I spent a year at a high school in Texas in the late 1980s.
Coming from Germany where school corporal punishment had been banned after WW II I was astonished to learn that paddling was a frequent occurrence at my school.
Every teacher had a paddle and you could hear somebody get paddled in the hallway just about every day.
My classmates told me not to worry about it as it would not hurt.
But I was curious to find out what it feels like.
My English teacher was a nice lady in her forties who looked a bit like a school marm from days gone by.
She had a paddle on display in her classroom and she used it occasionally.