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.

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

patioratio · 70-79, M

I'd like to thank the people who have commented on this post who have questioned what I did in the past, or even outright condemned it. I question it myself and if I was wrong, I may deserve to be condemned.

But as somebody who is new to this site, I wonder at the people who just seem to want to shut discussions down and who are willing to resort to some rather odd tactics to try and achieve this.

Yes, this is my first post. Everybody had to post here for the first time, everybody would have had a first post. I posted on this subject first because that was what I was discussing elsewhere when somebody recommended this site to me. I do intend to post about some other things, given time, but discussion here (both valuable and... less so) has taken much of my free time online over the last day. I haven't got around to posting anything else yet.