Corporal punishment survey 72

Hello AnnyKey,

You raise most interesting and very appropriate queries on the subject of why, having been punished for something in a manner they considered effective, someone might subsequently repeat the offence and thus get punished again.

Sadly I am not the best person to respond to your questions in the context of school corporal punishment.  A punishment in primary schoool (described earlier here in the thread above) was so very effective that it convinced me that I really didn’t want ever to be subjected to SCP again.  And indeed I wasn’t, at least not for talking when silence was the rule, the reason for that very effective punishment.  The only actual corporal punishment I received for the rest of my school career was a mild slippering for forgetting games kit.

There were one or two escapes in my early years at secondary school, one of them a narrow one.  I found myself touching my toes in front of the class awaiting a whacking with my form master’s size 12 leather soled sandal, which generally reduced even 12 year old boys to tears.  I can’t recall what I was there for, and fortunately having made his point he let me off.

On another occasion I might have been caned by the prefects for running in a quadrangle where running wasn’t allowed.  Such breaches of hallowed tradition were not well regarded at that school and my knees knocked a little in my short trousers as I observed the cane prominently displayed on the table of the prefects’ court and the burly sixth form prefects sitting behind the table trying my case, one of whom might well be applying the cane to the tightly stretched seat of said trousers if the verdict went against me.  Luckily as it was my first appearance before the court they let me off with lines.

So in an era when school corporal punishment was common I largely escaped it due to managing my behaviour very carefully and for the most part being very good, due to the effectiveness of my first encounter with SCP.  But as noted this disqualifies me from responding to your queries from personal experience.

Hopefully at least one of our readers who was subjected to what at the time seemed to them effective and painful SCP but who subsequently committed the same or a similar offence and was given SCP again will explain what lay behind the repetition.

Indeed I’ll make so bold as to suggest that regular current contributor Lisa might be the ideal person to answer some of your questions  Caned 5 times at school as you will see  here, she nonetheless maintains that all her canings were effective.  I can’t recall if any of her canings were for exact repeat offences, but most of them seem to have involved boys somewhere along the line.   In any event surely merely being caned effectively that often will mean that she can give you some answers to the queries in your final paragraph and an insight into the mind and motives of a dedicated serial  committer of caning offences!  

I’ll drop a note in Lisa‘s current thread in case she doesn’t see this one.  If she is able to respond then in return  she’d probably welcome in her thread  your thoughts on how you would have viewed school corporal punishment if it had been in use when you were at school and your thoughts on whether it should, or might, ever be reintroduced in Germany.

Thankyou  A.L. for recommending me with regard to AnnaKey’s questions and a warm welcome to AnnaKey. I look forward to reading her contributions to the forum.
I can only speak for myself as to the effectiveness of corporal punishment in our educational establishments.  I have stated many times in the threads I have contributed to in the past that the punishments I was subjected to were always fair and deserved. These punishments were never ever brutal but, in my case were effective as they served a specific purpose in making sure I did not commit the same offence again.  My downfall was always boys and the last two incidents were most definitely as a result of my attraction to them. The first being caught in town with my then boyfriend when I should have been in class this after three seperate warnings. The second time was completely unrelated to the first offence and was for being caught smuggling wine in a coke bottle into a Friday night school disco.
On both these occasions the punishment was effective and I did not commit the same offence again. I suppose you could argue that most people would after one caning not risk any further reoccurence of the experience but, being the strong willed and rather stubborn person that is my nature I still thought I could get away with flouting school rules. I was wrong but, I did eventually learn my lesson.

Hello A.L. and Lisa,
thank you for your responses that helped me to understand a little more about this, for me … strange topic.
May I ask you both a second question?
Lets make a thought experiment and replace the punishment (or the expected punishment in most of A.L.s cases) by a punishment that was used in my school.
The most feared punishment in my school was to have to copy the school rules by handwriting (about six A4 pages in small letters).
If this was the punishment, how would have been your reactions to it?
Would it have been more or less effective and why?

Hello again AnnaKey,
I think I can honestly say that having copy out a list of school rules or having to do lines would for me have been a total nightmare and would therefor have been the best deterrent for my transgression. However, this was not a choice I had to make thank goodness. If I would have been given the choice between a caning and copying out pages of text I would most certainly have got the punishment over as quickly as possible and chose the cane. Again though,  I think this choice would have been determined by the fact that the canings administered by the school were as I have stated many times never brutal and always carried out in private. Im sure that if these punishments involved the humiliation of being administered in front of a class or school assembly or carried out with the viciousness that other schools I have heard of were guilty of my choice would obviously have been different. As I have said previously what I received served its purpose and was effective for me.

