Around 1990, I got smacked a few times on the hand with a ruler.
In 1994/95, I got punched in the head a couple of times.
Never the strap though.
Ireland, Catholic School.
Zombie Alert!
Do you ever really want to know what specific Google Search brings up these old threads? 
Anyway - at school, I was quite good when I was a child and never got into trouble. But **lots **of other kids got paddled or strapped. Paddles were for girls and little ones, straps were for the older boys. Girls and littles got paddled by the nurse, boys by the principal.
I switched to another old-fashioned christian school when I was a highschooler, and I wasn’t good then - they threatened to strap me for insubordination, but when they took me into the principal’s office, I very calmly told them that if they laid a hand on me, I would go straight to the police, show them the marks, and then inform the police that the school had a senile legless 90 year old “teaching” a group of 15 kids from infants up to 5 years old in a locked room by herself.
They kicked me out instead, which I considered a victory.
I was very glad that they believed me, because if they had tried, I would have not been ladylike at all, and probably have gotten arrested for assault shortly afterwards.
I was caned for not being able to remember a teacher’s name in grade seven. (Years later, at my first university exam, I forgot my own name, but fortunately they don’t cane people for that.)
Later that year the head master tried to cane me for allegedly stealing a student’s hat. A student who did not like me had made the entirely false accusation. Rather than tolerate being beaten for something I had nothing to do with, I chased the head master (a very small fellow) around the room whacking him with his cane until he agreed to not cane me. He had not been prepared to face rational fury from someone his own size. Interestingly, he never contacted my parents over the matter.
From 1966-1975, I went to a Catholic elementary school in New York. Corporal punishment was quite common in the Sixties (a lot of boys got whipped across the butt with yardsticks or wooden pointers).
I never got that kind of beating, but over the course of nine years, I got my face slapped twice and my hair pulled once.
By the time I was in 8th grade, corporal punishment was very rare, however, and by the time my youngest brother started attending the same school, it never happened any more.
I got shown the strap once, but was spared the actual strapping.
Ontario, 1970s.
(If I recall, I had brought some gel-type bath beads from home, and was throwing them at the French teacher whenever she turned her back.)
And you know what? Childhood experiences like that have little or no effect on your subsequent development into an adult.
I don’t know the current rules, but in the late Eighties, high schools and junior high schools here in Austin, Texas still used corproral punishment PROVIDED that parents and kids agreed to it.
That is, at the start of the year, parents could sign a waiver saying if it was all right for school admnistrators to paddle their kids. And THEN, if the kid got in trouble, he’d get a choice between X number of whacks on the butt or detention/in-school suspension.
From what I could tell, though, boys who had that choice almost ALWAYS chose the whacks. Nobody likes pain, but almost all boys figured a beating would be over in a minute or less, and that was way better than wasting a whole afternoon in detention.
No strap, but a paddle. It was for fighting in 4th or 5th grade, IIRC. I don’t even think I was mad at the kid I fought, I had just never been in a fight.
Damn! Who knew there was so much beating going on.
First grade Catholic school in Baltimore in the 60’s the worst we had to do was sit on our hands.
Third and fourth grade Catholic school the worst was getting your fingers smacked with a ruler. I never saw it happen to a girl and I never got smacked.
It was illegal in the public schools so it never happened.
I had a few encounters with the paddle, a red thing similar to a cricket bat with “Bored of Education” on it. I’m guessing it was for not doing homework. Rural Illinois public school, early '70s.
I always thought “The Strap” was an urban legend in our school, a rumour to keep us all in line. There were a couple of “bad kids” in my grade who were rumoured to have been given The Strap but I don’t know if that was true or not. Never once did I see a teacher strike a child.
Ontario, 1978-1984.
The strap no, but I was hand or ruler spanked by the teacher in lower grades (K-3; ages 5-8) and paddled when older. This was in the 1950s to early 60s in Michigan and Ohio.
I was paddled the first day of the first grade. Apparently, I liked to talk and wouldn’t sit still. Who woulda guessed? I got several more paddlings (though likely less than I deserved) in my elementary school career - mostly for fighting. I was a small kid who bullies liked to pick on until they figured out I fought back. I don’t remember receiving any corporal punishment at school after 5th grade.
US, Georgia, late 1960’s - early 70’s.
,Because of the recent anniversary of the death of JFK, I heard a story from an older man who went to the same Catholic grade school that I went to. Of course not at the same time.
On November 22, 1963 this man (when he was a young student) was walking down the hall at our grade school heading to lunch. While passing the janitors supply closet, he heard from the janitor’s radio the report of JFK’s shooting.
