Mr Peter Harrison-Mattley after a cursory glance online shows he taught at Liverpool Boys High school and Merrylands High School (coed). Lisa in Facebook looking back referred to her English teacher as a crank old man. I'm pretty sure judging by her youthful appearance caning would not have been going on in her school at that time. I am in no position of judging but her writing but if she were suejected to Dr Dominum's cane she may have written more better.

Spitting at the top of the staircase would merit a paddling. The other offenses listed at the bottom would not unlike the running list from what I can gather from the disciplinary matrices. Quite apart from corporal punishment I am in the process of ascertaining which matrix would be the best to choose from for my ongoing handbook to list under the code of conduct. Any help from this estimable Forum would be appreciated.

While I could never honestly describe caning as enjoyable, it is sometimes satisfying in a way and I wonder if that is what Mr Harrison-Mattley was expressing. I've just had cause to cane a boy for a particularly nasty little piece of bullying and I can't think of any other punishment that would have come close to dealing with what he'd done in way that would have satisfied my own feelings in the case, let alone the feelings of his victim, and his victims parents. Perhaps more importantly though, I can't think of any other punishment that would have driven home to the bully himself the absolutely unacceptable nature of what he had done while at the same time also left him in the position that from tomorrow morning we can start again with him, genuinely, having the chance to put the worst decision he ever made behind him.

Did he mean enjoy in the sense of relieving anger kind of happy or being happy to have caning as an option or a sadistic glee? Anger is something you can be self vigilant about and try hard to root out and school vigilance is needed to spare students from a sadistic teacher to root them out. He sounds like he is more than happy having the option but to relieve his anger. IMHO he doesn't sound like he enjoys teaching much.

Did he mean enjoy in the sense of relieving anger kind of happy or being happy to have caning as an option or a sadistic glee? Anger is something you can be self vigilant about and try hard to root out and school vigilance is needed to spare students from a sadistic teacher to root them out. He sounds like he is more than happy having the option but to relieve his anger. IMHO he doesn't sound like he enjoys teaching much.

Is there any requirement that he should?

I love teaching. And I think it's ideal that a teacher should be one who loves it. But I'm not at all sure I'd love it, if I'd spent my career teaching in one of Australia's typical garden variety secondary schools. Fortunately that wasn't my fate. But it is the fate of the majority of secondary school teachers.

Now, I am a good teacher (I don't believe in false modesty) and I've have been a good teacher even in one of those garden variety secondary schools, but I doubt I'd have enjoyed teaching. Would I have stayed though. I'd like to think I would have - probably not as long as I have in my current school, where I've stayed on beyond normal retirement age - doing that in a school you didn't love would be going well beyond the call of duty. But, yes, I think I'd have stayed whether I enjoyed it or not, as long as I believed I was making a positive difference for some of the students. A teacher isn't there to enjoy themselves, they're there for the kids. Or they should be.

Click here to see a video file.

(I am not privy to the secrets of getting a video to play here, but that link will take you to one of the most powerful teaching related scenes I've ever seen in a movie, and though I do love teaching, the reason for doing it is the one I think summed up in that scene. You don't have to love it, you don't even have to like it. You do it for the kids or you'd be better off not doing it at all.

The name "Harrison-Mattley" was one that was familiar to me, for some reason, and I couldn't figure out why. I thought maybe I'd met him at a conference or something, but digging around on the net I've discovered why I know the name and it might explain a bit about the man. He wrote an article in 1985 on discipline in a journal called ACES Review (which I was a keen reader of, and which I also contributed to).

