Smacking

Grant at NZ Pundit finds amusing the results of a survey of children, as to whether they supported parents being able to physically punish them.

Interestingly in my final year at Rongotai College, the student council (which I was president of) condcuted a survey of all students as to whether they supported corporal punishment or not.

To the surprise of many, a majority of students backed corporal punishment. The school board (which was leaning towards banning it) wanted to keep the results quiet, so at the age of 17 I learnt the useful art of leaking and tipped off the Evening Post who ran an article on it.

I suspect the survey results were somewhat pragmatic. At Rongotai one normally had a choice if given detention of doing an hour after school or receiving two strokes of the cane. Many preferred the short sharp cane to an hour after school.