I just thought I'd share over the next few weeks some of the material I've been collecting and trawling through in putting together my book on the history of corporal punishment in Australian schools.



I have a question for people here.

If this book is going to see the light of day, I have to convince my publisher that it has the potential to sell a decent number of copies.

My observations on this group and others is that interest in corporal punishment tends to be rather parochial - that is, most people tend to find accounts set locally to them, particularly those in their own country, more interesting and compelling than those from other places. I think material I've shared here in the past would have got more interest and attention if it had been British material (especially English material) rather than Australian. I could make the same observation about others as well - I think Doctor D's posts might have got even more interest if he was in the UK than in Australia as well. This isn't surprising really - most people do find the familiar easier to relate to in comparison to things they see as more alien, and it's entirely understandable if that's the case.

But it means that I have the potential to increase potential sales of my book fairly significantly, if I can come up with a way to make it appeal to a British audience. And logically that shouldn't be too hard. Much of what I am writing about comes from a period where English norms and Australian norms were exceptionally similar - when your average Australian was a British subject and more particularly saw themselves as British as well as Australian. Even more significantly, the majority of the schools I am writing about are the Australian schools that very closely modelled themselves on certain English schools. I suspect the book will be of interest to some English people because they'd see things very similar to what they are aware of - perhaps far more similar than they realise. I mean, I look at what Australia sends over to England for people to see, and I see things like Neighbours and Home and Away, and what type of schools do we see in those? We see Erinsborough High School, and Summer Bay High. Fairly standard state schools. And while two thirds of Australian kids attend schools like those, a third don't - they attend various types of private schools, some of which are nothing like the traditional British model, but some of which are.

The thing is, basically, I have to come up with a way of trying to present the idea to a potential English audience that they'll see something familiar in what I've written. Not necessarily to what they experienced themselves, but something they can recognise. And I've been puzzling over possible ways of doing this.

I'd just like to share a few images below - all of which are of Australian schools (and all of which are fairly recent images, despite the sepia toning).

Basically I'd like your thoughts on them, if you're willing to share them. What do these images evoke when you see them. If you didn't know they were Australian, would you assume they were? Or would you assume something else? Or any other comments.



























(This one immediately above, just for interests sake is St Michael's Grammar School students, and dates from about the time Halfpenny would have been there).

A couple of colour ones as well.

Although much of my oeuvre surrounds contemporary paddling some extend to historical matters that may be of some interests to a British audience. My position involves interacting with college and university librarians and I know professors who are willing to download articles free of charge but limited for dissemination and for reference purposes.

It is refreshing to read your posts. I am more than willing to nominate threads that you may find helpful. I will do my best to help any poster that I deem to be authentic and without a solely prurient interests. I noticed you and prof n had somewhat of a hiatus posting here so Im so glad you are back.

The threads History School CP and Scholars Corner may be of some avail. Ill be the first to buy your book and to flog it in the good sense of the word and I trust others from this estimable Forum will do the same. It is a worthy endeavor and I wish you all the best.

I think material I've shared here in the past would have got more interest and attention if it had been British material (especially English material) rather than Australian. I could make the same observation about others as well - I think Doctor D's posts might have got even more interest if he was in the UK than in Australia as well. This isn't surprising really - most people do find the familiar easier to relate to in comparison to things they see as more alien, and it's entirely understandable if that's the case.


Dean - I agree, I've often thought the informative posts and extensive research provided by you in the past falls short of the credit it deserves, not to say they aren't read but for the reasons you state, they are not local to the majority of readers, It's difficult to relate or comment on information and legislation from another jurisdiction unless something of a knowledge or comparison .


I suspect the book will be of interest to some English people because they'd see things very similar to what they are aware of


It's surprising the numbers of population UK that can't relate to our own system of education, the private V state school. Not such a large gap nowadays but it still exists. Those that have attended one or another kind of school would generally find each alien to the other in may respects, similarities yes, but divided from how they are governed, structured, the emphasis on what makes up the curriculum , through to the traditions and formalities. Similarly I'd view and relate an education system in a different country likewise.


What do these images evoke when you see them. If you didn't know they were Australian, would you assume they were? Or would you assume something else? Or any other comments.


You could be forgiven for thinking your pics were all taken from private sector schools, as we would know in the UK. Your education systems in terms of private being somewhat different.

