The other thread was getting a little thin. I've pasted the comment I wish to respond to.

 

As for the schools that use corporal punishment in your area, they bear virtually no resemblance to the type of schools using corporal punishment in Victoria, Australia. The schools that use it here are private schools, often expensive private schools, providing a highly academic education. These are schools that parents choose to pay for, rather than send their children to the free schools provided by the state, some of which are excellent schools, and some of which, are truly dire.

I certainly was not seeking to 'manipulate' your statement about choice. But it is a simple fact that we are a school that people choose and they pay a considerable amount of money for that choice. And that does have implications for this issue. A child whose parents don't give a damn about their education. A child whose parents can't afford to pay for their education. A child in an isolated rural town where there's only one school nearby. These are the children with no choices about their education. And if people want to get exercised about kids having no choices, that's where their efforts should be developed.

Do we rely on fear to get our students to behave? Yes, it's one of a number of things we rely on. We also rely on pride. Self interest. Self motivation. The pleasure principle. Praise. Concrete rewards. Colours systems. Prefectures and other responsibilities. Intrinsic rewards. A good old fashioned pat on the back.

We rely on a lot of things to get our students to behave.

And if all of those above (and that's only a partial list) fail and fear is all that's left - then I'd rather have fear available than face the alternative of having run out of ideas.

And when it comes to fear - and it does come down to fear sometimes - we have students who fear different things. Detention deters some kids because that is what they fear. Suspension deters some kids because that is what they fear. A good talking to deters some kids because that is what they fear. A phone call home to the parents deters some kids because that is what they fear.

And for quite a few, what they fear is a sore backside.

I'd prefer they behaved because of something other than fear.

But I'd prefer they behaved out of fear than didn't behave at all.
 

"I'd prefer they behaved because of something other than fear.

But I'd prefer they behaved out of fear than didn't behave at all."

I submit that in the type of independent, elite, private school in question if the teachers and administration cannot get the paying students with invested parents to behave without hitting them with sticks on the bottom that it says more about the quality of those running the school and the schools approach to discipline than it does about the misbehaving students.

I do not prefer that children behave out of fear for any reason. I prefer that when they are not behaving that all the responsible adults involved find ways to make proper behavior more rewarding for the student than misbehaving. Given the students at these types of schools, doing that really shouldn't be all that difficult for those with any bit of creativity.

However, in Dominum's school, given its caning record and the unwillingness of those in authority to even fathom the possibility of life in that institution without beating boys, using the easy, violent, expedient, outdated, traditional way of inflicting pain with a stick to coerce behavior that does not promote good choice in students based on ethical and/or moral considerations, is simply a given.

Ah, the fallacy that because our school is an expensive private one that its students are easy to deal with rears its ugly head.

I will certainly concede that we do have a high proportion of pupils who are reasonably easy to teach. That probably accounts for seventy percent of our pupils and it does make things easier overall.

But the other thirty percent or so are quite a different matter.

Not all our students have 'invested parents'. Some of them have parents who have chosen to send them to an expensive independent school because they believe that by paying large amounts of money, they have the right to expect us to raise their sons for them, and so therefore they don't need to do it. Just for the moment consider the type of resentment that that student can bring into a school, and direct against the only targets that actually seem to care about the fact that he's hurting.

Then we have the parents - often of limited means - who choose our school with its high fees out of desperation because their son has already been failed by other schools - sometimes the state school system, sometimes other independent schools. We get some of the worst discipline problems that other schools have failed to deal with handed to us - and quite often we don't know this is being done, because the parents are so desperate, they don't tell us about the childs problems until they are enrolled, and their previous school was so eager to get shot of the problem, they give the child a glowing reference.

These are only a minority of our students, certainly, but they present serious issues. I will readily accept that we are in a much better position than disadvantaged state schools typically are in terms of students with problems, but we are actually in a much worse position than the typical mid range independent school.

The easy solution - the solution many other schools adopt - is to cut off the damaged students. To get rid of them. To expel them before they cause problems for our good students. That's the solution that most independent schools that don't have serious problems adopt to make sure they don't have serious problems. And in my view, it's an immoral and utterly wasteful solution.

Instead, we keep these students in our school - students who other schools have failed, students whose parents have abdicated their responsibility to, and we do our absolute best to help them.

