Looking back to schooldays

[Wolverine]

..to believe that some of the teachers using corporal punishment genuinely believed they were doing us some good, and that they weren't all seeking some form of gratification as a lot of people now seem to believe?

Well they were totally different days weren't they?

It's hard to imagine now but they were given training on how to administer corporal punishment as part of their training...it was part of their job back then.

The same as Doctors and Midwives told mothers to administer alcohol to their babies to cure teething pains and to help with colic.

A million miles away from life now but the 'done thing' at the time for the child's own good apparently.

I fucked that post right up....far too much training

My dad had to cane children - it was part of the schools behaviour policy. He hated it so much he quit being a teacher after only one or two years.

So, I guess a lot of teachers had no opinion on it, or disagreed with it. It was just what you had to do.

That's perhaps my point, WorraLiberty. They were different days and should be judged by the mores of the time. Undoubtedly a small minority of teachers abused their position, but it seems a large number of celebrities were "abused" at school when they come to writing their story. My own feeling, excepting as I said the very tiny minority, was that teachers just dished out the cane or slipper because they believed that would keep us in line. Nothing more, nothing less.

I disagree. The thing about the cane/slipper etc. was that it didn't have to be used. There was no law saying this must be used to discipline the child. Ergo, teachers had a choice. Some chose not to use it, ever. I always felt that it was a lazy punishment, the teacher concerned could not be arsed to think of something else so lashed out.

Whilst I agree about taking things in the context of the times, I feel that when there has been an element of choice involved, perhaps we should question a little more carefully.

While as an individual there was choice, I suppose, the times were such that not using corporal punishment would have been perceived as a weakness, particularly by the pupils - I know it would have in my school.

So when I now read that such-and-such a teacher was a "pervert who would now be locked up" because they used it I wonder (hence the thread) whether that is the case, or is it me being naive to give them the benefit of the doubt? Our teachers were strict - but perverts? No, I don't think so.

Also if a teacher referred a pupil for bad behaviour to a head of year etc. then they had to know that pupil (if a boy) would be caned.
But more recently a friends son taught in Nassua for a while and was shocked to be expected to cane pupils.

Up here it was the tawse/belt - a leather instrument a bit like a forked tongue.
It was manufactured by a company in Lochgelly in Fife (mine of useless information).
You held out your hands and the teacher whacked the belt down on them.
Some of them were experts at it
There were teachers that never resorted to using it and others that dished it out all the time - but I think that those who used it a lot saw it as an easy way of keeping control.
Rather than finding alternative ways of engaging or motivating, belting was their easy option.

I think what you're all saying backs up my view. It may have been a "lazy" option - but they didn't derive pleasure from it as many people now seem to be labelling them with.