I used the cane and I now wonder if I was right to do so.

I was a teacher from the late 1960s until the late 1980s - a fairly short career as these things go although I was quite successful - spent my last few years as a Head Teacher.

Part of my job was to use corporal punishment. I believed then that I was doing this in the best interests of the children I taught and I'd like to continue to believe that. But I find myself in a world now where we're constantly being told this was bad for children and that worries me immensely. I just can't reconcile it with what I saw as a teacher. I saw it work. I saw it turn children around. I saw it help children. I really do think that's true. But I take psychological and pedagogical research seriously and I can't reconcile it with what I saw myself.

I am honestly horrified at the idea I might have harmed these children.

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HootyTheNightOwl

Racism is another thing that was once considered to be acceptable - of course, we know better than to insult people based on their race today.

As far as punishment goes, as you are patiently trying to get across, what you did was in keeping with the times back then - and obviously, you know better than to do it today.

That's more than can be said about the teacher who hit me with a stick and got away with it after the practice was made illegal.

As for the good and bad of it, that's something that we can spend the rest of eternity debating because of what was acceptable at the time as far as punishment goes... not just at school, but at home, too.

As hard as it is for you, I think that the best thing you can do is to work on forgiving yourself for doing what you did... you were trying your best, within the framework of what was considered to be acceptable at the time.

Slade · 56-60, M

@HootyTheNightOwl Racism - the most meaningless, tiresome irrelevant term ever.

Shouldn't be. But its fetishists have made it so. YOU are at fault.

Great work virtue signalers

HootyTheNightOwl

@Slade Go take a nap, Gramps... maybe, after you wake up, your one brain cell may function better and you will see exactly what I'm getting at with the comparison.

Slade · 56-60, M

@HootyTheNightOwl Bite me limey. Now get in line for your country's one orthodontist to straighten out your mocha colored tooth.

I stand by my statement on the meaningless of that term. Not good, but the truth