Memories: Public caning in the schoolyard

The principal, flanked by male teachers, summoned to the walkway (about a dozen steps above where we were standing) half a dozen or more lads. These boys, all in their senior years, he said, were ruining the name of the school by their brutish, larrikin, wantonly irresponsible, loutish and thuggish behaviour. They needed to be made an example of – Warwick McFadyen in the Sydney Morning Herald recalls a public beating.

The old schoolyard, when raising cane was the norm

It was just another school assembly at my high school in Newcastle [New South Wales]. Impatient rows of kids from years 7 to 12 lined up in the quadrangle, fidgeting, listening, not listening, to teachers impart into a microphone messages, commands, warnings and reminders.

Then, something different happened: the principal ordered the girls back to their classrooms. The boys were to stay. This had never happened before. A buzz started gathering volume: what's going on?

What was about to go on was the equivalent of a public execution involving bamboo and ne'er-do-well boys. The principal, flanked by male teachers, summoned to the walkway (about a dozen steps above where we were standing) half a dozen or more lads. These boys, all in their senior years, he said, were ruining the name of the school by their brutish, larrikin, wantonly irresponsible, loutish and thuggish behaviour. They needed to be made an example of.

The cane was brought forth into his hand. One after the other a name was called, a boy stepped forward and six swings of the bamboo were brought down upon the open palm and fingers. You could hear the swish, the occasional aside from inflicter to inflicted, “This will wipe the smirk from your face, son”, and you could feel a hundred boys counting the number of cuts.

While the presentation was new, the punishment to those receiving it was not. They were all recalcitrants, after all, which raises the question: what was the psychology behind the demonstration? This had nothing to do with justice, but everything to do with crime and punishment, with perhaps a bit of public humiliation and shaming involved. The cane was the enforcer.

Witness accounts of the event, that is those of my mates who were standing with me, remember the principal saying these boys had to be punished because of their behaviour, fighting and suchlike; he did most of the caning, other teachers may have relieved him – after all, six cuts times eight or 10 boys would be tiring work. There may also have been exchange of canes midway through the swishing. As far as our recollections go, none of the struck walked away with heads bowed. It was a badge of honour. How tough are they? They’re that tough. Actually, it probably made the uncaned more wary of being anywhere near the caned. Did it reduce bad behaviour? I don’t know. School life afterwards seemed to meander along much as it had the day before the execution.

This episode arose from the recesses of memory because of reports based on comments by Kevin Donnelly, head of the federal government’s national curriculum review, about corporal punishment and the subsequent reaction to those comments. Donnelly doesn't believe in it, but does believe discipline in schools is an important issue. No one would argue otherwise.

The reign of the cane was unquestioned in those years of the mid to late 70s. It wasn't the last resort. It seemed it was the default resort. Our school had a veritable platoon of male teachers who caned. Some personalised their instruments of punishment. One teacher used weaving cane, another fibreglass, both were more flexible, especially the latter.

A mate remembers that after the cuts were delivered across the outstretched fingers, red welts would appear, which would turn purple and then blacken as a bruise would. The hand would tremble for about 30 minutes afterwards. A secret to lessen the pain was to raise the middle finger ever so slightly higher than the others so as to take the brunt of blow, and thus reduce damage to the rest of the hand.

My mate’s crime? Smoking. He still smokes.

As published in the Sydney Morning Herald 18 July 2014.

Picture credit: The Rover

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