ACES was the Australian Council for Educational Standards. It was a small body, something of a fringe body (and I say that as somebody who was a member of it, although not one who was blind to what it was). ACES was explicitly and deliberately set up to fight what its members saw as a decline in educational standards caused and fostered by the incessant and unquestioning promotion of supposedly 'progressive educational ideas' throughout Australia's education system. Ideas like getting rid of competitive examinations, eliminating any type of ability grouping, shutting down selective schools (the equivalent that existed in some Australian states of the British grammar schools that were once much more common than they are today). I won't go into all the details, but we were basically educational conservatives and traditionalists who wanted to preserve what we saw as important features of education in the face of an increasing onslaught and attack by trendy left wing academics and educational theorists whose ideas were being presented in teachers colleges as if they were proven fact, rather than radical theories and which were being forced on schools and teachers who didn't want anything to do with them. From the perspective of thirty years later, not all the ideas were bad ones - but far more were than weren't.

Very few teachers from the state system got involved in ACES - mainly because doing so was likely to be rather bad for your career. For Harrison-Mattley to have been writing in ACES Review, to say nothing of making comments that lead to articles like the one presented here, and a couple of others I've found, while teaching in a state high school in New South Wales - he must have felt extremely strongly about what he was saying. Teaching at Liverpool High and Merrylands High - I very much doubt he enjoyed it. I suspect he stayed not because he enjoyed it, but because he was passionate about trying to do what he believed was best for his students, whether he found it was enjoyable or not. I can say, politically, he'd probably have been much happier teaching in an independent school, and I can also say that looking at some of the things he had published relating specifically to his area of teaching, he probably could have walked into most of Sydney or Melobourne's independent schools and got a job easily. The fact he didn't - I'm guessing he was trying to save the state system - at least that's how he would have seen it. Fighting for his students. Even if he didn't like the environment. That's something I greatly respect.

Yes, I did secretly enjoy the canings I got in school. But the more important thing is to be punished at the right time in the right manner.

Our Headmistress surely enjoyed giving the cane to a naughty girl like me.

Doc Said:--


A teacher isn't there to enjoy themselves, they're there for the kids. Or they should be.


If I wore one, I'd take my hat off to you, Doc. I NEVER heard those words or saw that attitude shown once in my schooldays;only wished there were people who cared!


That's cheered me up considerably-well done!




Steve

Doctor Dominum has made two thoughtful and challenging posts on the 5th Oct

First two important but simple points.

Dr. Dominum refers to the possibility for the miscreant who suffers the cane to 'start again' almost straight away. This 'cleansing' of the relationship between teacher and student is probably one of the most attractive features of a well managed cp regime. Unlike other punishments which are drawn out , look , for example at some of American way's matricies ; the non cp route offers days of drawn out punishment over days hour at a time , or the total waste of a Saturday, possibly at least a week after the offence, or wasted 'suspension'. The immediacy of cp both to the offence and its signification of closure is one of its more appealing features.

Of course that requires the correct regime, immediacy of accountability, and never to cane for 'trivial' offences ( one of my main objections to many matrix based US paddling regimes). My first caning brought together a number of offences , all minor or mid level, under the heading of 'general attitude'. Miss F's reaction I remember as if it were yesterday,' Look, its all behind you now, we have a clean sheet , you can only go forward. ..not ' You've a couple of Saturday detentions....after that six hours and if you've done adequate imposition for me .in only two and a half weeks we can put it behind us and go forward.' Come off it Paula , is that all that better, or kinder(?) than a few minutes of well deserved agony that's soon over and done with ?

Which makes most sense.?


Secondly on the issue of why teach. Of course you have to do it for the students , and that is its own reward. It is those teachers who did it for other reasons, whether power, holidays ( because some did see that as an attraction , and believe me some did no work during vacations). Its amazing how many bad teachers at University are bad simple because they don't like students.......and don't want to like them or teaching them.........

The third issue he raises, that fascinates me is about educational theory and practice in the late 70's early 80's the root of modernism - and is far more complicated so I will post it separately below .

Good video and I take the point , hey but to me the VERY best teaching scene ever filmed is Brother Leon versus Bailey in the Keith Gordon film of Cormier's Chocolate War (M.C. E. G. /MGM 1988). Can't find it on U Tube!! Though I wouldn't recommend Brother L's methodology....far too dangerous in more ways than one! And here the ends don't justify the means........!!!!

