Teachers are worried about a deterioration in the behaviour of girls in schools, complaining of incidents such as bullying on social networking websites and gang violence.
Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) are to debate a rise in the proportion of girls being excluded from secondary school at their conference in Liverpool today.
The motion, from teachers at schools in Derby and Chesterfield, calls for better co-ordination of work to help girls who are sent home from school, and to support teachers and heads in dealing with them. One in four children permanently excluded from school is a girl, and, although latest government figures showed a small drop overall, the proportion of girls suspended or excluded rose slightly. A survey of 859 teachers and support staff by the ATL found that almost 44 per cent report that problems such as aggressive or threatening behaviour among female pupils are getting worse.
Of 363,280 children suspended from school in 2008-09 for a fixed period, 92,150 were girls, representing 21.9 per cent compared with 21.6 the previous year. Among 6,550 pupils permanently excluded 1,440 were girls, or 25.3 per cent.
While these figures represent punishments for serious misbehaviour, teachers are complaining about other low-level misdemeanours. Whereas teachers reported pushing, spitting, kicking and hitting by boys, girls were more likely to resort to name-calling, isolating other girls from a group, spreading rumours or treating other children to snide comments or looks.
Talking in lessons, not paying attention, using mobile telephones in class and ignoring teachers requests or flouting school rules were almost as common among girls as with boys.
One teacher who took part in the survey reported: There is a lot of cyber-bullying, particularly via MSN and Facebook this is mainly girls.
A teacher in Reading, said: Girls spread rumours and fall-outs last a long time. Boys tend to sort it out fairly quickly.
A primary school teacher in Bedfordshire responded: Boys are generally more physical and their behaviour is more noticeable.
Girls are often sneakier about misbehaving they often say nasty things which end up disrupting the lesson just as much as the boys, as other children get upset and cant focus on their work.
But a teaching assistant at a school in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, said: Girls are definitely getting more violent, with gangs of girls in school who are getting worse than the gangs of boys.
One in four children permanently excluded from school is a girl
Clearly this problem needs urgent attention. We should not be satisfied until approximately one in two children permanently excluded from school is a girl.
Is girls’ behaviour getting worse or is it really just a case of teachers finally taking it seriously? When I was at school, we girls misbehaved just as much as the boys and, as we were treated equally, were punished for it just as often. Some of my friends attended other schools where misbehaviour by girls was largely overlooked so, although they misbehaved at least as much as I, they appeared to be much better behaved.
I absolutely agree. the only thing I’d add is that when I was in both Prep and primary schools ( both mixed) I formed the opinions that insofar as girls were concerned the women teachers were far more likely to punish them than the men , who just , yes, told/let them off.
One good example, and probably the only time I thought our primary school head was right, comes to mind. There had been some serious horseplay and bullying carried out on a group of younger kids by three boys and a girl in my form . Our form teacher ( male) discovered it and told them all off severely, but then sent the BOYS to see the headmistress for the strap. the GIRL was let off. Later, three tearful boys returned , ………the girl , called Janet, was smirking. A few minuted after the Headmistress entered the room and asked for the girl to go with her…..for a well deserved strapping. The form master tried to interject but she was having none of it …she would not tolerate bullying , by boys or girls ! I’m pleased to report that she got the same , three strokes , along with the boys!
My immediate reaction to that was no different from my immediate reaction to the logically equivalent “We should not be satisfied until approximately one in two children permanently excluded from school is a boy.” Perhaps I’m just too logical. 
I don’t know if your comment was intended seriously but you do raise a serious point. Why are three times as many boys as girls permanently excluded from school? Do boys offend at three times the rate of girls? Not in my experience. Girls are every bit as badly behaved as boys but there has always been a tendency to play down girls’ misbehaviour. Admitting girls commit offences serious enough to warrant expulsion challenges the view that they’re all “Sugar and Spice”. Furthermore, when misbehaviour by girls is seen in the same way as that of boys, overall misbehaviour levels appear to approximately double.
I agree there was/is a tendency for men to treat women and girls leniently, not only in schools but also in the criminal “justice” system. Men see the “Sugar and Spice” – other women see the truth. It was a woman, Jackie, who equalised punishments in your and its sister school.
