Were you smacked around by your teachers as a kid, what to do about it

sollar · 16-05-2011 04:03PM

Our 2nd, 4th and 6th class primary teachers used to beat pupils. I was knocked to the floor by my 4th class teacher for answering a question for another pupil who got stuck. The teacher clashed me across the face so hard she knocked me to the ground. Crazy stuff when you think back on it.

iPlop · 16-05-2011 04:10PM

gigino wrote: »

I remember one bl**dy awful Irish phycho teacher. Put me off the language for life. Other teachers hit as well ( not very much, just the very odd time ) but that Irish teacher ruined lives.

Had one of them myself, he used to smash the classroom up and pull the blackboard off the wall.I remember one day there were two of us acting the bollix and he gave the two of us a slap, then started to bite his hand, then finally he threw the projector out the window

,it was smashed all over the place, complete and utter mental case.

wild_cat · 16-05-2011 04:16PM

My Mother was telling me recently about people urinating and defecating on themselves out of fear in the class room in sixties. I nearly puked with the stories, all about one man in particular who was principal.

She said she was one of the lucky ones as she didn't have any learning problems and if you did you were basically a goner.

One day he had a candle and he put a jar over it, of course the candle went out. He asked my aunt what had happened, she informed him it had "gone out".

He sent her out of the room and around the school to look for the flame. On her return obviously with out the flame she was told it had extinguished and hit till she fainted.

He loaded her into the car and bought her back to my grandparents house where he enquired "Did she miss breakfast this morning?".

I think action has been taken against him over the years. He's still alive and I told my mother that the next time she sees him to point him out to me as I want to see what pure evil looks like.

My Dad's brother knocked out a brother in the CBS in the fifties I can only imagine what happened to him when he arrived home.

rounding tattenham Corner · 16-05-2011 04:21PM

I started school in 1984, my earliest memory was me standing outside the classroom door with two other guys, not sure why talking or no homework done although at 4 years old would i have had homework? anyway the teacher came out and gave the three us an almighty clattering with a steel tipped wooden ruler i still flinch thinking of it.

So 1984 does anybody know if corporal punishment was still allowed then?

and the old bitch is still working, and she was bloody old then, some of these old cows never seem to retire

Helium · 16-05-2011 04:21PM

the culture of deference wrote: »

Do you think the gardai would proscequete me for slapping him around a bit, if his past was known?

Would approach him and tell him you started a thread on Boards about him,
and you didn't spell 'prosecute' right and what the f*ck was he was going to do about it.

Non satisfactory answer - DECK him

Satisfactory answer - DECK him

refusetolose · 16-05-2011 04:22PM

teacher in my school used lift a person from their seat by the locks of their hair..

gigino · 16-05-2011 04:27PM

wild_cat wrote: »

My Dad's brother knocked out a brother in the CBS in the fifties I can only imagine what happened to him when he arrived home.

If a few more Brothers were knocked out in the fifties it may not have done any harm.

Wolfe Tone · 16-05-2011 04:29PM

I tell you there where some bastards in my school who could have used a good trashing

Kalimah · 16-05-2011 04:33PM

I was slappped once in 1968 aged 5 for nodding instead of saying yes! That was the extent of it. I don't remember seeing anyone else slapped or beaten. I'd say it was worse in the boys schools especially the Christian Brothers. One reason my mother flatly refused to send my brothers to the brothers.

Someone else said if you were a good student you didn't get belted. I'd agree with that from what I know. If anyone touched one of my kids there'd be big trouble.

seamus · 16-05-2011 04:48PM

I started school in the mid-80's, so physical punishment was mostly gone at that stage. Though the school was broken in two - a junior and senior school with a principal for each. The JS Principal's way of dealing with a 5-year-old having a tantrum was to scream in his face and shake him violently, I remember that distinctly. The SS's Principal was similarly hot-headed, the kind who'd grab you hard by the upper arm and scream in your face.

He used to also bring the whole school into the hall every so often to give us a talk about random stuff. Just bizarre things like "never let anyone call you stupid", and "eat your vegetables". I'm sure the teachers thought he was a complete freak.

The two of them were thrown in jail about ten years ago for skimming money off the top. I was delighted to hear it, the pricks.

My wife who's the same age was in with nuns for her first couple of years in school. One particular nun used to smack her with a stick for writing with her left hand, because that's the work of the devil. When challeneged by my in-laws, the nun would outright lie and say that it never happened.

Lumbo · 16-05-2011 04:51PM

My maths teacher knocked lumps out of us & this was in the 90's. 24 people got A's in his Junior Cert class. I think the 3 other lads got B's.

My dad would say to me, if he hits you I don't want to know, if he touches you I'll f&^7ing kill him.

Seanachai · 16-05-2011 04:57PM

Never got any slaps myself , was kind of just ignored to be honest. My brother has mild autism and a b**lix of a teacher notorious for whacking students round the head with books hit him one day and my brother grabbed the teacher rugby style and ran with him out the back door of the classroom. Needless to say it was his perfect excuse to get rid of him. The other fellas in the class still bring it up every time they see him.

G_R · 16-05-2011 05:10PM

Jesus christ. Some of these stories are horrendous. I started education in '95 so I avoided all this crap thankfully. My dad had told me about corporal punishment but I never imagined anything like this. To think that some of these monsters are still teaching.

I'm pretty certain these guys/gals are responsible for wrecking childhoods and destroying people's self confidence and self respect.

It actually makes me feel a little bit sick. It's child abuse. And it was allowed to happen in schools. Wow.

Feeona · 16-05-2011 06:05PM

bijapos wrote: »

Great post Solair, very well put, and after spending a good few years abroad I agree 100%. Hopefully things will change in the future but it will need a total revamp of the way people are educated here.

