Discipline
The Slipper Remembered
I attended a boys’ grammar school in the North of England in the 1960s.Corporal punishment was widely used.Most of the teachers used the slipper, while the headmaster and deputy head used the cane.The majority of teachers were male and although we had more women teachers later, at the time in question when I was 14, we had only two female teachers.One was Mrs Johnson, the new science teacher, who was a big, blonde woman in her late thirties.She took over from our previous science teacher who had been very strict, and she made it clear from her very first class that she intended to be the same.It was after about a week that I got into serious trouble.Mrs. Johnson had told us to get on quietly with work and to make no noise, but I risked a whisper to a friend sitting nearby.Mrs Johnson notic...
Having to wait for the Slipper
What is the longest anyone has had to wait between the announcement of punishment and its ‘execution’? I read a long time ago of someone who was told on a Friday that he was going to get the slipper for some misdemeanor, but that it was going to wait until Monday morning. So the poor lad must have had his whole weekend ruined because of having to wait – the Sunday evening must have been horrific.Did anybody experience anything like that, or even or long wait outside the head’s study till he came back from a leisurely lunch, as happened to me! I lost count of the butterflies in my stomach by the time he arrived.At prep school in the mid ’70s, I waited from Thursday until Monday morning break to be caned. I was “on the report” which meant one had to carry a blank timetable around to all your...
Miss Howse & her Slipper
It was 1959. I was eight and in my last term at primary school before moving on to the lower school of a large boys’ grammar. My friend Valerie and I were playing a silly game in class, paying no attention to the lesson. The game involved each of us in turn holding up a hand while the other tried to touch the hand with their tongue, while the first child tried to avoid it. Amazingly, the teacher, Mrs Roberts, didn’t notice. The lesson ended, it was morning break and I went out into the playground. But after a few minutes Valerie came looking for me. “I’m afraid we’ve got to go and see the headmistress. Janice [I forget the wretched girl’s real name] has told on us.” When we got to the headmistress’s study, both the head – a frumpy spinster named Miss Howse – and Mrs Roberts were waiting fo...
Fun Slippering
The phrase ‘Fun Slippering’ sometimes occurs in messages to this board. I have not heard the expression before, and am wondering if anyone can give me a definition. Also, recollections of the great exponents of Fun Slippering (I think the words merit capital letters) would make interesting reading. From what I have seen here, it seems that Arthur ‘Bicycle Face’ Taylor was such a one. Dorothy Although unable to give a definition of Fun Slippering I think we need someone who attended William Penn School to do that. I offer below an extract from Whimpering in the Rhododendrons by Arthur Marshall. In this instance, it was the chastised pupils, rather than the teacher, who derived fun from the slippering. In the common room one morning the headmaster reported an occasion when corporal punishmen...
The Painful Truth
Not so long ago, I lost my parents, and I had the unenviable task of clearing their lifetime’s possessions. In a box, I discovered some old school reports of mine. Among the papers and a dreadful school photo was a letter, written by my old junior school headmistress. I had no idea my parents kept this stuff. Reading the letter made me cry. I will paraphrase the contents towards the end of this story. I read the stories on Maman with great interest – the following will explain why, and I cannot deny there my underlying interest in the subject matter. My story begins with the actions of four vandals who broke into our school garden. I was ten years old, in the last year of junior school. My father had drummed this message into me as a child: “If you mess up, own up.” He taught me that those...
Chatterbox Chastised
I was a real chatterbox in school, particularly during my primary years, and my talking in class frequently got me into trouble with teachers. One day, when I was in the second year of primary (so six years old), I got told off several times by Miss Moore, my teacher, but kept whispering to my friend Paul Thomas, who sat next to me. I can’t remember now what we were finding so interesting! Eventually, I was even made to stand in the corner for a while during the lesson but even after I was allowed back to my desk, I got talking yet again. Eventually, Miss Moore put me back in the corner and said she’d ‘deal’ with me at break time. I stood there, facing the wall, and feeling that it was extremely unfair because Paul had been talking too. Eventually the bell went for break and I was left alo...
