Conversations with school mates regarding caning

I grew up in a time, when CP in public and private schools was very common. We (boys) often talked about how we experienced the canings.

Every teacher at his or her school had a cane and could use it whenever it was necessary.  Each of these canes had an own character that was familiar to the boys and provided endless conversation material. The boys weighed the different characters of the sticks and the type of pain they inflicted against each other, they compared the arm and wrist technique of the teachers who used the cane.

Do you have similar experiences?

It was much the same at my school. Lads talked of it but not really with that much detail. I remember at the start of the autumn term, September, when there were a few teachers new to the school. We wondered if they’d use the cane or slipper, not all our teachers did. New younger teachers, as far as we knew, weren’t allowed to use corporal punishment themselves. Instead if anyone really played them up they’d be sent to either their form master or to an older teacher who was the young teacher’s ‘mentor’. What happened to anyone sent to them varied. If the older teacher thought the boy deserved it he’d cane or slipper him. Sometimes the boy was just told not to torment the new teacher.

I was  sent to my form master like that once. He slippered my bottom  in front of a class of first years.  I was in the 4th year then and felt three hard whacks much to the delight of the first years.

I wasn’t exactly a coward but I often squealed when I was caned or slippered. Some lads was bent over with no fuss and ‘absorbed’ hard whacks without as much as a murmur. I always wondered if they were the ones who were spanked hard by their parents at home.

It was vitally important when being caned not to give the caner any satisfaction that the cane was hurting or causing you any distress. Some boys got very good at this with a bit of practice. This approach spurred the caner on to lay it on hard in the hope of evoking a gasp or an incompletely suppressed yelp, watering eyes and a red face. Straightening up after and walking out nonchalantly, keeping one’s hands away from the fire completed the act. After, a careful use of language was required to convey the impression to classmates that although your caning was exceptionally severe it bothered you little.

I was born in UK but grew up in Germany. The procedure was a bit different. A caning was administered during a lesson in front of the class. It was not required for a teacher to send you to a headmaster.

You were called to come in front of the class. You were told to bend over the back of a chair. The teacher grabbed the waistband and tightened the pants. Then you got your cane strokes. Every teacher used his or her own cane for punishment reasons. Some canes where made of rattan some used bamboo canes. Some prefered thicker or thinner ones. The a punishment was very different depending on the teacher.

By the way. In Germany the butt whippings where kind of a “privilege” for male students. Female students where punished that way.

I heard about that. According to a good friend of mine the school corporal punishments in Germany where administered in front of the whole class and not in private like in the UK. Like in the UK only boys got the cane across their behinds. Females got one or two strikes with a ruler or i very light and short cane on the hand.

@ronaldmc502: was it common in Germany that young teachers right after university degree (male or female) sent students to an older mentor to receive a caning or did they also cane?

Hello ronaldmc502

You said you were born in the UK but grew up in Germany. Was the school run by British Forces or was it a German state school?

British Forces schools abroad tended to follow the same rules and regulations as those in the UK. Service parents were also much firmer with their children. Those who lived in service married quarters were expected to have well behaved children. If the kids were in trouble around where they lived it was the father have was in trouble. Unruly kids could affect their father’s promotion chances too.

@JamieMurphy: I attended a German state school. My parents moved to Germany when I was four years old. On German schools it was pretty normal to recieve a caning in the classroom right after the offence.

@carolin_b yes, every teacher had the right to use the cane during his or her lesson. It was not a matter of the teacher’s age.

Hello ronaldmc502,

And if the above very interesting posts are your first contributions here may I please say a personal welcome to the Forum.

It would be most useful to know when you attended a German State School if that is possible please.

In your contribution #4 above you said:

By the way. In Germany the butt whippings where kind of a “privilege” for male students. Female students where punished that way.

I appreciate that possibly you are having to translate to English, which is by no means the most logical of languages.  However I am a little puzzled by the above two sentences,  The first would appear to mean that caning on the bottom was confined to male students, whereas the second seems to say that female students were also punished that way.

I think the probability is that you meant that only male students were caned on the bottom.  However if girls were caned in that manner were they also punished in front of the rest of the class please?

@Another_Lurker Thank’s for your note. I simply forgot the word not, sorry for that. Indeed, girls were punished in front of the rest of the class. But not with cane strokes on the bottom. They got one or two smacks with a ruler on the palm of the hand. Some teachers used a much shorter and much thinner stick to punish the girl’s hands.

But boys got usually caned on the behind.

By the way. In Germany the butt whippings where kind of a “privilege” for male students. Female students where punished that way.

Perhaps,

By the way. In Germany the butt whippings were kind of a “privilege” for male students. Female students wern’t  punished that way.

