Story Time

[Tervuren]

My great grandmother had a solution for school violence. It worked.

At age 16 she took on the job of being the lone teacher in a school house, the last two male teachers had been beat up by the older students and weren't fit to continue after that.

First day of school she brought a board of significant dimension and weight and waited right beside the entrance.

As each student walked in she sized them up for trouble. Those she thought were trouble got a star inducing whack from behind.

She didn't have problems with violence in school after that first day.

This was roughly a hundred years ago.

[MRM]

My family grew up reading the Little House Books out loud at bed time. In the book Farmer Boy, Almanzo Wilder (Laura Ingles Wilder's future husband) went to a one room school house. As in your great grandmother's story, there hadn't been a teacher able to finish the term for a couple of years because a family of bullies would beat the teacher to the point that he couldn't teach anymore. The older boys bragged to Almanzo that they were going to thrash the teacher soon. Almanzo warned his father, but Almanzo's father told him to mind his own business.

Sure enough a few days later the oldest boy in the family of bullies started acting up in class to provoke a fight with the teacher. The teacher called the boy forward to be disciplined. That was to be the sign that the boys were going to thrash the teacher. The other brothers got out of their desks in preparation of a mass attack and Almanzo was sure he was going to see his teacher killed.

The teacher calmly told the boys to return to their seats as he reached into his desk. As the boys rushed the teacher, he pulled a bull whip - Almanzo recognized it as his father's - and whipped the lead boy. As the lead bully fell back the teacher moved forward, whipping each would-be attacker ferociously until they ran out of the school. After the bullies were gone, the teacher put the whip back in his desk, dropped the lid, closed the school door, and retook his place at the blackboard without further comment.

The book doesn't mention any further school violence. This would have been in the 1870s.

[red-beard]

My Dad's high school graduating class at eight students. He went to a one room school house for elementary school (1-6) which probably 30-40 students. He apparently did well and was put on the "Honor" List. He thought he was being punished, mishearing is as the "ornery" list.

Most of the "school marms" didn't take crap from the students.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by MRM

but Almanzo's father told him to mind his own business.

Outstanding. Then Dad did his thing.

Originally Posted by red-beard

Most of the "school marms" didn't take crap from the students.

1965. 4th grade. Old as the earth teacher smacked my first cousin right in the middle of her back in front of the class for being late to class. I was there. Big hand print. Missed the bus and my aunt had to drive her there.

Aunt was furious and lodged formal complaints, took pics as the mark was still present in the evening. Big stink but nothing happened to the teacher that we as kids were aware of.

That was her last year there but she was ancient. Who knows?

[Tervuren]

How often was your cousin late to class after that?

[LWJ]

I was paddled on the bare rear end at age 5 with a drilled paddle. That is abuse whatever I had done.

I tried to find that guy when I was a largish teen, unfortunately dementia destroyed him by then.

I was looking forward to some payback. I am still a little miffed about this.

[stevej37]

^^^ He probably thought you did what we did when we knew a paddling was near.
We stuffed a magazine back there....usually ended up being worse if discovered.

[Seahawk]

Race quotas for punishment. WTF?:

Undisciplined: Chaos may be coming to Minnesota classrooms, by decree - StarTribune.com

In fall 2017, the department sent letters to 43 school districts and charter schools across the state, announcing that the schools are under investigation because their student discipline records suggest that black and Native American students are disciplined at a rate that exceeds their proportion of the student population.

On March 2, the department released a report it said showed that, in the 2015-16 school year, minority students — 31 percent of the state’s student population — accounted for 66 percent of school suspensions and expulsions.

MDHR has declined to make public either the letters or the identity of the districts targeted, citing ongoing investigations. But Human Rights Commissioner Kevin Lindsey provided troubling details in a recent interview with MinnPost.

Here, in essence, is MDHR’s position: The primary cause of racial discipline gaps in schools is racist teachers and discipline policies, not differing rates of student misconduct. Schools must move to end these statistical group disparities. If administrators don’t agree to change their practices in ways that reduce black and Native American discipline rates, according to MinnPost, “Lindsey says the state will initiate litigation.”

We’ve seen this movie before, most recently in the St. Paul Public Schools. There, it had devastating consequences for students of all backgrounds. MDHR bureaucrats must have been the only people in St. Paul who weren’t paying attention to this debacle.

