Only ‘long-hairs’ want the cane banned, says headmaster
Only “long-haired, woolly thinking individuals” argue for abolition of physical punishment such as caning, a headmaster told a conference in 1968.
Teachers
Behind
Caning
Los
Angeles Times Special
LONDON - Claiming historic precedent and even royal
sanction, the National Association of British Head Teachers (principals) has
reaffirmed overwhelmingly their “right” to use corporal punishment on students
as they fit.
Only “long-haired, woolly thinking individuals” argue
for abolition of physical punishment such as caning, said Headmaster Stuart
Yeatman at the teachers annual conference in Plymouth.
He called them “woollies,” though he was himself
bearded, and he drew delighted laughter from his colleagues In deriding
abolitionists who believe teachers use violence to gratify power, anger and
sexual urges.
Brigitte Bardot would have trouble stimulating him at
his age, he said, and as for “the grubby hands and trousered bottoms of
anti-socials? Never.”
ANOTHER delegate to the conference, which represents
15,000 head teachers, claimed, that Henry VI had approved caning and it has
been used ever since “with minimum, fuss and maximum effectiveness.”
Nonetheless, a minority contends that it Is
anachronistic, and even, barbaric. “It has been almost universally outlawed in
other western countries,” a recent study reported. Reform here is stiffly
opposed, however.
In February the Cardiff City Council banned caning. A
month later it rescinded the ban after the National Union of Teachers protested
by citing the high juvenile delinquency rate in Cardiff. “A good smack on the
buttocks is better than all the psychiatrists,” said a city councilwoman.
How prevalent caning or other physical punishment at
British schools is not known. Only extreme cases make news.
A few years ago one school had a policy of six strokes
on a bare bottom for almost any infraction. A Cambridge professor has reported,
in a study on corporal punishment, one instance in which a knotted rope, soaked
and stiffened in brine, substituted for the cane; and in another, a triple
thronged strap was the instrument.
MORE typical, probably, was the brief complaint of a boy
suffering a broken collar bone. He said the teacher had thrown him against a
wall. The teacher said he did shake up the boy but then the lad “slipped and
fell.” The parents accepted the explanation.
The government does not formally sanction corporal
punishment except at “approved schools,” which are reform schools. These are
under the control of the Home Office. (interior department), instead of the
Department of Education.
Home office regulations prescribe that canes used must
be a standard 36 inches long and 8 to 10 mm. (one-third Inch) in diameter, and
students must have their pants [trousers].
It recently closed an approved school after excessive beatings
were reported. An inquiry saw appalling pictures of multicolored bottoms, and
witnesses told of some teachers who complained the standard canes “broke too
easily.” Half-inch thick canes were used instead.
THE department of education takes a hands-off attitude
toward practices in all other schools despite a broad study two years ago which
recommended flatly that “the infliction of physical pain as a recognized method of punishment in primary
school should be forbidden.”
The study, chaired by Lady Plowden and subsequently called
the Plowden Report found that “the overwhelming majority (between 80 and 90 per
cent) of the teaching profession are against abolition of corporal punishment,
although few support it except as a final sanction.”
Public-opinion appeared to favor keeping it, the report
said, and a considerable majority of parents agree to its occasional use.
But societies of psychologists and mental health workers
consulted by the Plowden committee declare that “the advantages of corporal punishment
are outweighed by its disadvantages.”
As published in The Tampa
Times, Tampa, Florida, United States, 11 July 1968,
Picture credit: Unknown
Traditionalschooldiscipline@gmail.com
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