He Wants to Spare the Rod, Work With Children

Retired Irvine elementary school principal Gene Bedley spends much of his free time poking about in second-hand stores, looking for old, crafted furniture to refinish and restore. He has a keen eye for discovering the hidden value in all sorts of things--especially children.

His reverence for traditional American values and belief in the innate goodness of students has brought Bedley national recognition as a leader of the “values-based” education movement, which strives to link lessons in ethical behavior with classroom curriculum.

A sought-after speaker who gives seminars on student discipline across the country, Bedley says teachers are not unsympathetic to calls for a return to corporal punishment in the classroom, a practice outlawed in California public schools since 1986.

“There are teachers who feel corporal punishment is a definite deterrent toward inappropriate behavior. There are those who feel kids need to have some fear, because they have kids coming to school who have no fear of anything, who have a ‘What can you do to me?’ kind of attitude.

“There are a lot of educators out there who are asking, ‘How can we punish the kids? What can we do any more when a kid is disruptive?’ There’s a great deal of frustration on the part of the teachers.”

But despite what teachers say is a crisis in student discipline, corporal punishment is one traditional American practice Bedley hopes is never returned to California public schools.

Proposed legislation to repeal the decade-old ban on corporal punishment, sponsored by Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange), was defeated along with a measure allowing the paddling of youthful graffiti vandals last month.

During his 33 years in public education, Bedley, 56, says he never had to resort to physical punishment to get cooperation from his students.

“The first person to raise their fist, the first person to raise their voice, the first person to clobber somebody, is the first person to run out of ideas,” Bedley said. “When people don’t know what to do, there’s always the temptation to say, ‘Let’s go back to the way we used to do it.’

“It’s kind of lying to kids to say, ‘I want you to work it out with words, but I’m going to take out my paddle and whack you on the rear end,’ ” he said.

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Bedley retired in August after 20 years as principal of El Camino Real Elementary School in Irvine, where his flair for innovation was recognized with the national PTA’s Outstanding Educator of the Year award in 1985.

He is the author of numerous books on education reform and parenting, and his values-based curriculum is used in hundreds of schools throughout the United States, Canada and Russia.

Bedley recently conducted teacher workshops on student discipline in Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee. In April, he will work with teachers in Idaho, Colorado and Wyoming.

Last May, Bedley received the $25,000 National Educator Award from the Milken Family Foundation for his work in restoring the teaching of ethical behavior to the public school curriculum.

Bedley does not believe the teaching of basic values to students can be achieved through intimidation. At El Camino, his students were sent to the principal’s office for being good.

“One of the first things I ask teachers is: ‘What does responsibility mean and what does control mean?’ What you begin to find out is that they are two very separate issues. Control deals with telling kids what to do. Responsibility deals with consulting, working with kids and families and leading them toward what they need to do.

“The bottom line is, most discipline books have been written about control. Ninety-nine percent of them emphasize parental controls and needs. But whenever you reach punishment, then you’re dealing with past performance.

“Responsibility addresses the present and the future. It considers the past, but its real focus is on the next choice a student is going to make.”

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Bedley does not reject punishment out of hand but says educational studies show that vengeful punishment intended to humiliate students only cements their opposition to those who have authority over them.

“Telling someone that they’re bad just perpetuates their badness,” Bedley said. “If they screw up, they know they’ve made a bad choice. But let me empathize with that a little bit; let me talk about the times I made some bad choices. I always tried to let students know they could handle the next situation. That’s what I did with kids for 20 years and it was powerful. Either we help them build a destiny or we build them into some box they can’t get out of.”

In a country increasingly concerned about youth violence, Bedley believes educators must work in partnership with families and that many of the solutions must begin at home.

“The family is fragile, it’s fragmented and it’s falling apart. Corporate America has to make sure that moms and dads can get to parent conferences at their children’s schools, that the structure of their work schedules helps support the family.

“We also need to do everything we can to study the families that are successful. We need to know what makes families work in a world that’s pretty much stressed out.

“Whenever there is a crisis with a child, I always ask: ‘Where are the parents?’ If there isn’t a parent there, if there isn’t a responsible adult there when some little kid gets pushed out of a window in Chicago, the question is: ‘Where were the parents?’ ”

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Profile: Gene Bedley

Age: 56

Hometown: Boston

Came to California: At age 10

Residence: Irvine

Education: Master’s degree in educational administration from Cal State Long Beach; additional graduate studies

Family: Wife Sally, three children and five grandchildren

Background: An educator for 33 years, retired in August after 20 years as principal of El Camino Real Elementary School in Irvine; publishes “Values in Action,” a pioneering character education program used in hundreds of schools, through his company, People-Wise Publications; author of numerous books on education reform; helped create the city of Irvine’s first code of ethics last year

On corporal punishment: “The first person to raise their fist, the first person to raise their voice, the first person to clobber somebody is the first person to run out of ideas.”

Source: Gene Bedley; Researched by RUSS LOAR / For The Times