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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ServantOfTheGoddess · 61-69, M

People are very different from one another and I can imagine that for some specific people in a particular community under particular circumstances, yes, corporal punishment could have been helpful.

I also really feel your horror at the thought that you might have harmed the children you were responsible for and cared about.

But we all make mistakes and may have to confront unhappy truths. Supposing some of these children were helped, but others at best have unhappy memories about it and at worst, some level of trauma. Can you consider that you may need to repent in some way for the harm you did do?

patioratio · 70-79, M

@ServantOfTheGoddess If I could identify a single student who I believed I had harmed, I would be trying to do everything I could to contact them to apologise. But I can't. I honestly can't. That certainly doesn't mean they don't exist - I taught thousands of children and was head teacher to thousands I didn't directly teach. I caned hundreds of times over twenty odd years - even ten a year (and on average, it was more than that) would be two hundred - and most of the time I didn't cane any individual child more than once or twice (because if I had to keep doing it, it obviously wasn't working) so there'd probably be at least two hundred out there I caned and I haven't encountered all of them in adult life.

But I have encountered quite a few of them and none of them have ever complained about this. And quite a number of them have thanked me for what I did.

So I don't even feel like I can try and track them all down and apologise them because I think more of them would actually thank me than complain based on past experience, and that would just leave me even more conflicted about all this.

My own experiences as a boy as well - I was caned. And I was definitely personally somebody who I think it helped overall.

ServantOfTheGoddess · 61-69, M

@patioratio You [i]could[/i] try to contact as many of them as possible. But short of that you could just consider in your own mind that what you did, believing it was right, might actually have harmed some of them -- as psychological and pedagogical research, not to mention a lot of anecdotal evidence including from people in this thread -- suggests. That perhaps you really are not blameless, and that perhaps you have done some harm even while trying to do right.

I have to say that if I met up with one of the teachers I had who used humiliating corporal punishment on me, I don't think I would bring it up. What would be the sense of that? But if he asked me about it directly, I [i]might[/i] answer honestly. That it was awful and I see no good in it.

patioratio · 70-79, M

@ServantOfTheGoddess The idea of contacting people on some sort of fishing expedition about this doesn't really sit well with me. If I did harm any of them, I'd be worried I'd be more likely to reawaken things they wouldn't want to revisit.

As for the other - while no former pupil I've encountered has ever complained about me caning them, some have certainly complained about other things I did and with some justification. There were other things I definitely got wrong and regret. I wasn't perfect. My attitude towards children who had what we'd now call learning difficulties was - misguided to say the least during the early part of my career. I certainly do agree that there may be even more of them who haven't spoken up - and I have asked some who did answer one way or the other when I've had the chance, but I do feel that this should have come up and it hasn't.