Author Topic: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.  (Read 10714 times)

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Offline CC27

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Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« on: April 19, 2010, 08:33:49 AM »
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Are_grits_groceries Donating Member (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Mon Apr-19-10 07:50 AM
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Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
   
Edited on Mon Apr-19-10 08:00 AM by Are_grits_groceries
I went to school from 7th to 12th grade where paddling was an acceptable punishment. I was never paddled, but I got a first hand and close up look at it in action. It has been a brazillion years since this happened, but I can recall it in detail.

It happened in my 9th grade math class. There was a student who would not behave. He didn't do anything that was a major offense, but he constantly disrupted everything. He was the kind of kid the other students didn't like, and we wanted him to stop too. I sat behind him, and I used to kick his desk and warn him that the teacher would paddle him.

I think his attitude was 'paddle,shmaddle.' How bad could it really be? Truth be told I think a lot of us were of that mind. We hadn't been paddled or seen it so we used our own experience with punishment as a judge. I got switched which was annoying, but I could deal with it.

One fateful day, he went to far. I don't know whether it was one particular act that set the teacher off or it was just the accumulation of things. The teacher told him to get up and bend over his desk. I remember that he had on a light yellow shirt with stripes. Then the teacher went into a backroom and got his weapon. It was a weapon no matter what euphemism was used.

He brought out an object that was about 2 feet long with a handle. The paddle part was about 12 inches wide, and it had holes in it. We had been told that the holes made it sting more as if that was a selling point. The handle had grip tape on it. I got a very bad feeling when I saw what he was going to use.

To my unending regret, I had a front row seat. The student bent over the desk and then the teacher paddled him. That really doesn't convey what I saw. He hit him so hard that he flew over the desk and landed on the floor.

I thought "Holy shit! I just wanted him to shut up. I didn't want him killed!" There was dead silence in the room. Sometimes kids can be cruel and make fun of others even in times like this. However, nobody said a word until the class was over, and we were at lunch.

A group of friends and I sat at lunch in shock. We didn't eat a bite. One person finally said,"I don't think some baseballs are hit that hard." Another kid who was always up to something said he would avoid messing around in that class. The teacher had moved his problem elsewhere. I pointed out that other teachers may outsource their punishment to him.

The dynamic in the class changed after that. What once had been a learning environment was now a classroom with fear and violence as a backdrop. Before that episode, we enjoyed the class and competed to see who could get the most questions right. After it, we moved very warily at all times. It wasn't fun anymore.

That is still one of the most brutal events I have ever witnessed. It wasn't punishment. It was a crime. I'm not sure if the administrators knew exactly what he did. They probably did and let him get away with it. Why that level of violence was accepted, I'll never know. If we mentioned it to anybody, they didn't seem to understand what was really going on.

Hitting a student is wrong. I don't care how much force is used. It may solve an immediate problem, but it doesn't get to the core and the cause of the misbehavior. "Paddling" does nothing to really modify behavior in the long run. It just changes the course and form of the behavior and not in a good way.

I can still hear and see that hit to this day. I cringe all over again.

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Offline Tantal

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #1 on: April 19, 2010, 08:38:39 AM »
When I was in Junior High, punishment was meted out by the coaches if you were an athlete, regardless of which class you were in when the transgression occurred. We had coaches that could lift their victims' feet off the floor. I got it ONCE. That was sufficient.
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Offline NHSparky

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #2 on: April 19, 2010, 08:47:54 AM »
I got swatted a couple of times--once in 5th grade for calling a kid a dildo (he immediately dropped dime on me, so I beat his ass after school) and in 9th grade for defending myself when a kid took a swing at me.  Oh, the old man wasn't happy at ALL about the second one, although to be fair, the kid who picked the fight got more swats than me.
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Offline kenth

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #3 on: April 19, 2010, 09:10:31 AM »
I saw that article about Texas paddling the other day. Of course all leftists being whiny squeaky wheels, those were the only ones posting on the article. The majority were whining that it was "beating" and should be a crime. But the poll said otherwise, with a solid majority favoring it.

