BALTIMORE — Catonsville author Tara Ebersole’s first foray into fiction writing drew her deep into researching corporal punishment in education. She was stunned to discover the practice is still legal in some settings in Maryland.
Although corporal punishment cannot be administered to a public school student in Maryland, the law is largely silent on its use in other institutions, such as private schools, nonpublic schools and schools operated by religious organizations.
Ebersole, now a Community College of Baltimore County professor, started her research while mining her early experiences as a teacher for her first novel. When she taught at a public junior high school in Tennessee, she was required to use a 2-foot wooden paddle on students. She planned to weave facts into the story that might prompt a casual reader to rethink the merits of physically disciplining children.
Ebersole mentioned her discovery regarding Maryland law to her husband, Democratic Del. Eric Ebersole of Baltimore County, who echoed her shock.
“‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” she recalled he said.
The revelation kicked off their effort this legislative session to close a loophole in Maryland code that still permits corporal punishment of some students.
House Bill 185, introduced by Del. Ebersole, would order the Maryland Department of Education to eliminate any use of corporal punishment in schools and would explicitly prohibit it in nonpublic schools and registered family child care homes. It would bar the State Board of Education from certifying any noncollegiate educational institution that lacks a policy banning the practice.
The House passed the bill Thursday and it’s now being considered by a Senate committee.
It’s attracted about a dozen co-sponsors and garnered favorable testimony from the Maryland Psychological Association, Free State PTA, the Women’s Law Center of Maryland, Disability Rights Maryland, Maryland Family Network, Strong Schools Maryland, the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council, Secular Maryland, the Maryland State Education Association, the state’s chapter of National Association of Social Workers and the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.
Maryland law favors disciplining students with behavioral interventions, restorative approaches, counseling, and meetings with parents and students. Schools may also suspend and expel students. And state regulations involving younger children already prohibit child care providers, employees and volunteers from spanking, hitting, shaking or using any other means of physical discipline.
Although it’s unclear how prevalent corporal punishment is in the state, Del. Ebersole believes the bill will end a practice at a time when Maryland is ramping up major state investments in child care centers — a key facet of the landmark education reform plan called the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.
For his wife, the legislation is an emotional crusade to limit the amount of hurt that people can inflict upon one another. Her book, which carries the working title “Bits of Spirit,” is a work of narrative fiction. But the story is strongly influenced by her first year of teaching in 1980 in Anderson County, Tennessee.
The school where she worked had a policy that educators must discipline students with a paddle for certain infractions, with another teacher as a witness. Some days, that meant Ebersole was required to dole out a “lick” of the paddle to students who were late to class.
“It was almost traumatizing to be forced to hit someone when it goes against your values,” she said.
Corporal punishment seemed to come with puzzling traditions, such as students who decorated the paddle with signatures and doodled flowers on it after they’d been struck. Other times, students were expected to make a paddle in a wood shop class, she said.
Some students even seemed to seek out the punishment — a habit that horrified Ebersole. One eighth grader, who deliberately waited outside Ebersole’s classroom until after the bell rang, offered to tell other students that her punishment had hurt badly. The gesture seemed a way to boost Ebersole’s authority over students.
“She sort of fell on the sword,” she said. “She knew I was a first-year teacher.”
The policy rattled Ebersole, who, before starting to teach had been trained never to touch students, even when offering comfort. Her hands often shook when holding the paddle, she said. Sometimes, she told the other teacher serving as a witness that she couldn’t perform the task because she’d hurt her wrist playing tennis.
After the school year ended, Ebersole returned to the Baltimore area, where paddling was not used as a form of discipline.
“In none of those situations did I feel as if I was improving discipline,” she said.
The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a series of rulings in the 1970s that found corporal punishment did not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment.” And the court sustained the right of school officials to use corporal punishment over parents’ objections.
Groups like the American Psychological Association oppose corporal punishment in public and private schools, juvenile facilities and child care settings. They cite research that suggests the practice is harmful to children and ineffective in reducing undesirable behavior. Critics also point to studies suggesting corporal punishment is used disproportionately on boys, Black students and those with disabilities.
While its prevalence has declined in recent decades, national conversation around discipline in schools was renewed when students returned to classrooms following the coronavirus pandemic closures. About 84% of public schools reported to the U.S. Department of Education that the coronavirus pandemic negatively impacted student behavior during the 2021–22 school year, according to data released by the National Center for Education Statistics.
In Missouri, Cassville School District nabbed national headlines last June when the school board revived the use of corporal punishment after parents, students and school employees shared concerns about student behavior and discipline in an anonymous survey.
In Maryland, Del. Ebersole said the bill has garnered support in the General Assembly and that he hasn’t heard from any schools that oppose the bill.
The Ebersoles testified in favor of the bill earlier in the session.
“I found it traumatic for me as a teacher to administer as it was for the students receiving corporal punishment,” Tara Ebersole said during her testimony before describing her experiences in Tennessee. “If a board of this size were used to strike someone in any other situation, it would constitute assault.”
Her manuscript is undergoing edits, and Ebersole has begun planning a second work of fiction — this time about systemic racism in the foster care system.
She hopes “Bits of Spirit” might change the minds of readers who see themselves in the main character, Lainey. The protagonist teacher eventually reckons with her beliefs that inflicting physical pain can “break the spirit into small pieces.”
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