It’s Caring to be Tough

In the news recently there has been the information that a former primary school Headmistress has been hauled before the General Teaching Council in Birmingham on allegations of unprofessional conduct. Her alleged ‘crime?’ She is said to have threatened one or two of her pupils with having their mouths washed out with soap, presumably because they used foul language. She also told others to remove their trainers (banned by the school) which is said to have ‘humiliated’ them. And she is said to have shaken two boys under the age of 12 by the shoulders for not having done their homework.

Things have certainly changed since I was at a village primary school in the 1950s - and not for the better, to judge by the lack of any clear sense of right and wrong of the youth of today, which goes hand in hand with amorality and contempt for the law and for authority. They are egoistical and full of a sense of their rights and entitlement, but little of their duty to others. Respect for their elders has been replaced by contempt; civility with loutishness. All this together with a staggering ignorance of the history and achievements of their own country and a decline in academic standards which would mean that a ‘C’ at ‘A’ –level decades ago would be awarded an ‘A’ today. Much of the decline in standards of behaviour can be traced to deep-rooted alterations in the characteristics of society, manifesting itself in its attitudes to corporal and capital punishment.

A Cuff Round the Ear

The usual method for some offence in my primary school in what seems another, better age was a cuff round the ear, or for more serious offences, three strokes across the fingers with the edge of a ruler. This stung, but the pain soon went. When the Head was writing on the blackboard, he would listen for any whispering in the class behind him, and if he heard any, would turn and hurl the duster at the offender. Behaviour in the school was exemplary. There was no talking in the classrooms and no running in the corridors. And the pupils learned. There were slower ones, of course, but no one in my final class could not read and write and all had learned the basics of Mathematics, English Grammar and Composition, Geography, British History, Religious Instruction (not ‘Education’) – which was instruction in Christianity and including learning passages by heart from the King James version, so on.

Boarding School and the Early morning freezing Plunge

After passing the 11-plus, I went to a boarding school because my Dad was in the armed forces and was posted abroad. The day began when the ‘Sergeant’- so called because he was a regular who had served with the Eighth Army in North Africa, came into our dormitory at an early hour to wake up the rows of boys sleeping under their bright scarlet blankets and make sure they got out of bed and ran smartly down to the ‘plunge.’ This was a sort of shallow indoor swimming pool with deep-brown peat water, always cold and freezing in winter. It was heavily laced with chlorine and possibly other additives. We were required to jump into this and then shower. Although really only inches deep, I became quite proficient in diving into it and swimming a few lengths.

Fagging for ‘Bruiser’

Once dressed I had to attend to a senior prefect as his ‘fag.’ This involved making his bed with the sheet nicely turned down, cleaning his shoes and brushing his jacket as well as running errands for him. It had been my misfortune to have been chosen by this particular prefect after a try-out in the first week I was at the school. He was a forward in the school first XV and nicknamed ‘Bruiser’ for good reasons. If my service did not come up to expectations, ‘Bruiser’ had the power to flog me with some suitable implement – a slipper or belt or coat hanger, perhaps. He never did as it happened, but the fear of it was enough to produce great efforts on my part.

What Teaching was like in a Good School

Then to Breakfast which was preceded by grace and invariably included porridge. Afterwards, there was school assembly which was involved prayers, a hymn and a bible reading and was attended by day boys as well as boarders. During the classes, the boys sat in rows facing the blackboard (the only item of equipment in most rooms) and the master, who wore an academic gown. The boys stood up when the Headmaster came into the room. The boys did not speak unless asked, but weren’t passive – they always had their hands up, competitively demanding permission to answer a question. The master might single out someone to answer who did not have their hand up, so everyone’s attention was focused on the lesson at all times. Academic standards were very high and so were expectations of good behaviour.

