"להרביץ תורה": ייצוגים ספרותיים לשימוש של מורים בענישה גופנית

This article discusses the issue of corporal punishment as an educational tool as it is reflected in literary texts from different cultures and periods, and in light of the basic principles of educational psychology and law. The assumption is that literature reflects and represents the changes in the educational approach to punishment in general and corporal punishment in particular. The purpose of this article is to consolidate the status of the literary text as evidence of existential situations and examine them through the prism of literary criticism. Although corporal punishment is the common denominator of these texts, it is hard to ignore differences between them in an integrative perspective. In order to focus the discussion I will analyze the effectiveness of corporal punishment, the relationship between authority and corporal punishment, the principles that guide the use of corporal punishment, and the parent-student-teacher triangle as a paradigm of power relations.