Published on 12, July, 2020
I saw something today, which prompted me to ask this question: Did any teachers single you out, or treat you badly at school? I was in school from the 1970’s, and things were different back then.
I recall being singled out at age 6, and forced to stand on the table during the lesson as an example of a stupid child. I was often ridiculed, and she said things like it’s typical for me to be stupid because ‘people like you’ are. (Because of my skin colour).
At 11 I was constantly picked on by my maths teacher. She would ask me questions when she knew I wouldn’t know the answer. She picked me despite others putting their hand up to answer. She tried to make me recite my times tables or give her answers to some when she called them out. She told me that I should be able to answer them, as all children my age can, and what was it that was wrong with me that I wasn’t able to learn them. And other things when I didn’t get all questions answered in the time frame, or got poor marks in a test. I wasn’t ever ‘stupid’. My auditory processing is slow, and I can’t work under pressure if I’m also anxious.
We had the strap at school, called a 'tawse' in Scotland. Most of England had canes for corporal punishment, but some areas, such as around Manchester, the strap was in use. They were about a foot long, made of thick leather. Hard to imagine today, but companies actually manufactured 'weapons' for hitting children with. Totally barbaric.
Though my maths abilities in general are reasonable, I have never been able to do mental arithmetic and I have difficulties remembering things that do not interest me, so I could not reliably remember 'times tables'. At primary school, having to stand up in class and work out some addition or subtraction in my head or recite a 'times table' was horrendous. I remember getting my first electronic calculator and thinking that all the trauma of trying to master mental arithmetic was entirely pointless.
My Primary school had a slipper for girls and the headmaster had the cane for boys. The teacher had named the slipper Willy, the teacher would announce that a girl was going to get Willy on their backside. At that age I had never thought of the double meaning. The deputy head had a thin plank of wood about 18” long, with a handle made of leather, it had “the heat on the seat” ornately written on it, he had bought it on holiday and was all pleased with himself. He hung it with pride next to the blackboard. To think that a factory actually made this seems quite weird. The age of the children was between 8 and 12.
It was PE teachers who tended to use footwear for corporal punishment at my schools. Luckily, from the point of view of possible inappropriate sexuality, the strap was always used on the hands. I think that 'children beaters with handles' were called 'pandybats' in some areas of Ireland.
The slipper was actually a size 9 plimsoll and the user of the pandybat was Irish! The bat was like a mini cricket bat but flat.