And while I do concede that there are other schools with worse discipline issues to deal with, in my experience, most of those schools, even if they want to help their students, find themselves aiming at a pretty low standard.

"I want to stop this student going to prison." "I want this student to pass high school."

We set out standards much higher.

We don't settle for good enough to survive. We aim for the best that you can be. With all our students.

We don't kick them out because they are problems. We embrace the problem and try to fix it.

And we nearly always succeed.

You think the way we do it is wrong, fine. But don't assume that we're not dealing with very real problems.

We get the kids other schools fail with. Only some of them. Only those whose parents can get the fees together, and who care enough to do so. But we get them.

Dominum is without doubt the most convincing of all our 'so-called' schoolteachers and headmasters but he's almost certainly a fraud.

He's very articulate and very intelligent and therein may lie the proof of his non-genuineness.

No currently-serving teacher with any intelligence would dare run his own CP site on the Internet, would he?

The 'site' in question is a forum that was set up in the hope of providing a serious forum where the issues and practices surrouding corporal punishment in schools could be discussed. It is fully moderated to keep the worst of the fetish fantasies off it (although because I only block postings if I am virtually certain they are fantasies and I give people the benefit of any doubt at all, fantasies certainly do appear on it at times) and to avoid it becoming full of off topic posts such as those that appear on this forum very regularly.

The use of corporal punishment in schools is not illegal here, it is not banned in independent schools, nor is it particularly controversial at the moment.

Why on Earth wouldn't I set up such a forum?

The internet has been a boon for education, and a major feature of that is the ability to discuss educational issues with a much wider range of people than it was possible to do so with in the past. The schoolcp forum was set up because this was one issue that I couldn't find any forums for discussion which weren't very obviously fetish fronts.

I set up the forum I thought would be useful because nobody else had.

Thank you Lotta for having the fortitude of you convivtions and spepping into the frey with the best comment I've read so far about this particular thread.

"Dominum is without doubt the most convincing of all our 'so-called' schoolteachers and headmasters but he's almost certainly a fraud".

You have said what others have thought. It goes to prove that even here we have our fair share of one handed typists.

It's been said before, and people can believe what they like.

I am genuine, and I really wonder why so people find that hard to believe. Are people so ignorant about what happens outside their own limited field of experience, that they cannot believe anything they haven't personally experienced?

If that's what their education has lead them to, then it makes me doubly glad, we educate based on what we believe to be best, rather than based on societal 'norms'.

Next time I am in Melbourne I shall try to meet Dominum and try out one of his canings. If this all checks out, and presumably if I can satisfy Dominum as to my bonafides, I shall ask him to allow me to visit his school on the understanding that I won't disclose its identity.

On reflection, I don't suppose this will prove anything as I might also be a fiction.

As I don't cane adults, nor do I do so on request, you won't be trying out one of my canings.

It always amuses me how some people on here can find a reason to call a contribution to this forum fraudulent simply because it doesn't correspond with their personal prejudices. 'A closed mind is ... ', well you all know that truism.
And before you reply with some venomous comment, Lottta, we have all heard it before, over and over again, and it's getting very boring.

Doctor D, the reason some of us have doubts, I think, is the extraordinarily high number of canings you report. The small amount of cp that survives in schools anywhere is generally limited to very occasional use, and perhaps a couple of strokes. I would find it straightforward to believe that a few independent schools in Australia have still retained legal cp at that marginal level - but your school's levels are much closer to, say, the amount reported by Joe Mercurio in the 60s in his study of Christchurch Boys' High. May I ask, are people in Melbourne at large aware that they have a high-caning school in their midst (as I understand it your school is large and fairly prestigious and must have a high profile) ? And can you tell us whether your teaching colleagues and your Headteacher are happy that you run the forum ?

This is not intended as a scornful or dismissive comment - but merely a rather puzzled one !

In what often appears to be an ever-changing world, Danny's legendary gullibility is a reassuring reminder that some things never change.

Lotta, would you be good enough to tell me how many and which experiences of CP related on this forum you have ever believed. You are always saying all these things happened to someone at some time but NEVER to anyone who claims so here. I am not gullible enough to know most stories here are fantasies but I certainly never dismiss one unless I am certain its a fraud. This particular thread may well be a pack of lies but no one has the right to call this contributor a liar - including you.
The critical contribution above yours is very good because it's a reasonably worded query from someone who has great doubts about the story's authenticity. It would be nice to read something similar from you once in a while.

