Maryland bans spanking children at private schools and daycares

As a young teacher, Tara Ebersole trembled whenever she reached for the flat wooden paddle she was supposed to use to discipline students in her junior high school classroom in east Tennessee. Even then, in 1980, she could hardly believe corporal punishment was still expected in public schools. “I shook every time I put a paddle in my hand,” she recalled. “For me, philosophically, intentionally causing pain to another person is not how you can guide and teach them.”