Violence

Caning

Fortunately we live in an era where violence against children is frowned upon. Even smacking is deemed an assault.

Good job too!

In my view (based on personal experience) violence creates violence. It seems to work. It gives that instant gratification that the wrongdoer has suffered and that’s a lesson for all who do wrong, but that disguises the long-term resentment and fury that inevitably comes out further down the line. Violence creates a cycle of anger, revenge, hate and displacement violence. Violence creates more violence. The caned bully would appear contrite then, round the next corner, punch the first kid he encountered.

I was brought up in an age when violence against children was actively encouraged. You could beat your kid senseless. Every school teacher was encouraged to beat discipline into naughty children. Most houses had a cane handy for the correction of children. A smack on the legs or round the ear was mandatory. Children needed discipline.

It all obviously worked didn’t it?

What I recall of my school days is a litany of bullying, daily fights and boiling resentment. My lessons were battlefields.

There is a political dimension to this child abuse. The right-wing hang’em and flog ‘em brigade see violence as a deterrent as well as a suitable punishment – ‘they won’t do that again, will they?’. Despite all the evidence that little Johnny seems to do it all the more. Little Johnny doesn’t think he’s going to get caught again (because he’s crafty) and besides, there’s a lot of status to be gained from being caned. Deterrence doesn’t work.

If it did work then why are the same crew coming back for more week after week? Why were the schools full of such bullying and violence? Why did so many kids hate school?

You see this deterrence theory at work on the world stage. It’s probably why there are so many wars!

The ‘hard’ cane-wielding bullies of teachers ran their classrooms with rods of iron, destroying their subject in the process, turning young minds off and creating pent-up frustration. Further down the line that repression came out as bullying, fighting and disorder in other classrooms. The ‘tough’ teachers regarded the ‘weaker’ staff who did not terrify their kids with gratuitous threats and violence as the problem. If only all staff beat ‘discipline’ into their kids the school would be perfect. Except it wouldn’t, would it? It would resemble a concentration camp in which all enjoyment, fun, pleasure, relationship and joy of learning was drained out like water in a sieve. Education would become a chore to endure.

Not my idea of what a school should be. I prefer schools to be places of safety, warmth and vitality where students work with teachers with mutual enjoyment. That’s what a lot of my teaching life was like.

I watch the news where hateful draconian thugs are meting out ‘justice’ to unfortunate victims – usually women who have committed the terrible crime of not wearing a head scarf correctly. For this they must be publically humiliated and taught a lesson – a lesson that others need to take note of. They are taken to a busy square manhandled and beaten with cane. They might receive ten lashes or two hundred or a thousand.

When you watch it on TV it doesn’t look too much. You have to have been caned to know exactly how bad that could be. It could easily kill you.

My experience of violence began at home. A slap on the bare legs, an occasional sting across the legs with a cane kept at the side of the boiler. My parents weren’t heavily into violence. I probably deserved it and a lot more. It was a half-hearted affair. My sister and I hid the cane. My parents were only going along with the perceived wisdom. Corporal punishment was the done thing.

The next step in the chain was school. By all accounts I could be a lively lad. If you misbehaved you would be sent out of the classroom for a period of time- probably just five minutes. That was a time of terror. Our ogre of a Head teacher prowled. If she found you outside you knew she would hit you with a ruler. The fear was the worst part – well not quite. Depending on what you had done or her mood as to what happened. A few slaps with the face of the ruler over upturned hands stung a bit but wasn’t too bad. The face of the ruler over the back of the hands was worse, but the real killer was the edge of the ruler over the backs of the fingers.

I still remember standing outside the door in dread with every sense straining and the sense of relief if the door opened and I was beckoned back in.

The real brutality began in our secondary school. It started in week one.

The PE teacher was a British gymnast; a sturdy guy with muscles on his muscles. Wearing a singlet and joggers to show off his imposing physique he lined us eleven-year-old innocents up along a line in the sports hall. Behind him was a chair with a long whippy cane laid over it. He explained to us that this was his ‘chopper’ and ‘chopping block’. If we dared to step out of line we’d meet the two of them. That didn’t look like something we’d enjoy.

He then went on to describe what he would like us to do for our first PE lesson. It was quite straightforward. It did not require a lesson plan. We were to run around the outside of the courts marked out in the hall. He picked up his cane and slapped it into his hand menacingly. Anybody who stepped inside the lines would get a whack. The last one round would get a whack.