Hello carolin_b,

I am puzzled by your assertion in the fist paragraph of your contribution #5 above that in the UK school corporal punishments were administered in private, that only boys got the cane on their bottom and that girls got one or two strikes with a ruler or very light and short cane on the hand

All three statements may well be correct in respect of your own school(s) at the time you were in attendance.  However as regards the whole range of state, private and church schools  in the UK and school corporal punishment in the UK, even limited to just within living memory, they are all three incorrect for some schools at some times.

Hello ronaldmc502

Thank you for the clarification. How many strokes did the boys usually get on their buttom (minimum/maximum number of strokes)? Did the teachers have to take notes (e.g. for parents or headmaster) of a caning administered during a lesson?

carolin_b wrote:Hello ronaldmc502

Thank you for the clarification. How many strokes did the boys usually get on their buttom (minimum/maximum number of strokes)? Did the teachers have to take notes (e.g. for parents or headmaster) of a caning administered during a lesson?

Hello carolin_b

in the secondary school I attended the usual number of strokes varied between three and nine strokes. The teachers didn’t have to report the canings to parents or the headmaster but they had to take notes within a “punishment book”. The noted down the students name, the date, the offence and the actual punishment.

The cane strokes in Germany were applied to the tightened seat of your pants. Since every teacher was allowed to punish this took place in front of the whole class. Some teachers caned pretty harsh so that even the oldest students howled and danced around after the caning. And belive me it was not easy to sit on your wooden chair after the punishment. Furthermore it was really embarrassing to walk back to your desk after a caning. Especially in the later years at school at the age of 16 or 17 you were really ashamed when you got called in front of the class to receive an eye watering caning. As I told, it was generally allowed for both female and male teachers to use the cane. It didn’t matter if the teacher was young oder old. So the most embarrassing punishment by far for boys were canings administered by a young female teacher (in her mid to end 20s). As I experienced and as i know from other students a lot of young female teachers were famous for their harsh canings. Maybe they didn’t know how painful a caning actually is or the just wanted to make sure you respect them as the authority in the class.

Hello ronaldmc502,

You wrote above:

So the most embarrassing punishment by far for boys were canings administered by a young female teacher (in her mid to end 20s). As I experienced and as i know from other students a lot of young female teachers were famous for their harsh canings. Maybe they didn’t know how painful a caning actually is or the just wanted to make sure you respect them as the authority in the class.

I recall two once prominent contributors who suggested that young female teachers they encountered at their respective secondary schools were eager converts to, and definitely enjoyed, whacking boys on the bottom.  Unfortunately both were regarded as a little suspect by some people here.

Other contributors, perhaps more reliable, have like you commented that female teachers could be extremely severe when caning in that mode.  One of the reasons put forward to explain this was indeed that, as you note, they possibly lacked experience on the receiving end of such punishments.

Another_Lurker wrote: One of the reasons put forward to explain this was indeed that, as you note, they possibly lacked experience on the receiving end of such punishments.

Yes, I definitely think so. When we talked about school punishments we guessed why, especially the young female teachers, administered such terribly painful canings. But we also came to this conclusion. They simply lacked the experience of a caning and therefore didn’t know how much force to use for a proper caning. So they hit incredibly hard, certainly more severe than actually necessary to make a boy really really sorry.

carolin_b  Were you aware of this story from five years ago? What do you think of the issues addressed?

What new “findings” has the “reporter’s feature film” brought? The fact that some parents of the community of the Twelve Tribes are using a thin, flexible rod as the smallest part of their education, is now well known. We love our children and are trying to educate them to become righteous people. This also means that we believe in setting them limits. We believe that the Creator himself has given guidance on the education of children in the Book of Proverbs. Even in the opinion of some experienced educators, the use of a small rod – in their investigation report, the police have written of small wooden sticks – in the education of children under certain circumstances and under the responsibility of parents, is neither abstruse nor unsuitable nor violent nor degrading (see, among others the included educational appraisal of Mr. Günter Maul). He who calls a thin willow a “club” is willfully twisting the truth. A rod is not a “club.” A club is a raw branch thick as a arm.

It was only in 1980 that corporal punishment with the cane was abolished in Bavarian schools. Personally, it is unexplainable to us that this should be a degrading, dangerous criminal assault today. We can not accept the assertion that all the people who were punished in their childhood in their families or in school (if this was done in an appropriate way), were abused and suffered lasting psychological damage from it. There are too many venerable, down to earth, and mentally healthy people of the older generation.

http://news.twelvetribes.org/wp-content … Family.png

http://news.twelvetribes.org/2014/01/21 … an-senate/

If a teacher uses the cane then he or she must use it well – fairly and very painfully. Anything less is likely to do more harm than good. You must not be considered a feeble caner if you want to be respected.

