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The Independent, London, 6 January 2005
Staying Afloat
'When I was the same age as you,' I tell my daughter, 'I was caned almost every day'
By E. Jane Dickson
THE VICTORIAN façade of my old primary school greatly impresses Clara, whose taste in architecture tends towards the turreted. "It's very grand, Mum," she says. "Like Malory Towers. Did you have tuck and play lacrosse?"
"Not exactly," I tell her. "We had sherbet dabs and toffee like they do in Enid Blyton, but we didn't call it 'tuck'."
"And what about the lacrosse?" Clara is vigilant for signs of social distinction in our family tree; she is sure that if we go back far enough, we will find princesses swapped at birth with peasants, and the lacrosse would at least be a start. As so often, however, she is disappointed. "Sorry, darling, no lacrosse either. The boys played football and the girls played endless skipping games. But," I add, keen to provide a hint of exoticism, "there were strictly separate playgrounds for boys and girls, and if you strayed into the wrong one, you got whacked with the cane."
"Caned?" says Clara. "You mean the teachers actually hit you?" Things are looking up. Possibly the only point of contact between my Northern Irish state primary school and the English public schools Clara loves to read about was a shared passion for corporal punishment. When I was my daughter's age, I tell her, I was beaten almost every day of my school life.
"Mum!" Clara's tone is admiring. "Imagine you the Naughtiest Girl in the Form!" "But I wasn't," I protest, truthfully. "I only ever got whacked for talking or eating in class. If anything, I was the teacher's pet. And I thought he was the best teacher I ever had."
In many ways he was. The most cane-happy teacher in the school was also the one who would spend entire afternoons reading The Moonstone aloud because neither he nor we could bear to close the book at the end of the chapter. We were also made to learn and recite epic poetry by the yard, with an encouraging tickle from the cane if we dropped a line, and none of us thought it a cruel or unusual punishment. By contrast, my bitterest school memories are of the teacher who spared the rod but humiliated the child with sadistic precision. ("Sit down, Edith Evans," was her icy comment on my affecting rendition of "Horatio on the Bridge". I wasn't sure who Edith Evans was; much less were my classmates. But it didn't stop them calling me "Edith" in sniggery tones.)
I would, of course, be horrified if Clara or her brother came home from school with weals across their hands because they slipped up on spellings or times tables. On the other hand, I don't think that my own education left lasting scars. But then, I reason, more to myself than to my daughter, I'm probably the person least able to judge.
"I expect," says Clara, who has inherited her mother's dramatic tendency, "you will take the Memory to Your Grave."
"I'd rather take it to the sweetshop I used to spend my dinner money in," I tell her. "Let's see if they still do sherbet dabs."
"Rather," says Clara in her best Blyton-ese. And, foaming sweetly at the mouth, we head home to Granny's for tea with lashings of Sprite Zero.
The Times, London, 13 January 2005
Letters
The vanishing hanky
From Mrs Jan Robinson
Sir, My late father would have smiled at the recent correspondence on pocket handkerchiefs (letters, January 11, etc.).
One day in the 1920s when he and my uncle were attending school, the latter suffered a massive nose bleed, and was subsequently caned for having no handkerchief with him. The same punishment was duly meted out to my father for failing to have a spare one to lend his brother.
For the rest of his life, he could always be relied on to have at least two handkerchiefs, and generally three, about his person.
Yours faithfully,
JAN ROBINSON,
[...] Whissendine, Oakham.
January 11.
The Scotsman, Edinburgh, 21 January 2005
Anarchy in the classroom
THE caricature of the traditional Scottish classroom of 50 years ago is one of silent children and learning by rote, a regime enforced by a leather strap. Doubtless there is some truth in this myth. Scottish education could deter children from verbalising and working in groups - skills needed in the adult world. And there were teachers of old who were only too ready to hide their deficiencies through an excess use of the tawse.
That said, the image of the modern classroom is hardly an improvement. After a generation in which the stick was bent resolutely in the direction of child-centred education, with corporal punishment abolished, many a classroom is now the scene of anarchy. Physical and verbal abuse of staff is common, and teachers are increasingly the subject of exaggerated or bogus accusations of pupil assault. Even when exonerated, the stress often drives them from the profession.
Fortunately, sanity is starting to prevail. Yesterday, Scotland's Children's Commissioner, Kathleen Marshall, rightly called for anonymity for teachers who are accused of assault. Ms Marshall went on to admit the loss of control in Scotland's classrooms, saying pupils have become "too hot to handle" because of fear of over-prescriptive child-protection laws. No-one wants a return to the bad old days with the rights of children ignored. Equally, ignoring the rights of adults is good for neither teacher nor child.
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