It has been revamped. The currciulum is very touchy feely now, with plenty of opportunity for children to express themselves verbally, physically, artistically and emotionally. Differentiation is par for the course in the classroom now, with weaker children and stronger children both getting work geared towards their abilities.

It's good in that it gives children confidence, especially those who have learning difficulties. Unfortunately the bolshy kids have become far cheekier and very spoilt, which I think this curriulum will be remembered for in twenty years time.

Nolanger · 16-05-2011 06:14PM

Confab wrote: »

Teachers. Always stuck in the 'Do as I say, not as I do' mentality. They seem to have some sort of insane superiority complex. Are they brainwashed or something?

They are not the brightest of people and can't do anything in life so they teach.

decisions · 16-05-2011 06:37PM

LauraKillabean wrote: »

I'm only 16 but when I was in second class in 2003 there was one nun left in our school. I wasn't in her class but I've been told by friends who were in her class that she made girls (it's an all girls school) clean her shoes, wax the floors and threw books down in front of you to give you a fright if you asked your friend for a rubber or pencil or something. Several times she raised her hands to girls and had to hold herself back.

Anyway after Mid-term in February she retired cos she broke her leg falling down the steps out side of the local church (haha) and then halfway through third class it was announced that she had died of some form of cancer.

That batty nun also taught my auntie in the late 70s and the beatings they used to get. Slaps across the hands or back of the head for breathing too loudly.

Makes me feel lucky that I get to go to school without fear of being abused.

Sister Rose by any chance...? or was she the loved one.. I cant remember.

CrazyRabbit · 16-05-2011 06:52PM

Christian Brothers primary school in Ballyfermot for me. My teacher was a nasty bastard. He's hit the students with 'Haymakers' which deadened your arm for hours. Dusters where thrown to, and he had one hell of an aim.

In the morning, he'd draw this clock up on the blackboard, take a long cane and quickly hit two of the numbers. He'd then call out the name of one of the students and they had 2 seconds to multiple those numbers. If you got it wrong or were too slow, you'd have to stand in the corner for a few hours. Very humiliating and tiring...but I did very quickly become good at math!!! Kinda looked odd with several students lined up facing the wall.

He once held a student upside down by the ankles from the 2nd floor window. Thought he was actually going to drop him.

In secondary (also Christian Brothers) we had a religious teacher (a Brother) that talked primarily about sex. Usually it was stories about boys he'd known who had got into funny or bizarre situations. The one I recall is a story of a boy who was supposedly made a eunuch by an emergency door closing in a fire drill whilst he was bragging about his, erm, manliness. Funny stories at the time, but thinking back, I have a lot of suspicions about that Brother. :eek:

On a lighter note:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxo81Ok9Urk

Senna · 16-05-2011 06:55PM

Very little hitting or that when i was at school, but there was one teacher who practised the old school method. He would grab a ruler and start whacking the offending person and normally those sat either side.
We were about 15/16 at the time and it was more of a laugh than anything else, although it did hurt. Seen that teacher only last week (in his 80's now), cant say i bear any grudge, we probably deserved every bit of it.

irishgrover · 16-05-2011 07:29PM

(I started school in the mid 70's and finished in late ' 80's)

my earliest memory of school (in Leitrim) is being in 'babys' (Jnr infants) and being repeatedly hit with a ruler on the knuckles by Sister Aquinas (sp?) because I used my left hand instead of my right hand to draw and write..(I was only four years old ffs and thats all I remember)

I was in a new school (CBS) for 5th a 6th class. There were two Christian brothers, one was a fu(king headcase who would regularly punch kids in the body, and lock them in the press when he was annoyed. The 2nd (the principal) was a predatory creep who, on raining mornings, would patrol the school to find little boys who got wet in the rain and would take them to his office and make them change into gaa shorts 'so they would not get a cold'...enough said

Secondary school was another CBS, there were a couple of brothers in it and by and large they were fine, however some of the male tachers were scum. One little prick (maths teacher), was about 5' 2" and a complete bully. Loved to stand behind you and ask questions, so you would never knew when the punch or slap was coming (it always did).... he was also very fond of sideburns.....

However, there was teacher in particular I always hated, always threatening but rarely violent. I fell out with him at a very early stage, he was teaching us civics the day after the Enniskillen bombing and said something alone the lines of "normally when an IRA bomb goes off, we all celebrate a bit to ourselves when they get a load of soldiers or RUC men, but yesterday they probably went too far..." , I interrupted him and suggested that he should keep his terrorist supporting ideas to himself, and for years afterwards he continued to have a go at me. Years later in 6th year was supervising my Christmas exams and I needed to go to the toilet ,( I had been ill in the previous few days and had note from doc stating I may need frequent breaks). He wouldn't let me go, I told him principal had note and I needed to go etc (at this point everyone was watching), and he eventually relented, but as I walked out the door, he said, for the benefit of the class "sure we all know you're just going for a quick ****", I turned around and muttered "go Fu(k youself", he went nuts, and called my back in, and told me to repeat what I had said, at this point I think that every piece of hatred I had for all the arseholes and bullies I had encountered in the previous 15 years can out, and I verbally went toe to toe with him. I told him to go **** himself again, he called me a "****ing tosser", and said I was an attention seeker who always had a chip on my shoulder with him. I replied that he was probably right because he I thought he was "a piece of **** Ira loving scum, that was unfit to be anywhere near children", in the end he just told me to "**** off" so I did....(we both ended up in the principals office, my parents became involved etc)

Terrible thing is it's much harder to remember the good teachers because of the small number of assholes that impale your memories for all the wrong reasons...

Were you smacked around by your teachers as a kid, what to do about it

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