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Corporal Punishment


Wilbur

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I was not a troublemaker at school.... but I seem to remember one kid, Eddie, being paddled in the classroom, in front of all of us.  Maybe first grade?  This was a school in a very rural area.  Sometimes I feel like my brain must have made up that story.

Knowing what I know now, I am certain that kid had some learning disability and I wonder whatever became of him - he left the school not long afterward. 

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Knowing what I know now, I am certain that kid had some learning disability and I wonder whatever became of him -

probably in politics

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I second grade, some of the more rambunctious kids in class were acting up. The teacher tired of it and made the whole class put their heads on their desks. After about 60 seconds, I couldn’t bear what I deemed a huge injustice. I stood up, slammed a book on my desk and when the surprised teacher asked what was going on, I told her it wasn’t fair to punish the rest of us.  

I was promptly sent to the principal’s office.

I plead my case and he saw my point. Just told me I had to go apologize to my teacher. Pretty anti-climactic. 

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Yes

No it wasn't effective.  I was in junior high and pretty much used to it.  Once was the teacher, the other was the vice principal.  The teacher was an older and small, I was sent back to the class room ahead of her.  Told everyone you didn't have to worry about anything because she can't hit worth a damn.

The vice principal was for fighting.  That one was really lame, yes I had a kid down and was choking him out, but the VP said to me, I know you've been being picked on all year (it was the end of school year when it happened) and you finally snapped, but have to punish you anyways.  So yeah, I got punished, no one that had been picking on me all year did though.

Schools freaking suck.

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Yes. Yes. No

I remember in 4th grade we were rehearsing for our Christmas program. They had us in rows. The kids in front of us were sitting on their knees. I was in the row behind standing on my knees and then a row standing behind them. For whatever reason, I was tapping the shoe of the person in front of me. With no other warning, WHACK! The principal smacked me on the head! I never liked her before. Hated her after that. She was a tyrant. I learned years later even the teachers didn't like her. All she did was tear people down. Bad students just got worse under her reign. 

In high school the gym teacher would give "swats" after PE with a wooden paddle. "Smith! That's a swat!.......Mostek! That's 3 swats!" In the locker room, he would call names to line up for swats. I was a small guy and "the new guy". I was too scared to get too out of line. Even so, I would get a swat on occassion not even knowing why. Coach went to our church. One day he came over to me and said, "I suppose you wonder why you get some of your swats". I nodded. He just said he liked the effort I gave even though physically I couldn't always do more. He would just call me up for a swat so I wouldn't get picked on for being a goody 2 shoes!

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No, no, and probably in very rare circumstances it could be effective (but much more likely to be simple abuse).

Regardless, home had the option of corporal punishment which far exceeded any threat a normal teacher could pose. Thinking my parents were going to punish us was far more incentive to behave - within reason - than fear of punishment at school.

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1 hour ago, Zealot said:

I second grade, some of the more rambunctious kids in class were acting up. The teacher tired of it and made the whole class put their heads on their desks. After about 60 seconds, I couldn’t bear what I deemed a huge injustice. I stood up, slammed a book on my desk and when the surprised teacher asked what was going on, I told her it wasn’t fair to punish the rest of us.  

I was promptly sent to the principal’s office.

I plead my case and he saw my point. Just told me I had to go apologize to my teacher. Pretty anti-climactic. 

And yet, action by peers is one of the great motivating forces at work in the world.  Perhaps the anger should have been directed at some of the rambunctious kids.  The service was big on mass punishments and the real punishment proceeded after dark.

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19 minutes ago, jsharr said:

Fear and pain are great motivators.

Yes, until your pain threshold has exceeded their ability to inflict it.  Then it's a freaking joke, it became, go to the principals office, get this over with, back to what ever dumb ass thing I was doing.

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30 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

And yet, action by peers is one of the great motivating forces at work in the world.  Perhaps the anger should have been directed at some of the rambunctious kids.  The service was big on mass punishments and the real punishment proceeded after dark.

Oh I get that. I was military as well. ?

But to a kid, nope.  Even today, I despise it when a group is punished for the acts of a few.  And I didn’t do it to my troops or to my kids. At least I don’t think I ever did. 

 

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Yes, many times, and I deserved all but the first one.  The first one came when several boys were running down the hall fighting when I was in 7th grade.  They knocked me down, and we all got licks with a wooden paddle.  There was hell to pay after that, and I knew how to push buttons.  This continued all the way through high school.  One I could not understand, was for when I heaved my almost empty lunch sack across the cafeteria toward the trash can, and made an accurate throw.  I told the vice-principal that, hey I made the throw, but got the licks anyway.

