I Was Given Lines At School

I was given lines too, Alfred. Mine were red, and right across my bottom!

The schools I went to as a child/ teenager had rules, and if we broke the rules we were corrected or disciplined. The punishments given as a consequence of breaking the rules were given to eliminate or reduce those behaviours or attitudes that were seen as harmful to others or ourselves or schools expectations or traditions.
Boys received corporal punishment. - ( so unfair and sexist in those far off days) and girls seemed so less likely to offend we never thought of it as such but accepted it as normal).
My stupid bit of petty school vandalism with another young teenage schoolfriend met with a good telling off in front of the class and a detention of an hour after school where we had to wash off and make good the mess we had made.
How I wish that had been the end of it!
The phone call home to our parents resulted in a typical 1960’s response.... and neither of us damaged school property again.... ( and I still remember that old fashioned lesson that I was given that afternoon by Daddy ) as I no doubt remembered at the time - or for several hours afterwards... in fact everytime I sat down!)
Josie

It was just punishment with no thought to teaching us something positive.

In our detentions we were not allowed to do homework or anything similar. We had to sit in silence, staring in front of us, just wasting time. As I lived miles from the school, any detention meant a seven mile walk home (no busses out our way), so arrived home hours late, tired and still with homework to do and an angry mother demanding to know what happened. . .

To me, detention was a fancy name for "study hall" - I hated those, too. No, I didn't get detention (thank God) - I was on time, did my work and homework, minded my own business in general. Mom was strict about our behavior in school - especially so after my stepsister kept getting lines or kept after school. She was a chatterbox and talker early on, and the one time she had a teacher who made the student write "I must shut my big mouth" a thousand times. The point was,the student had to stay home until the lines were finished and got no credit for the days missed. Well, when Linda got it, my mother saw her and she, my mom, another classmate and her mother went to see the principal the next morning. The principal was unaware of this punishment. She took one look at the lines, called the teacher in, and said in front of the assemblage, "Since when do you, or anybody else in this school, tell students they have a 'big mouth'?"

That was what my mom objected to. I heard her telling Dad later, "No damn teacher is going to tell MY daughter she has a 'big mouth'!"

That ended that particular punishment in that classroom - but the teacher had it in for my stepsister and her friend for the rest of the year.

I've heard some schools would give a pupil the choice of detention or the cane. Surprisingly, it seems many opted for the cane.
I suppose they preferred a quick punishment and didn't want to appear cowardly by going for detention.

Line writing was for detention and also part of grounding at home. No fun.

You have to marvel at the thinking that goes into these punishments though, don't you?

I have always loved running so most likely, I would have chosen laps. Unless I was curious about the licks.

alfred22 yes most of our generation have been in that boat to was just the sign of the times teachers ruled kids today do not know how lucky they are now the do gooders and busy bodies got corporal punishment banned

I remember "lines" 500 times .....

An alternative punishment in the lower grades was "memorizing", especially for group punishment. Like "everyone go sit in that room and memorize from here to here." (pointing)

You can leave once you can recite it from memory. A few failed attempts could get another paragraph added, so don't say you have it unless you are pretty sure :(

The punished group would dwindle one by one. 5 minute for some kids, an hour for others.

I hated lines- a complete waste of time. The teacher never read them anyway. One boy in our class used to write : 'and a dragon ate the teacher' in every tenth line, just to see if he was caught. He never was.

Despite the idea of detention and the effort of teachers to make kids do homework or classwork, most of the kids ended up sleeping with their heads on the desks. I was never sentenced to full-blown detention (thank God for small favors) but I went through a few of those classic "Penalty" issuances. It didn't matter if it were only certain kids or a few idiots - we ALL had to do it in addition to our regular homework at home and have it to hand in in the morning. I'm willing to bet the teachers never read these things, so it was a waste of time and paper.

Would you rather have had laps or swats?

I was thinking about different kind of lines