I have been quite disturbed in the last six months by the attitude taken by certain members of the pc brigade as to the breadth of the term corporal punishment, which now seems to include activities in school which, in my day I would never have considered in this category in a million years.

Just two examples .

First about six months ago at a faculty party in a University I was visiting , we got into discussion of changing attitudes to sport. I gave an example that when I was at school our Headmaster had been unwilling to accept a men's hockey team being formed by the sixth form to play a neighbouring boarding school , who had challenged us. The story was in brief

In our school , (unlike Dr, D's where missing sport seems to be taken seriously), it was almost a matter of honour that unless you were what the Americans call 'a jock' ( or a real wimp) you would attempt all the tricks in the book to avoid games, without any risk of receiving serious punishment It was almost a game of intellectual skill and guile in itself against the relevant staff, For example , in the wet cold winter, the choice was rugby or cross country running ...or games dodging!

However the Headmasters unwillingness to form a hockey team led some of the cool kids and the awkward squad including myself ,to decide to take up the challenge, So to the absolute astonishment of the sports/PE staff a group of 'refusnicks, suddenly started seriously training and attempting to play hockey. We got an offer of help from our sister school's senior hockey coach , who was an England cap and a member of the international coaching squad.. She was horrified at our lack of fitness(!!) and started fitness training ( exercises, running the boundaries etc.,) as well as teaching us the rules. We attracted a large crowd of spectators at our sessions, giggling girls from the neighbouring school as we practised on one of their pitches, our PE staff out of sheer amazement, and others just to watch the freak show! I recalled how the highlight was that June ( the coach) used to give press ups if you ignored or disobeyed her. ...which to the pleasure of the crowd happened every few minutes! When on one occasion I got 20 our senior PE instructor shouted at me that 'he'd waited six years to see me do this!'.The retort from June ' the best man to do a job right is a woman'

I was then rudely interrupted by a young lecturer from the education department, demanding to know when this had occurred and in what sort of school , because of course cp had been outlawed in 1988 or 2000....I said what was he taking about,? He said pressups would count as cp and were a degrading and completely unacceptable punishment ! I was lost for words( and believe me that is very rare).

I put this down as a anachronism , until this weekend, when a close friend of mine made another comment. We agree on most things but disagree on the issue of school control and cp. However, I wasn't in my mind discussing this, but rather telling her that when I visit the States later this summer I had been asked by an old girlfriend who is now a VP of a High School in the Deep South if I would play with her and other members of her school staff , for fun in an 'extreme' veterans dodge ball team in a non serious tounament for charity. ( She also wants to run a book on whether I can pass their compulsory H&S test on the laws of the game, at the requisite 70% on my first attempt ( without cheating! ) !).I used to play as a blocker on a team in England when I was much much younger.

My friend was horrified. That game, she said isn't a game it's pure violence, in a school, nothing more than legalised cp.( Hate to tell her the paddle is still legal in both the State and school I'm visiting) Kids have been forced to play and are scared witless of it. She said PTI's have been known to line kids up and throw the balls at them for informal punishment!???? I laughed and said so what? and thought she was having me on . Not so it seems.. maybe American Way may know more on this than I do , but apparently some school boards and districts have banned Dodge Ball as a sport because it can lead to intentional bruising, fear and pain ( being hit, and knocked over by the ball!!!!!).

Sorry I thought it was a bit of fun , nothing more or less, a bit 'rough' yes, even a bit of a scrap, but fun .Can't be that bad, nearly all the teams are co-ed these days, ours was an exception in the past because few in England wanted to play! Anyway what about American football, or Rugby here, or Australian rules football come to that ? You can pick up bruises.....and cricket balls are hard...... Don't say that too loud to the PC brigade !

How crazy are we.?

Anyone else ever come across these or other 'stupid' definitions of cp?!.

How crazy are we? Try this:

http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2006/10/18/features/feature37.txt

prof.n, you refer to the young lecturer who interrupted you

demanding to know when this had occurred and in what sort of school , because of course cp had been outlawed in 1988 or 2000....

as rude.