Miss Harvey’s Spelling Test
I was never very good at spelling – and that lack of ability led to my first and only school paddling, back in the 1980s. I was in second grade at a school in Atlanta, Georgia, when one day our class teacher, Miss Harvey, announced the spelling test out of the blue. We would be all be tested on 20 words ‘you ought to know well by now’. I felt my heart sink. As the test began, I was initially quite surprised and pleased to find that I knew the answers to the first few words, but then they got harder and finally impossible. It was at that point that I glanced over to my desk mate, Jennifer Buckley (the desks were all in rows of twos and we were sat boy-girl-boy-girl, presumably to help maintain discipline). She was writing studiously and confidently and I could see her answers. So for the re...
Discipline at Home & School
I read with interest a lot of the comments and remarks on the subject of corporal punishment Like a lot of people, I too can offer some personal experiences. This is particularly true on the subject of slippering. I attended a mixed school in the nineteen sixties in the UK. Back then most schools still used corporal punishment on a regular basis. It is safe to say that corporal punishment was a normal part of everyday life. It was never excessive, virtually always justified and for most of the part accepted/ At my own school corporal punishment was always administered on the bottom and never on the hand, possibly for safety reasons. Punishment for the boys was frequently of the corporal variety. The slipper, which in my experience was not a carpet slipper or a soft canvas shoe, but most co...
Old School Thoughts on Discipline
Due to my abiding interest in corporal punishment, I do find myself visiting a number of websites related to the subject. There are those who have a keen interest in CP and experienced it without regrets as a child. In my experience, these people tend to be older and were at school in the days when CP was still legal. Then there are those who were badly abused in the past, and who mostly have a natural aversion to CP. However, even some of this group may still considerably less harsh use of spanking as a reasonable discipline. On the other hand, there are those who consider a mere single slap to the clothed bottom to be ‘abuse’ – the latter tend to be from a younger generation. So we found that those supporting CP in the home are often abused online by others who suggest that they’re in fa...
The Mean Girls
This story was one my mom shared with me when I was older, and it took place shortly after my parents got married and before my oldest brother was born – probably in 1974 or 1975. My mom had been a teacher for a couple of years, and she taught 6th grade (all subjects) at a neighbourhood school. All of the pupils lived within a 15-minute drive of the school, but most were closer than that. As a small local school, there was only one class of each grade – so , barring students moving in or out, the classes were much the same from year to year. This also meant that many of the teachers knew kids from outside of their own classes. In this particular year, my mom’s class had three girls – Carol, Laura, and Julie – who were just plain nasty; the stereotypical ‘mean girls’. My mo...
My Encounters at Boarding School in the 1960s Part3
At the weekend Julie and I received permission to go into the local town and to stay there for the evening performance of Macbeth at the local theatre group, as this was part of our A-level English Lit exams. The rest of the girls had been able to go to the matinee performance on a Wednesday but we had been busy at a Hockey Competition. It was arranged that we could go in on the bus to collect our tickets and then have a meal at the local restaurant. As we were going to be out in the evening we had been allowed not to wear uniforms and we would be collected outside the theatre by a member of staff at the conclusion of the play. We had a lovely meal and a glass of wine as we were both eighteen now and really enjoyed the play. As we came out of the theatre Miss Maloney was waiting outside an...
My Encounters at Boarding School in the 1960s Part2
Because of not being a head girl or deputy head girl I could not change in our own office and everybody would see the six lines across my bottom and the bruising left by the two slipperings. Julie tried to cheer me up saying just to laugh off the comments. As we both dressed ready for breakfast and assembly I did an extra check of my uniform just in case there was another inspection. Everything was okay. I was just going to open the door to our dorm when Julie shouted. “Stop! You are not wearing these.” I had forgotten my sashes so I quickly put on the two red sashes and then over the opposite shoulder I put the yellow sash which indicated that I had also been caned. We went to breakfast and I was not allowed to sit at the top table and everyone was looking at me and smirking. It was so em...
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