An Alleged that he caned a boy for “behaving very inappropriately” with a girl but wasn’t happy that reporting the matter to Mrs B_B, including the fact that he’d caned the boy, almost guaranteed the girl would be caned too. He’s also admitted that, although he caned three girls for offences he would always cane boys for, he refrained from caning girls for offences he might cane boys for. Even Mrs B-B treats girls at her school more leniently than the boys (at the brother school) are treated although she has said that, if a boy and girl committed a joint offence, the should both received the same punishment even though that might be more than she would ordinarily give a girl.
“If for instance a boy and a girl played truant they would both have been placed in detention but the boy would have been caned as well.” Girls only became liable to be caned following the arrival of a headmistress.
This might partly be due to the idea that “a gentleman never hits a lady” but that ignores the fact the misbehaving schoolgirls are not, by any stretch of the imagination, “ladies” and doesn’t prevent their being sent to a female teacher to be punished. Nor does it prevent a male teacher imposing some other punishment.
There is also the myth that girls are delicate creatures who need to be protected, by “big strong men”, from the realities of life.
Another factor is the sexist idea that girls are feeble minded and, as such, should not be held accountable for their actions. Again, men have an interest in perpetuating that myth whereas women have an interest in debunking it.
I don’t have any personal experience of the type of overt sexism as in your example because we were treated equally. Female teachers did have a tendency to slipper harder than the men and were slightly more ready to use CP. I had put that down to their not wanting to appear weak but a reluctance by male teachers to punish girls could also be a factor. If I were caught misbehaving with a boy, it would be obvious the teacher was treating us unfairly if he only punished the boy. The only practical way he could avoid punishing me was to not punish the boy either. It would also be pretty obvious a teacher was being unfair if a couple of boys got the slipper for whispering in class but he turned a blind eye to a group of girls carrying on a loud conversation.
I can’t know of course but I think it’s likely that, if it had been a female teacher who repeatedly caught me taking a short cut across an out of bounds area, I’d have got the slipper after the third or fourth time. The male teacher who repeatedly caught me just told me off so, naturally, I just carried on until, after been caught three or four days running, I got the cane. If that teacher were trying to treat me leniently, it didn’t do me any favours in the end.
I’m not entirely convinced (as I’ve said before in our discussions) that girls and boys exhibit the same degree of misbehaviour. My own anecdotal experience is less extensive than yours, as I attended a boys-only secondary school, but it was certainly the case that there was much more misbehaviour by boys than girls at my primary school. Of course I can’t say how representative that was.
Equally, I don’t believe that in principle it must be the case that misbehaviour levels must necessarily be equal. We know that in many animal species there are different behaviour patterns for males and females, and this is surely genetically determined. So it is at least in principle possible that there could be similar differences in human behaviour. Of course human genetic differences are overlaid by differences in socialization in the home, and so behavioural differences between girls and boys at school, if indeed they exist, could equally well be determined by prior experiences.
The arguent about fairness is, of course, quite different. One could say that the same offence should be dealt with by the same punishment, on grounds of fairness, even if one accepts that there are significant differences in behaviour between boys and girls, or indeed between any other well-defined groups of children.
The real problem, I think, is when fairness conflicts with effectiveness. If the idea is to do the best by each individual then I guess you’ll want to select the punishment which works best at improving the behaviour of that individual (if you can). But there’s no guarantee that the same punishment will work for everyone. For instance, someone who’s a bit of a tearaway because of difficult home circumstances might benefit massively from a little TLC, whereas someone from a stable home who behaves in the same way on a whim might best be returned to the straight and narrow by a short sharp shock. Effective — yes. But fair? Well, you tell me.
The real problem, I think, is when fairness conflicts with effectiveness. If the idea is to do the best by each individual then I guess you’ll want to select the punishment which works best at improving the behaviour of that individual (if you can).
You might want to select the method of behavior modification to get the best result with each individual, but psychology psycho analysis and sociology show , at least if you look beyond the straight jacket of Doc’s Anglo Saxon empiricism , that punishment of any sort isn’t actually very effective at achieving transformation .
