A danger of corporal punishment

Hi,

"Only the better student will respond to praise or criticism, and the nature of his response will depend very much on the training and treatment he has received at home. We would certainly be the last to support corporal punishment [in school]; indeed, we would be very much inclined to believe that a teacher who cannot cope with the everyday problems of school life without resorting to physical chastisement is in the wrong profession.

"But [regardless of what is done in school,] if thrashings are the order of the day at home, if the child has become accustomed to take criticism seriously only if he feels it upon his body, if he will listen to verbal admonition only if he sees the rod looming in the background, then the home has deadened the child's sense of morality. Such a child will hardly give his teacher's words of criticism at school the attention they deserve."

(Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, Collected Writings 7:107)

המצפה לישועה,
Mordechai