Things teachers did decades ago that wouldn’t fly today…

Pinky said:
The hurling chalk and chalkboard erasers .. whacking student's heads or hands with a wooden ruler. I doubt
that sort of thing is allowed today.
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It certinly is not, a teacher would find themselves in Court today.. trouble is it's gone too far the other way. Teachers are just not allowed to chastise kids at all, and of course kids take full advantage of that and have little respect in many places for teachers..
 

hollydolly said:
We used to get belted with the Tawse...it was very painful and would leave bruising..and sometimes cuts.. it was a thick short leather strap. Some sadistic teachers would soak theirs in vinegar to make it extra tough..

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Ah yes I got that couple of times for giggling in class.....boys were teasing us.:D..... sadistic math teacher Mr Smith by name...he would aim for pinky edge of hand..hurt like hell.:mad:
 
Mizmo said:
Ah yes I got that couple of times for giggling in class.....boys were teasing us.:D..... sadistic math teacher Mr Smith by name...he would aim for pinky edge of hand..hurt like hell.:mad:
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OMG were you at my school? :eek: The sadist head of Maths at my school with the belt under his jacket was also Mr SMITH!!
 

Mizmo said:
Oh how strange maybe a descendant.
Holly dahlink....remember I am your mother...my Mr Smith is long dead..I think!!😱
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Well TBH I think my Mr Smith will be long dead too.. when I was about 14 he must have been well in his 50's.. he was a Giant of a Man with a big red face...
 
Remy said:
Yes, those words can remain. I was humiliated by a teacher in front of student's that I couldn't do the pull ups because "you eat too many cookies." She also pointed and yelled at me one day at the pool "get out, you are not allowed in the deep pool." Again in front of others.

My brother, who is left handed, had a teacher who tried to force him and another classmate to write with their right hand. My mother found out and went to the teacher. I don't know how big of a scene she made, but it stopped.
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Good for your mother!
 
My second grade teacher used to pinch kids' cheeks, really hard. It only happened to me once, but hurt enough to make me cry.

My husband went to Catholic school where the nuns were apparently brutal; as an example, one of them picked a boy up bodily and literally threw him out the window. (They threw erasers too.) Freaking chilling to think about.
 
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hollydolly said:
Well TBH I think my Mr Smith will be long dead too.. when I was about 14 he must have been well in his 50's.. he was a Giant of a Man with a big red face...
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Hmm..well my Mr Smith in looking back now probably would have been in his early 30's .
Tall and actually quite handsome then .
He was my math teacher for 3years so would have been late 1940's .
I saw him a few years later while on a River Clyde boat trip to Rothesay. We were on our way back to Glasgow.
We looked at each other and while I recognized him right away he was not sure about me as I was 15 when I left his class but he followed me around the boat and stared a lot. The girlfriend I was with commented on it so I filled her in on his bad behaviour. :D
 
Students that misbehaved were paddled with a wooden paddle. I heard that it was painful. I will never forget a particular girl that got paddled in front of the class; she cried in pain.

And then there was the notorious Mr. Haby in Junior High. He obviously enjoyed paddling the students.
 
jujube said:
One day in third grade, I got put out in the hall for some unremembered misdemeanor and she happened to be patrolling the halls. She "invited" me down to her office for "a little chat". I cried so hard, I made myself sick and threw up all over the place. My mother had to be called to bring me home for the day.

I still see her in my nightmares.
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What on earth was this little chat about? That's the most horrific story yet.
 
Medusa said:
My second grade teacher used to pinch kids cheeks, really hard. It only happened to me once, but hurt enough to make me cry.

My husband went to Catholic school where the nuns were apparently brutal; as as example, on of them picked a boy up bodily and literally threw him out the window. (They threw erasers too.) Freaking chilling to think about.
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How awful .
My mother who was taught by nuns too in a convent told us stories of how one of the nuns would hit them on the knuckles with a ruler and another used her rosary beads which were those huge wooden things from long ago and hit them on the palm of their hands with it bunched up.
 