In middle school, they'd take you out into the hall and lean you up against the wall. I can't imagine any school would bend you over a desk, but this is a dummy bouncy after all. Anyway, out in the hall and they would have a teacher from the next room come out and witness it. Later on, they started taking out the random troublemaker to witness the paddling also. High school was about the same, teacher witness and in the hall against the wall. No one was ever in shock. There was usually much laughter about it. It was paddling after all, not a beating.

I think we've gone over this before, but just to say it again, dummies are such pussies.

Heh, just to add a memory, there was this little social studies teacher who couldn't aim for her life. Two paddlings and she started having the coach next door do her paddling. The first poor kid she nailed across the hamstrings, the other across the lower back.
« Last Edit: April 19, 2010, 09:14:03 AM by kenth »

Offline Ralph Wiggum

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #4 on: April 19, 2010, 09:13:50 AM »
I always understood that paddling was rather normal in the parochial schools, at least based on the friends I knew in Catholic schools.  I wouldn't know if that still goes on or not.  It's been a while since I was high school age.
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Offline DumbAss Tanker

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #5 on: April 19, 2010, 09:22:19 AM »
I always understood that paddling was rather normal in the parochial schools, at least based on the friends I knew in Catholic schools.  I wouldn't know if that still goes on or not.  It's been a while since I was high school age.

Well, yes, but it's part of the sex education class there.

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Offline Ralph Wiggum

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #6 on: April 19, 2010, 09:22:59 AM »
Well, yes, but it's part of the sex education class there.

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Offline longview

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #7 on: April 19, 2010, 09:36:57 AM »
I got a couple swats while in school for being beligerent, which I was.  Jr. high grades.  Taught me about that whole "there's a time and a place" thing, and that I didn't have to say everything I "know."  Punishment was meted out at the front of the classroom and I was excused back to my desk after.  Boy, did that sting. 

No history of traumatized classmates from those incidents.

Offline jukin

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #8 on: April 19, 2010, 09:53:41 AM »
I'd rather have my children paddled than drugged up. Apparently the left is 180 degrees from me.
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Offline debk

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #9 on: April 19, 2010, 10:02:02 AM »
I always understood that paddling was rather normal in the parochial schools, at least based on the friends I knew in Catholic schools.  I wouldn't know if that still goes on or not.  It's been a while since I was high school age.


According to my other half who went to Jesuit high school in Cincinnati, yep...paddlings were done. He knew from experience.  :uhsure:

I went to public school in Iowa and Illinois.....paddlings were also done. In the principal's office, with the teacher witnessing. Never, ever in front of the class.
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Offline DefiantSix

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #10 on: April 19, 2010, 10:10:54 AM »
I went to public school in Iowa and Illinois.....paddlings were also done. In the principal's office, with the teacher witnessing. Never, ever in front of the class.

+1.  Except for the Iowa and Illinois part.  I experienced the sting of the hack paddle in the public school system of the People's Republic of Washington.  Once was all it took.
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Offline IassaFTots

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #11 on: April 19, 2010, 10:19:49 AM »

I went to public school in Iowa and Illinois.....paddlings were also done. In the principal's office, with the teacher witnessing. Never, ever in front of the class.

Paddlings at my schools were either by the Coaches, or in the Vice Principal's office.  Never in class.  I never got one, because they notified your parents if you got ANY punishment at school.  Nothing, absolutely NOTHING was worth that. 

I just made sure not to get caught.   :uhsure:
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Offline GOBUCKS

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #12 on: April 19, 2010, 11:00:15 AM »
The kids I remember getting paddled are the ones I expect grew up to be DUmmies. It was always in the hallway or in the principal's office, never in front of a class. It worked like a charm, and loss of corporal punishment is one reason for the demise of public education.

This DUmmy's bouncy tale is unbelievable from the first word, but he really jumped the shark with that "class in shock" business. For real kids in a real classroom, a peek at some miscreant getting paddled would be like a dream come true. It would be the source of whispered giggles for the next two weeks.

Offline ChuckJ

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #13 on: April 19, 2010, 11:34:57 AM »
I think the primitive is either lying completely or doing some extreme stretching.

