Memories: Difficult to express how grateful I am

The teachers at my school who used caning as a last resort seemed to be those who were most popular – they cared enough about us to have the interest to keep us on the straight and narrow, and they had the strength of character to do what they deemed necessary.  – Teacher Simon Warr writing in the Times Educational Supplement (UK) in October 2008.

I had one of the worst starts in life you could imagine: both my parents died of illness in the space of six months, when I was just six years of age. I was fostered to one aunt, my older brother to another. I was then sent away to boarding school, 150 miles away from “home”.

From the moment I arrived, I was a nightmare for my teachers, and my behaviour went from bad to worse. Things reached a climax when my “reprehensible” behaviour reduced the director of music to tears. I was reported to my housemaster, who gave me six strokes of the cane across my backside. The pain of this “thrashing” taught me a real lesson; it set down firm parameters, leaving me in no doubt that being rude to a teacher would not be tolerated. As I left the housemaster's study, I told myself that I never again wanted to suffer such an experience. I amended my behaviour from that point on.

Richard Dilley, the housemaster, proved to be exactly the “dad” I needed, and he remains a friend to this day. It is difficult to express in words how grateful I am to him that, while always showing me kindness, he had the judgment and conviction necessary to keep me in check.

I often hear of the “irreversible damage” to the teacher-pupil relationship caused by corporal punishment; that caning a child reinforces in his or her mind the idea that problems can be solved via the perpetration of violence; that smacking or caning creates an increased risk of anxiety, alcohol abuse, or anti-social behaviour. In my experience, all of this is complete nonsense. The teachers at my school who used caning as a last resort seemed to be those who were most popular – they cared enough about us to have the interest to keep us on the straight and narrow, and they had the strength of character to do what they deemed necessary. Caning was used only when all other sanctions at their disposal had failed.

In an ideal world, of course, we should not have to inflict physical pain on a child. But what has been the outcome of banning the cane? What has been put in its place? Nothing. We now have to consider suspension, expulsion or even police involvement in cases that, 30 years ago, would have earned six strokes.

Corporal punishment, when administered as a last resort, by the head alone, could be enormously beneficial as a corrective measure when dealing with consistently problematic teenagers. Such a policy would provide the teaching profession with an effective sanction that it currently lacks. It certainly worked for me.

Picture credit: Darrien

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