UK NEWS

WE DON'T WANT 'BARBARIC' CANE TO RETURN

Friday June 1,2007

By Macer Hall, Political Editor

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(7)

ALAN Johnson ruled out returning to traditional school discipline yesterday – because of his own memories of “barbaric” corporal punishment.

And he even singled out a former teacher who he said was dedicated to using the cane.

On the day schools were given authority to check pupils for guns and knives, the Education Secretary insisted the Government was against returning to the era of a “clip round the ear”.

“I went through the kind of childhood at a school where teachers were allowed to do barbaric things in terms of caning,” said Mr Johnson, 57, who left school with no qualifications.

In an interview on Radio 4 he singled out a Mr Hughes – thought to be at Bevington Primary in Kensington, west London, in the 1950s.

He said the teacher “used to cane you across the wrist rather than across the hand.

“I don’t think that’s the right solution at all.”

The experience affected him “adversely”, he said, adding: “It was an adult, someone in a position of authority, being violent towards me.” But campaigners called for a return to traditional classroom methods.

Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, said searching children in schools was “a clear sign that discipline standards have fallen drastically”.

He added: “The cane wasn’t all that barbaric, it was certainly far less brutal than allowing youngsters to run around with knives stabbing each other.

“A return to corporal punishment doesn’t seem likely, but discipline in schools has become far too lax over recent years and ministers must take some of the responsibility for that.”

Parents were yesterday urged to be “nosy” to prevent their kids joining gangs.

Robert Taylor, head of the Los Angeles Probation Department, issued his warning to parents, police and councils at a seminar in south London.

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JOHNSON IS WRONG - THE CANE IS AN EFFECTIVE DETERRENT!

27.01.09, 8:44pm

Bill Swap is right (ASBO chief bring back cane - The Press 22nd January, 2009). Corporal punishment is a deterrent!

I went to an inner city primary school in an industrial area during the 1950s. Academic standards were high. Between 30% and 35% of its pupils passed the 11+ and went to grammar school. Discipline was strict and both boys and girls were caned or slippered on the bottom. Corporal punishment was more of a deterrent for girls than it was for boys. Only two girls in my A Stream class were caned. One was punished for taking a purse from a teacher’s handbag. The other for stealing money from the school shop. Boys on the other hand were always challenging authority and getting into mischief. Our usual punishment was three whacks with the slipper.

Corporal punishment was used for minor infringements of school rules, for deliberate acts of defiance and to prevent pupils being prosecuted for criminal offences. All the boys in my class were caned for snowballing. It did not deter and I received “six of the best” several times for taking part in snowball raids against a neighbouring school. These raids were not vicious. An unwritten code prevented us throwing ice or stones but the headmistress was determined to stamp them out.

During one of these raids the deputy head appeared on the scene. An “enemy” snowball landed at his feet. Quoting Churchill and Shakespeare, he gathered up a handful of snow, made a snowball and joined in the raid. The headmistress appeared on the scene. She did not seem pleased and everyone including the deputy head returned to school in disgrace.

We expected to be whacked and were not surprised when she told us to wait outside her room while she spoke to the deputy head about the incident. Several girls who saw us there made jokes about naughty boys waiting to have their bottoms smacked. We entered the room apprehensively and sat on the floor while she spoke quietly but firmly pointing out the dangers of snowballing. She said we deserved to be caned but added with a warm friendly smile that it would be unfair to punish us this time as there were members of staff who appeared to enjoy snowballing more than we did. We left having been warned that there would be trouble if we took part in any more raids. However, the snow continued to fall and the warning went unheeded with painful consequences.

The school's major disciplinary problems were caused by ten and eleven year old C stream pupils who lived on a new council housing estate.

At the beginning of the autumn term, the boys organised playground protection rackets. Some carried flick knives or knuckledusters given to them by elder brothers who had been to borstal. One teacher was attacked with a broken bottle. Although uninjured, he had a nervous breakdown and was away from school for two terms. Girls had jam and marmalade rubbed into their hair. Both boys and girls had their clothes slashed with flick knives. Classrooms were vandalised and on two occasions boys were caught setting fire to coats in the cloakroom. At the time children as young as seven could be prosecuted and sent to approved school. The headmistress was put under great pressure by the staff and the local authority to involve the police in these incidents but she always refused.