A few good canings at the beginning of the school year can set the level of acceptable behaviour for the rest of the year and save a lot of grief. Begin strict and then ease off a little.

https://www.france24.com/en/20170718-ge … boys-abuse    …. is this the school being referenced in bavaria?

@2015holyfamilypenguin and @dmp yes, it I can confirm that happened in Bavaria. But I would consider the things happened in this private catholic elite boarding schools simply child abuse.

I was actually talking about the public schools. Most kids attended these public schools. There the cane was used for school corporal punishment but the kids were not abused in any other form.

Hello ronaldmc502!

Thank you for the information about the use of the cane in Bavarian schools in the 1950s/60s.  All the previous research I have done on German SCP has focused on Northern Germany, where the cane was certainly popular both at home and in schools.  In one surprising statistic, it appears that in 1962 as many as 25% of families with children had a cane at home.  Given that a cane is only useful for one purpose, it suggests that there was quite a bit of support for corporal punishment.

One interesting factor was the apparent change from the father being the “master”, who imposed discipline, to the mother, that occurred when many men left the home for military service with the advent of war. Teenage boys of the time were possibly headstrong, believing that in the absence of the father, it was their place to be the head of the family.  Mothers may have felt the need to remind them who was in charge.  Perhaps the young female teachers in the 1950s were learning from the newly acquired skills of their mothers, who had told them to lay on the cane as hard as they could.

Hello rolandmc502,

in which years you went to school in Germany?

Hi AnnyKey!

ronald502 told us earlier in post #18 that he was at school from 1956 to 1974.

Hello @hcj44 !

that is an interesting conclusion. Yes, I can confirme that corporal punishment was widely used in Germany. And the cane was one of the most common implements especially for older teen boys.

Maybe you’re right. The young girls saw the moms caning their brothers pretty harsh. And since caning was still widely used in the 60’s and 70’s in German schools, the “girls” who left the university and became a teacher in the years mentioned above also became severe caners.

When my friends and I talked about our years at school, almost every “boy” had at least one experience with one of these young female teacher canings. Since a lot of girls didn’t recieve a single caning on the bum, they probably didn’t know how painful it was. So they didn’t know how hard to apply the strokes to make it effective. And since they wanted to make sure the caning hurts they used quite a lot effort. Certainly more than necessary. And especially for older boys in the age between 14 and 16 it was not only incredibly painful but also really really embarrassing to receive a caning of a mid to end 20 female teacher.

ronaldmc502L

it was not only incredibly painful but also really really embarrassing to receive a caning of a mid to end 20 female teacher.

I am looking forward to a comment by A_L regarding this!

Hello ronaldmc502,

Good to see you back again.  I hope that we shall hear more from you in the future.  As I think I’ve noted before there have been other instances of the corporal punishment excesses of young female teachers featured here in the past.

Some contributors have indeed  attributed this to female teachers having no personal experience in receipt of corporal punishment and therefore lacking a suitable comparison to urge a degree of moderation.

Others however have reported that such teachers just seemed to enjoy whacking errant boys.  There was a claim, possibly dubious, of a class of teenage boys gradually educating a new and attractive young female teacher in how and with what to apply SCP so successfully that from initial embarrassment at the mere concept of punishing by bending boys over and whacking bottoms she became an enthusiastic and vigorous wielder of the slipper (a flexible rubber soled sports shoe traditionally a step down from the cane in English schools).

Hello AliceOttley,

Comment as requested:

In the section of his contribution that you quote ronaldmc502 is recalling actually being aged 14 to 16 and receiving a very painful caning from a female teacher only a few years older.

In posts likely to have prompted your comment I have perhaps been speculating what it might have been like to be so caned by an equivalent female teacher or a female prefect, or indeed what it might be like as an adult to be corporeally punished by a younger female authority figure.

There can be  a world of difference between actuality and imagination and we should not confuse the two!

When punishment was administered at my secondary school all the boys and a few of the girls wanted to know all the details of the punishment.Every master had his own favourite instrument of pain ranging from cane,slipper,strap,metre rule and cricket bat so you had a good idea of what you were going to be punished with depending on which master was administering the punishment.
The only things you could,nt be sure about was the number of whacks and the position you had to take to be whacked. My school only punished on the boys bottom so obviously some form of bending would be involved usually it was touching toes a favourite for front of class punishments, a position i hated as the girls could watch,usually three whacks were administered and it was hard to stay in position.Sometimes some of the stricter masters would administer a six stroke whacking in the touching toes position a punishment i did receive and i did jump up after the fourth whack,only to be ordered back into position and an extra whack would be administered at the end for the crime of jumping up.
In my time at school i was punished with all the above implements and in various positions, over the vaulting horse,over a desk,over a stool,and over the back of a chair.
I was caned by the deputy head for playing truant,boys used to say that he put two chairs back to back and the boy had to kneel on one and bend over the back and grab the seat or legs of the other chair making your bottom stick right up so i was terrified when i was sent to him,the caning was agony and brought tears to my eyes but thankfully i was bent over a stool while he administered the six stroke caning,still kept hearing about the position with the two chairs that the deputy head was supposed to use,but i never knew of any boy who received it

sc545474:

I’m sure many of the the girls would have enjoyed watching a boy being caned – I certainly would have done but unfortunately went to an all-girls school.