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Not in school but I saw a mouthy kid get thrown out of class.  Teacher told him to be quiet and he wouldn’t.  Teacher threatened to throw him out of the class if he didn’t be quiet.  I’d like to see you try... He grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him & the desk out the door!  Kid never came back either!  

I used to take a shortcut to school through a catholic school. I had a nun grab me by the arm and squeezed so tightly she dug her nails into the skin.  “I’ll teach you” she screeched at me as she Freaking dug her nails into my arm... I broke free and kept riding but freaking nun had issues... 

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3 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

 

I used to take a shortcut to school through a catholic school. I had a nun grab me by the arm and squeezed so tightly she dug her nails into the skin.  “I’ll teach you” she screeched at me as she Freaking dug her nails into my arm... I broke free and kept riding but freaking nun had issues... 

The only adults that ever put their hands on me were my mom, my step father and one other.  

I couldn’t have tolerated it at school. 

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2 hours ago, Indy said:

Yes, until your pain threshold has exceeded their ability to inflict it.  Then it's a freaking joke, it became, go to the principals office, get this over with, back to what ever dumb ass thing I was doing.

Mine were always from the Coach and usually done in the coaches office in the locker room where the team could see and so the stigma of getting laughed at by your team mates was probably more painful than a few swats from a paddle with holes drilled in it.    

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4 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

The third is an "either/or" thing.  Out of line or effective?  Or both? Or maybe a "no" is it was neither out of line nor effective.  A sort of meh?

It is my A.D.D.  I never read past "out of line'

No it was not out of line, yes it was effective

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I received one swat.  I think I was in the sixth grade. It was an art teacher. He had a rule about sayng, "This Sucks!" and would swat kids if they said it.  My buddy Eric said it but the teacher thought I said it. Needless to say, the teacher wasn't willing to listen to reasonable plees from me and spanked my ass.  It did not hurt and somehow started a chain of events and future behaviors on my part that would make Page blush. 

The art teacher was a stupid hippie and listened to the Grateful Dead.  

Couch 

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5 minutes ago, Couch_Incident said:

The art teacher was a stupid hippie and listened to the Grateful Dead.   

I think my art teacher was a hippie too, but she always had us listen to the Beatles in class.  Did hippies like the Beatles? And my music teacher had us learn "One Tin Soldier" which had to be a hippie thing too!

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4 hours ago, jsharr said:

Mine were always from the Coach and usually done in the coaches office in the locker room where the team could see and so the stigma of getting laughed at by your team mates was probably more painful than a few swats from a paddle with holes drilled in it.    

Those narrow shaved down base ball bats were the pits, worse than those broader ones even with holes.  There were times that I wished I had more meat on my behind. I can tell you were schooled in Texas.:whistle:

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2 minutes ago, sheep_herder said:

Those narrow shaved down base ball bats were the pits, worse than those broader ones even with holes.  There were times that I wished I had more meat on my behind. I can tell you were schooled in Texas.:whistle:

I met with the board of education on more than a few occasions.   Back in the day when all a teacher had to do was find a coach in the teachers lounge and let him know that one of his players was not toeing the line....

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When I was in sixth grade, I accidently dropped and broke a ruler in art class.  The art teacher had a rule that if you destroyed the equipment, you got a swat. He paddled me in front of the entire class. He paddled me a second time in the hallway and a third time in the office. He was upset I did not cry.

I wasn't the best kid, but this was the only time my parents complained to the adminstration about a teacher's punishment.

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6 hours ago, sheep_herder said:

Those narrow shaved down base ball bats were the pits, worse than those broader ones even with holes.  There were times that I wished I had more meat on my behind. I can tell you were schooled in Texas.:whistle:

We had a baton instructor in the Police Academy that carried a 2’ long maybe 1 1/2” thick bamboo rod he called “Junior”. If your technique was off junior would getcha!  I hated the whacks on the wrists...

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16 hours ago, wilbur said:

Did you receive it in school?

Was it an option for teachers?

Was it really out of line or an effective tool? 

No, but I witnessed it.

There was a young male teacher in gr. 5.  He seemed handsome, etc. However when he got mad at some of the boys, he would take them out in the hall way and corner them, in fact nearly throw them against the locker and yell at them individually.  It was pretty scary to see his temper.

The elementary school I went in Waterloo, did use the strap..by the principal.  I have no idea thereafter.  I suspect it was banned just a few years later.

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Pupils at my school were regularly beaten on the hands with a leather tawse. This could be for anything at all including failing an exam and whole classes were punished like this. This was used even up to the time when I started teaching  in the seventies and I remember being questioned by teachers as to why I refused to do this. They didn't like my answer.

https://www.google.com/search?q=lochgelly+twse&oq=lochgelly+twse&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l4.5468j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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