so im wondering ... did any one have teachers who went kinda easy on them when it came to cp, you know didnt give the max or didnt give it that hard and went pretty light ... or eased up cuz they could tell it was starting to hurt or make the kid cry. seems some parents do, sure teachers must be no different.

just thought id contribute some positive question ... stories from the 21st century outside of the american south or from australian assistant headmasters need not apply.

hi,to "from me", yes i have seen teachers go easy quite a few times,it happened to me and quite a few others at various times. i can tell if you want chapter and verse.

I'll reply to any thread I think I can make a meaningful contribution to.

These really are two different questions. I don't generally believe in going easy on a pupil if you're caning him. In the sense that I believe you need to make sure it has a significant impact on them, in simple terms, you need to make sure it hurts. Otherwise, most of the time, it's a waste of time doing it.

But that doesn't mean you always 'give the max'. In fact, I only give the maximum in a minority of cases, sometimes I only give one or two strokes. It depends on the seriousness of the offence. But if I give two strokes, it will be two firm and effective strokes. If I give one, it will be one effective stroke. I rarely go lightly (nor do I use the maximum force I could - you really don't need to. A very hard stroke of a cane doesn't really hurt any more than one of moderate force because the human body can only comprehend a particular level of pain before the receptors are overwhelmed - a very hard stroke is more likely to cause damage without really doing anything else and so should be avoided. It also reduces accuracy.

There are occasional exceptions - normally involving a situation where more than one boy is being punished. I try to do my best to treat boys as individuals but when more than one boy has committed the same offence at the same time, it can be hard not to administer the same punishment. There are some cases in that situation where I will 'pull' some strokes somewhat, if I have one boy who can take the punishment they really deserve, and another for whom that would be somewhat excessive. But that's pretty rare.

Do I ease up because of the boy's response? Sometimes, yes, though again, not that often. I do my best to decide a fair penalty and hand it out. I don't like making a boy cry but if he does, he does, that's not a reason in itself to hold back. It's meant to hurt and I wouldn't be doing it if I wasn't prepared for it to hurt. But occasionally, I do feel that I've misjudged a situation after I've started. A boy's reaction may be disproportionate to what I intended for example. In that case, I will often hold back. If I have to - if the reaction is really excessive - I'll abort the caning, but I prefer not to do that. Our appeals process means a boy knows how many strokes he is going to get and if I can I avoid stopping early, because that tends to undermine the punishment.

Despite the assertions of some people, I don't like using the cane. And sometimes it's extremely hard to cane a boy and it's very tempting to go easy on him. In the long run, experience has taught me that it's not in the boys benefit to go easy on him, long term. Better he gets a proper caning now than comes to believe it's not a big deal and winds up being more likely to get another one later on.

Abusive dinosour