Unusual Punishments.

[SummerInTheVillage]

The thread about cold showers reminded me of many, many years ago when I was teaching a class of 7 year olds.

To set the scene. We'd been to a Victorian School for the day the previous day and they had absolutely loved it. Mostly they loved the punishments and discipline.

The head teacher came into the classroom and as well as the usual activities there was a group of 6 or 7 gathered around the blackboard. He asked what was going on.

I explained that I had foolishly told them that sometimes teachers drew a chalk circle and children had to keep their noses in the circle until told they could sit down. One of the livelier boys had demanded to have a go. HT laughed and said asked what the others were doing.

I had to explain they were queuing up for a go in the chalk circle.

They were a very unusual class.....

I had a teacher at primary who did this for real with certain boys. Late 70s. It was a NQT too, so not something he’d always done for years.

Mil used to send dh and his brothers to count the sheep on the hill. This is a proper rolling hill. Whilst we know how many might be grazing it, we don't actually ever do a head count on sheep grazing, only cattle. It would take them hours. She wouldn't let them back till they gave the right answer!

Not quite a punishment, but DBro once got a piece of candy coal amongst his Christmas presents. I was sad I didn't have one!

We did the nose in the circle on the wall thing with our kids when they were little, it worked, no one gets hurt, it's no worse than time out seat or thinking corner or whatever

We did the nose in the circle on the wall thing with our kids when they were little, it worked, no one gets hurt, it's no worse than time out seat or thinking corner or whatever

Didn't they put soot marks onto the wall from the chimney?

We actually used a little strip of painters tape

I used to make mine pair up all the socks as a punishment. Seven of us in the family so there were always loads that needed pairing up.
I remember dm making dsis clean the windows as a teen for backchat telling her she couldn't speak until she'd cleaned them all. The windows would be sparkling and she'd have calmed down by the time she had finished.

Not sure if this counts... But the threat of not being allowed to do the Washing Up gets my DDs and their cousin to behave on holiday!

Ah yes, I remember the whole class being absolutely fascinated by Victorian punishments such as being tied in a sack, or hoisted up to the ceiling in a basket; I remember not quite believing that one! When choosing things in Victorian schools to write about, everyone wanted to write about punishments. Also the canings as described by Roald Dahl, especially the prefects or "Boazers" beating younger pupils, who would then show off their stripes in the dormitory afterwards.

In the present day, some unusual punishments I remember from home or school were:

• Being made to walk barefoot from the car to the house, for taking shoes off in the car.
• The alarm clock in the kitchen being set (old-fashioned type with bells on the top, scarily loud).

(These are all true, and I know, some of them would be unthinkable if they happened now.) At my infants school in the 1980s, the deputy head was the queen of unusual and humiliating punishments. Fortunately she was not my class teacher, but some things I saw her do were:

• Two boys who laughed when told off were then made to laugh in the mirror.
• When another boy messed about in assembly, a pushchair was wheeled in, and the lad invited to sit in it, for being "a baby".
• Shoes off for children who played with them, especially Velcro.
• She often made fidgety children stand on the table, or hold on to her skirt, "like a baby".
• She once did a slow march around the classroom, throwing children's exercise books on the floor; then she made them stand at the front, and hold them up. Their crime? After the teacher had written "kitten" on the board, they had written "kitten" in their books, without actually being told to.
• If children talked when she was talking, she would say "Are you trying to be the teacher?", before inviting them up to the front, giving them a piece of chalk, and she herself would sit in the child's place, and there would be an uneasy silence. This never happened to me, but if I wasn't afraid of her, I would probably have been grinning my head off, which no doubt would have had me missing my play.
• Whenever we were out of the classroom, it was usually locked behind us, perhaps because of those sharp scissors which we used in pre "health and safety" days. We would line up outside, and she would count everyone out, chivvying them along. She would say "hurry up, or you'll be locked in!" And when two children were particularly slow, she once actually did lock it (briefly), with them still inside.

I remember I was about 6 so mid 80s I didn't have my pe kit , my mum never remembered to send it in and I was only 6 so not sure why it was my fault but anyway my teacher made me do pe in my knickers . I had no vest nothing just my knickers . I remember being in tears and all the kids laughing. I suppose my teacher thought it was punishment for forgetting but what a cruel bitch . I don't think I told my mum for years after and she said why didn't you say.
Even now I still think it was the most humiliating experience. ( I need therapy )

@SummerInTheVillage Which is the thread about cold showers?

I remember "punishments at home" being discussed in the classroom in 1987, year 3, everyone took turns to say that their home chastisements were. One boy cheerfully told of being tied up by his mum (because he'd deliberately locked his dad in the shed), although some people thought he might have been making it up. I'm sure that no such discussion could take place in a classroom nowadays.