Ive argued this before and I hope not ad nauseum. Perhaps it would be best put the category trivial offense in a context. Matrices are not robotic. A student who has never been a problem forgets to take his gum out of his mouth and upon entering the building and its off to the office to be paddled. It aint going to happen. No parent would put up with that and the all the kids, teachers and administrators (except for a few super legalistic ones) would say give him a break.

Why have matrices if youre going to be that flexible? Good question. Deterrence is something that has to be black and white. The matrix is a way of letting the student knows you choose the behavior and I choose the consequence and you are liable to be paddled. When I have gum on my soles and a few other close violations and I'm up against a defiant attitude it's good to have it on the books though. If you know you it's on the books you may be deterred and if you offend you can't be sure of getting a break.

Matrices are doing the kids a favor by giving them a heads up and the teachers must love it to stay as an oprion because their time isn't being tied up punishing the kids the non CP way.

Who would you want your youngster entrusted to Renee or in the hands of the brave new world teachers with their cookie cutter new theory. Another victory for Paula and check out what TWP thinks of Ohio Governor Ted Strickland? There were only a handful of schools districts that paddled in Ohio and Strickland dismissed them. What would they know how to educate their kids? Let's stop CP and save them from their backward thinking.

Not A Southern Handbook

Dr. Dominum writes :-


I won't go into all the details, but we were basically educational conservatives and traditionalists who wanted to preserve what we saw as important features of education in the face of an increasing onslaught and attack by trendy left wing academics and educational theorists whose ideas were being presented in teachers colleges as if they were proven fact, rather than radical theories and which were being forced on schools and teachers who didn't want anything to do with them. From the perspective of thirty years later, not all the ideas were bad ones - but far more were than weren't





Within this statement lies one of the most profound truths of our current educational problems : and I speak from experience on both sides of the arguments ( barricades?).

Let me try to explain. Please bear with me for much will become clear.

I graduated in the late 70's : in Britain ( winter of discontent, please turn out the lights etc.), at the zenith in some senses of 'radical education' My first two teaching jobs, part time whilst studying for Ph.D. were in an established University department of Sociology ; and in a Catholic Teacher Training College. I want to concentrate for a moment on the latter post. Something a little funny....if you read my c.v. carefully you would think I hadn't quite got the dates right. For it appears I took up a post in this latter department a good two to three months BEFORE I graduated.....Typo ? No I'm afraid not.

You see in the late 70's there were a good number of Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education ( Teacher training) all over Britain. Filling staff positions with suitably qualified applicants wasn't always easy. What's more the , ( in those days) non University sector was quality controlled by a number of bodies , including the Universities themselves. So what the Universities did , they expected the colleges in which they played a validation role to do the same. The non university accrediting body of the day -CNAA- was a fledgling , and the universities were, especially in teacher training , predominant.

So you see the College I first taught at was 'in hock' to the validating university. Now its social sciences programmes were , therefore, scrutinised by the university ; by the very department in which I was a then 'top' undergraduate student. The college became aware that the university courses on sociology of education, covered certain 'continental' and 'U.S.' theorists that they did not. . So how to boost the curriculum without engaging staff in retraining- hire in a body....me to be precise......but hang on he's only a third year student....yes but he's about to graduate and we expect great things....and he's on the promise of a PhD next year so you could get him for up up to four years.

And so it came that I entered my fist teaching appointment...all be it part time. Now most staff in Catholic Teacher education were pretty long in the tooth.....many in religious orders, and well , frankly,in those days, a little given to authoritarianism...and those who were not wore suits , sports coats.....and me ( shoulder length hair ; jeans; sweat shirt normally proclaiming something for which a student in Mississippi would get paddled wearing today ).No wonder I was asked on numerous occasions what I was doing in the Senior Common Room.....sometimes I wasn't quite sure myself.!!