Oh sure it serves other social functions , deterrent , suppression, reinforcing social divisions and structures, maintaining false dichotomies of sex, gender , race……and suppressing recognition ( ie of Patriarchal structures and processes ) ..but then even the language we use divides, separates and isolates us as the powerless individual within a hegemonic idealogical matrix………which we commonly call societal values .
Thats a clear message from post modernist theory . , and you see it acted out in society every single day …..
If we define misbehaviour simply as “something contrary to rules”, to compare offending levels we first need to ensure the rules are not biased in favour of one of the sexes. For example, Dr Dominum’s school accepts visiting students from its sister (Mrs B-B’s) school. Two students are sitting quietly in one of Doc’s chemistry classes listening attentively. Their uniforms are impeccable and they both have their hair tied back. Their behaviour is identical. However, one of them will be considered “misbehaving” (by being in breach of the rules) because rules on hair length do not apply to both sexes equally
Mrs B-B is attempting to keeping misbehaviour levels amongst girls down by allowing them to do something that boys, at the brother school, are not permitted to do. Her strategy is unsuccessful however because she goes on to say “I’ve never done a formal comparison but I would be prepared to bet that we spend at least three times as long dealing with misbehaviour about hair as our brother school does. All they have to say is ‘Get a haircut.’ We have to have debates on fine points of detail.” That hardly supports a claim that girls are better behaved and more compliant (as has also been claimed) than boys. In general, I think girls do push the boundaries more than boys simply because, in general, we’re allowed to. Rechabit noted how girls seemed more confrontational than boys.
All my schooling was co-educational. I changed schools during my first year in junior school (aged 7). From what I remember of infants’, girls were in trouble more often than boys. It was a long time ago though and I might have just noticed more when a girl was in trouble – knowing it could so easily have been I.
In junior school, behaviour patterns might have been different (I tended join in with boys because “girly things” didn’t interest me) but disregard for the rules seemed to be about equal for both sexes. Girls tended to be allowed more leeway, especially by male teachers, but female teachers didn’t reciprocate in the case of boys so, overall, boys would appear to misbehave more. Dr Dominum has claimed that girls are “pulled up” more than boys but that hasn’t been my experience. If anything, the reverse was more often true.
In secondary school, as I’ve said, we were all held to the same standards of behaviour and subject to the same rules. Some teachers were more likely than others to turn a blind eye occasionally but I can’t say I noticed any sex discrimination there.
You make the point, with which I concur, that males and females exhibit different behaviour patterns in many animal species and that the same could apply to humans – albeit modified by socialization. This introduces another factor to consider when attempting to define “misbehaviour”. If a human behaves according to his or her genetic “programming”, can he or she really be said to be misbehaving? Adolescent males of many species fight each other to gain a mate. Two boys fighting over a girl are only behaving according to a biological imperative. Is that really “misbehaviour”?
We can adjust relative offending rates between the sexes simply by devising rules that prohibit behaviour more commonly found in one sex that the other. There were even a couple of sexist rules at my school – until somebody pointed out that they were sexist. Girls were not allowed to wear make-up or jewellery. Offending rates amongst girls were far, far greater than amongst boys – simply because, as written, the prohibition didn’t apply to boys. Admittedly, when the rule was changed to include boys, still far more girls than boys broke it.
In the matter of fairness versus effectiveness, we need to consider how each affects the other. It can be both fair and effective to do the best by each individual but treating a child in a particular way just because of his or her sex achieves neither. Treating children unfairly is not an effective way of improving their behaviour – it’s more likely to do the opposite. If I were caught talking to a boy in class (for example) giving us both a “telling off” could be effective. Giving us both the slipper, equally so. Giving me the slipper, because I’d been warned countless times before, and giving him a “telling off”, because he was usually well-behaved and it was the first time he’d been caught, could also be effective because the reason for treating us differently would be clear. Giving me a “telling off”, because I’m only a girl so must be treated gently, and giving him the slipper, because he’s a boy so needs a firm hand, would be so clearly unfair it would most likely result in a deterioration of both our behaviours.
my primary schooling was 1954–57 in the infants school, and 1957–1961 in the junior school. Take the teacher we had in my last year, 1960–61: he would use a blackboard pointer to whack boys in front of the class. This was quite frequent, but I remember only one particular instance, where one boy had bitten another. The miscreant was told to touch his toes and got his whack. But then, when he was about to stand up, he was told to wait and got another. I distinctly remember that there was a tear rolling down his cheek. (We always looked.)
