As a prospective educator in today's secondary school system, the researcher is very concerned about the issue of discipline. Many teachers are concerned with this issue, as has been seen in many polls conducted by various agencies.One such poll says that lack of discipline is one of the major problems in schools, but corporal punishment is an effective deterrent to this problem (Sewall, 1980).What are our rights as educators? Can we legally use corporal punishment in a specific situation? In this paper, the researcher examines issues such as these, and seeks to outline the changing patterns of discipline over the past 20 years.