I got the cane too, although I didn’t attend a boarding school just a government primary and secondary school in rural NSW Australia.
Never got “the cuts” (as they were called) in primary school but got it a few times in early high school. One time was in about year 8, the PE teacher was running late, we got told to get into our sport clothes and wait outside in the bloody cold. We got bored and started rock roofing some of the other classrooms (through stones up on the corrugated iron roofs), and got caught by the deputy principal. 2 on each hand, right across the tips of the fingers.
Yep. I graduated high school in Oklahoma in 1980.
Corporal punishment was in used until after I graduated.
I’m sure I’m in the minority, but I’m all for it. I never received a ‘busting’ that I didn’t deserve. This was back in the day when teachers were allowed to control their classrooms.
As far as I know teachers were always supposed to avoid hitting the wrist as that was possibly dangerous. If a teacher did hit too far up the hand onto the wrist he or she did occasionally apologise, and try to get the next one more on target. But they’d get a reputation for being crap at giving the strap among the pupils if it happened more than once or twice. The strap was a known risk but every teacher’s ‘strapping point’ was different so behaviour from class to class varied, sometimes quite widely.
My sister was a teacher for several years in the 1970s and had a Loch Gelly from John Dick’s and kept it for years but I think she must have chucked it out before she died as it wasn’t among her possessions when I had to go through them.
You really had up and down staircases?
I read the book Up the Down Staircase but I didn’t know they really existed.
All our stairs went up and down and you stayed to the right, just like driving.
Sure - if you have 500 or so students changing classes all at once, possibly with a locker upstairs to get to and then back to a classroom downstairs, you should have an up only and down only staircase to keep people moving.
You can walk right, but the up/down way is more efficient and you can get more kids on the staircase at once.
Plus, you know, it’s fun to go up the down staircase if you’re being a defiant little shit, too. Can’t do that if you can use the stairs willy-nilly!
ETA: The net result - at least in my school, was that traffic flow was mostly then in a big circle from down to across (and by the lockers and classrooms) then up the far end and across (again by lockers and classrooms) to the down staircase again. So it was more efficient.
Wow, school in Minnesota in late 60s through the 70s. I never saw anyone get whacked, even with a ruler. One teacher should us his paddle with air holes to make it go faster but he had never been reported using it. I guess we were way ahead of the curve.
We often did have a desk or two up front where misbehaving children got to sit so they could be watched at all times and, of course, there was always the threat of being sent to the principal’s office but that was all there was.
Once, in Jr High, 1970 or 71, Mr. Riegle, the principal, with a board or paddle of some sort. He hit pretty hard, though not as hard as my father. I don’t remember what it was for. Most likely, I was guilty of something, but not exactly what I was getting punished for.
The vice principle, Mr. Keen, used to very often say in speeches or when someone was misbehaving, “I’m gonna whop your can, son!” but as far as I know, he never did.
Sister Holy Innocent paddled my friend and I for coming in early from recess when it was below freezing outside with 2 ft. of snow. We were huddled inside the doors of the school shivering in our little Catholic school girl skirts when she caught us.
Social norm or not, if as random adults they started beating on children I’d expect there’d be a serious risk of them getting beaten in return by the kid’s parents. Being teachers gave the the opportunity to justify it as “discipline” instead of sadism.
Yes, parents reserved the right to beat their children ( out of school ) to themselves.
BTW Singapore still canes children for vandalism in public. Remember the US kid that was spraying cars.
Needless to say, they don’t have much of a child vandal problem.
Can’t do that if you can use the stairs willy-nilly!