Were you ever caned at school?

R

Rose65

Well-known Member
Location
United Kingdom
I was a good little girl but I once got a hard smack on the back side for talking to my friend when silence was ordered. Another time I got sent for a caning for some minor misdemeanors, only high spirits and stubbornness. The headmaster spared me because he was a good man really and knew who the really bad kids were and I wasn't. We knew the boys who got regular canings and they didn't stop their bad ways. I think the brutal cane made them worse.

Reading the Tom Sawyer adventures made me think how brutal school days were back then. Learning was accompanied by punishment and it really wasn't right. I am glad it's a kinder world now. Although perhaps things have swung the other direction now and children can get away with too much?

Were you punished at school and did you think it was fair?
 

Oh Hell yes, did I ever.
There was this one incident, where I thought getting the cane was worth it.

We were lined around the indoor pool, Sister Mary Francis was in charge of swimming, anyway, as she passed me my best friend Fay shoved me right into her and down she went, and her habit floated up, as she walked up the stairs she looked like Bugs Bunny with his ears back. It was freaking hilarious and we laughed all the way to Mother Superior's office.:LOL:
That memory still cracks me up.

But to answer your question, I often thought it was unfair.
 
Tish said:
Oh Hell yes, did I ever.
There was this one incident, where I thought getting the cane was worth it.

We were lined around the indoor pool, Sister Mary Francis was in charge of swimming, anyway, as she passed me my best friend Fay shoved me right into her and down she went, and her habit floated up, as she walked up the stairs she looked like Bugs Bunny with his ears back. It was freaking hilarious and we laughed all the way to Mother Superior's office.:LOL:
That memory still cracks me up.

But to answer your question, I often thought it was unfair.
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What was life like at a convent school? I only ask out of curiosity, as it always seems nuns were not that nice. Were yours good teachers?
 

Corporal punishment was rare, heavily discouraged, and all but forbidden when I went through American public school, although for really hard-core cases the mechanism existed where a principal could paddle a kid with witnesses present. Verbal abuse by teachers of students did pass, however, and I had one teacher who was a master of it…

In the current environment, student on teacher violence is more prevalent, and if a teacher dared lift a hand to a student, the parents might come in to get them! I had a distant relative who when working as a principal was assaulted by a teenaged student using a metallic garbage can…he ended his career soon thereafter…
 
The boys got paddled quite a bit, but I never heard of one of the girls getting it, although I came close over a spelling test failure. The teacher, a man, said I deserved it, but he just couldn't bring himself to paddle a girl so he made me stand in front of the class and sing, "I'm a Little Teapot" with the motions. The kids all laughed and I loved it. A class clown was born that day.
 
IN England kids got the cane... in Scotland we were routinely belted with a leather tawse... even for the smallest infraction.

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Lewkat said:
No teacher dared laid a hand on us when I went to school. At least not in New Jersey, it wasn't allowed. At worst, your parents were called to school, and then they dealt with you at home. Not fun at all.
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In Scotland when I was at school the girls were not supposed to be belted..only the boys. believe me that didn't stop the teachers, they belted us all... some were downright sadistic.. the law said we were just to be belted on our open palms.. instead we'd be belted on our bare legs, back.. head...

Some parents were outraged and would confront the teachers when children came home with huge Weals on their bodies.. other parents had the attitude that if their kid was belted they must have deserved it.. and would give them another dose when they got home..
 
I was in public school. One day in First Grade we had a fire drill. We had to line up against the wall opposite our classroom. I stuck my head out of line to see the hallway. My Evil teacher, Miss Kratzer, saw that and slammed my precious little head against the wall for "being Out of Line." I never told my mother until I was an adult. She was very upset that I hadn't told her. I didn't think she could DO anything about it. Hated Miss Kratzer. She was probably lonely & horny. She was Mean.

All my teachers were Mean to varying degrees.
 
My elementary school Principal (a really, really scary lady) had "The Board of Education", a 2-foot paddle with three big holes in it (supposedly that design hurt worse) that she applied to "The Seat of Knowledge" but she only paddled the boys.

