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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

Bring back corporal punishment

98 replies

noblegiraffe · 31/03/2017 14:47

If we're heading back to the age of grammar schools, then let's also bring back corporal punishment. I understand that the suggestion is supported by 42% of people who voted a certain way.

Any supporters on here?

OP posts:

SpeedwellBlue · 01/04/2017 12:08

I'm 46. There was none in my girls' grammar but it was done by the headteachers only in my Infant/Junior School. (Hand or slipper.)

motherinferior · 01/04/2017 12:20

I'm 53. My primary head caned people. He was a sadistic bully.

lottachocca · 01/04/2017 12:44

It was done frequently at my primary but never at my Grammar. Mind you there were plenty of reports of flying dusters - the wooden types. Strap was used at the comp my brothers went to. Head teacher was stabbed by a pupil who'd had enough of being hit.

Willow2017 · 01/04/2017 13:15

Reminisce
What rot. I was in school in 70s and erasers would fly and the strap was used when kids were being particularly disruptive idiots.

Edna1969 · 01/04/2017 13:26

I think that the yougov poll says a lot about the age of the respondants. I cannont imagine anyone in younger demographics wanting imperial measures back for weight or money...

SetPhasersTaeMalkie · 01/04/2017 13:37

I was at school in the 70s and 80s in Scotland. I was put over a teacher's knee and had my bottom smacked in primary 2. I was smacked on my knuckles with a ruler and belted with the strap at both primary and early secondary. If I had told my parents I would have been smacked again. At the time it seemed normal.

I'm a teacher myself and nothing on earth would persuade me to strike a child. Nothing.

flyingwithwings · 01/04/2017 15:09

Ive got to say firstly i don't regard a teacher stopping a disruptive child with a little slap on their knuckles as 'Corporal Punishment' . This does no lasting damage at all (the fact a teacher would lose their job today for this is is in- material to me ).

As regards to what i regard as Corporal Punishment i.e going to the heads office and getting Caned or Slippered 6 times was frowned upon/ if still technically legal by 1983 .

That's why i think Noble is misinformed to correlate a little slap on the knuckles with what is understood as Corporal Punishment to most people over 40 years of age !

annandale · 01/04/2017 15:13

Right flying so you'd rather have completely unregulated and unrecorded hitting of children by all teachers, as opposed to some kind of process with records and discussion, leading to defined types of punishment by specific teachers?

Great

My strongest memory of corporal punishment was the head teacher caning a girl on the hand in Grange Hill. Mrs McClusky? Probably around 1982 or so. I found it really odd to watch.

ForTheSakeOfFuck · 01/04/2017 15:28

Oh, the good old days, when you could beat children and leave the elderly starving in the street and die of polio.

Vive la glorious rose-tinted past.

flyingwithwings · 01/04/2017 15:39

My first post made it clear that i believe Corporal Punishment wholly inappropriate for school discipline today , not least because of potential links to 'disgusting' creatures in the past....

What i am saying though is don't link whole scale 'bullying' by some teachers with a teacher instigating a little reminder of who is the boss !

By comparing a child who got a little 'tap' on the knuckle for falling asleep or making noises (it happened to me once for making noises at the back of the class) with children who were 'beaten' by sadistic bullies does those people a huge dis-service.

ForTheSakeOfFuck · 01/04/2017 16:25

Flying The perennial problem with laying your hands on someone is that one person's "light also" is another person's "smack". And inevitably, physical punishment begets more physical punishment, that escalates. If hitting lightly didn't work the first time, then what? The only logical progression is to hit harder. And what does that teach a child?

Would you tap the knuckles of an elderly patient who fell asleep in the midst of a consultation? Or that threw their tea at the nurse? They're also in care, and are vulnerable, and equally difficult to reason with. Just like children. For different reasons, cognitively, they are not working at an average adult's capacity, so maybe a little fear would put them in line. Whilst you're at it employees who turn up late could maybe get a tap on the bottom.

Sounds creepy and weird, right? Because it is. Societal normalisation of violence towards children is the only reason you think that using the fear of pain is remotely acceptable with kids.

ForTheSakeOfFuck · 01/04/2017 16:26

Ugh.

One person's "light slap"…

Moominmammacat · 01/04/2017 16:39

Why on earth would you hit someone to control them? Is that what you do to your partner? Or children?

flyingwithwings · 01/04/2017 16:53

I don't hit nobody, but comparing 'six of the best' with a cane to being tapped by a ruler on the knuckles is not right.

I have also stated twice that i believe corporal punishment is 'wrong ' for schools to use for discipline .

ForTheSakeOfFuck · 01/04/2017 16:57

I hate that verb.

Tapped.

Makes it sound painless. If it was painless it'd be literally useless. You're not tapping them if it's hurting. You're hitting. End of discussion.

Same goes for all the other weasley downplaying language that people use to make it seem more palatable.

lottachocca · 01/04/2017 17:00

I light "tap" on the knuckles - is deliberately painful - the knuckles with very little flesh to cushion the blow is more painful that the palm of the hand. A tap on the knuckles for falling asleep - omg the reasons for lack of sleep can be traced back to parents, medical reasons, stress etc but who knew it a tap on the knuckles is a solution to societies ills. Except I recall the badly behaved kids kept getting hit - if hitting worked it wouldn't need repeating!

shortwriter · 01/04/2017 17:06

Agree with another poster that the day I am told to use physical punishment is the day I leave teaching.

BertrandRussell · 01/04/2017 17:13

Pro smackers always call it "tapping". And get really cross when people call it "hitting". Wonder why that is?

Megatherium · 01/04/2017 17:14

Another thing stop regarding 7.2 million voters as contemptible because they disagree politically with the general left wing 'Praxis' of how schools discipline children.

Wanting to bring back a system where children are regularly beaten in school is pretty contemptible, to be honest. Even when it was still allowable, I simply couldn't get my head round the notion that parents would willingly authorise total strangers to hit their child at those strangers' discretion.

lottachocca · 01/04/2017 17:44

Wanting to bring back a system where children are regularly beaten in school is pretty contemptible, to be honest. Totally agree!
But when I told my mother I was not going to hit my kids - she told me I'd regret that decision, they would be spoilt and badly behaved and I'd only have myself to blame. Fast forward 13 years - my dcs are well behaved - despite being teenagers and never having a slap around the legs or worse - bloody amazing isn't it! And my mother has reconsidered the need for physical punishment - she is no longer a supporter, she has been educated on the alternative...

BertrandRussell · 01/04/2017 18:05

If 7.2 million people want to bring back a contemptible system of discipline, I will regard them as contemptible.

pointythings · 01/04/2017 18:07

If 7.2 million people want to bring back a contemptible system of discipline, I will regard them as contemptible.

^^This

Asmoto · 01/04/2017 19:17

I'm 42 and remember a boy being caned at my comprehensive school in 1985, and numerous smackings being doled out at my primary school. It's strange how we took this for granted at the time.

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