Surely he was also extremely stupid, to the point where his presence in the faculty of any educational establishment is quite astonishing. In view of what you have told us about your past career he can scarcely have imagined that you could have been at school after 1988 or 2000. Unless of course you have discovered the elixir of eternal youth.

Another Lurker,

Yes of course, you are right, his comment was stupid, as anyone( even me in thr mirror !!!) looking at myself- in the most flattering light - would have difficulty in seeing a 38 year old (!), which if my maths is correct is the greatest age at which his comment could have been appropriate. - However to be fair to him, he joined the conversation at the end, probably 'attracted' by the word 'pressups' ,and he took the comment 'out of context ', simply hearing that these had been ordered- a rather Pavlovian reesponse.

I thought him rude because he not only pushed into the conversation, but also because he immediately became quite hectoring and definitive.....it is not unusual in University these days - as elsewhere in society- to find stupidity as a close ally of rudeness, but I didn't realise it had permiated so far into the academic ranks .

You may be pleased to know that his HOD was in the group and , treating him more like an arrogant first year student , not new memeber of staff , verbally swatted him like an annoying fly.

But his main concept, still, to use the venacular, left me gobsmacked!

American Way,

Thanks for the unbelievable link, I shall immediately request that the Dodge Ball tornament be relocated to Attleboro, so that we may have the benefot of the new specially soft balls.....

Even where I hope to play in the South the organisers have to warn competitors in writing that the particular rules of play, (Dodgeball....and... Rules????!!!! Yes they've sent me an actual rule book!) allow total body hits , with no 'off limit' shots , which, apparently is not common in the north.........

Oh dear prof.n, I have just, honestly only just, remembered something. I had better come clean and admit it before someone reminds me! I had a thread called 'Prefects: Pupils Punishing Pupils.', currently to be found here. The thread degenerated into 'fun' poster chaos, as many threads did at that time and indeed still do. There were a few interesting and valid contributions, but not as many as I had hoped.

The relevant point for this thread however was my foundation post, at the end of which, attempting to cover all the bases, (something I do all the time but which has recently led to me being accused of being the reincarnation of a former habitué here ) I said:

Even more unlikely would be opposite sex corporal punishments by prefects. In an earlier post, concerning corporal punishment by prefects at my own school, I joked about 'fifth form girls bending over for the captain of the school rugby team', prior to saying that the school was all male. What are the chances of such a male-female pupil-pupil corporal punishment, or its inverse, ever having happened in practice. About the same as the chance of me climbing K2, I'd say! However, someone out there may be able to correct me!

To encourage contributions I'll open up the field a little. As with single-sex schools, many mixed schools had cadet corps or similar 'disciplined' activities. In this type of organisation punishments such as push-ups, runs, drills etc. were often used. Technically at least, these are corporal punishments. Can we produce details of an opposite sex pupil-pupil corporal punishment by including them? Over to you!

So at that time I was certainly advocating what has so dismayed you. That push-ups, runs etc. could come under the scope of corporal punishment. Now I am most certainly not, as you put it, a member of 'the pc brigade', very far from it in fact - unless we take pc to mean 'personal computer', in which case, having dozens of the darn things I'd have to plead guilty. However, partly for the sake of a good argument, and partly because I think I'm correct, I'm going to stand my ground! Push-ups, drills, runs and the like, if imposed for punishment purposes, are corporal punishment. Corporal punishment simply means non-fatal punishment of the body, and that is what those processes are designed to accomplish.

However, while I will defend the above definition of corporal punishment to the end, there does have to be an imposed punitive element involved. No sport voluntarily engaged in, however violent and dangerous, can be corporal punishment. By the same token a sport which forms part of a school or institutional curriculum cannot be corporal punishment, even if the majority of those required to play it would rather not do so.

