veteran educator Fred Creel is at its center.

The clash between using stern, "old-school" methods, which Creel employed for
seven years as disciplinarian, and teaching students to adopt
"self-discipline," favored by principal Adrienne Carpenter, came to a head
yesterday at a raucous meeting of more than 60 parents.

Many parents demanded the return of Creel, who was transferred out of his post
to a teaching position at Cramp in October after parents complained he made
disruptive students write sentences such as "I will not hit or head-butt
someone" 100 times.

Officials at Cramp, a 900-student kindergarten-through-fifth-grade school,
decided the writing assignments were a form of corporal punishment, and
corporal punishment is prohibited by the district.

Creel - who has worked 27 years at Cramp - also was accused of grabbing
students and calling them names.

Yesterday, Creel said, "Never in my life have I gone after a child to hurt a
child." He said he did restrain children when they were fighting. And he said
he never called children names, but told them: "We have no animals in school.
Animals throw food. Animals spit food. Animals play with food. Animals open
their mouths and show people what they're eating."

Many parents at the meeting say that Creel's stern touch is needed and that
student behavior has slipped dramatically since he was moved.

Carpenter, who declined to comment on complaints about Creel, said she had
appointed a new assistant principal - formerly a counselor - to oversee
discipline.

"He has the expertise and interventions that children need when they find
themselves in altercations, arguments," she said. "He also has the
interpersonal skills to deal with parents."

The school continues to support sending disruptive children to a time-out room
if needed and will suspend students for serious infractions, she said.

But Cramp, like other schools, has decided that repetitive-writing assignments
are not acceptable, said Sonia Perez, a regional administrator overseeing
discipline issues at schools in the Kensington area.

"To repeat a sentence is not a form of disciplining a child. It's a form of
punishing a child. Every opportunity that we have, we should be teaching
children self-management," she said.

At the meeting, Creel said he assigned the sentence-writing as a way to let
parents know the infractions that their children were committing and to make
children think about their mistakes.

Students would be required to complete the assignments at home.

There is no districtwide policy that defines repetitive writing as corporal
punishment, said district spokesman Fernando Gallard. But both district
officials and a national discipline expert said the practice increasingly is
frowned upon.

"I don't view it as corporal punishment. It would have to be physically
painful," said Irwin Hyman, a Temple University professor and director of the
National Center for the Study of Corporal Punishment.

"But it's stupid," he added. "Writing is something that kids should learn to
enjoy. I wouldn't object to having them write an essay, something that is
supposed to make you think."

Harvey Rice, the state's safe-schools advocate, condoned the discipline tactic.

"It's better than sending the kid home and suspending him and having him run
the streets," Rice said. "We've got to get back to some kind of basic common
sense here. That's an appropriate way of trying to get a message to someone
about their behavior, and we should support that."

Both Miriam Diaz, president of the Home and School Association, and Jeremy
Centeno, a first-grade teacher and Cramp's teachers' union representative,
backed Creel and said they saw nothing abusive or wrong with his methods.

"When Mr. Creel would go into the lunchroom, you could hear a pin drop. Go in
there now," Diaz said, adding that only three parents complained about Creel
while many more supported him.

One parent, Lourdes Sierra, spoke against Creel at the meeting.

"You look out for him. I'll look out for the children," Sierra said.

Later, she said she had seen Creel manhandle students and belittle them.

"He would grab them by the arm, throw them against the chairs. I saw him grab a
boy by the neck in the yard. The boy was saying, 'Get off me, get off me,' and
he just kept going at him," Sierra said.

At several points, the meeting became a shouting match with lots of
participants. Creel waded into the fray and quieted the crowd, using the same
tactic that he uses with children: "One, hands up. Two, mouths closed."

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Contact staff writer Susan Snyder at 215-854-4693 or ssnyder@phillynews.com.  



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