Basically he stood there whacking us as we ran around the hall for 30 minutes. He loved his job. By the end of the ‘lesson’ about half the class had blood dribbling down their legs. Job done.

In our school all the teachers could dish out punishments while the Headmaster dispensed formalised floggings. The prefects could deliver two swishes of the cane and gleefully dragged their victims under the school for summary kangaroo trials and punishment.

In lessons punishments ranged from having chalk and wooden blackboard rubbers thrown at you (I was knocked unconscious in one maths lesson), to being lifted out of your seat by an ear (excruciatingly painful) as well as the standard slipper and cane. At times school resembled a war zone.

I have a theory that a lot of this violence was caused by traumatised servicemen who had been fast-tracked into teaching on being demobbed after the war (apart from the obvious sadists and perverts who had gone into the profession for the pleasure of caning young boys (girls were not caned on their bums – that would have been too much!).

A formal caning was a brutal affair. You could choose to take your punishment ‘like a man’ and bend over to grip the sides of the desk or, if you rebelled against the punishment you were manhandled and held by either prefects or staff. The Headteacher retreated to the other end of his study and hurtled down at the victim with the cane raised high. He’s jump in the air and bring the cane down on the raised buttocks with as much force as he could muster. It made a loud thud and elicited a cry or at least an intake of breath as a searing pain scorched the brain.

The end result of this swipe was a physical reaction. Sometimes the skin would be split but more often than not you ended up with a welt – a raised livid red line; a hardened ridge, as if the outrage area of impact was tensing itself, gritting its teeth, straining every fibre and had turned to stone. The area around went bright red as blood flowed in a vain attempt to repair the damage. It throbbed like a metronomic volcanic eruption. It was agony to touch. This ridge would metamorphosis through many stages over the course of days. The hardened ridge melting into a deep purple bruise. The irate crimson streak would form a scab. Over weeks the deep purple would spread out and slowly progress through brown to a dissipating yellow like a melting funeral rainbow. With six of these bastards the whole of your arse formed a Jackson Pollock of pain.  The pain was so intense that the victim was excused sitting. You could stand for a day. Who said that the establishment was heartless, callous and cruel?

Mind you, the threat of caning could be used against them.

I remember on one occasion the whole thing rebounding horribly against the bastards.

Terry Bolton was troublesome. A big lad with presence. A fighter, a bully, a young man with attitude. I wouldn’t say he was a rebel because he had no cause. He was just an arrogant lump of teenage attitude. A bad lad. The girls went crazy for him. Caning was a regular event – the price to pay. Indeed it added to his whole charisma of being a hard dude.

The school authority had had enough. They decided to teach him a lesson. The whole school was summoned and we sat in the hall while a table and cane were deployed. Terry, who was in year 10 or 11, a strapping fifteen-year-old, was sitting towards the back. We all knew what was coming. He knew. Atmosphere was electric. Everyone was hanging on the cusp of expectation.

Terry was called up by the deputy as the Head stood flexing his weapon at the side of the stage. Nonchalantly Terry rose from the seated ranks. He strolled swaggering down the aisle to the place of execution with a defiant smile on his face. James Dean could not have produced a better performance.

Staff were poised in the wings as Terry was invited to bend over the table. What was he going to do? Would he meekly obey? Our eyes were no longer saucers they were dinner plates. Our mouths were open. What was going to happen?

Terry glanced around at us, grinned and outrageously winked. Theatrically he bent over the table, gripping the sides in the prescribed manner, making sure that he was facing us.

For a minute the tableau was set in stone.

The head launched himself, sprinting from the wings, sprang into the air and brought the cane down upon Terry’s raised buttocks with every ounce of power that he possessed. Our imaginations provided the explosion of pain. We were all watching Terry intently. THHHWWWAAAACKKK!! Not a flinch, not a flicker, no tightening of fingers, no change of expression, if anything a bored look of indifference. Let’s get this over.

THHHWWWAAAACKKK!! THHHWWWAAAACKKK!! THHHWWWAAAACKKK!! THHHWWWAAAACKKK!! THHHWWWAAAACKKK!!.

It was over. Terry slowly pulled himself up to his full height, smiled at the Head,(is that the best you’ve got?) slowly surveyed the hall and then casually swaggered back down the steps, sauntered down the aisle and very deliberately sat down.

We were in awe. They had successfully turned Terry into a magnificent hero!

When the ultimate deterrent ceases to be a threat what have you got left?