Post by glenn on Feb 4, 2012 15:43:51 GMT -6
When I was seven or eight years old, the principal of the school I attended had the legal right to inflict corporal punishment on students. A student who had committed some offence or other would be called to the principal’s office and required to hold out his (or on a very very rare occasion, her) small hand. The principal would then use a leather strap to strike that timidly outstretched hand two or three times, or sufficient times to cause the student to burst out in tears of pain and humiliation.
The first occasion I was strapped was punishment for the heinous crime of petting a dog. The policy at my school was that students must not play with dogs that wandered onto school property. Had I only the ability to articulate it at the time, I would have said that I did not play with the dog so much as touch it reflexively with my hand as it ran past me on the playground. For my grave misdeed I was strapped, and no defence was allowed. Such was schoolyard justice. Someone turned me in and I paid the price.
Math was probably one of my better subjects. I often had a clear grasp of whatever concept the teacher was trying to explain much sooner than many other students of my grade. Which quite often left me feeling bored. I would tune out and think of other things for a while until we moved onto a new topic. One day I had been given a brand new pen, which was quite a novelty to me because in my grade we were ordinarily restricted to using pencils and not ink. So, while the teacher droned on about two times two, I industriously set to covering my palm with this glorious truly amazing blue ink. When I paused a moment to see if we had finally moved on to three times three, I realized that the class was unusually quiet. Pen artfully poised in hand, I discovered the entire class was watching me. And was abruptly marched to the principal’s office for my second strapping. Oh, the shame I felt as afterward I returned to my seat with tears running down my face.
Now I am older I have forgiven myself for these childhood crimes, if such they be. And I am always grateful when I hear a figure of authority engage a wayward child in dialogue rather than physically punitive action. I never learned very much from being strapped, except maybe to mistrust authority. Corporal punishment was banned from schools around where I live about the time I finished high school. I know many other students were strapped for reasons not too unlike those that applied to me. One student I recall, one of the few students of Chinese heritage in our town at the time, was assaulted with thrown chalk and swung wooden rulers by a teacher when he (the student) could not correctly answer questions in class. These are not good memories. I am greatly relieved that the legal right to physically punish students has been taken away from the education system.
The first occasion I was strapped was punishment for the heinous crime of petting a dog. The policy at my school was that students must not play with dogs that wandered onto school property. Had I only the ability to articulate it at the time, I would have said that I did not play with the dog so much as touch it reflexively with my hand as it ran past me on the playground. For my grave misdeed I was strapped, and no defence was allowed. Such was schoolyard justice. Someone turned me in and I paid the price.
Math was probably one of my better subjects. I often had a clear grasp of whatever concept the teacher was trying to explain much sooner than many other students of my grade. Which quite often left me feeling bored. I would tune out and think of other things for a while until we moved onto a new topic. One day I had been given a brand new pen, which was quite a novelty to me because in my grade we were ordinarily restricted to using pencils and not ink. So, while the teacher droned on about two times two, I industriously set to covering my palm with this glorious truly amazing blue ink. When I paused a moment to see if we had finally moved on to three times three, I realized that the class was unusually quiet. Pen artfully poised in hand, I discovered the entire class was watching me. And was abruptly marched to the principal’s office for my second strapping. Oh, the shame I felt as afterward I returned to my seat with tears running down my face.
Now I am older I have forgiven myself for these childhood crimes, if such they be. And I am always grateful when I hear a figure of authority engage a wayward child in dialogue rather than physically punitive action. I never learned very much from being strapped, except maybe to mistrust authority. Corporal punishment was banned from schools around where I live about the time I finished high school. I know many other students were strapped for reasons not too unlike those that applied to me. One student I recall, one of the few students of Chinese heritage in our town at the time, was assaulted with thrown chalk and swung wooden rulers by a teacher when he (the student) could not correctly answer questions in class. These are not good memories. I am greatly relieved that the legal right to physically punish students has been taken away from the education system.
