Caning
I was caned a number of times. I cannot even remember why. I hadn’t done anything major.
The experience certainly did not fill me with a desire to keep on the straight and narrow. It filled me with fury and hatred.
I found the experience humiliating and extremely painful.
In my school teachers could cane you with up to six strokes and prefects could give you three.
Some people believe it creates better discipline and inculcates respect. It doesn’t. It creates fear and dislike.
On one occasion I was bent over the desk in front of the class and given three strokes with a thin cane. He put all the force into it that he could muster. I was determined not to react but I could not resist. It was excruciating. It made me gasp and brought tears to my eyes. I felt all those eyes on me and was embarrassed and humiliated that I could not control my response.
With reddened face and streaming eyes I was sent back to my place and allowed to stand. That was fortunate because it hurt so much that I don’t think I could have sat down.
That cane broke the skin in a long line across my buttocks. Under that split skin it swelled into a long hard welt three quarters of an inch wide. That remained solid for over a day. I had three of these long stripes across my bum. They gradually softened and subsided. The bruising was purple and then gradually spread into great brown and purple bruises over the whole of my buttocks. It was painful for a long time. I had to sleep on my front.
In terms of my attitude and behaviour – the fury and hatred did not die away with the bruising. I was not merely resentful I was consumed with hatred. I lost interest in the lessons and despised the teachers concerned and did everything I could to get back at them.
Caning produces quiet classrooms and poor education.
I took those experiences with me into my teaching career. Education is about relationship. When it worked best for me was when I was in a classroom with a bunch of eager students, lots of humour, exchanges and laughter, mutual respect, and a love of the subject. I did not need a cane.
Sadly, when I went home after my caning experience, my parents took the attitude that I must have deserved it.
They were wrong.
There’s something seriously wrong with a grown man that wants to do that to a kid. It’s beyond bullying mentality, it’s more akin to seeking complete subservience and obedience. It’s a relative form of perversion.
We didn’t have the cane at my school (the cane was predominant in English schools) but had the 2-pronged leather belt. This thing would be stiff and about a quarter inch thick. It would be thrashed down onto the palm of your hand, but would often miss and strike the very thin skin on the inner side of your wrist. It hurt like hell. Some used a 12″ plastic ruler on the tips of your finger nails. A week later your nails would turn completely black and fall off.
I was hassled throughout secondary school by this nut job music & religious knowledge teacher.
I think I’ve mentioned him here before. He also did “careers advice”! A ludicrous scenario.
If I so much as yawned in that religious knowledge class, he’s drag me out front for 4 of the belt. He was a big man, 6′ 3″ or so, wore the black cape and his belt lived under it slung over one shoulder, ready for immediate action at any given whim. I hated that M.F. for every morsel of his being. I had a major shindig of a spat with him in my last 6th year. I can’t quite remember exactly what lead to it, perhaps another unforgivable yawn, but he wanted to belt me. I resolutely refused him. He went absolutely ballistic and swept the entire surface of his desk scattering in rage at my insolence. The whole class was in shock. Me and him, out front, staring at each other.
He had to compromise – I was sent out the class to stand in the corridor for the remainder of class.
That was a turning point for me, but a pity I had waited so long to take such a stance.
I wasn’t the only boy that he’d bullied. There were dozens of others.
Some years later I heard via a friend whose elder sister was now a teacher at the school that some guy whom he’d also hassled spotted him in a carpark on a weekend. The guy apparently did him some serious damage, gave him a right good kicking.
Some things work out just about right.
We had three bullying teachers. I have described them in my book on education. It is unbelievable that the people I hate most in life, and I still burn with hatred for them even now, are ones that should have been the most caring, helpful people in my life. I loved some of my teachers but those three bastards I not only hated but them destroyed those subjects for me into the bargain.
Now we have idiots calling for soldiers to be brought into teaching to instil discipline. They are barmy. That sort of discipline has no place in a classroom. Those traumatised, bullying apes were vicious bastards. They should have been locked up not lauded. For those that say violence does no harm – you’re nuts!!
It traumatises, hardens and turns kids off.
Teaching should be fun, creative, exploration, sharing, caring and mutually respectful.
There is no room for corporate viciousness. It’s immensely destructive.
