I was talking to KLS the other day about punishment back in school and she was slightly appalled by some of my stories. It seems she was never punished back in her school years, or perhaps was never bad enough to deserve punishment!
I’m not sure I was ever actually caned in school, although I vividly remember being in a room with the principle of my first school (St Pauls) while another child was caned. It was classic ‘back of the calves’ stuff, using a stick much like the one pictured. I remember him crying out, so I guess the teacher who did it really got him good. I don’t recall why I was there, or if he was a friend, or what he (or I, or any of the others there) had done.
A few years later, at a different school (St Josephs) , I was beaten by a nun. I think the crime was ‘talking in class’ (a skill I mastered at an early age) and I remember I had to put my hands palm down flat on a desk while she hit our knuckles sharply with a wet ruler. Why wet? Because she licked it first. I can remember it hurt intensely (she was basically hitting our bones wasn’t she?) and I probably vowed to myself at the time to speak more softly next time I spoke in class!
This was in the very late 70s, and caning didn’t seem an unusual punishment. It was dreaded though: the ‘nuclear’ option for students who presumably didn’t respond to other forms of discipline. But as I aged, it seemed to become less common and certainly by my teenage years was all-but-unheard of. I recall a debate in the media about the practice that led to it being ostracized and then banned, and a quick glance at Wikipedia shows me this happened in 1987, although the ban was repealed (!) two years later and the practice was legal again until ’95. I doubt many schools caned then though, since the public has shown such disapproval.
Now detention, that was a punishment that my high school embraced fully, and I was several times the recipient of the coloured-paper letter home informing my parents I would be staying late after school. Here’s a few of the reasons I can remember getting detention:
– For peer-pressuring another student to throw a tennis ball at a teacher. The ball hit him squarely in the face and we all got a weeks detention.
– For telling a teacher she had a big nose.
– For exposing photographic paper to sunlight to intentionally destroy it.
– For having a ‘clay fight’ in an art-room that resulted in clay being stuck to walls and ceiling.
I’m sure there were others!
Detention was always an intriguing affair. It never really bothered me much because it wasn’t very long (an hour) and it wasn’t very uncommon. Almost everyone I knew had been on detention at least once, and many of the times I got it so did my friends (exception: the nose comment). The actual ‘punishment’ differed depending on which teacher was unlucky enough to be supervising that day, and ranged from just sitting in a room silently (the most boring) to picking up rubbish around school (slightly interesting) to going across the street and getting fish and chips and then returning to watch Pretty Woman in the A/V room (I kid you not)!
One of my friends (PM) used to save his detention letters and would proudly show them off. When given a weeks detention once during a class he boldly told the teacher he wouldn”t care even if she give him a year’s detention. So she did! This was big news in the playground in those days, but I think his parents complained and he ended up with the original week.
In my final school (SFX) if detention existed I was not aware of it, and caning was certainly not done there. Discipline was most definitely a thing (and one I was slightly involved in while I was captain), but I think it was a bit more progressive than beatings and incarcerations. Next time I’m in Oz, I’ll ask my friend KB (who works at that school now) how they punish the miscreants in the 21st century!
So were you ever detained or beaten at school? Do you remember why?
I received a few detentions in high school, mostly for not completing homework. My punishment was to complete my homework in one of the staff rooms which I did usually in minutes and was still able to catch my regular bus home.
In fact the bus we got home came so late after school that even an hours detention wasn’t really an imposition. If anything I suspect it was more annoying for the teachers! The nuns seemed to enjoy it, but then they lived within walking distance of the school.
I remember I got threatened with detention many times. Once for rubbishing some girls tie-dye skills in a textiles and design class. Another time for putting bricks in someone’s bag. The handle broke when he picked it up, it was hilarious, but the nun who witnessed it didn’t think so.
Getting kept in during lunchtime was far worse than after school detention. You could hear the entire school running around mad outside having so much fun. I suffered that several times, usually for talking in class or otherwise not paying attention.
Once I got it for reading at an advanced level! Sister Michelle did not think that Smith, Herbert, Knootz and King was appropriate reading for a 12 year old, so I was told to report to the lunchtime detention room where we were made to sit and read in silence. I think I read Masterton.
In infants school, I was struck on the shoulder with a long wooden ruler for incessant talking. Maybe it had been used on one student too many, because it broke in half – and instead of bursting into tears, I burst into laughter. Was I punished for that as well? Not as I recall.
My junior high had a system of blue slips (of paper) for good behaviour and red slips for bad. In my mind, they cancelled each other out. So if I got a red for something, I’d endeavour to earn a blue from the same teacher. It must have made for a funny disciplinary record.
Now that I think about it, I believe two or three reds resulted in an orange, which was an automatic detention. Of course, you could be hit with those outright as well. And two or three blue got ya a special award.
B. is right – being kept in during lunchtime was hell! You’d have to scoff your sangers and popper juice on the way to your next class. Or, if you’d been planning to visit the canteen, just go hungry.
Another memory, again from infants school: three of us lined up outside the principal’s office, waiting to receive “the cuts” for rough play. Playground lore held that these were much, much worse than the ordinary whacks we’d all received in the past.
However, after a nervous wait, we were dismissed with our hand’s unmarked. Looking back, I’m sure it was only done to scare us since we were so young, but it felt like the luckiest of escapes.
hands not hand’s
Do either of you remember the discipline at SFX? I’m sure they did detentions, but don’t know for sure. I wonder if they caned?
I can imagine one or two of those brothers being quick with a switch…
My recollection is that there wasn’t much.
I was made to pick up trash once when the area where my group ate lunch got a bit grotty and a brother noticed – and I was the only person around.
A friend was kicked out of a chemistry class for arguing with a fellow student, then arguing with the teacher about why he’d been having the argument.
Oh, and there was that inquisition over the kents who cheated in our 4U maths exam…