Punishments at school

hunnymonster

hunnymonster

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Friday July 10, 2009
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Little Feckwittering-on-the-Moor
Was just talking to my son about the non-corporal punishments we had dished out at school... He of course is in disbelief at them...

In maths:

"Education is designed to develop the inherent aptitude and ability of the individual so that when full-time education ceases the individual may think for himself and so become a worthwhile member of our country and community."

First offence 10 repeats
Second 20
Third 20 alternating pen/pencil each word.

In chemistry, physics, biology:

10 A4 sides of laboratory rules (don't run, don't eat,...) in long form. Which you then got to incinerate to prevent you recycling a set.

Can't remember other subjects because those were the only ones I got... The chemistry one after an incident with some ethyl ether,a lab bench, a Bunsen burner and somebody's eyebrows :D... Physics was a clear plastic tube, a gas tap, a water tap and a "race" between the water and gas which filled the gas pipes and made 30 fountains in the chemistry lab below from the Bunsens....

Maths was always for talking in class.
 
Greetings

I can remember with great clarity being caned, whacked across the arse with the board compasses (six times on one occasion) and whacked with a size 11 plimsole. Many many times.

It certainly did not make me a better student (or person) but it also did me no lasting harm!

I have no particular views one way or the other on corporal punishment in schools, in my time I just accepted it as an inevitable consequence of playing up, which I did on a regular basis!

Regards
Dick.
 
At Churchers College in Petersfield in the 1950s, punishments included detention and caning on hand or backside according to the offence - always administered by the Headmaster. "Offences" I recall being frequently guilty of were school uniform infringements like incorrect positioning of the school cap, wearing coloured socks and scarves and the absurd restriction on playing soccer with any kind of ball including a rugby ball ( a capital crime) If you built up three hours unworked detention outstanding that was an automatic referrral to the head for caning. Maximum caning was six of the best on the backside. I recall being regularly thrown out of the classroom for disruptive behavior. Minor stuff like cracking jokes. That was another one hour detention each time.

I was often late home. With a sore backside.
 
Caned and slippered. Never did lines, but did have to write a discourse on the subject of 'respect' in detention once.

Maths Master was very old school and would deduct points from our work for any deviation from his style. He'd also have us lined up outside class for inspection and again, anything that deviated from the school standard was removed, corrected or cracked across the knuckles with a ruler for ... then we could go into class. He could hit anyone, anywhere in the room flicking a piece of chalk backwards without looking away from the board. Much respect ... I should have cited him in my discourse above.

Physics Master (and Deputy Head) would "talk" to us ... usually about smoking. Lord! That was the worse punishment ... aside from having your cigs confiscated. I heard he died a few years back. I have to say, I would not be where I am today without him. Great fellow.
 
Caned a couple of times and a bounce of the board rubber on the head at least once - good throw!
I think I was 13 when I decided they could go bollocks if they tried it again - fortunately it never came to that. Next thing was threatening to not let me sit O levels unless I publicly repented my sins.
 
We used to get whacked on the hand with a ruler in primary school, but there was no corporal punishment in secondary. The ruler wasn't so bad; enough to make you want to avoid it, but although painful at the time it faded fairly quickly. There was one teacher who was more prone to violence than the rest, she would fling people around and slap them across the head. One time she tore a girls school skirt with her efforts, and obviously worried that the mother might complain, then had to spend much of the rest of the class sewing up the damage as best she could. Oh, the irony.
As for science in the lab at secondary, what fun we had playing with the mercury and lighting that wire that glows with a very bright blue flame....it's a wonder any of us went on to successfully reproduce, when I think of all the times we rolled the mercury around.
 
soapalchemist said:
.it's a wonder any of us went on to successfully reproduce, when I think of all the times we rolled the mercury around.
Click to expand...

What's cookin Toots,

When I was a kid the dentist I went to had a 'treasure chest' you could pick out stuff from if you didn't bite the doc. As a special treat, he would instead fill up a small bottle of mercury as my reward. I would take it home, pour some in my hand, and dip some dimes in it to make em shiny. Sometimes the liquid would drop in the thick carpet and that was that.

Now back then mercury wasn't poisonous. Yeah, it wasn't till later on it became so deadly.........

Mabs
 
I think that must be it Mabel; back then in the good old days, before the mercury got polluted, it was just pure liquid silver.:angel: Play away kids.

dodgy said:
soapalchemist said:
.it's a wonder any of us went on to successfully reproduce, when I think of all the times we rolled the mercury around.
Click to expand...

What's cookin Toots,

When I was a kid the dentist I went to had a 'treasure chest' you could pick out stuff from if you didn't bite the doc. As a special treat, he would instead fill up a small bottle of mercury as my reward. I would take it home, pour some in my hand, and dip some dimes in it to make em shiny. Sometimes the liquid would drop in the carpet and that was that.

Now back then mercury wasn't poisonous. Yeah, it wasn't till later on it became so deadly.........

Mabs
Click to expand...
 
soapalchemist said:
I think that must be it Mabel; back then in the good old days, before the mercury got polluted, it was just pure liquid silver.:angel: Play away kids.
Click to expand...

Yes my dear Alchemistress, it was a kindler, gentler time when the mercury was almost healthy. Here's some Quicksilver from long ago :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aCfgiO_fqY
 
In the early days of Primary School, I repeatedly ended up across Mrs Gosling's knee for a good smacking after which I got to sit in the 'naughty chair'. In P7, Mr Johnson's particular favourite punishment exercise was the 0 to 10 times tables each copied out ten times. That was a right bugger! Lines in the usual format at 100 to 200 were a regular feature but at High School, Mr Murphy, my register and techie drawing teacher used to keep the badly behaved lads in at break times with a sheet of A4 upon which we had to blot out all of the white just by dotting it with the tip of the pencil. Now that was genuine purgatory. I honestly would rather have had six of the best with a cane of the man's choosing - undoubtedly painful but over quickly enough.

However, the very worst was being caught doing a punishment exercise by torchlight by Faither or him finding out by any other means that I'd been given yet another one. Not being able to sit down for a week wasn't just a turn of phrase in our house! It was a lot easier when the old chuffer was away on the rigs working because I could usually get away with kidding Mum that I was studying then forge her signature when complete. Punishment exercises never seemed to deter me, in fact we used to competitively collect them!

Funniest one was being locked in a dark cupboard for every single period of our static electricity unit in 2nd year Physics. O'Dwyer, the smiling Irishman, really thought he had done for me but after the first time I went home and owned up to Faither who surprisingly never lifted his hand at all but instead said that we would, "teach that bugger a thing or two". Faither was an electrician by trade so taught me all he knew on the subject and I was the only pupil to get 100% for the static leccy test! Oh the look on O'Dwyer's face when he read out the results to the class in his customary fashion. Never was any good with authoritarian figures.
 
Religious Primary school. It was all corporal. The only psychological part was waiting for the hurt. The long wooden pointers with the hard rubber tips were their favourites. The palms of the hands and behind the knees.
Sometimes it would be the real thick measuring sticks. Still don't know where they bought those.
Those were the days!
 
Most notably slippered for beating up Philip Wright the son of a policeman for picking on an black mate, just like the old man.

Occasional line writing detentions where the only highlight was seeing how many pens you could hold (taped or glued together) while trying to write several lines simultaneously. There was even a mystical "seven penner" for hire that allowed an A4 sheet of lines to be knocked off in three minutes.
 
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