Christian lawmaker says teachers should be allowed to hit students with disabilities
"Are we sending a message that we don't love our children?" said Oklahoma State Sen. Shane Jett, in defense of corporal punishment
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A Republican lawmaker in Oklahoma argued this week that it ought to be okay for teachers to beat students with disabilities because not doing so would be unbiblical.
Oklahoma currently permits corporal punishment in public schools. That’s a problem in and of itself, but the law at least has a carve-out exempting students with “the most significant cognitive disabilities.” Teachers can theoretically spank kids but a handful of students are off-limits because they may not even understand they’re doing anything wrong.
Last year, Republicans attempted to pass House Bill 1028, which was designed to broaden that exemption so that it applied to all students with disabilities. One Republican signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill specifically because he thought this would be an easy vote. “There's going to be nobody who's for corporal punishment on students with disabilities,” he said.
He must have forgotten that he’s surrounded by other Republicans from Oklahoma. They will always find a way to defend abuse in the name of Jesus.
For example, last year, when this bill was brought up for debate, State Rep. Jim Olsen argued that the Bible permits hitting a child as a form of discipline—therefore that option must be available to teachers regardless of who the victims will be. He cited Proverbs 13:24, the infamous verse that gave us, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” When someone challenged him and said the American Academy of Pediatrics supports banning any form of physical discipline against children because there’s plenty of evidence showing the harm it causes in the long term, Olsen said it didn’t matter because “God's counsel is higher than the American Academy of Pediatrics.”
Another GOP lawmaker, Randy Randleman, said teachers needed the threat of corporal punishment in order to keep their classrooms in order. But if your classroom is so chaotic that physical discipline appears to be your only solution, you’re a shitty teacher. And if you believe threatening children—children with disabilities, no less!—with abuse is the only way to maintain order, you’re a shitty parent. And if you believe giving parents and teachers the right to team up to beat up children with disabilities is the best way to correct their behavior, you’re a shitty politician.
That bill eventually sailed through the State House last year (good!) after it was amended to give parents the final say on whether their children with disabilities could be subject to abuse. (Teachers couldn’t just beat them on their own volition.)
The bill was headed toward passage in the State Senate (also good!) but the timing just didn’t work out and the bill went nowhere… until this week, when senators brought it up again. This time, the opt-in clause for parents was removed, but that’s fine since the bill itself says teachers wouldn’t be allowed to abuse any children with disabilities. The bill specifically prohibits teachers from “hitting, slapping, paddling, or [using] any other means of inflicting physical pain” on students who have an individualized education program (IEP).
This should have been a unanimous vote with no discussion needed.
But on Tuesday, Republican State Sen. Shane Jett did the honors of defending the abuse of children with disabilities… all in the name of Jesus.
Effectively, we're taking a tool that has been in the hands of parents and in the hands of schools to maintain discipline, and we're removing it from the parents' prerogative and saying, we, Big Brother, the state of Oklahoma, knows what's best for your child, and we're removing an entire motivational tool from discipline in the classroom.
…
… And this is an erosive and a corrosive element in the United States whenever Dr. Benjamin Spock published a book that said, “Don't discipline your children. Don't spank your children.” And a lot of people don't know that his voice was elevated because it fit a particular agenda. Dr. Benjamin Spock was a Socialist who ran for the People's Party. That means he's a Communist.
…
… I already cited Proverbs 13:24: “Whoever spares the rod hates their child, but he who loves them disciplines them.” And we're saying the state of Oklahoma has unilaterally decided if you have vision impairment, you cannot be disciplined, even if your parents want that. We're going to unilaterally take that away from our schools and our parents, more importantly. If you are hearing impaired, suddenly you're in a different class, you cannot be disciplined. And we've already made it abundantly clear that children can misbehave regardless of their abilities or inabilities, capabilities or incapabilities.
…
Are we sending a message that we don't love our children?
…
At the end of the day, you're looking at Socialist-slash-Communist principles versus biblical principles.
Jewish culture, Christian culture, and any common sense culture understands that if you don't discipline children, or you create a class of children that cannot be disciplined, those discipline problems are gonna cascade through the rest of society. And we are seeing that now, from Dr. Spock telling Christian parents, “Don't spank your children,” and they follow Dr. Spock instead of the Bible.
Dr. Spock was a communist who ran for president with a Communist Party. This is Communist ideology.
…
I urge you to vote against this bill. It is bad public policy.
Just utter lunacy from a Republican who thinks hitting kids is the best (and only) way to teach them right from wrong. If we love children, he argues, then we should be allowed to abuse them.
(Dr. Spock, by the way, pushed for universal health care, the decriminalization of abortion and homosexuality, guaranteed income for families, and the end to the pointless war in Vietnam.)
In any case, this pro-abuse mentality ought to be expected from people like Jett. Hitting kids has long been a core belief among fundamentalist Christians. Years ago, Michael and Debi Pearl wrote an infamous guide to faith-based abuse called To Train Up a Child. It’s a book that tells adults how to properly hit their kids, and it’s as awful as it sounds, recommending that Christian parents physically discipline kids as young as six months with “the same principles the Amish use to train their stubborn mules.”
In Oklahoma, this isn’t just theoretical. School officials have regularly taken advantage of that law:
Oklahoma educators reported using physical discipline 3,968 times during the 2017-18 school year, according to the most recent federal data available from the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education. The federal government reported that corporal punishment was administered at more than 1,800 Oklahoma schools.
The same people who quote the Bible are the ones using their power to defeat a bill so that more vulnerable students can be hurt just a little more. They want to protect kids from learning about systemic racism while making sure teachers have the option to beat students with disabilities.
All because their Christian faith taught them that abuse is more effective than compassion.
Elsewhere in his rant, Jett lashed out against everyone who said opposing this bill amounted to “foolishness.”
You want to talk about foolishness? We’ve been talking about foolishness.
Foolishness is calling miscarriages “abortions.”
Foolishness is calling transgender sterilization “affirmation.”
Foolishness is killing a baby in a mommy’s womb and calling it “women’s health.”
Just a misogynist and a bigot all around. Because he’s a Christian bathed in the blood of Christ or some bullshit like that.
In Oklahoma, women are literally fleeing the state in order to obtain medical care because of the draconian anti-abortion laws imposed by GOP lawmakers. Jett doesn’t care about any of that because Jesus Jesus Jesus.
Here’s the good (?) news.
Despite all the commentary from Jett, the bill to broaden the corporal punishment exemption passed in the State Senate on a 31-11 vote. All the no votes came from Republicans who want teachers to have the option of beating children with disabilities. The bill will now return to the House (since it’s been revised) for another vote. At this point, though, it appears this will finally pass.
Corporal punishment will still be legal in Oklahoma, which is a travesty, but at least some kids will be immune from the consequences of Republican cruelty.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
I have been teaching special education for 23 years. First of all, they are not “special needs students.” They are students with educational disabilities. Every student should be provided a free, appropriate, public education in the least restrictive environment. No students should ever be subjected to corporal punishment. All behavior is communication. Our job is to help children communicate more effectively; not beat them because they lack skills to do so. This man is evil. Tenet three: One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
Evidently, he wants to legalize child abuse in the name of his magic book. The same book that gives tacit approval for rape and human slavery. Any teacher who struck one of my children would have been taking their life into their own hands. I cannot begin to imagine why they think it's ever okay to allow teachers to assault children, especially the disabled, under any circumstances. Then again, there isn't anything that cannot be justified in the name of Jesus.