The point is that this was out of the ordinary. Boys only got one whack, and there were so many cases one just forgets. It was part of the furniture. But you remember something which was different.
I’m still pretty certain, though, that there wasn’t very much of the more serious misbehaviour — fighting, stealing, vandalism — amongst the girls. I do remember one time when a girl was punished for something (I can’t remember what) and the headmistress made a big point of telling us in assembly one morning, so it must have been pretty rare.
Perhaps it’s true that girls were let off minor misdemeanors more than boys. I don’t imagine the teacher I’ve mentioned would have punished a girl for, say, talking in class, as he would have punished a boy, though he might have taken her to the headmistress for something more serious. Maybe that’s why I remember the one occasion when a girl actually was slippered in class for talking (by a female teacher), simply because it was so unusual. (Of course that’s not the reason it sticks in my memory, is it? 
)
On the question of fairness, there’s still the general point of what to do when fairness and effectiveness are in conflict, as they might be on occasion. But as far as my primary school was concerned, fairness wasn’t an issue as far as I remember. Certainly there was differential punishment for boys and girls — girls were never caned, and only slippered very occasionally — but that would only have caused probems if a boy and a girl had been caught for the same offence and given different punishments. And that never happened — boys and girls were different species and never misbehaved together
At Halstow(1958-1963), I can only recall a pair of boys & a pair of girls being caned-same offence, truancy, typical of what I remember;girls and boys didn’t tend to misbehave together.
I saw few in-front-of-the-class smacks there, infants or primary. Once again, it always seemed to be single offenders & both boys and girls suffering retribution.
The difference between the sexes in my day seemed to be, in normal circumstances, girls were better at looking innocent when there was suspicion of bad behaviour than boys.
Except if the boy was me looking to hide a catapault in places unlikely!!
It might be worth mentioning that boys and girls at my primary school didn’t play together. There was a separate fenced-off area of the playground for the reception class; apart from that, there was a concrete playground for the junior boys, and a larger playground including a grass playing field for the second and third year infants and the junior girls. There were separate entrances for the boys and girls, too.
At Halstow, there were still entrances marked, but not used, separately for boys and girls-I believe they were contemporary with the school’s founding-1893. Infants had one common entrance which WAS reserved for them, ditto one complete side of the building’s playground.
We did have a separate fenced & walled-off school garden-the only place on the premises you would see a green thing that grew out of the ground. But grass, unknown, rumoured it existed elsewhere in SE10, but never proven!
The front & back end tarmac areas, much smaller than the two side areas, and the other side area were for juniors & not segregated. We were just warned not to be knocking smaller children or girls over as we played football up & down the slope, or else.
There was one girl in the year below who was a right wind-up, always skipping through our games. But SHE just ran into a smaller girl one day & got 3 or 4 good smacks on the leg from the playground supervisor(caretaker’s wife)for breaking the golden rule herself.
I don’t recall the or else ever came into play for us, which probably means someone and possibly even a few in that photo of Miss Clarke’s class in 1961 should have had a body swerve to match Garrincha,Bobby Charlton or Cliff Jones, thinking of notable examples of the same in the pro game in that year!
Clearly we must have been ahead of the game up here in the Nottinghamshire Coalfield during the 1940s/1950s! There was no classroom or playground segregation by sex throughout my time at Infant and Junior School, and indeed there was none in the Senior School on the same site except for activities like domestic science and metal work.
Each school had its own playground, or rather an allocated area of the large concrete playground which occupied three quarters of the area round the Junior School building. The house and garden of the Headmaster of the Junior and Senior Schools and the Infant School Building filled in the other quarter, and the Senior School buildings were on a plot stuck on one side.
Boys and girls in each school played in the same playground, but of course that’s not to say that they often played together. Even amidst the hedonistic excesses of our little working class town some things never changed!
