Educational leaders understand that defying conventional thought may lead to remarkable breakthroughs and innovations. The thing is to learn when to defy common wisdom and when to accept it. How are we going to do it? Conventional wisdom is intended to assist us in making decisions by giving tried and proven strategies for dealing with circumstances and challenges. Those who defy common thinking can profit handsomely if they are accurate. Going against it and being wrong, on the other hand, may lose you your job.

The Fight to End Corporal Punishment in U.S. Schools

Let us look at how educational leaders disrupted the existing quo by taking on corporal punishment. Corporal punishment entails imposing physical discomfort and punishment on students for misconduct and academic failure. It was a constant in colonial one-room schoolhouses in the 1600s and 1700s, predating America. A paddle, ruler, or cane can be used to deliver corporal punishment. It is now illegal in 19 states in the United States. Educators could use a paddle to deliver physical punishment to students while I was in primary school in Mississippi in the 1980s. They just required a second instructor to observe the act if something went wrong or they were convicted of employing excessive force.

Principals were free to use it, and I recall students being slapped for not handing in homework or failing to complete classwork. This always struck me as particularly harsh in the case of the latter. What if a student is unwell, weary, hungry, or upset and does not feel up to finishing their homework? Is this to say that they should be physically chastised to persuade them to obey? Everything sounds like a dystopian tale by Orson Welles.

In the United States, corporal punishment is still used in 19 states. My home state of Mississippi still authorizes school districts to utilize corporal punishment, but only under the supervision of an administrator. Can you imagine it? I am capable of doing so, but that is not the point. Corporal punishment was used in all 50 states in American history, and the penalty was far more severe.

Let us get to why I am talking about corporal punishment. Teachers and educational psychologists were brave enough to say “enough is enough.”  They began to speak out against physical punishment and disseminate evidence on its harmful impact on students. They were mocked and disregarded at first as bleeding-heart liberals who did not know how to discipline their children. Their detractors said that if instructors implemented their recommendations, students would be in charge of K-12 classrooms.

They stuck to their guns, though, and altered the status quo. Even though physical punishment is still permitted in 19 states, parents can choose whether or not to use it. Most people do not opt-in, and physical punishment is still considered brutal. This is because caring teachers saw that physical punishment was brutal and ineffective, and they chose to intervene.