Back in March 2010 RobinResearch, author of this survey, asked under the Heading “Effectiveness”

• Were you ever punished again for the same offence?
• Do you consider the punishment effective?

I would like to suggest a broader measure of effectiveness is warranted than just yes or no depending upon whether the beneficiary was punished again for the same offence. Such a narrow interpretation is not necessarily required by the wording above although some may consider it is implied.

I have not attempted to analyse the responses to determine how many answered yes they were punished again for the same offence and yes their punishment was effective.

I recall many cases of offenders who were caned more than once for the same offence at my school. The punishment reduced but did not totally eliminate their objectionable behaviour. For some, caning was a treatment offering temporary relief from misbehaviour rather than a permanent cure. Others required more than one dose of the cane to be cured.

Few expect non-corporal punishments to be 100% effective as a deterrent. However, it is not uncommon for people to demand 100% deterence from CP.

Hello AnnyKey,

Hmm, a copying out an existing document imposition amounting to around six A4 pages of not overly large hand writing as output is a pretty formidable punishment.  Unless one knows the school rules well enough to simply write them out the need to constantly stop writing to transcribe from the source document is going to make for very slow progress.  And of course copying out stuff like school rules is quite dreadfully boring.

I don’t suppose that there is any chance I could have to write a six page essay on some boring topic instead?  Ah well, I thought probably not, but it’s always worth a try!

I really need to know a little about the teacher giving the punishment.  Will they remember it for instance and check that it has been done?  Probably they will, but you can get lucky.  I was once given a writing lines punishment by a Master I encountered in the street one lunch time.  He claimed that I hadn’t raised my cap to him quickly enough. A nice chap, very  favourably commented on as a good mentor by a fellow pupil who became UK Chancellor] of the Exchequer, but a bit touchy about protocol.  I didn’t do the lines because I figured he’d forget about them as he was on his way back from his lunchtime pint – or two.  I was right!

If the awarding teacher is likely to remember the punishment it would  be useful to know if there’s any beta from other pupils on whether they are likely to check that it is done correctly, and if so how.  A cursory glance at the first page, or those oh so dangerous multiple random checks.  Sadly though I don’t suppose I can have this information either. 

And so to my response to your query:

To consider if your proposed punishment would be more or less effective, we need to decide what we are comparing it with.  The punishment is I would say definitely a secondary school punishment and this is a school corporal punishment Forum.  In considering its probable relative effectiveness in my case it seems reasonable to compare it with corporal punishments I might have encountered at secondary school, and to take into account the nature of the juvenile Another_Lurker at that time.

So, a possible punishments list, with comments.  The list is in descending order of likely effectiveness and includes your proposal.  Items above your proposal would I think have been more effective in my case.  Those below it would have been less effective.

1.  Caning by Headmaster:  Too dreadful to even contemplate.  Sometimes only one step away from expulsion.

2.  Caning by Prefects (two or three strokes):  Think something like this Prefects’ caning from a film, but without the fancy dress.  It was a school with a modern outlook even though it was founded in 1513!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/x3_RBqVIvFE?start=196

Our prefects were limited to 3 strokes of the cane, but most of them were big lads, usually  third year sixth formers so aged 18 to 19, and often  in the school’s top sports teams.  I’m told that the pain of the cane increases substantially with each successive stroke so I’m guessing that one stroke might not have been too bad.  Being caned in front of an audience would always have been a trial.  The juvenile Another_Lurker was not an extrovert!

3.  Whacked with second form Master’s size 12 leather soled sandal (two or more strokes):  This was a formidable punishment.  At age 12 the only boy in the form who could take it without a trace of a tear had been accustomed to being caned on the bare buttocks at his boarding preparatory school.

4.  Copying out the school rules over 6 closely written A4 pages:  Very boring and very time consuming!

5.  Caned by prefects (one stroke):  See item 2 above.  I’ve never been caned, but even with the embarrassment of the audience one stroke couldn’t be all that bad …….. could it?

6.  Two or thee whack normal slippering:  An occasional classroom punishment by some Masters, using the usual average sized rubber soled plimsoll rather than the giant leather soled  sandal.  And most Masters weren’t as muscular as the second form Master!  I’d has the slipper at junior school.  It wasn’t too bad.

7.  Whacked with second form Master’s size 12 leather soled sandal (one stroke):  See item 3 above.  One stroke might have been bearable without too much drama.

So there we have it.  Your copying out the school rules would have been pretty much a middle range punishment I think.

Hello A.L, Lisa and KKxyz,

Ok, it’s only fair to do the experiment the other way around:
But I must say that it is not easy for me because I don’t know how it is to be punished this way. So it could be absolute nonsens for people who know the situation for real.