Unlike many head teachers, she accepted responsibility for her pupils’ behaviour out of school hours. Most weekends she was called to the police station to deal with girls caught shoplifting and boys arrested for assault or vandalism. Often the only way she could persuade the victim to withdraw the charges was to agree to cane the delinquents and the punishments were carried out at school with parental consent. At the end of the day, the children went home with painful posteriors but they did not get into trouble again. Although, “six of the best” may not have stopped us snowballing the cane did deter C stream pupils. Using corporal punishment efficiently and effectively, she kept the members of the school’s criminal fraternity out of the justice system giving them a chance to escape from their back grounds and make something of their lives. One boy who was caned for vandalism obtained a CNAA degree in engineering. Another who had been whacked for rubbing marmalade into a girl’s hair went to university and graduated with a degree in economics.

A very different situation from the one that exists today where young people have nothing but contempt for authority.

• Posted by: TEMPUS70 • Report Comment

THE CANE AND THE GIBBET

01.06.07, 11:15pm

So a Blairite Tony Crony, too dim to pass any "O" levels, slithers all the way to the top of the tree by cuddling up to the right folk.

He tells us last week that Margaret Hodge was using the language of the BNP simply for suggesting that the British should, for the first time in 40 years, be put to the front of the queue as regards council housing. Which, of course, is anathema to most of the treacherous politicians in Westminster. God forbid that the working-class Brit should ever be put before the asylum seeker in any list at all in the land that their ancestors made.

Anyway, this dreadful creep doesn't appear to care for the idea at all.

And now we have this caning is "barbaric thing. Well, I reckon the majority would welcome the return of the cane. "Barbaric", huh? As Nick Seaton says, caning is a lot less barbaric than a knife in the guts or, for that matter, a bullet in the brain.

Tell that to a PC champion like Johnston and he won't know what you're on about.

It seems that, for the last 50 years or so, whatever the British people wanted would be ignored by those they elected to represent them in parliament. And, perversely, whatever they didn't want would become law.

I'd love to have the opportunity to cane Alan Johnson and all the rest of the Blairite jobsworths.

That wouldn't be barbarism, though, that would be justice. But only if the caning was followed by a gibbet.

• Posted by: ironwand • Report Comment

WE DONT WANT BARBARIC CANE TO RETURN

01.06.07, 8:36pm

There should be no need for physical punishment at least not the brutish barbaric sort, all it needs is order, discipline and segregation with the removal of privileges for those not wanting to learn at school, and work gangs for older troublemakers, instead of holiday prisons. Doing right don’t make it right, what’s needed is making sure those that do wrong, don’t gain any benefit from it by removing the privileges which the rest get. It might take awhile for such a thing to sink in but most will soon realise which side of the bread has butter on it, and those that don’t well they are just a lost cause anyway so throw them out of class and country, at least the general public wont have to keep funding wasters from the public purse. Young people have to much freedom, money and to much to say in the presence of adults and that’s the main cause of all the problems in class and in the country, put the adult age back to 21 and watch how things improve.

• Posted by: Derk • Report Comment

WE MAY NOT WANT IT BUT DO WE NEED IT?

01.06.07, 3:33pm

To be honest corporal punishment should not be required in any school BUT the simple fact is that many (most?) schools have lost the ability to ensure discipline in classrooms and in many cases unruly children even manage to ‘bully’ teachers as well as other children – and get away with it! When you know of a child that causes an ‘incident’ almost every day, including pushing a teacher down a flight of stairs, but continues to ‘get away with it’ - for years - or when one child puts another in hospital because of bullying….. The simple fact is that corporal punishment is NEEDED in schools, if only to protect the innocent children from the few that continue to abuse the ‘human rights’ of other children and staff. Oh dear, there is that dreaded term again but unfortunately it is true in this case – some children ARE abusing the ‘human rights’ of others and are currently being allowed to get away with it! This in turn sets a precedent in their own minds so that they ‘know’ they can ‘get away with it’ and will no doubt continue to do so in later life. Another frightening thing is that I have heard children shout at adults “You touch me and I’ll call the police…” – and get away with it! Then in later life they discover that they can even ‘get away with it’ in crime as well…….. No further comment at this point as I am sure that anyone with at least half a brain knows where I am going!

• Posted by: Cynical_sid • Report Comment

AND AS FOR INCOMPETENT CANINGS!

01.06.07, 3:00pm

Train proffesionals who will visit schools and administer punishment in front of the school and a camera to make sure all is above board and no false accusations can be made.

As a YOB who needed caning Mr Johnson succeeded in changing his ways so maybe they actually did him some good whether he admits it or not!

OK so he is a dishonest politician that tells lies for a living but at least he stopped before he killed his friends or mugged pensioners.

I can only assume that Gorgon Broone never felt the wrath of the cane as he went on to mug millions of our pensioners!

• Posted by: The_Way_I_See_It • Report Comment