Diary of a schoolteacher: When brutalising children was the order of the day [Independent.ie]
- Published: 26 January 2011
The other day I was flicking through the local newspaper when my attention was caught by a photo of an old man standing beside a group of boys in uniform at a prize-giving ceremony. The school is not far from where I attended primary school.
Back in the late 1970s this man, I'll call him Mr Jones, had taught my class and me for two consecutive years. He wasn't a great teacher, he was really only learning the ropes. Before the European Community directive of 1982, Mr Jones was entitled to control all 50 of us with what the grown-ups called corporal punishment and we 10-year-olds called smacking.
He had the latest wooden ruler with a steel insert for regular transgressions such as not doing your homework and he had his fists for the spontaneous stuff like talking behind his back or that dreadful threat to civilisation -- laughing.
One day he took a swing at a perfectly harmless, hard-working and decent boy, put too much effort behind the downward thrust and the boy's head made an excess of contact (more than the usual amount) with the desk and he came back up with his nose pouring blood.
Cue shock and regret written all over Mr Jones' face and embarrassment on that of the boy. The poor kid was mortified because of all the fuss that would surely follow.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