But I got on with the students. How did I teach? As I thought you would teach to respect the students. Informally sat on the desk. Never have the 'up' on anyone, be 'cool' man......they liked it , lapped it up, flexible about deadlines...yeah , late/ come in sit down....don't like the essay topic OK lets negotiate something else........ and for all I know aped it in school...talk about the blind leading the blind! You couldn't blame me ...I taught how I would have liked , I believed to have been taught, not how you OUGHT to be taught.......A class of 15 year old boys would have ripped me to shreds!

Well this might be all right . After all to be honest I knew my stuff , every trendy theorist .from Illich through Althusser to Sartre. Gramsci on education? Backwards , forwards or sideways?But hang on.....teacher training isn't just about THEORY is it ? These guys are actually going to have to TEACH for REAL. Moreover I was teaching 'L plate' teachers and guess what I'd NEVER stood in front of a class in my life....... until I stood in front of them...but hang on I had experience...two student sit ins..., member of the Student union executive, member of the NUS executive, treasurer of the Area student organisation.....sweet! And I could debate until the cows came home......As Dylan says

'With a soldier's stance I aimed my hand at those mongrel dogs who teach...fearing not I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preached....'

So what in my University department which had a specialism in education , all of one staff member had been an actual teacher- and he had resigned after shopping his school to the press for STOPP....nice guy, very bright, but hardly representative of the teaching profession. ! Within a year I was teaching in University , Polytechnic and two Teacher training Colleges (different denominations so you couldn't escape!). .......for the colleges someone with a first in modern sociological theory was a real find........

Now don't get me wrong , no one was short changed. I just think the colleges may have taken their eye off the ball. .and it wasn't just them. My first full time University appointment was sealed when the Head of Department said ...'I wanted you , you see we have no one whose even read , let alone understood Althusser.......and this had been identified by internal validators as a weakness.....'Mind you on day one i was challenged in the staff bar by two classically atired engineers...plus a change

Knowledge was power, and certain knowledge was very valuable. I was just in the left place at the right time......

What about my views on cp you ask. Well no problem , because I soon understood there was a party line. The fact that I didn't toe it wasn't a problem. You see I was an unfortunate.....privileged education, suffered it , therefore falsely conscious of the issue. The fact I didn't campaign for abolition demonstrated it had damaged me......I was to be pitied not pilloried.More so if i thought it had done any good...I needed therapy Because theory speaks for itself. So long as it is internally consistent ......

Dr. Dominum might now be wringing his hands in despair....but wait there is light at the end of the tunnel !!

I did learn , in the school of hard knocks.....try treating first year accountancy students doing social science as liberal studies that way.........what when YOUR students don't WANT to work? Who was better prepared for life the comprehensive kids or the privately educated, and what did that tell you about teaching programmes, methods and styles.....What's more important popularity with the students or your course profiles.....well my career tells you my changing answers. .......and lots of other stops on the road to Damascus!

In the 70's I liked writing trendy titles such as ' Breaking the barriers' ( which ones? Doesn't matter , any old ones will do) and talking of innovative non class biased assessment ! In the nineties I was reading the black papers with respect, and valuing the ability to determine the best through traditional examinations. ! We all grow up....eventually.


To learn to teach is a long journey and involves , yes that strange thing 'maturity' . Good teachers learn, bad teachers stay the same . If you don't believe me just read the back catalogue of TWP. You know Renee's changed quite a bit with seniority, and self reflection. !

Final word. I just hope I've helped more people on the road than I've damaged.........if I have I'm satisfied. .

Hui american Way !

I tend to have sympathy with that position . a couple of weeks ago discussing this in Texas my friend Jxxxxx( Miss f ) said that if she 'uncruched' all the 'pinkies'( punishment/demerit requests) she 'd thrown in the waste paper basket in her career they could repair route 69........

All fine and good, but for acting like that she had some fights with legalistic staff. but yes, you don't paddle a kid who is straight 'A's and clean sheet because he/she blows a bubble gum , come on aren't we all human? Don't we all deserve one free bite!