However for the last year of Junior School (two years in my case due to my birth date and the 11+ regulations) the A stream class was out-stationed in splendid isolation in a public building with its own gardens and hard surfaced recreation area a few minutes walk from the school. Very much our own little domain of around 50 children, and relations between boys and girls there did get rather more relaxed
So what did we do during breaks in our concrete playground at junior school?
Well, many of the more energetic boys would play football (with an old tennis ball). I tended to play with “cigarette cards” with my friends (in fact we collected cards from packets of tea, rather than from packets of cigarettes!). The idea was that you’d take it in turns to flick a card from your collection against the wall, and if your card landed on one of the others then you’d win and take all the cards. Obviously the first flick had no chance of winning anything, so you’d always use your most dog-eared card for that, and sometimes it wouldn’t even reach the wall. There were complicated rules about which way up the cards needed to land, or what happened if your card overlapped the white border of another card but didn’t overlap the substantive pattern.
But I digress. What I really wanted to mention was one time when I happened to see a couple of girls playing on the grass part of their playground, which was just over the fence from us. I don’t know what the game was, but every so often one of the girls would spank the other. It was only a gentle smack, but the rule seemed to be that one girl would kneel on the grass and the other would lift up her dress and pull her knickers up so that the smack landed on a partially bared buttock. I imagine this was what happened at home when the girls were naughty.
here’s a group that DO have something in common with comrade Vlad. Most chilling is the following comments about the SEVEN girls and TWO boys who face criminal charges over the death
announcing the charges, prosecutor Elizabeth Scheibel said: ‘Their conduct far exceeded the limits of normal teenage relationship-related quarrels.
‘The investigation revealed relentless activities directed towards Phoebe to make it impossible for her to stay at school. The bullying for her was intolerable.
‘The actions of these students were primarily conducted on school grounds during school hours and while school was in session.’
Mrs Scheibel revealed the Phoebe had suffered a ‘tortuous’ day when she decided to take her own life……..She added that numerous faculty members, staff members and administrators at South Hadley High School were aware of the bullying – some even witnessed physical abuse – and did nothing
When our daughter was surrounded by older girls and spit on in the girls room while at the prom, nothing was done despite the fact that we reported it. The girls denied it and so did witnesses except for the girl who told us about it. She was a friend of our other daughter, Tina’s older sister and the school said it was the friend’s word against the other three and un named witnesses. Sitting was not considered to be a threat.
We found that the school was hardly interested or concerned about the hell our daughter was going through even when a bomb was drawn on her locker with the words “You are mine.” They questioned students who denied their involvement or knowledge of the involvement of others. It wasn’t until a bomb exploded in our mailbox that the school took action. At that time they questioned the ones we caught. These students denied that we were targeted and stated they were just experimenting and that the incident was an unfortunate coincidence. That was good enough for the school. A campaign began (by her classmates) to punish her for her parents reporting the incident to the sheriff! We did not press charges. The county brought charges against them. However, we did testify. The parents of the accused bombers sent word to us through the county attorney that “Tina was a cry baby and you are over-reacting.” (Judy Kuczynski, 2007 )
Our respective experiences come, almost certainly, from different schools; quite possibly from different areas of the country; and definitely from different times. I started infants’ school in 1961 and moved to the junior school in 1963. Sometime during that year we moved across town so the rest of my primary education was in another school.
From what I remember of my first school, the infants’ and junior schools were separate but on the same site with their respective playgrounds separated by one of the school buildings. There was a secondary modern school on an adjacent site. I don’t know if the Sec. Mod. school was co-ed or single sex. There was no sex segregation in either infants’ or junior schools.
I have only have a few abiding memories of those schools. I only remember having one teacher in infants’ school so I might have had the same one both years there. Punishment was usually a well slapped thigh. Boys would have the leg of their shorts pulled up and girls the hem of their skirts/dresses and leg of their knickers for several hard slaps to their thighs. I remember getting that twice. Once, in class, whilst we were sitting on the floor listening to the teacher reading a story, a boy next to me tweaked my ear so I tweaked his. The next thing I knew was being dragged to my feet, having the hem of my dress lifted and being soundly slapped on my leg. I don’t think the teacher had seen the boy tweak my ear because he got away with it.
