Okay, so it's time for another hypoethical dilemma for us all to turn our (slightly warped!) minds towards. This one is based on an actual factual event I experienced in my school days so I'll tell you about that first. For the benefit of those who may not be overly familiar with my history, I was at school in the UK during the era when corporal punishment was just about beginning to decline but was far from unusual. Between the ages of eight and eleven I attended an all-boys school where fairly mild corporal punishment was routinely dished out in the classroom environment - things like a single hard swat with a plimsoll or stick across your trousers as you touched your toes at the front of the class.
One day our regular class teacher was unavoidably away, engaged in duties elsewhere - the school managed to arrange for different teachers to cover all of our classes apart from one. At the start of that particular class the senior teacher came in and announced that we were going to have be trusted to behave ourselves for the next forty minutes or so. He set us some work to be doing and reminded us that he'd be teaching in the classroom next door and that he'd better not hear any noise from us. Of course, the situation deteriorated fairly quickly and after about fifteen minutes, there was total chaos - everyone was out of their seat and running around and we clearly misjudged the amount of noise we were making. Suddenly the door opened and the senior teacher was framed in the doorway - the first thing I saw was that he was clutching his trusty plimsoll in his hand and was looking very angry. We all scuttled back to our seats as if to make believe we had been innocent all along. He waited until everyone was back where they were meant to be and then pronounced "I warned you that I wanted to noise. Well I haven't got enough time to waste beating all of you as I should do." There was a short pause, then he pointed the plimsoll at one particular boy "You happened to be the first I saw when I opened the door so you come out here and touch your toes." I remember breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn't pointed at me, and then I looked around to see the red-faced boy making his way out to the front of the classroom. He was far from a regular offender although I think he had been slippered on maybe one occasion previously but he looked rather upset to be the centre of attention right now. As instructed he bent over with the tips of his fingers on his shoes and his legs as straight as he could manage - again my recollection at that point was that his short grey trousers were stretched very tightly and you could quite clearly see the shape of his two buttocks. I don't know why everyone was always so compliant in that situation but we just were - nobody ever tried to get away with being just half bent over, even though we were assuming a much more uncomfortable position and probably making the subsequent beating hurt even more as a result. The arm holding the plimsoll went back high in the air and swiftly came down across the one buttock with a crack as a loud as a gunshot and then before there was any chance to react it went back again and came down, maybe even harder, on the other side. "Right, back to you seat." The boy's face was as red as his bottom probably was and he complied quickly, probably anxious not to be centre stage for a moment longer than he needed to be. He looked very close to tears but I think he managed not to actually cry.
"Right, now back to your work IN SILENCE. Consider yourselves all to have been given a good beating and if I have to come back again, inconvenient as it may be, I promise you I will soundly beat every one of you with double what you have just seen your colleague be given."
Most of us heeded the warning and tried to get on with the set work - one or two started messing around, primarily the regular delinquents who were no strangers to getting a beating or two and who probably quite liked the idea of trying to get some of those who never did anything wrong into trouble and getting to see how they took a beating, but by and large peer pressure kept things under control, and we survived the rest of the class without another visitation.
Alright, so there is a true factual situation that occurred in the early 1970's. For your hypothetical I need you to put aside any feeling you have about whether corporal punishment should or should not be used in the classroom. You are now the senior teacher in the scenario I've just outlined. To make it more interesting, we'll make it a mixed class and one where girls as well as boys could be given a physical punishment, although it was much less common - probably for every ten times a boy was beaten, only one girl would get it. You come into the class, everyone scrambles back to their seat, and as they do you hit on the idea of punishing just one (or two) as an example - you can justify punishing them for being rowdy, but you get to choose.
- Do you choose a boy or a girl or one of each?
- Do you choose a regular offender? That has the advantage that you know you can hit them jolly hard and they'll accept it and there is very unlikely to be a complaint.
- Do you choose someone who you believe has never had a beating before? That gets across the message that it could happen to anyone and they might show more reaction, even to a more moderate punishment - perhaps you'd even get some tears - on the other hand, there is the slim chance a parent might complain about them being picked on (okay, so you have the 'first one I saw' and the fact they were breaking the rules so you're okay, but it might be a bit more hassle).
