Educating our children adequately is an important task. Parents do what they can to provide their children with the knowledge they need, but most of the work of educating our young people falls on teachers, principals, and other education professionals. Parents place their trust in these experts to treat children properly and educate them well. We also charge them to maintain good discipline in the school environment. Every teacher has their own way of doing it. But when it comes to raising and caring for children, opinions can vary widely on what is best (what is correct). Perhaps the widest difference of opinion among people, even among professionals, concerns what is the appropriate punishment for bad behavior, particularly the appropriateness of corporal punishment. Even more controversial is the discussion of whether or not the professionals we rely on to educate our children should be allowed to use corporal punishment to discipline them. There are those who support corporal punishment in schools and those who do not. The disparity of thought on the topic is reflected in the fact that 19 states allow corporal punishment in schools and the remaining 29 prohibit the practice (Nies). There is no federal ban on this practice and the Supreme Court has upheld the right of individual states to make such decisions (Morones). Those who support its use believe it to be effective. As the writer Adam Cohen points out, the biblical concept of “spare the rod and spoil the child” has long existed among supporters of corporal punishment (Cohen). In Marion County, Florida, for example, a corporal punishment policy was voted on by the school board and passed by a vote of 3 to 2 (Morones). School board member and 14-year elementary school veteran p...... center of paper ......if there is so much emotion surrounding the topic. Gordan Bauer and his colleagues state that “Dispassionate discourse is difficult to achieve with such an emotionally charged topic… In scientific research, here emotionality is supposedly downplayed, considerable gaps exist in the literature which preclude the possibility of making conclusive statements on the impact of physical punishment in the school setting (Bauer, Dubanoski, and Yamauchi 285).”The old saying is that it takes a village to raise a child. The “village” is currently divided on the issue of the use of corporal punishment in educational institutions in this country. Whatever the point of view, everyone tries to find the best practice for raising and educating children. Respectful debate should be the way to decide the issue, so that all parties can be considered and weighed on their own merits.