The post got me to remembering back to my school days. I still remember all of my paddlings.

3rd grade: Paddled in class for not putting my name on a paper. The teacher used a piece of rubber from a tire and gave one swat for each letter of my name.

5th grade: Paddled in the hallway for clowning around in class. A wood paddle that my dad made for the teacher was used to give me three swats.

7th grade: Paddled in the hallway for clowning around in class. A wood paddle. Three swats. I had just turned in a paper with "I will not act up in class" written 500 times. I was given the choice of more writing. I picked the paddle.

10th grade: Paddled in the asst. principle's office for clowning around in class AND having the top two buttons on my shirt unbuttoned. I was told that "this is a school house not a whore house." Apparently he didn't know some of the people I knew.
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Offline Texacon

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #14 on: April 19, 2010, 11:50:59 AM »
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To my unending regret, I had a front row seat. The student bent over the desk and then the teacher paddled him. That really doesn't convey what I saw. He hit him so hard that he flew over the desk and landed on the floor.

Bull, shit.

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Offline The Village Idiot

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #15 on: April 19, 2010, 12:00:26 PM »
I no longer believe schools should paddle kids, because I don't think those idiots should ever do anything with kids that would smack of a fetish. heh

Offline Karin

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #16 on: April 19, 2010, 12:54:24 PM »
Yeah, FGL, I tend to agree with you on that.  I was a good kid, and never met the paddle.  The only time I got in trouble was I got sent to the principal's for bending a spoon in the cafeteria.  I was about 6.  Oh, what a life of crime!  I was traumatized. 


Offline The Village Idiot

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #17 on: April 19, 2010, 01:08:22 PM »
I was paddled twice I think.

Once wasn't even my fault. My best friend was attacked on the playground and I joined in.

Then the next time we were all sitting outside on the blacktop in two rows about twenty feet apart and kids were tossing pebbles back and forth out of boredom. So I tossed one and next thing I know a Laotian immigrant kid on the other side grabs his face and starts crying. oops.

But before I was to get the paddle I got up and walked home. I got in trouble for that too.

Offline crockspot

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #18 on: April 19, 2010, 01:38:45 PM »
Grits, you are an effing p*ssy. I got paddled once or twice by a "weapon" much like you describe. It wasn't any big deal.

Offline Randy

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #19 on: April 19, 2010, 01:54:17 PM »
Twice here too. Both times for being a sarcastic smart ass, imagine that from me.  ::)

It's a good thing this whole traumatic event is seared, seared I say into this DUmmies mind.

Offline Kimberly

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #20 on: April 19, 2010, 02:02:27 PM »
In my middle and high schools, the paddlings were done by the vice principals in their offices which is why everyone hated them. I always wondered why someone would take that job. Anyway, the only paddling I ever saw was in third grade and the class clown got it by goofing off too often. Since he lived across the street from the school, his mother came over and spanked him in front of the class. Which is kind of weird now that I think about it.

Offline Karin

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #21 on: April 19, 2010, 02:39:36 PM »
I just don't think that teachers or principals should have anything to do with kids' butts.  I don't have a problem with nuns rapping them on the knuckles to get their attention. 
Then again, one or two of our teachers were real pervs.   Maybe 5-7 if I think about it. 

Offline JohnnyReb

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #22 on: April 19, 2010, 04:16:39 PM »
BIG HUGE THICK PADDLE WITH HOLES IN IT.... :rotf:...baloney.

The narrow thin ones are the ones that set your ass on fire and leave memories.

Just ask me how I know..... :rotf:
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Offline The Village Idiot

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #23 on: April 19, 2010, 04:20:00 PM »
don't forget the mythical electric ones.

I hope those were a myth!

Offline IassaFTots

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Re: Paddling in school: What I witnessed when I was a student.
« Reply #24 on: April 19, 2010, 04:21:49 PM »
BIG HUGE THICK PADDLE WITH HOLES IN IT.... :rotf:...baloney.

The narrow thin ones are the ones that set your ass on fire and leave memories.

Just ask me how I know..... :rotf:

I don't need to ask how you know.   :uhsure:
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