- Do you choose one you particularly have it in for (probably a regular offender) where you relish the chance to make them suffer another embarrassing punishment?
- Do you chose one that you've always thought had a rather nice bottom that was just made for being whacked, but who had never given you the slightest excuse?
- Do you play it straight and genuinely pick out the one your eye fell on first the moment you opened the door?
4 comments:
Given your parameters of corporal punishment being the accepted method AND going by your assertion that everyone is guilty, I would still have to go with an alternative option not listed: they either all get a swat, or none of them do. I see nothing fair and therefore instructive about selecting an example or pair of examples. If time did not allow for a quick swat all around, then I think writing lines for the entire class might be the best punishment.
However, if I was forcibly required by some superior to make this choice against my better judgement, I think I would choose whomever was the wealthiest kid in the class and make an example of them.
I would never call getting the slipper 'a beating'. The slipper or pump was pretty well routine in most of the schools I went to, and although a whack or two certainly created some heat, and made your rear end sting, it was not to be compared with the cane which always hurt. I have quite literally been in a similar situation and the particular teacher who stormed in had a much fairer solution...whack the lot. What matter if half the class are girls? They might not rush around being idiots but the noise of their shrill chatter would still draw attention. Much fairer than picking on one kid.
Old Tom
One afternoon when I was at school I was standing, with the rest of my class in a queue outside the woodwork/metalwork block at the bottom of the schoolyard.
The usual suspects were horsing about when the woodwork teacher, whose name was Hansen, appeared out of the main school building and walked towards us.
He was obviously in a foul mood: perhaps his dinner (lunch) was cold, or he had had an argument with his wife, but something had clearly angered him.
He knew and could clearly see who the troublemakers were and perhaps on a different day only they would have been his victims.
But this day when we got upstairs to the woodwork room he announced he was going to cane the lot of us.
He used to cane on the hand not the bottom and believe me it was a real corker; my right hand - I'm left handed - was numb for the best part of an hour afterwards.
Given your scenario, I would whack the lot of them though if it were a mixed school I would ask a female member of staff to do the deed to avoid any accusations of impropriety.
In any other case, if it were only as small number of pupils, only they would feel the sting of the plimsoll.
I wouldn't single one boy or girl out for punishment as an example to the rest.
Letter home to parents = a red bottom walking!
Sentence gotten passed, de facto.
Thanks a bunch, James. As a 63 year old mother of two daughters, now in their late thirties, I guess I would choose a girl (from practical experience as a kind, strict nurturer of "tough love!")
I would always be totally fair & never much cared for the "guilty until proven innocent" approach adopted by the strict moms at our church when I was growing up, early 1960s.
Mind you, the odd undeserved bare bottom tanning with the rod never did me or my backside any harm. I think I have just about recovered already!
In Georgia State, a letter home from school to parents, would elicit the appropriate, chosen punishment. My school used a paddle, but I never received CP at school. At home in the 1960s, my mother punished my sister & me with her special, dreaded spanking stick: a quality, thin, flexible, rattan cane. When I was God-blessed with my own two girls in the 1980s, my mother kindly handed me down this spanking stick, my special, "tickle-tail" of a childhood cane, to help me keep my girls well behaved, & on the straight & narrow!! Which I sure did.
Oh my! Why, one obvious advantage (considerable advantage!) of a letter home to parents & the dreaded cane kept at home for whoopings in private James, is that knickers can be pulled down for proper, fierce "heat to the seat"...and every time at that! Let it be a strict rule, already. A salutary baker's dozen on the bare bottom, no half measures was the punishment - as my daughters will ruefully recall, James (with humour now of course.) And like mother like daughter, I naturally also only ever gotten that cane on my bare botty from my mom, with my panties put down to to knees, in the 1960s/70s (it was good, sound, harmless & most unbearable!! As it needed to be)
And I watched my lil' sister chastised exactly the same on her bare, white hiney, countless times...sure made y'all focus & think about our attitude n behaviour! Corporal punishment at home was simply normal & necessary. Yes letters home from school - daughters best not goof around in church or be an impossible princess brat in store, James!!
Kind regards,
Nostalgic Brenda xx
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