SUNDAY POST – “Spare the Rod?”
“Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.” Proverbs 13:24
I recently accompanied my 2nd grade daugher on her school field trip to Travellers Rest, a historic plantation house built in 1799 in Nashville. If you haven’t been, I highly recommend it, as it was a fascinating glimpse into our local history, circa the 1800s.
A stone’s throw from the mansion is a little one-room schoolhouse, approximately 30 feet by 30 feet square. The tour guide instructed the students to file in and sit on the wooden benches behind the shared wooden desks. At the front was a rolling blackboard and a teacher’s desk. Inside the student desks were old-fashioned slate chalkboards so that an 1800s student could practice the “Three Rs” ad nauseum without depending on the commodity of paper.
In this pre-Department of Education America, parents of the community would pool resources to pay for the teacher’s salary. The “apple for teacher” concept grew out of this, as the teachers were often compensated with crops or staples from the families.
The 2022 students practiced starting the school day as their 1800s counterparts did by “making their manners” via a curtsy or bow to the teacher. Girls sat on one side, boys on the other; talking between boys and girls was frowned upon.
One of the most fascinating parts was how students were disciplined in this little school house. One method for the girls was called “pinning,” a practice for which my daughter volunteered to help demonstrate. The teacher would have the misbehaving girl stand on her tiptoes with her back against the wall and then pin or nail a portion of her hair to the wall. Thus, when the girl’s legs got tired and she wanted to lower down to her heels, it would pull on her hair. Feet or hair? A conundrum, indeed.
A discipline specific to the boys would have been the bonnet. The misbehaving boy would be forced to don a girl’s bonnet and then sit amongst the girls, enduring the humiliation and whatever heckling ensued from his fellow students. This was a favored punishment for boys who bullied the girls.
The one universal disciplinary method mentioned for both girls and boys was “the switch.” A misbehaving student was charged to go outside and find a suitable branch of sufficient length and diameter to inflict adequate pain during a rap on the hand or bottom. This document mentions whips with a ferula (precursor to the ruler), spankings, standing in the corner, or sitting on a stool with a dunce cap on their head. I suppose I’m old because I remember the threat of spankings and standing in the corner from when I was a kid in the 1980s. I remember writing “I will not…” sentences ad nauseum (Thank you, Mrs. Marshall; I’m better for it).
Per one Illinois school teacher: “Good discipline was assumed to be the chief order of the day by children and parents, as well as by the teacher.”
Discipline in America’s early one-room schoolhouses was not the problem that it is today. Why? Could it be that parents and teachers were following a Biblical paradigm? Just as the New England Primer, which taught children to read and write with Biblical truths, Provers 22:15 was also the disciplinary order of the day:
“Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far away.”
INTERESTING FACTOID: Did you know the use of “rod” in the Bible, which likely conjures up images of a metal object of some sort, which would be cruel indeed, actually translates closer to “stick” or “branch” or “staff?” This was a key revelation for me. Jeremiah 1:11 refers to the “rod of an almond tree.” Does this information change that verse a bit for you?
President James Garfield, a school teacher in 1856, was forced to contemplate how best to deal with some unruly students. In his diary he noted that “some of the boys” were “greatly disposed to quarrel with each other and I fear that the rod alone will subdue that pugnacious spirit. When nothing else will, I believe that the effect of it is very salutary. I hate to use it at all”.
When examining the current issue of Restorative Justice, the pro-RJ side speaks of “ending the school to prison pipeline,” disciplining with “forgiveness and redemption,” making “trauma-informed” decisions, setting students up for success by keeping their records clean. As usual, all of that sounds quite nice. The name itself lulls parents to sleep. “Hmm…I like restorative yoga, so restorative justice sounds lovely.”
These are all the words and phrases of man. It is how the Left believes children should be disciplined (or rather, not disciplined), and we are all unwitting participants in their latest social experiment called Restorative Justice…an experiment that, predictably, is not going well.
But what does God, the author of human existence and the world itself, say on the matter?
Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them. Proverbs 13:24
Discipline your children, and they will give you peace; they will bring you the delights you desire. Proverbs 29:17
Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray. Proverbs 10:17
Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die. Punish them with the rod and save them from death. Proverbs 23:13-14
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
God appears to be strongly in favor of discipline, going so far as to recommend a good spanking and suggesting parents who fail to give discipline demonstrate contempt for their children. (If that concept trips you up, there’s a very good commentary about it here.) Proverbs 13:24 stresses “careful” discipline. Ephesians 6:4 cautions parents to “not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
Obviously, God is not in favor of child abuse. Afterall, God Himself through Jesus said, “it would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea,” than to harm a child. Matthew 18:6. “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them,” Jesus said, “for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Mark 10:13-16.Just as God has been systematically removed from our schools, so have his edicts that were once the bedrock of the New England Primer and American education from the founding until the 1960’s:
- All are created in His image.
- He made them male and female.
- A man is to leave his father and mother and become one flesh with his wife.
- Good discipline is essential.
- Honor and obey your parents.
- Sexual immorality is sinful and destructive.
- Do not lie, covet, lust, or worship false gods.
- Train children in the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it.
In today’s federally-funded schools, these are all vestiges from an ancient, bygone era. Name one that has been taught in the last year. And so it it fits perfectly that if God wishes us to lovingly discipline our children, the left exhorts us to contemptibly withhold it. Their wisdom comes from man. We seek the wisdom of God.
“Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”. 1 Cor 3:19
I’m quite sure that pinning, bonnets, ferula slaps, spankings, writing “I will not…” a hundred times or any other form of discipline is not enjoyable to the receiver. What they will come to understand later in life is that it set them upon the straight path. It was done out of love by the parent, and good order by the teacher (acting in loco parentis -for the parent- in the school room).
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11
And what of the Father who disciplines us, even into adulthood?
“Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal. (Job 5:17-18)
My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke,because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in. Proverbs 3:11-12
And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live!” Hebrews 12:5-9
As we have seen with every destructive ideology facing our kids in school, the Bible has valid and prescient answers for parents and educators. “Spare the rod, spoil the child” appears to have massive validity. Despite its harsh sound, it is an act of love by the parent, by the teacher “in loco parentis,” and by God Himself. Restorative Justice, as it has been implemented in our education system, is pure foolishness. Parents, be wise.
For more information, visit our Restorative Justice Toolkit.