Public schools sure don't hit kids. Private schools might. I know Catholic schools were infamous for smacking the crap out of kids, but I don't know how much they've mellowed on that since my Dad and uncles went through Catholic school in the 70s. I think parents would be pretty irate if a public school administrator hit their kids, even if they themselves hit their kids.
That's a pretty big cultural disparity, so while I can't imagine hitting kids to fly in a million years in any state that I've lived in, I suppose my account could be biased. There can be a pretty big divide between southern states and northern ones sometimes.
They for darn sure do. On the ordered list of reasons why I yanked my kid out of the school he was in, number three (will shock you) is that one of his friends "received corporal punishment" (the polite euphemism for "was struck") and the school and school district had no mechanism for parents ordering the school to not do that to our children.
> I looked at a map and the states that don't forbid hitting kids in school are all the South
Yep.
> There can be a pretty big divide between southern states and northern ones sometimes.
You're not wrong. High up on the list of reasons why my immediate family does not now and never will again live in the state listed on the top of all of our birth certificates is cultural differences like this. My "home" state shows no real signs of changing this or many other of these things. I sincerely hope they do but me and mine will be witnessing it from afar, at least until my kid becomes an adult and chooses for himself where to live.
I do think it's a bit misleading for you to say "all in the south" when that map stretches all the way to the Canadian border, but I digress...
One anecdote, not that it paints much of a picture, is that I have a much younger cousin in Catholic school right now (in one of the states on that map) and, from what I hear, it sounds like corporal punishment is completely off the table.
Edit: I looked at a map and the states that don't forbid hitting kids in school are all the South: https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/533438e769beddc92a184...
That's a pretty big cultural disparity, so while I can't imagine hitting kids to fly in a million years in any state that I've lived in, I suppose my account could be biased. There can be a pretty big divide between southern states and northern ones sometimes.