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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SW-User

May I ask are you from the UK
Most heads only used it as a last resort and has to think of the other students in the school.

Sharon · F

@SW-User [quote]Most heads only used it as a last resort [/quote]
That's only what they said, in fact it was usually the first or only resort. Some schools totally exempted girls so, obviously, they had other methods that they had total confidence in and could have used with boys too. The fact that they [b]chose[/b] to cane boys instead speaks volumes about their deceit.

That was futher demonstrated when, following the European Court of Human Rights' ruling, it was proposed that parents be given the right to prohibit schools using corporal punishment on their children. Headteachers dishonestly claimed it would put them in an impossible position as they could be faced with two students having committed the same offence but could only cane one of them. That was [b]exactly[/b] the situation they could face when they exempted girls and, what's more, as the two groups were of approximately equal size, had the greatest probability of occurring.