The other time was during break. There was a grassy bank by the side of the playground that we were not allowed to go on. A boy and I were rolling down the bank and were seen by a teacher who came storming over to us. We both got our legs slapped for that.
This is off topic but I think you might appreciate it. I was quite good at “sums” (sorry, but that what we called arithmetic then. I wasn’t too bad at differences, products and quotients either. ) and I remember something about being put in a higher class. The details are a bit vague. I can’t remember whether this was in class or if I was being shown the type of things that class was doing and asked if I’d like to join them. Either way, I clearly remember learning the function of parentheses in a mathematical expression.
When I moved to the junior school, I think I might have had different teachers for different subjects. I can only remember one teacher but I know I had other teachers too. As I was there for less than a year, it couldn’t be a case of having different teachers in different years. The teacher I remember used the “carrot” approach – she gave sweets to those of us who did well Something like “Quality Street” I think.
Another teacher (or teachers) used the “stick” approach – a few smacks on the hand with a ruler. From what I remember, it was only for misbehaviour, not academic failure.
I have clearer memories from my second junior school – including a very nice Welsh teacher who emphasized the pronunciation of his name (Llewellyn) and who taught us to sing “Ar hyd y nos”. I had a lot of respect for him so always attempted to pronounce his name correctly.
This was a combined infants’ and junior school. The infants were at one end of the school and the juniors at the other. There was only one playground but the infants stayed (were kept) at “their” end of the school and the juniors stayed at their end. There was no sex segregation there either. Some of the teachers disapproved of girls associating with boys but that disapproval was on the same sort of level as disapproving of my writing with my left hand.
Misbehaviour in class was usually punished with the ruler to our hands. I can’t recall seeing anyone punished in the playground so I can’t say what the punishment there would have been. Serious or persistent misbehaviour was dealt with by the headmaster which could mean getting the slipper. I know because I was one of “the chosen few”. It was quite rare for anyone to be sent to the Head. I was the only one in my class as I remember.
I don’t remember much serious misbehaviour at all. Certainly not stealing or vandalism (in any reasonable sense of the word). Fights were rare. I only clearly remember one fight – involving a couple of girls. I don’t know what happened to them but they were separated and escorted off in the direction of the Head’s. office,
I think the rarity of such an event is one of the reasons some men (and women) develop a prurient interest in the subject. It can’t be the only reason, of course, because there are also a lot of women who get a thrill from using CP (or seeing it used) on boys. There are plenty of reports, including admissions from the guilty, of how girls would contrive to get boys wrongfully caned. I know women who did this when they were younger and feel guilty about it now. Some female teachers have also admitted getting a thrill from caning (and otherwise humiliating) boys.
When I was at school, boys and girls did associate a lot more. Didn’t you ever play “kiss chase”? I wasn’t interested in “girls’ games/activities” so I tended to associate with boys. I never learned to skip or play hopscotch. I can read an electronic schematic but a knitting pattern leaves me baffled. As for needlework – forget it!!! My “toys” included a catapult (made from a forked branch off a tree and knicker elastic.); a bow made from a hefty piece of wood cut from a privet bush and a peashooter (actually a blowpipe constructed from six peashooters joined together and fitted inside a piece of metal tube – possibly a curtain rod). When I was a little older, I developed an interest in the properties of certain chemical mixtures and compounds. Filter paper cones containing a little Nitrogen Triiodide are quite impressive when struck by a pea from even a standard peashooter.
In deference to my sex, however, I know nothing about football – especially the offside rule
Must be different parts of the country, as you suggest. I’m a Londoner by birth and upbringing, even though I now live at Bletchley Park. Both my schools were in what is now the London Borough of Brent, although in those days it was the borough of Willesden: I recall that our esteemed contributor hcj is familiar with those parts.
I’m glad that you were good at maths, though seriously unimpressed that you can’t read a knitting pattern (I can!)
No, there wasn’t much serious misbehaviour at my primary school either, or at least not much that we knew about. One rather obvious case was when a boy set off the fire alarm and we all had to assemble on the playground; the boy was caned for that.