The fact is that almost everyone on almost every CP-fetish site in the world is either a liar and/or a fantasist who delights in deceiving gullible fools or a gullible fool who delights in believing the lies and the fantasies.

I say 'almost' because we would be dealing with a statistical miracle if nobody had ever posted a true story on such a site.

Which stories are true?

It's impossible to say with certainty but I think we can be fairly confident the truth lies in the mundane stories rather than in the 'interesting' ones.

Dominum's stories, like George's, are arguably not incredible when judged individually but in George's case the sheer number of canings defies belief - together, of course, with George's obvious obsession with small boys' bare bottoms.

I have never been near Dominum's site but, if his collection of tales is as extensive as George's, he is probably as fake as George is.

I still maintain that no serving schoolteacher in Australia would dare be associated with, let alone run, run a CP website - as not even the dimmest Aussie would believe the teacher's interest was entirely academic.

I do not believe that we do have an "extraordinarily high level of canings."

Certainly we do not treat the cane as a last resort, only to be used in the most extreme circumstances, but the numbers caned today are a fraction of the numbers that were caned even twenty years ago at this school.

You mention Mercurio. At the time Mercurio carried out his study of caning at Christchurch Boys' High School that school had a little over 1000 students. That makes it a little smaller than my school, though not by a huge amount.

Punishment records at CBHS were incomplete, but Mercurio estimated the number of canings at that school as being somewhere around 1500 a year in the year he was there.

Over the last five years, the average number of canings at this school each year has been a fraction over 250.

By today's standards, I assume we are a high caning school but compared to the past, we use it very little. An average of little more than once a day (less than once a day taking into account we do have some boarders here on weekend and they do earn a disproportionate number of canings) in a school with something over 1000 students.

I don't think it's that high, although I would be delighted if it was lower.

Are people in Melbourne aware that they have such a high-caning school in their midst? Not many of them are, no. But to be honest, most people in Melbourne seem to be under the totally false impression that corporal punishment has been banned in schools here for close to a quarter of a century. When it comes to education and schooling, Victorians are rather parochial. Many seem to assume that the way state schools function is the way all schools function. It's a rather odd outlook given that a third of children are now at private schools, but unless people are parents of one of those children, they generally have no idea of what is going on. And even if they do... I was questioned on the weekend by a mother of one of our younger boys who wanted to know how her son had been able to buy a can of coke from our tuck shop, given that such drinks have been banned in schools. I had to inform here that the ban only applied to government schools.

My Headmaster knows about my e-mail list, but only a few of my other colleagues do. Their views are mixed on it.

You've never been to my 'site' (which is actually a yahoogroups forum rather than a website as such, it's an e-mail discussion list) yet you make immense assumptions about the veracity of what I say.

If I have time, after school today, I will post at least one 'case study' drawn from my forum, based on posts I sent to that forum, to this one, so you and others can acutally get a fair idea of the type of things I discuss.

If you want to decide I'm a fraud, fine, but I'd rather you made that judgement based on what I have actually talked about and discussed rather than what you seem to imagine I must have discussed.

Most cases are very mundane, in fact. But there are occasionally interesting ones and in nearly five decades of teaching there's been some very interesting ones. The case study I intend to post is probably my most interesting relatively recent case (having taken place in 2005) but it is an exceptional one. There certainly isn't an interesting story associated with every single caning.

Lotta starts with the obvious (to everyone) statement :
'The fact is that almost everyone on almost every CP-fetish site in the world is either a liar and/or a fantasist who delights in deceiving gullible fools or a gullible fool who delights in believing the lies and the fantasies'
He/she then goes on:
'I say 'almost' because we would be dealing with a statistical miracle if nobody had ever posted a true story on such a site'
Thank you!
'Which stories are true?'
He/she then says
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY WITH CERTAINTY!
And yet he/she WITH CERTAINTY has condemned every single one where the relater says he/she had such an experience! No reason given, no doubts, no 'maybe's or 'perhap's about them. No, each and every one is a lie.

Lotta, you are an exeptionally clever and extremely witty person but oh so sad! I wonder what your friends (if you have any, of course) feel about your negative, unbelieving, attitude to life. I pity you, I really do.

I would prefer to be gullible any time.

Sorry, Big John, the above is obviously from me.