Good afternoon Opher. Being beaten only ever goes bitterness and resentment.
Hi Anna – Can only stay a while today!
And I echo both those sentiments – caning is counter-productive and I hope you’re feeling better Andrew!
Good Afternoon Andrew, I hope you are feeling a little better today.
Andrew, I don’t know what I have done here but message is below for you – just hoping you are feeling somewhat better. Take care.
Thanks Anna, that’s nearly a week now that I’ve been on the correct medication, at 3 doses a day, so I’m beginning to feel the benefits. Without going into the gory details, I’ve lost so much rubbish clocking my lungs. I might be exhausted because I’m up all and every night coughing – that’s the medication working, but at the end of the day I will be able to breathe a lot better. I made it out to the local shops yesterday, whereas last week I couldn’t get past the front door.
Hope you get rid of all that gunk soon Andrew. All the best – Opher.
Education is about relationship. That’s the absolute truth. And I think your parents were guilty of doing what most other parents used to — nothing. Assuming, as you said, that their child deserved it for something. We may be overcompensating these days, but I’m glad parents are getting off their butts and starting to question teachers’ and schools’ behaviors more. JMO.
Too true Cheryl. My parents came from falies where education was an unknown. They did not know how to support me!
Opher, when you get to read this, just to let you know that book of yours I ordered has finally turned up today, that lightened the shelf!
Cheers Anna. Not sure which book that was! But enjoy.
Andrew, I am so pleased you are feeling better, it is such a shame the Doctor did not put you on the right dose from the beginning. As long as you keep coughing up that awful stuff in your lungs that will be best for you, of course doing so is bound to make you feel feeble. Should you be going out in the cold to the shops, is there no one that could do that for you. Try and keep away from anyone with a cold. I meant to ask, if you don’t mind me asking, have you had the injection for pneumonia, that might help in future, I have had it. You take care Andrew and don’t do too much, stay warm inside.
Hi Anna, yes, I have had the pneumonia jab, PPSV23, but to be honest it holds almost zero guarantee against any protection. Had it fully worked for me, I would never have had any infection. I had all the symptoms except the fever that also comes with pneumonia. My lungs are goosed, so there’s little point putting a Band-Aid on them now at this late stage. The Flu-jab helped me not a jot this year. I fall between the cracks of protection and prevention. That’s why people with my condition can die really quickly. The magic wand does not exist and it’s worth noting that these snail oil remedies make very big bucks in a lot of countries. Whereas, in Scotland, we don’t even pay for any prescriptions what so ever, so we don’t operate on any levels of false hope.
Afternoon Andrew, how are you today, feeling better I hope. You are right all the prescribed drugs we take the companies involved do make a lot of money. To be honest I think I have had more damage done to me via so many tablets, hate them all. Pneumonia on its own is a dreadful thing but you have all the other dreadful complications on top. I know it worries me what my end might be I panic so much when I get chest infections and it’s hard to breathe, how on earth do you cope. You are still young Andrew and this infection will clear, try and stay at home in the warm away from people with coughs etc. Can you order what food you want online, I use “Ocado”, it would save you going out. We are having such a cold wet high winds weather period, I bet it is the same where you are, you must be so careful.
Keep in touch Andrew and let me know how you are keeping, you can contact me if you want via cottageanna@gmail.com. Keep Warm and stay well.
Back briefly. Hope you are all doing good!!
Thanks to you both, Anna & Opher for the heads up.
Yes, the cold winds don’t like me at all and I have a great struggle if I’m out and about and get caught in a prevailing wind – I can’t move as this wind cools my lungs too much, temporarily turning them into concrete blocks. Beyond description in terms of pain.
I also have to be very careful not to overdo intake of anti-biotics as there lies another problem if I swallow them like smarties, I can wreck my immune system.
But it’s a new era for me – gone are the days of trusting that a GP knows what they’re doing – from now on I tell them what I need.
Andrew, do try not to go out in these cold conditions, we have had high winds here today and I would not go out in them. You have to be so careful. I wish I had your courage, I would love to tell my Dr what I wanted or did not. You have a good calm evening/night.
I’ve found that the best way too Andrew. If you know what you want you have a better chance of getting it! Stay well!
Opher, hope you are both ok.