The classic photo shots appear very similar to UK grammar and private schools a few decades past, few state schools and private sector schools today have maintained those standards , Unfortunately our schools don't appear to hold the same value or importance to uniforms, discipline or formalities they once did.


I have to come up with a way of trying to present the idea to a potential English audience that they'll see something familiar in what I've written. Not necessarily to what they experienced themselves, but something they can recognise.



In terms of a UK audience, It's easier to relate to something you've experienced, witnessed and can associate with. Dependant on an individuals era of schooling and their interest in the subject, your book is more likely to appeal to an older generation (did I just say that) those who have an interest in how things were rather than how things are, largely what can be seen and read, parts of the modern Australian education system seem different to what we've come to expect in the UK today

Having read your contribution in Harold Hoff's publication I wish you all the best with this quest.

Ketta

Hev you thought of self-publishing using www.lulu.com?

DEAN

All those images look non-UK to me. There are more co-ed private/public schools out you way, I believe, so that would point me to Oz straight away.

Also think the uniforms are a little brighter in their choice of colour than over here. Plus the students have the sort of bright-eyed keenness I would associate with vibrant, living institutions(not a term to describe our places!!) and that Doc has spent inculcating for 52 years.

Talking of Doc, you aren't likely to get a better reference library/historical archive on Vic,Oz and even UK attitudes & practices-he's been here on conferences more than once. I'm sure that could be a fascinating combination for a publisher.

As a final thought, can you turn the title or main theme about? Is the perceived following of the UK CP model just one part of a pattern of Australian life?

If that were the case, has it diminished or virtually disappeared & if so when-the end of Bob Menzies' leadership? Trade treaties with the Pacific Rim(if you have them)? I'm just speculating here, Dean, but I think there is a good book here that can cut across UK & Aus readership-you may just need to broaden the theme-possibly use CP as the first volume of several that looks at various aspects of this potential pattern of decolonisation.

And if you ran with that word as your main theme/title/idea, can you pinpoint when Australia became a fully independent country-is it actually a lot later than history books say?

Hope that helps!


Steve

Hi Dean,

I applaud your intention !

I have come across a similar problem with a consortium with whom I am a partner, and who are promoting a film script, with an educational theme , which will appeal to the UK/US market, but also other parts of the English speaking world including Australia.

The problem is the marketeers know so little about anything other than the UK and US. When we mentioned Australia, the only thing they could recall the Australian educational system was ( sorry!) Summer Heights High! - which was recalled as very funny , racist, homophobic , sexist and unfair on disability (not necessarily in that order)!

The pictures I agree in sepia British education in 1959 ( it was a hot summer I'm told - don't get many!)!!!! The colour pics are similar to those used by my old school today except all mixed classes, .There are identities, but as with everything in Britain don't expect them to be around all that long....but now I'm straying.


Good luck

Dean Clarke: I'm sure you are familiar with this by all the research you have done but I found this amusing for slight corporal punsihment. I assume they used that for all similar age students and didn't have it behavior categorized as in the disciplinary matrices. Without giving away material were there ever something akin to matrices or was it always a case by case approach? I know much less about school corporal punishment from outside the USA so I'm limited to archival materials from abroad. Already 1947 they were asking parental permission that didn't happen here until 20 years ago.

I don't recall having seen this before, AW, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. It is interesting.

My immediate reaction (before I've undertaken any special research into it which may or may not be fruitful) is that 'Mr A.G. Redston' (if that is the name - I sometimes have difficulty with older styles of handwriting, something of a problem in my research at times!) was probably not a fully qualified teacher, but was instead a 'craft teacher' - woodwork or metalwork or something similar most likely. A lot of English local education authorities had rules that specified only certain classes of teachers were allowed to use corporal punishment and some of these had specific rules limiting craft teachers only to 'slight corporal punishment'.

(Before we get an influx of people saying "That can't be right because Mr Smith the woodwork teacher at my school..." let me stress that (A) these regulations only applied in some LEAs, not all, (B) while 'craft teachers' didn't have to be fully qualified teachers, some certainly were, (C) even when regulations existed, they weren't always followed, and (D) the term 'slight corporal punishment' doesn't always seem to have been defined very well.)

On the issue of matrices - I certainly know of schools in the UK and Australia which had lists of crimes and set or suggested punishments to go with them. But I don't know of anything so developed as the matrices you describe.

Hi American Way. As a researcher I'm sure Dean will be interested in the above, but I'm just checking that you know that Dean is in Victoria, Australia, and that school was in Camden, London, UK.