The blessing of ‘Rote’ Learning

One aspect of my education at that school which I recall with particular affection was learning an extract from Shakespeare or other acknowledged great in English literature every week, since we would be asked to analyse them in the ‘O’ and ‘A’ level examinations and would be expected to know them. This is sneered at today as ‘rote’ learning, but I have always been grateful for this discipline, because as a result I have a stock of poetry and quotations in my head which has given great pleasure, illuminated many a moment and added dimensions to thousands of literary allusions I have come across in later life which meant nothing to those who did not know them. To illustrate the worth of Rote learning to a friend, the Deputy Head of a Comprehensive who had the usual dismissive, liberal-left views on the subject, I picked up a detective story he had happened to have been reading. It was ‘Cover Her Face’ by P D James. I told him that I had not read it but I could tell him that it was probably about a young, attractive girl who was married to someone not of the same social class and who had been murdered. I knew that because I recognised that the title came from the line ‘Cover her face; Mine eyes dazzle, she died young’ from the play ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ by the Jacobean playwright John Webster.

Punishment by Rubber Tubing and a Multi-coloured Backside

Wrong-doing of any sort was dealt with by the masters, with on-the-spot corporal punishment available. This varied according to the gravity of the offence. For minor offences such as impertinence it might just be a cuff round the ear. For more serious ones, there was the slipper. And for more serious ones still, such as being caught smoking or for some sexual misdemeanour, lengths of rubber tubing such as are used to connect Bunsen Burners to the gas supply were used. These were especially disliked, because they tended to curl spitefully around the rear leaving multi-coloured bruising. I recall a lad who had been guilty of some sexual adventure whose backside was heavily bruised as a result of his resulting punishment.. He used to stand on the end of his bed and display his multicoloured behind to the awe-stricken other members of the dormitory as the colours changed through time. In our more feeble, namby –pamby modern days, the police would be called. The final deterrence though was to be sent to the Headmaster for a caning.

How to Take a Flogging

In the evenings, quietness reigned at ‘prep.’ The boarders sat in their different rooms doing their homework, whispering to each other sometimes but kept in order by prefects who could administer corporal punishment if necessary. After about three hours of this (more for the senior boys, who had their own studies) there were evening prayers led by a prefect and the master on duty, and so to the wash rooms and then to bed. If anyone was caught talking after ‘lights out’, the punishment was three strokes on the behind with a slipper administered by one of the resident masters. The form was to go into their common room, receive the strokes without flinching and then to straighten up and walk out nonchalantly. This undoubtedly encouraged self –control and manliness. The last thing one wanted to do was to display cowardice not only to the flogger but to the other talkers who were awaiting their turn.

Sunday Church, Toff-Style in Striped Trousers

Saturdays were given over to competitive sports such as rugby which encouraged respect for fair play and cooperation with others. We could watch the Lone Ranger on TV in the library or go into town and spend money (if we had any) on ice cream, chips and the cinema. On Sundays, after parading to church in our white shirts, stiff white collars, studs and cufflinks together with black tie and jacket and striped trousers, our time was our own although we had to go on a set country walk in the afternoon.

Punishment Modern Style

Two Concepts of Responsibility for Wrong Doing

Let’s explore the differences between my own experiences and those of the Primary School Head mentioned at the beginning. My own experience has two strands; firstly,swift, often corporal punishment for misbehaviour and secondly religious instruction. The headmistress’s experience involves official and parental indignation at the very idea that a child should be corporally punished in the lightest fashion or ‘humiliated,’ in the context of secularism.

These two approaches illustrate the deep difference between the era of my schooldays and those of today. First and foremost is the idea of ‘loco parentis. The schools, standing in the place of parents administered corporal punishment because in those more free and robust times, it was accepted that parents could administer it, and moreover, society in general thought that they shouldadminister it because it believed in right and wrong and punishment rather than therapy. I was punished by ny Dad and richly deserved it. For example when my Dad was stationed in Germany, not that long after the War, like other English kids (I was about 6 years old) I had low view of the Germans. I ran after an old German couple and spat at them. My Dad saw me and later gave me a hiding I remember to this day. Nowadays, however, the state has moved in, favouring the invented ‘human rights’ of the child which hand parental power to the state. And there has been a profound rot in the attitude to children (and adults) which treats bad behaviour as something to be understood rather than punished and corporal punishment to be ‘abuse’.