In class, though, there would be a few boys who would be a bit disruptive, but I don’t recall any girls behaving in the same way. (Always the same boys; the ones who would be slippered.) No doubt some girls did misbehave, but I suspect it would be the kind of misbehaviour which could easily be hidden, in contrast to the boys who would gain kudos from larking about.
One other comment. You said:
I think the rarity of such an event is one of the reasons some men (and women) develop a prurient interest in the subject.
I’ve never really discussed the matter with other men, apart from in posts on this Forum. But I have spoken to several women who have such an interest, and this interest always seems to have arisen as a result of fantasising, reading stories, and so on, rather than from personal experience of a school CP environment.
In my first year at junior school, I was once asked by my class teacher to keep an eye on one of the boys at break time (this teacher was on playground duty that day). This particular boy was one who always seemed to get into trouble, and was always being punished. As it happened, there was some sort of problem when the whistle went for the end of break; perhaps the boy didn’t get into line before going back to the classroom, I can’t remember. Anyway, one of the monitors reported us, and we both had to see the teacher before the start of the next lesson.
I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to us; this was the teacher I’ve mentioned before who used the slipper regularly. But when we got to the front of the queue, she said to the monitor “I know about these two” and we were allowed back to our seats.
Two points to this story.
1. Clearly this boy was under observation for something, but I was too young to know what was going on.
2. When I was in my mid teens, and at a different school, my mother told me that he’d committed suicide.
I don’t know whether this was anything to do with bullying, or pressure from teachers, or indeed any more details about the event. I don’t know whether the boy had been given any form of counselling, or how available that would have been in the late fifties and early sixties. It wasn’t something one talked about.
There was far too much bullying going on in my day. Luckily for me, the main instigators left at the end of the Vth year.
I used my height & size to create an intimidating presence thereafter & corrected a few bullies lower down-no one was ever hit, either. It stopped a lot of it, but the school really was useless about it-boys will be boys etc.
Two of the main instigators of it towards me died before their 30th birthday & both from alcoholic poisoning. Maybe something scarred their lives, too.
I’d concentrate solely on the bullying, because the suicides are just a side effect. There is far more media access and coverage of it these days, and that’s why some kids are driven to it-if the bullying wasn’t there in the first place, would they be driven to look for as drastic a way out as that?
And that leads on to whether the school has a bullying ethos in its’ teaching. How much, if any, is necessary and desirable to show children what “real” life at work is like?
I’m personally unconvinced most schools are fully aware of the difference between teaching, no, you can’t do what you like when you like, and also teaching, yes, in fact you can, if it makes your employer the maximum amount of money, and doesn’t kill anyone on the way.
Gordon Gecko is alive and well, and probably in a Headmaster’s office near you.
I too went to Primary school with a girl in the year above me who attempted suicide at secondary school. ( Because I had been advanced in class three years/grades she actually was one year below me , and thus ‘came up’ into my form ).
‘Anne’, was a lovely natured , but very ‘fragile’ girl. She would burst into tears at the drop of hat , , but was completely incapable seeing anything but good in people . As a result she was mercilessly bullied. I remember once she was set up by a group of girls , in geography to take the fall for a prank. Honestly the teacher( who admittedly was only part time ) must have KNOWN she wasn’t capable of doing it ….but no, circumstantial evidence trumped her tears and denials ,( let alone what the teacher called ‘wicked’ attempts to implicate others ( who had, of course done it , but who lied barefaced) ; justice had to be seen to be done ….. She was sent to the headmistress for a hand strapping with the tawse. The headmistress only gave her one stroke,(I understand she was due two more, but she reacted hysterically to the first) That was enough to make her impossible to deal with and she was taken home.
After that she was absent for a prolonged period and a was apparently receiving help from the educational psychologists.
She returned , and at 11 moved to a private school , as the local grammar was seen as too tough.However she attempted suicide at 14 , and a high profile expose of bullying on that school, followed that attempt. I heard no more about her thereafter.
I suspect today that this incident turned her from a delicate child into a victim for life .
I was a weedy youth, good at lessons but not into any of the limited range of sports on offer when I was in school. But I was not bullied, or not that I recognized it. Nor were others. I distinguish here between occasional random unfriendly or unsympathetic acts (not bullying) and systematic continuing “unfriendliness”. There was some good natured ribbing or teasing which most quickly learned to accept. It is often best to admit ones errors and deficiencies rather than to have others constantly drawing attention to them.
