I moved on. But every school I’ve taught at since has had some of these features, and all have a lack of real effective sanctions which makes rules meaningless and discipline a dirty word.By the time I retired, unlike the handful of children a year who needed a caning to correct their behaviour, by the time I retired hardly a day passed by when I……….. didn’t feel at least one child, I’d met deserved an appointment with the long-defunct cane.
I didn’t enjoy beating children. You don’t go into education to ‘teach’ through inflicting pain. I try to teach with mutual respect but when that respect breaks down, and you have to deal with deliberate and flagrant misbehaviour, you do need sanctions and consequences. You need a final sanction for bad behaviour which acts as a real deterrent. In my mind, the cane did that quickly and very effectively.
