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I Was Given Lines At School

Detention was combined with lines so that you could not use the detention time productively in any way whatever. Instead of lines that could be repeated, you were asked (really, required) to copy symbol for symbol dictionary pages. Phonetic symbols were the hardest. I didn't learn anything during detention. It just was unpleasant and embarrassing. Probably "worked" as a substitute for something more physically painful like running laps or licks with a paddle and definitely strokes with a cane.

There was no attempt whatever to make it morally educational or a positive experience in any way. Just judicially administered unpleasant moments.

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lancashirelady50 · 70-79, F

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

Alfred22

@lancashirelady50 Your Dad was a great teacher. His lesson plans always included a few "punch lines" to help underline the main point and to make the content unforgettable!

Heartlander · 80-89, M

@lancashirelady50

As I remember, what happened at school stayed at school. What happened at home likewise stayed there. It was like parallel universes.

I went to an all boys school and the word "spanking" was far too polite or planned for what I remember. "Hit". "slap" or "smack" would be the more appropriate words. Always delivered within seconds of a perceived misconduct.

lancashirelady50 · 70-79, F

@Heartlander the strap or tawse, even the cane at my brother’s school! Back in the 1960’s

MaryJanine · 70-79, F

@lancashirelady50 In my school, the teachers (especially the assistant principal and eighth grade teacher) would usually catch the students in the act. She could holler with the best of them. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" rolled across the playground, followed by "Come with me - all of you!" She was tough - none dared disobey her. Then followed phone calls to the parents, who were escorted out to view the damages, then the taking home after a three-day suspension. Don't know what happened at home, but I strongly suspect it was on the order of what you received.

lancashirelady50 · 70-79, F

@MaryJanine gosh! I had forgotten about the temporary exclusions... a cooling down period / recovery from a good hiding period most likely- in some cases (more a punishment to parents if they had to then organise childcare..)

MaryJanine · 70-79, F

@lancashirelady50 Some kids treated suspension as a vacation from school, no matter what happened to them before or after. I was afraid of this teacher - until the miniskirts came out. Once she tried to suspend all the seventh and eighth grade girls for wearing short skirts to school, with the exception of three eighth graders (I was one of those three). She spent an entire afternoon measuring each girl's skirt length. If they were above two inches, she made them sit in the back row of the auditorium. I can hear her to this day, "You're not on the beach!" When she was done, she told the weeded-out girls they were suspended until they came back with "a decent length". Well, that lasted one day. Parents were lined up with their daughter the very next morning. The parents told her, in so many words, to "mind her own business" because you couldn't find in the stores what she demanded, that's all they had in the stores, and there wasn't enough material in any hem to let down!