In St. Paul schools — as virtually everywhere in the country — black students, as a group, are referred for discipline at higher rates than other students. Starting around 2012, the district’s leaders tried to narrow this gap by lowering behavior expectations and removing meaningful penalties for student misconduct. For example, they spent millions of dollars on “white privilege” training for teachers, and dropped “continual willful disobedience” as a suspendable offense.

Violence and disorder quickly escalated. In some schools, anarchic conditions made learning difficult, if not impossible, according to teachers. In December 2015, after a vicious attack by a student left a high school teacher with a traumatic brain injury, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi labeled the trend of violence a “public health crisis,” according to news accounts.

By that time, suspensions — which had initially fallen — had surged to their highest rate in five years. Black students, about 30 percent of the student body, were 77 percent of those suspended. The St. Paul teachers’ union threatened to strike over safety concerns, and families who valued education began flooding out of St. Paul schools. In June 2016, the school board voted out the superintendent.

Today, MDHR seems intent on duplicating this failed social experiment throughout Minnesota. The department — whose use of state law for this purpose appears virtually unprecedented — is probably doing so because the federal government seems poised to back off on enforcing Obama-era race-based discipline “guidance.”

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by Tervuren

How often was your cousin late to class after that?

Now that you mention it, not once.

It was a simpler time.

There were other unfavorable issues in the history bank. It was more than just being late once, I suspect. Cant remember it all.

I remember her reading three student's names that got an A on a math test. Then she said "Bob Kontak.......got the only F" Long division stumped me for a time. I got way better real fast. Cold but oh so effective.

[Crowbob]

Not a school story but paddle related.

My mom got a paddle as a gift to discipline my brother and I. It was 'The Board of Education'. Nicely finished, varnished with the obligatory holes and a leather loop for hanging prominently on the kitchen wall.

Well, at some point we violated of such severity some rule wherein the board was drafted into use. Mom usually didn't whack our bare bottoms very hard but she didn't really have to. That thing stung like crazy.

Anyway, whatever we'd done was so egregious more than one whack was required. I went first, being younger, while my brother watched.

After two whacks (not hard as the desired effect was achieved mostly by virtue of the fear instilled in us rather than the corporeal sensations) mom quite dramatically loaded up for whack #3.

Well, my brother figured the crime was no more than a two-whacker so he became quite incensed that we were to enjoy a third. In response to this injustice, big brother went over to mom, wrestled the board from her and cracked it clean in two over his knee. He hung the handle end back on its rightful place on the kitchen wall where it remained, untouched and unneeded, for many years.

[Tervuren]

Originally Posted by stevej37

^^^ He probably thought you did what we did when we knew a paddling was near.
We stuffed a magazine back there....usually ended up being worse if discovered.

I did a book once.

I am laughing about it.

But I only did it once.

lol.

[Evans, Marv]

Back in the day, paddle was used liberally in school as well as home. I was a very bad student for a few years, with the fifth grade probably being my worst. I would take over the class with my antics. One time the teacher (Mrs. Kern) told me if I did it again, she would take the paddle to me. Of course I did it again (whatever it was at the time). She marched down the isle from her desk, arms folded, with the paddle in hand, stopped at my desk and told me to stand up to receive the paddling. I asked her why I should stand up to let her hit me with the paddle. She was so frustrated, she went "Oooooo!" and hit me on the top of the head with it, cracking the paddle down the middle. I think she realized she had lost her cool, because she didn't bother me for a while after that. I didn't tell my parents of course, because I would have received worse at home.

[ckelly78z]

Try any of these methods in a modern day school, and get the wrath of the internet falling on your doorstep....the pussification of America is nearly complete. We should all worry about appearences, and feelings more than discipline.

I vaugely remember getting paddled several times, and probably should have been more often.

[T77911S]

passive punishment just doesn't cut it..all the time


I, and my brothers, used to get switched. I would have large whelps on my legs.
of course my brother was always more than happy to go cut one for my mom.

I got paddled once in school. not that the pan is the issue I just don't think any one else but a parent should paddle their kid. not nearly as angry as LWJ about it.

every kid gets a trophy attitude does not help. kids need to learn disappointment.