I just realize this ia a headmaster giving a teacher the right to administer corporal punishment and not a parent. Which now beggars the question is the teacher permitted to administer the slight corporal punishment while others are allowed to administer harder corporal punishment? Was this distinction common. In New Mexico teachers had to be instructed on how to use the paddle before using it.

I cannt find any trace of Medburn Secodary School on Friends Reunited. It sounds like an old inner city school, many of which were demolished and replaced by larger schools in the 1950s.

I have never come across the term slight corporal punishment before. I would take this to mean the slipper as opposed to the cane. It was normal for canings to be administered by a select few, the head, his deputy and the headmistress for mixed schools. This was the case at my school plus the head of lower school.

There was a metalwork teacher at my school who did not have a degree and could therefore be described as being not properly qualified. ( at speech day he would appear in his old sports jacket whilst the other teachers would be in their best gowns) This metalwork teacher did use the slipper, mostly when helping out at games. He was quite a popular teacher in later years at the school and I remember one boy very proudly showing off the slipper marks in the showers as if it were an honour to be slippered by him.

Hi Declan. You say:

I can't find any trace of Medburn Secodary School on Friends Reunited. It sounds like an old inner city school, many of which were demolished and replaced by larger schools in the 1950s.

This school went through a number of names and a number of changes of function, listed in the link I'll give below. In 1947, when the 'slight corporal punishment' docket was issued it was the Medburn Senior Boys School. In 1951 it became the Sir William Collins School, and then in 1993 the South Camden Community School on whose site the picture is to be found here, together with other historic material pertaining to the Cmmunity College.

The Corpun.com site mentions the item, and links to the Community College page above, on the page here somewhat over a third of the way down.

We have people on this estimable Forum who are very well versed in the regulations of the LCC Education Committee, and subsequently the ILEA, who may comment on the meaning of 'slight corporal punishment'. I note that Colin Farrell wisely doesn't speculate about this. Though well aware of the old maxim about fools and angels I'll guess that for whatever reason the Headmaster needed a trainee or temporary teacher to be able to carry some clout in controlling a class. Presumably the Head didn't regard Mr Redston as competent to be given carte blanche to beat the kids so he probably told him what was acceptable and emphasised that by the 'slight' on his chitty as a reminder. I doubt if the actual regulations of the LCC defined 'slight corporal punishment' though!

I can't give a full reference to this as I don't have a copy of this book in my library (yet) and the one I access is a long way from here, but this 'snippet view' from google books is relevant:



It's from 'A Survey of Rewards and Punishments in Schools' which was published in England in 1952. It was a massive analysis of regulations and practices relating to corporal punishment at the time. The section this snippet comes from was a long listing attempting to look at which regulations applied in which LEAs.

The whole sentence reads: "Slight corporal punishment shall be inflicted by a Handicraft instructor only after he has had charge of a centre for an unbroken period of 3 years"

Whether this was the relevant regulation in the case of the school in question, I don't know - 'A Survey...' deliberately does not say which LEAs particular regulations applied in. But it does illustrate that regulations existed using that terminology and one possible reason why such terminology was used.

Hi Dean Clarke. A most interesting item, thank you. I knew I was taking a chance with the fools and angels bit! The period is of course exactly right, and I think you probably have the correct answer. A school of that type (senior boys school) would I think have had woodwork and metalwork classes, which presumably would be classed as handicrafts.

Declan indicates what I think would be the reason for treating handicrafts instructors differently when he said in his post above:

There was a metalwork teacher at my school who did not have a degree and could therefore be described as being not properly qualified.

In 1947 I doubt if many teachers in a boys school like Medburn would have a degree, but they would have had teacher training. The handicrafts instructors probably wouldn't have had such training, just training in their own speciality. I would guess that this is why handicraft instructors were not regarded as having the necessary competence to use full corporal punishment in appropriate circumstances.

It would certainly be interesting to know what the official definition of slight corporal punishment was!

Are you able to say please, without too much trouble, if it is mentioned whether Domestic Science teachers could also have authority to administer 'slight' corporal punishment after a certain period in post? I lack expertise with Google Books and try as I might I cannot make it show me the volume. In 1947 Domestic Science teachers would I think have dealt exclusively with girls and they may not have required the sanction of mild CP, their charges being possibly better behaved. (I have to say 'possibly' for fear of Jenny! )