So let’s go on:
We have 5 punishments. And we talk about secondary school.

A) The cane from a senior member of staff …
B) The cane from a senior member of staff on the hand …
C) The slipper from a class teacher, in the classroom after other students have left. …
D) The slipper from a class teacher again,  as before but this time in front of the class. …
E) Copying School rules

The longer I think about this, the more I think that If I had the chance to choose if it would be one of the corporal options or  the writing, I would have choosen every time the writing.
And I’m really sure that I would have cursed my decision later.
I hated writing known texts. It was every time a big problen even if the text was short.

I think the worst option of the four corporal ones for me would have been (D). The Slipper in front of the class.
Being helpless in front of the whole class. To be in tears in front of the class. That would have been a very embrassing situation for me as a teenager. Especially in the age between 12 and 15 when it is most important to be accepted by the classmates.
I think pain would have played a more secondarily role in that age, especially if corporal punishment would have been more common as it really was in my youth.

Being sent to the principals office is in my opinion very impressing in an age between 10 and 13. For me in this age it would have been impressive enough just to have to talk to the headmaster about something I have done wrong.
Standing in front of a respectable person and being point of the interest because of doing something wrong would have been horror for me.
Even in this situation I would rate the kind of the punishment as not so important.
‘No matter what the punishment is. Survive the talk, and you survive the rest.’
I think talking about the crime is often underestimated. If you are charged for a crime and guilty, the most unpleasent situation is to be creatively confronted with it. When it comes to the execution of a punishment, the culprit is in a passive situation. So why care about it? It happens, and it will end. Punishment will end confrontation.

—
After reading my text I think it is interesting, that I at first sayed that I would every time choose a non corporal punishment and in the rest of the text say that the corporal part of the punisment would be not so important.
I can only explain it this way: Feeling pain is not desirable, but if I project my thoughts into one of the described situations, the situation itself feels worse.

I hope you understand what I tried to say. Writing in form of possibility is a gramatically challenge for me.

i don’t honestly know what i would have done as a child, but if i was suddenly transported into this situation with my present state of mind i would accept the writing and refuse all the cp even if it led to suspension or expulsion and would physically resist any attempt to impose the cp

Hello AnnyKey,

A most excellent response, thank you.

I am interested to note that you think that if you had encountered school corporal punishment you would have found being punished in front of the class the worst aspect of it.

Very much my sentiments.  As an adult a couple of doctors have told me that I have a high pain threshold and there seems no reason to suppose that this wasn’t the case when I was younger.  The probability is that if I’d been caned at school it wouldn’t have been as painful for me as for most recipients, although I wasn’t aware of that at the time.

I was definitely frightened of being caned when I was at risk of this at secondary school.   The Headmaster did cane occasionally, but only for offences way beyond anything the well behaved juvenile Another_Lurker was likely to commit.  The risk for me was being caned by the Prefects.  They dealt with most of the discipline in the school except for in-class and academic matters.

All sorts of things in school and outside school could lead to an appearance before the Prefects’ court and a potential caning.  The hated school cap for instance, which had to be worn at all times when in school uniform outside school and incurred much mockery from boys at schools with less rigorous rules about uniform.

Braver  boys would remove their cap once safely on public transport.  I didn’t.  Prefects sometimes spotted offenders through the windows of passing vehicles and repeat offences could mean the cane.  I was worried that would hurt, but my worst fear was the embarrassment of having to bend over and be beaten in front of an audience of Prefects.

In the top class of junior school I was slippered once in front of a class of around 50 boys and girls.  I can recall the acute embarrassment of feeling that everybody was watching me as I walked up from the back row, where the teacher seated well behaved and academically inclined pupils,  through  rows of desks to the front of the class.  I can remember knowing that my face was flushed with embarrassment as I was made to bend over a front row  desk, cleared of its occupants for the purpose, facing the class.

However I have absolutely no recollection of the actual whacks.  Could have been one, probably two, might have been more.  That bit made no lasting impression on me whatsoever.  What I feared, hated and remembered was being punished in front of others.  So to make me feel more than effectively punished it was only necessary to put me through the preliminaries, no need for any actual violence at all!

The form master at secondary school who had me touching my toes in front of the class then told me to return to my seat before his poised leather soled size 12 sandal made high speed contact  with the Another_Lurker bottom might possibly have been aware of this.

If only Miss B who administered the smacked leg which led to my SCP aversion had known too. She could probably have got the same results with just the bending over and leg baring bit and saved the wear and tear on her hand while retaining more energy to expend on the boys and girls behind me in the queue who probably really needed the hard smacks as well.