An example from my own experience would be cross country runs. These were a regular winter alternative on games afternoons if the groundsman wouldn't allow the rugby pitches to be used, or if they were so frozen as to be unsafe. These runs were almost universally hated, and widely evaded by devious means, but, being a normal part of the games curriculum, they could not be considered a corporal punishment, or indeed a punishment of any sort. However, if rugby was played whoever was supervising your rugby game might consider you weren't trying hard enough and make you run a few circuits of the (fairly large) games field. That, I can say with absolute conviction, most certainly was corporal punishment!

Another Lurker,

Thanks for your usual erudite comments. I must admit that you are ,in strict semantic terms , correct! Dear me , an admission of error this early in the week, must be slipping......!!!!

Certainly I empathise about the cross country runs, believe me in my day you felt a certain warm glow of triumph each time you avoided that fate through some increasingly circuitous fabrication!Anyone seeing those in icy mid winter, regardless of their rationale on the curriculum, as anything but punishment,cruel and unusual punishment to boot (!), was in my mind probably certifiable Mind you, also, in my mind ,that went for a good percentage of the PE and games staff on an a priori basis 24/7.......... As for the OTC that was very bad karma indeed.....thank God it was voluntary!!!! .

You also have a good point about running the field. Though I do remember June trying that one on with one of my mates who 'volunteered' for hockey. He had been asked to do press ups sit ups or something similar, and as he had a penchant for more than the odd fag, started coughing, and then feigned collapse , . June wasn't having any, so ordered him to run the field. He limped to the edge and sat down....to the jeers of the onlookers...so she went over to him and threatened to kick him round to cheers ,especially from the girls, at which point he made a feeble attempt to jog about 50 yards..,.she then ran around and in front of him goading him with a string of insults from wimp to aspersions about his future manhood..( yes we learned all about the unladylike language of hockey)....he got about half way round and sat down , at which point she broke into a fast run and 'lapped ' him to a standing ovation.

He never lived it down., and he stopped smoking ( well at least for a while....), something, in his case, repeated caning alone had never achieved.....

Of course, whilst my point may not be semantically correct, it still remains that some of the abolitionists are a bit like big game hunters. Once they have 'bagged' a couple of species to extinction , they need to identify different targets. Next it will be banning tennis balls and shuttlecocks......

prof.n, you say:

some of the abolitionists are a bit like big game hunters. Once they have 'bagged' a couple of species to extinction , they need to identify different targets. Next it will be banning tennis balls and shuttlecocks......

Absolutely correct. From my Junior School days they have already bagged:

• Conkers - risks to the participants too fearful to even list here.
• Playground Ice Slides - as above, plus risks to unsuspecting non-participants. Mind you, I suppose global warming has done its bit as well!
• Jacks - RSI risks, plus danger to onlookers from too vigoorous and incompetent players. Oh, and risk of contamination from contact of pieces with playground surfaces not disinfected three times a day.
• Marbles - as for Jacks, plus extreme contamination dangers when played along gutters on the way to and from school. Plus of course traffic in the latter case, not many vehicles about when I was a lad!
• Leapfrog - Arragh, back injuries and goodness knows what abrasions should participants buckle under the strain.
• Hop Scotch - What's that there eer then? You can't go drawing on pavements like that! The Youth Offending team will ensure you all get the ASBOs you so richly deserve!

And so on through lots more!

A_L

Have observed the local primary school in recent weeks. Girls playing with boys!

All right-it's cricket!

But with a bloody plastic tennis racket & tennis ball. Plus, of course, underarm bowling!

No wonder we can't win the Ashes more than once every 20 years!

I don't expect the little darlings to be facing bouncers from the lads with a hard ball.

They should, however, expect one round the ears with the tennis ball occasionally, otherwise we'll never know if they can play the hook shot!



Steve M

Hi Steve. The regime doesn't seem to be doing the English Ladies Cricket Team too much harm though, does it? I don't follow sport, but I have the impression they've done rather well internationally of late! Maybe it's the lads who should be worried about facing bouncers from the girls if they played with a hard ball!

Hi A_L

Yes, we can also rely on the ladies not to be urinating or puking in the garden at 10 Downing Street if they win the Women's Ashes.

And, by the same token, if the trolls were genuine girls, we might have to watch out on here!


Steve M