The Traditional View

The attitude to corporal punishment in schools when I was young originated in the knowledge of what children are really like, grounded in humanity’s experience of them since time immemorial. This attitude was reinforced by the Christian view that people while capable of good are prone to wickedness. Corporal punishment was therefore designed to punish those who had deliberately chosen wrong-doing. This attitude is profoundly important. It acknowledges that there are such things as right and wrong; ie absolute standards of morality which must be adhered to. And it is respectful of the status of the child because it acknowledges it as an autonomous being who is capable of knowing right from wrong and accepts that the child having been told the difference, is free to choose to do right or not.

The Modern View – Authority and Punishment are ‘Fascist’

The experience of the School Head however derive from another view of Human nature entirely, a secularist one which relegates Religious ideas of the autonomy and free will of the individual and focuses on the influences of society, held to be overriding. It descends from the ideas of the 18^th Century French philosopher Rousseau which became extremely influential, having widespread pernicious influences chiefly in the form of liberal thought. Rousseau set the standard of liberalism by being better at preaching to others as to how to behave than behaving properly himself. He dumped his own unwanted children on the steps of a foundling home. In his book ‘Emile,’ published in 1762, Rousseau argued that a child is born good and if bad, it is not the child’s fault; it is because he or she is corrupted by society. He forcefully focused attention on those influences that shaped children's character. Via the American Educator John Dewey (1859 -1952) who wanted more attention to the child’s own experiences and thought that there should be less on authoritative teachers delivering knowledge, this train of thought has reached to the neo-Marxism which sees the influence of authoritative teachers dispensing morality and learning as authoritarian and ‘Fascist.’

As result of such attitudes education has become ‘child-centred’ and instead of the need to ‘punish’ wrongdoing, there is now seen to be a need to ‘understand’ the child’s experiences and to shape its environment positively. Thus no step must be taken which undermines the child’s self confidence. The child must never or hardly ever be criticised, the emphasis being mainly or wholly on praise and encouragement. The resulting collapse in discipline and academic standards has been so complete that any attempt to administer the mildest of punishments is met with the full-frontal hostility of the educational establishment and of parents who share in the general liberal mindset of the educators and who ‘know their rights.’ And what can be said of the schools can be said of society as a whole.

Bring Back Corporal Punishment

Would I bring back corporal punishment? Yes of course. A prominent psychologist, Dr Aric Sigman, has said that ‘ Authority is a basic health requirement in children’s lives…. but far from being protected they are actually suffering in ways that could never have been foreseen. Adults must be legally empowered to deal with both their own and other people’s children without the fear that they may be confronted or prosecuted for doing so.’ (‘The Spoilt Generation’)

In my view that reassertion of adult responsibility should include the reestablishment of corporal punishment to something like its previous status. I have no time for the less then robust attitudes of those whose hearts bleed over well- merited strokes of the cane, thinking wrongly that the little darlings are too tender plants to bear it. Provided, that is, that it is delivered fairly and under reasonable guidelines. It has many benefits. It helps to restores the authority of the teacher and of parents in a way nothing else can. It takes some of the responsibility for a pupils’ good behaviour out of the hands of the others including the state and hands it back to the pupil, thus encouraging self discipline and self esteem. Notwithstanding flawed arguments against it, it is very effective and it is over quickly, so getting rid of the need for lengthy, expensive and sometimes damaging administrative procedures such as detention, parental involvement, expulsion and so forth. And what is sauce for the pupil at school is sauce for thugs who beat up old ladies.

Would I change anything? Well, I would not allow the kind of institutionalised bullying, underpinned by the rigid law of Omerta which would have made the Mafia proud which reigned at my school. This includes the fagging system. And I would do away with such excesses as duster-throwing. But that is all. As for Capital Punishment – that is fodder for another essay.