There was a strict school boy code about fairness strongly enforced by the boys. I know nothing about what the girls got up to. The code prohibited picking on those smaller or weaker than yourself. You could not be sneaky, or attack from behind, hit anyone wearing glasses, no kicking, no weapons of any kind, etc. Nor would you allow anyone to get into trouble for something they did not do. The culprit would own up. No one informed on others. The teachers supported the code and they certainly did not like tell tales.
Codes such as that described are very much better at protecting the vulnerable that anything teachers can do. The establishment and continuance of such codes is supported if children are taught about duties and responsibilities and not just their rights. Of course, adults must set a good example.
Much of the bullying that went on in our school , was undertaken by staff against pupils.
There would be others I never ran across. Also to some extent being for a long time on the no cane list I was protected. But the real problem is , as I see it , that this type of bullying , ( oh and another favorite venue for bullies which I avoided was the OTC), instills a culture into the school as a whole. There were boys who used to hang throughout break in a quad within our so called ‘old school ‘ which was directly overlooked by the Masters common room and the deputy head’s office . I found out years later that this was a favored place for those who dare not venture out of surveillance, because of the fear of bullying , ranging from name calling and enforcing copying homework , to loo head flushing and other traditional forms of torture inflicted by the gutless on the spineless.
Sorry it sounds dreadful . But frankly that was Public School. Most of the Prefects were not much better, but basically they were Jocks . Jocks , who by the 70’s were joined by the cool kids, ruled the roost ..and pretty much did as they pleased . The rest ……well they were not seen as having the arrogance , poise, self image , or sheer bloody mindedness necessary for ‘stardom’ And believe me stardom was what it was all about .
Did we haver the sort of codes KK was talking of ? Of course. Did it stop bullying . Certainly not. The school was Darwinian . Some members of the animal kingdom are a priori , superior to others. Have you ever seen a wildebeest win in confrontation with a Lion?
Jackie , as Ive mentioned many times before when arguing over my first caning with other staff , said ‘All I’ve done is let a cat cut his claws , and take his rightful place in the pride.’ I see that as , in those days an appropriate metaphor. Our codes were not as extensive on social niceties as KK’s , but were supplemented by lots of meaningless ‘bumf’ regarding names of places , geography of the school, bounds, history , tradition and , most important the school pecking order .
Perhaps this is why today I see the foundations of institutionalized bullying lay in the very traditions and the very mottoes of the school. But as Ive said before , it was seen as to a purpose, albeit a purpose long since marked for extinction. How else do you think we made the rulers of our empire, ?
I hope I played my role in the softening of both the prefecture and the cool crowd. But I don’t kid myself . Life outside those elites , could be pretty nasty , brutish and short . My status , like Steve’s size bought me safety . Not very satisfactory , but then in other similar schools boys were still beating each other in the name of discipline, or fags warming toilet seats for their elders and betters. At least that had gone for us .
This is respect is it ?
I must say that when in the sixth form we had joint biology taught in the girls school, I found the atmosphere in those lessons far more egalitarian and congenial. But bullying there was beneath the surface, and currents and eddies can run deep. Bullying with not a mark to be seen , and that is what today dominates many many schools . Just like mine in the past , they generally ignore it .
The boys are now birched instead of being sent to gaol, with the result that juvenile crime is diminishing and that our prisons are half empty. But why should bad girls not be allowed the benefit of a smart caning? Prison is worse for girls even than for boys, and it is about time that some friend of the sex began an agitation for woman’s right to be flogged. We are not joking in the least. The rod is, as Mrs. Meredith says, “an instrument of culture,” which girls need as much as boys, and although we would limit the caning to the palms of the hands, Mrs. Meredith is quite right when she claims the right to be whipped as among the “blessings that it was our happy lot to have known in our own experience.” “Spare the rod and spoil the child” is a maxim which has often been invoked to excuse horrible cruelty, but the truth that it expresses applies to children regardless of sex. Why should men monopolize so all the useful things in this life, oven down to the birch rod’? – ‘Pall Mall Gazette.’