He stole school strap, returned it 55 years later
A boy who stole the
punishment strap from the principal’s study on his final day at school,
returned it --- after 55 years.
David Earl, a student at Bishop
Feild College in St. John’s
Newfoundland, Canada, in the 1950s, had been disciplined by his teachers with
the strap.
He told
CBC (Canada) he got the
strap more than once during the 10 years he spent at the Anglican institution.
He recalled the incident in
2012 when he took the strap with him on a visit from his home in Saskatchewan to
Newfoundland.
He told CBC, “I remember
going to the principal’s office, and he said if you come to me again for being
late, I'm going to bend you over the desk, and I'm going to strap you on your
rear.
“So sure enough later on, I
was late three times, sent down there expecting the strap and I got it.
“Only thing is, I was
wearing three or four pairs of shorts at the time so I didn’t feel it.”
Earl said most students at
the school were not struck on the rear, but rather on the palms of their hands.
He said sometimes the teachers would miss and wrists would get hit instead.
He said sometimes the strap
was used as a preventative method to get students to behave, and on
students who didn’t pay attention in class. He said he remembered one teacher
who would call on him, and give him two straps on each hand.
“And I’d say, ‘what was
that for?’ He said, ‘that's so you don't fool around in my class.’”
On the day of his
graduation from Bishop Feild, he decided to take one of the straps off the principal’s
desk. The straps
were made out of a conveyor belt and were about seven centimetres wide.
“I remember it clearly. I
was leaving for the summer and I saw the strap on the end of the desk, and I
said I'm going to take it because I may never come back here.”
While Earl said he got the
strap many times over the years, he said he never cried while being punished
and would look into the eye of the teacher handing out the punishment.
When Earl went back to
Newfoundland for a visit he decided to return the strap to the school after 55
years of holding on to it.
He said he handed it to a
teacher and wrote a note about the history. It was sent to the school’s archive.
Picture credit:
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Traditionalschooldiscipline@gmail.com
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