"People who hit children should go to jail," wrote my wife on the "consent to administer corporal punishment" form. That unambiguous statement started us down a path to where I am now: figuring out how to convince five Alabamians that corporal punishment is a bad idea.
Things really got started when Wendy posted a snapshot of that note to Facebook. It was then that she realized that many people, especially people in Alabama, still thought that corporal punishment is a good thing.
From there we wound up on a New York Times blog, the Huffington Post, discussed on Fox News, and then interviewed by the local CBS station.
Wendy started a petition during all this, trying to urge every elected official she could think of to pass a Federal law banning corporal punishment in schools. She made the mistake of reading the comment sections of the various places where the articles appeared. And I got nominated to address the school board on this issue.
I've spoken in front of them twice now. I plan to keep doing so every board meeting until at least the end of the year (or at least until they change their policy).
This blog is where I will record the steps I go through in this process and any lessons the art of persuasion I learn along the way.