The girls were brought into her office for "a little talk".

In the third grade, I had been sent out to stand outside the door for some infraction (I don't remember what....it must have been minor as I was well-behaved in school, at least back then). It was a common punishment and not all that unpleasant because there was usually at least one other student banished to the hall and you could exchange hand gestures and funny faces with them.

So I was standing there and The Principal strolled by and invited me to her office "for a little talk". By the time I got to her office, I was crying so hard I threw up on her shoes. My mother had to be called to come get me. I never did find out what "a little talk" consisted of, thank goodness, and I stayed completely out of trouble for the rest of elementary school.
 
I was slapped. My girlfriends were too. Corporal punishment was frowned upon in public schools which I loved but my parents sent me to a parochial school where punishment was almost encouraged. That place scarred me for life and I dislike talking about the nuns and their abuses even now.
:mad:
 
I was caned (one cut) just once by my beloved teacher Mr McPhee. It did not traumatise me at all.
However, both as a child, and later as a young teacher, I became aware of certain teachers who caned children with malicious enjoyment.

Corporal punishment is no longer permitted in Australian public or private schools.
 
I was 7 years old. We'd moved from a city to another city where the accent was so different to ours that no-one could understand us at our new school. My brother who was 6..and I decided to not go to school, we were so scared of the bullies, so we walked to school, but didn't go in, we stood outside. We were so young we didn't know what else to do.. or where to go..

....but a teacher saw us and she came out and dragged me and my brother by our hair across the playground , all the time screaming obscenities at us.. so I bit her hand HARD... and she let go.. and screamed even more obscenities, and we both ran hell for leather home..where my mother had to come and deal with this teacher..
 
hollydolly said:
IN England kids got the cane... in Scotland we were routinely belted with a leather tawse... even for the smallest infraction.

BzbWkQRCYAAvRWy.jpg
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That's just so awful. I can't stand physical punishment or behaviour. It's because I grew up with a violent unpredictable father. As a child you accept it as normal but I look back with horror now.

Isn't it a shame that school, learning and studying, which ought to be a pleasure, was connected to punishment.
 
Rose65 said:
That's just so awful. I can't stand physical punishment or behaviour. It's because I grew up with a violent unpredictable father. As a child you accept it as normal but I look back with horror now.

Isn't it a shame that school, learning and studying, which ought to be a pleasure, was connected to punishment.
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well my father was Very violent almost daily beatings from him... so we were getting belted at school and getting at home too.. it became a norm for us...
 
hollydolly said:
I was 7 years old. We'd moved from a city to another city where the accent was so different to ours that no-one could understand us at our new school. My brother who was 6..and I decided to not go to school, we were so scared of the bullies, so we walked to school, but didn't go in, we stood outside. We were so young we didn't know what else to do.. or where to go..

....but a teacher saw us and she came out and dragged me and my brother by our hair across the playground , all the time screaming obscenities at us.. so I bit her hand HARD... and she let go.. and screamed even more obscenities, and we both ran hell for leather home..where my mother had to come and deal with this teacher..
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My God that is appalling. You have been through so much.
 
hollydolly said:
well my father was Very violent almost daily beatings from him... so we were getting belted at school and getting at home too.. it became a norm for us...
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I'm just amazed that you and I and so many others managed to grow up and have lives despite such terrible beginnings. Life just so far from ideal for so many.

Still, the pattern didn't have to be repeated. I brought my own children up especially with love and gentleness, they never ever got hit. It is just wrong.
 
In Hong Kong in the 1960's I went to King George V School where caning was a standard though not a frequent practice.
I did get "Six of the best" once for shoving a prefect who put his hand on me......OK, I admit I was being an obnoxious arse in the first place and he was only doing his job keeping order in the corridors during mid morning break.
In the headmaster's office I was told to bend over and hold my knees.....and then the cane was applied, hard.
 
In my elementary school, being hit or paddled by a teacher was almost unheard of. But we had one elementary teacher who would grab you by both shoulders and violently shake you back and forth until you looked like one of those bobble headed dolls.

While it never happened to me, just watching her treat another student that way was traumatic.
 

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