Were the girls ever disciplined in front of the class or was that always in private?

Hi Alice Ottley – I,m sure the girls did enjoy us boys being punished in front of the class,the reason being is that girls were exempt from corporal punishment,but they all seemed very interested when a boy was called to the front and the dreaded words BEND OVER!  was ordered by the male teacher

Life is never fair!

Hi – Yes you are correct life is never fair,i did,nt bother me that the girls were exempt from C.P, what bothered me was being punished in front of them,fair enough if the girls received it as well,but having to bend over touching toes with the girls giggling and trying to get a better view of the action was embarrassing. Some of the masters did,nt help sometimes telling the boy to bend tighter

I do agree

Back in the 1960s lads just accepted that girls were generally exempt from school CP. I went to a boys grammar school with a girls grammar adjoining. We were caned and slippered,The girls weren’t totally exempt, if any were guilty of particularly serious bad behaviour they could be caned across their hands but it was rarely given.

At the senior school I attended, it was generally believed that the spanking/caning of girls was a very rare occurrence. First hand accounts that have appeared in recent years on sites such as this one that are NOT dedicated to corporal punishment have suggested that this was not the case. I think it might simply have been that the girls were reluctant to discuss their experiences with their male classmates.

A few of the first hand accounts from that site:

Jean Smith I often pass it and I can now remember running round the field and down the road with Miss Ham smacking our bums if we didn’t run fast enough.I bet she enjoyed doing that !We also played hockey in a school field

Betty Sharp Hi Paulene, Welcome to the group. I was at TC from 65 to 69 too, Elizabeth (Betty) Boyns then. My memories are getting the slipper once from the biology teacher for talking in class, serving the teachers their dinners at lunch time & rushing to take a shower after cross country at Ewell (or rather just wetting hair) before Miss Ham got to the changing rooms! lol.

Paulene Wentworth Hi Betty yes I remember this, getting the slipper from the biology/science teacher, a woman but can’t remember her name, and yes those horrible cold showers at Ewell. Also having to do cross country in our navy knickers in the snow, sounds barbaric now but that is what we had to do.

Doreen Lancaster Stone Betty I was only thinking a couple of days ago how Miss Batchelor lined several of us girls up in the front of her Biology class and really whacked that bloody white plimsoll across all our backsides, tbh I think she enjoyed it and the power.
Wouldn’t get away with it now would she.

Hello Richard,

What an excellent Facebook site your old school has!  Not a single attempt to persuade me to join Facebook and everything accessible.  Some fascinating photographs.  I don’t suppose it was particularly comfortable but a very distinguished and interesting looking building.  A ghost in the top floor of the tower block too! 

I think your theory regarding English schoolgirls and CP may well be correct, at least for a certain era.  When I was at school there was certainly an expectation in society generally that girls would be better behaved than boys.  Hence a girl punished at school might well perceive her punishment as involving a greater degree of shame than a boy subjected to the same punishment for the same offence.

In addition there was something of a presumption generally that corporal punishment at school was on the bottom.  Where this might not have worried a boy unduly I suspect that the average schoolgirl would not have wanted people to assume that she had had to bend over and present her bottom for punishment.  Hence while a girl might talk about having been subjected to SCP with female friends who anyway might know the SCP situation in the school she would probably try to avoid wider dissemination of knowledge of it if at all possible.

Obviously this was not a possibility if the whacking was in front of a mixed class or otherwise well publicised.  However merely considering this Forum, if girls were punished in private at mixed schools it is quite surprising how many male pupils were uncertain what form the punishment of girls actually took.  My assumption would be that girls collaborated with each other to keep things quiet.

One would expect that the degree of shame and secrecy over the SCP of girls would have diminished as social mores relaxed in the 1960s and onwards, and also as the recipients got older and what at the time was a distressing event became less distressing with the passage of time,  Despite that, outwith Forums like this where there is a presumption of both interest and anonymity, I can recall very few English women of my age who have openly discussed being in receipt of SCP.

In Scotland however SCP of both sexes was often fairly extensive in class and in other public situations, for late attenders at the school gates in full view of passers-by for instance.  Further it was generally on the hands not the bottom.  And in Scotland I have encountered several women who have quite freely recalled being belted at school if something has introduced the topic into conversation.