Alleged punishments cost 44-year veteran instructor her job

FLORIDA TODAY

MELBOURNE -- To spank or not to spank children is a question as old as the Bible -- and a form of discipline that got a longtime Cambridge Elementary School teacher fired from her job this week.
When Ruth Henderson began her career in 1958, teachers were often given a paddle and a Bible and told if they spared the rod, they would spoil the child. While she "adamantly denies" harming any of her kindergarten students, one boy said Henderson spanked him with several swats with her sandal. Another boy said she shook him and made him hit his head on a bookshelf.

An army of psychologists and child welfare advocates says corporal punishment is harmful, and they advocate outlawing it in every state, if not every country in the world. Dr. Benjamin Spock led the way in the 1970s, helping to raise a generation of children without spanking.
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