He ran to the principal’s office very upset and told the principal and the other nuns that he just heard that the president was just shot in the head.
The principal, Sr. Verona walked up to this student and slapped him hard across the face for saying such a terrible lie.
He ran crying out of the office while word of JFK’s death quickly swept through the school.
Of course being such a wonderful representation of Catholism, Sr. Verona never did apologize to that poor kid.
I attended that same school years later and the sisters actions were typical of how the nuns treated the kids in my experience.
Ah yes, the good old strap, such an exquisite bite!
They weren’t used in very much English schools, but apparently every Scottish teacher worth their salt had a favourite tawse hanging up to teach unruly kids to behave. The most famous is the Lochgelly Tawse, manufactured by saddler John J Dick, coming in Light, Medium, Heavy or Extra Heavy.
Genuine John J Dick Lochgellys fetch a pretty penny these days, since CP at schools was abolished a few years ago. These aren’t your shitty cheapo sex shop straps made from re-formed “leather”, these are serious pieces of hide, works of art, you can feel the quality when you raise one over your shoulder. Looked after, oiled, kept supple, they will give years and years of good service. From the middle of the 1970s, it became harder to obtain the thick heavy leather to make them, but as far as I am aware, they never resorted to using layers of bonded leather to get the weight up.
I hate to think how many old teachers croak and their heirs find them in old boxes of career memorabilia, and just clear them out into the skip as shameful relics! See how much they fetch on E-bay…
Oh, and yes, I have felt the bite across my wrists, as Scottish ex-schoolkids might have endured, as punishment for speaking out of line to a Mistress.
I remember seeing white for a few seconds as the pain exploded up my arms and then not having the self-control to stop myself saying “Ffffffffuuuuuuuuuck!”. Bad move…:eek:
Applied across the backside, I’ll confess to quite liking the Light and even the Medium weight models, it’s a nice clean sting, but have only made it to 2 strokes with the Heavy before I was up and heading for the exit. It’s like being kicked by a cow, knocks the breath out of you, I couldn’t think straight, it scrambled my brain! Still, the lighter end of the range is far more preferable across the backside to the cane, which we were subject to during our days at school.
I imagine the threat of the strap across one’s wrists/hands would keep most sensible kids in line, but still, it’s a fearsome implement and I’d perhaps only approve of its use in only the most serious of circumstances. Alas, I gather that some teachers would be whacking away for all manner of minor transgressions, which to me is out of order, it’s not something to chuck about willy-nilly. The sight of it should be enough to settle any class down (at my school, the sight of the cane being taken out of the cupboard and laid gently on the teacher’s desk could bring the rowdiest class to complete, utter, perfect silence in a heartbeat, even those who had never had the misfortune of getting a stroke or two. It was no laughing matter, no matter how hard you thought you were, who wanted to be tested?)
I mean, getting belted/applying it to others as an adult, consensually, because I’m a deviant is one thing. However, being punished with one as a boisterous kid with no consent to give, let alone a safe-word, is quite another. I imagine that a good strapping across the wrists and palm could cause serious permanent nerve damage, and that is inexcusable.
*Edit. Holy shit, the Dick family are still making and selling them as “for collectors only” :
http://www.johndick-leathergoods.co.uk/the_lochgelly_tawse_online.htm
Well, the Catholic school I attended really DID allow corporal punishment, but we still heard rumors of a special “spanking machine” in the principal’s office for the REALLY bad kids.
The vast majority of my paddlings at school were a direct result of talking in class and not sitting still.
hhmmmmm so many lines, must not…
Australian Public School got the strap in grade 4 for talking in a line (1974). My dad was pissed (beating me was his job!) he went down to the school and punched the head master in the eye. Wish he stuck to punching teachers!
Once in elementary school, I forget why. Paddle across my butt.
In high school, we had a short, dark haired assistant principal, whom the student body had nicknamed Tattoo (from Fantasy Island). He was universally hated. My friend and I were already a.) out of class without permission, b) going up the down staircase, and c) had been off smoking in the bathroom and no doubt reeked of it so we were already up shit creek. Therefore we decided we’d yell, “De Plane! De Plane!” and…get away somehow? Profit? Not sure we had a great plan after that.
I was offered three licks or three days - the catch being that if I took the three day suspension my guardian would be called. I took the three licks with a wooden paddle from Tattoo himself, who normally delegated such things. Hurt like a bitch and I suspect he put a bit of English on it to make it worse.
1986, Mississippi
Oh I forgot most of the teachers I saw with a strap used an old barber’s strop. Bloody thick and hurty!