If you're going to do the "nose to the wall" properly, the miscreant must hold a coin to the wall with their nose, so it's very clear when they move.

And I think it's a shame there are so few replies to this thread (although sadly, there may be a good reason for that).

The music teacher at junior school was a great one for viscious punishments. She apparently slammed a piano lid on the fingers of one child who hadn't practiced. I didn't witness that, but she would regularly sit the boys (always the boys) who were misbehaving right next to her chair, then whack their head or twist their ears at further misdemeanours. It didn't stop them as I recall.

I had a geography teacher at high school who would throw the board rubber across the classroom. He never aimed right at a pupil though. He also had an axe from Africa that he's wave about, until the day that the head fell off onto a pupil's head. Whoops!

I remember a time when I was far more interested in the workings of the slide projector, with its revolving carousel (1980s technology!), than whatever the teacher was using it to tell us about. Natural consequence? With a lot of sarcastic words from the teacher, I was then made to operate the projector. I knew that this was meant to be a punishment for not paying attention, but I grinned from ear to ear as I took up my post.

When children had to miss their play, they had to sit outside the staff room. The carpet for this was in full view of everyone else heading out to play, so everyone knew about it.

@wanderings At primary school in the mid-90s, the punishment for talking in class was missing break/lunchtime pay for two days sitting on the floor outside the staff room.

I got caught talking in class so was sent to the staff room at break. I asked if I could take a book, which the teacher said was fine. It was fucking brilliant. Sitting in the warm, reading a book rather than being outside in the cold with tossers.

I got talking quite regularly in class after that and it was always down on my school reports that I was too chatty in class

@ChristineTime Ooh, that reminds me of something else I did. My junior school loved whole-year or whole-school punishments, such as practising lining up instead of playtime, because of a select few. I hated this, and once made my displeasure known in front of the whole year, with a lot of shouting and tears. I was taken aside and told not to be rude: this did not pacify me, I stood my ground. The next time, I thwarted them at their own game: when I knew that playtime would be replaced with this punishment, I asked if I could stay in the classroom to do some extra work. My teacher hadn't cottoned on to why I asked for this, and allowed me to. Victory!

At primary school we used to have to 'watch the clock' which meant standing in the middle of the packed lunch hall and staring at the wall clock for your allocated punishment time (anywhere from 2-30 mins depending on the crime).

You got extra time tagged on if you caved in to your pal's japes and laughed.

(This was early 90s!)

Massively outing but never mind

At secondary school (late 90s, early 00s) we had a classroom which had doors opening on to the outside. If you pissed about in art class, the teacher made you stand outside.

One day in early autumn, one of my friends was messing around and got told to stand outside. She made a massive fuss about it. She told the teacher she had a weak immune system and was susceptible to colds/flu so couldn't go outside because it was cold. Eventually obviously the teacher made her stand outside for 10 minutes.

My friend responded by getting someone me to write a fake note from her mum saying she was ill with pneumonia as a result of having to stand outside during lessons. In the note, I wrote that I (her mother) was furious at the way she'd been treated and would be complaining to the governors as soon as my daughter was out of her critical condition in hospital. My friend faked her mum's signature, posted the letter and spent the next few days wagging off school at her boyfriend's house.

The school obviously called her mum but couldn't get hold of her for a couple of days because my friend used to get home before her mum and delete the answer phone message. So the school wrote her a letter which my friend didn't manage to intercept. She got in absolutely fuck tonnes of trouble for that stunt

At my primary school, in the 1950s, we used to line up to go out of the classroom, with fingers on lips. If one girl was talking or giggling, Miss Buchanan would say " Right, everybody, pull your socks down!" We all pulled one sock down to our ankles, and she would walk up the line and deliver a slap to every leg in the line! I can still remember the sound of the slaps.

I hated PE. Kept 'forgetting' my kit. The teacher told me if I forgot it again I would have to spend the lesson in the library.

Some punishment!

One of our old teachers in secondary school kept a gym shoe in his pocket for punishments but only ever seemed to punish boys and took them into the adjacent changing room to do so. He vanished one day and never came back - it transpired that he'd been smacking their bare bottoms with the shoe

I remember at junior school a boy who wouldn't stop getting up and messing about in class was literally tied to his chair with a length of rope.

Not so much a punishment as a forfeit, but this thread reminded me of this one: at my youth group, we once had a sponsored silence, where everyone sat in a circle and read a book for the duration. The "punishment" for breaking the silence was to be blindfolded for three minutes. This was playfully said, along with "I wonder if anyone's going to make me use the scarf??".

To see if I could get away with it, I said something under my breath. But I was spotted by a sharp-eyed leader, and served my three-minute sentence in the dark! I wasn't the only one though.