I went to public schools in Iowa and Colorado and what I remember is more basic. I remember having to sit in a corner of the classroom a few times maybe a couple or three or so with a dunce cap on. Being sent to the principal's office and having him talk to me about my behavior like the time in the playground at recess while playing a girl was swinging her purse a me and I swung back and gave her a black eye. We made up and me and my parents went to her house and had supper with her parents. I was able to be nice to her the time I was there, but she was so bossy that after the make-up I would avoid her at all costs.
 
I'm on the record here for being a "rough and tough" country kid. I went to a 1 room school house. Got 40 straps one day; 20 on each hand. Then 3 days later another 40 straps; 20 on each hand. No complains, I was a real bad kid and I really deserved those straps. But today I just a nice guy because a teacher cared enough to teach me what was wrong and what was right.

Today the kids are cuddled by society and often grow up confused and not knowing the bounds that they can/cannot cross. Too bad but crime is up, depression is up and suicide is up too. There is a lot of confusion out there with a lot of people being "hammered" into discipline by the politically correct wing of society. I just ignore them since the politically correct are often incorrect.
 
Lawrence said:
I went to public schools in Iowa and Colorado and what I remember is more basic. I remember having to sit in a corner of the classroom a few times maybe a couple or three or so with a dunce cap on. Being sent to the principal's office and having him talk to me about my behavior like the time in the playground at recess while playing a girl was swinging her purse a me and I swung back and gave her a black eye. We made up and me and my parents went to her house and had supper with her parents. I was able to be nice to her the time I was there, but she was so bossy that after the make-up I would avoid her at all costs.
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Well, sounds like you handled the situation as well as you could, especially for a young person.
 
Mizmo said:
Hmm..well my Mr Smith in looking back now probably would have been in his early 30's .
Tall and actually quite handsome then .
He was my math teacher for 3years so would have been late 1940's .
I saw him a few years later while on a River Clyde boat trip to Rothesay. We were on our way back to Glasgow.
We looked at each other and while I recognized him right away he was not sure about me as I was 15 when I left his class but he followed me around the boat and stared a lot. The girlfriend I was with commented on it so I filled her in on his bad behaviour. :D
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Yikes. That's creepy. :/
 
Here in California at suburban public schools even during the 1950s, there was never any corporal punishment. Cannot recall anything teachers did that would in this era might be considered inappropriate. During my Kindergarten through 9th grade years only recall a couple students in all the schools (not just my classes) I went to that were not totally Caucasian, a result of racist segregation real estate and bank mortgage practices of that era.
 
How I wish my sister would write a book, specifically on how she was punished.

She was placed in a book closet for the entire school day. It was dark and cold. No restroom breaks either.

So much more to tell.

I will never understand why my parents were ignored in their pleas.
 
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Della said:
What on earth was this little chat about? That's the most horrific story yet.
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I doubt the little chat was much more than being admonished strongly for whatever it was that I did (I can't remember what she said....I was too busy being scared....).

Mostly, it was just that she was one mega-
scary dude (and a lot of us past students agree that there might have been a little more "dude" than "dudette" in her makeup, if you get my drift). She would have made a great cinematic prison warden.

Thank goodness, except for the principal and the 4th grade teacher, my other teachers I had during my 6 years in the grade-school building were great.
 
My picture is probably still posted on the bulletin boards in the teachers lounges as public enemy #1. I received most of the punishments mentioned and deserved every one.

A creative one was my 5th. grade teacher tying me into my desk chair, I just couldn't stay seated. It started with yarn but eventually moved on to rope that I couldn't break. She would even leave me tied in my chair when she took the rest of the class out to recess.

Could you imagine that in this day?
 
Here's another that would never happen today. In seventh or eighth grade I thru paper out the school bus window. The driver stopped the bus and told me to go pick it up, and then she drove away leaving me about five miles from home.
 

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