When I was in secondary school where CP was not allowed I used to see teachers who sometimes pulled a boy's ear or smacked his legs, we wore shorts as part of uniform in those days, at least in junior classes. These 'minor' CP incidents usually happened in the playground during mid-day breaks when there would be hundreds of boys running about with just one or two teachers overseeing them. I wonder if these 'minor' CP incidents were allowed or just overlooked. Maybe because no instrument like a cane or ruler was used, as in the case when I was in primary school where anything went.
Recalling these incidents I think they were reasonable if you want to keep some form of discipline among rowdy boys. In my opinion these mild forms of CP should be allowed in schools today because we have gone from one extreme to the other, where in many schools discipline has gone out of hand with no suitable punishments for misbehaviour.

What is and isn't corporal punishment isn't always easy to decide. So I'm going to look at this from the perspective I have to. What does the law say where I am.

Grabbing a child by the ear would either be considered a form of corporal punishment, or a form of restraint.

If it's corporal punishment, it wouldn't pass muster as an accepted form under the human rights guidelines we need to follow.

As for restraint, unless the ear is somehow the only thing you can reach, I doubt that would be considered defensible nowadays either.

Standards have changed. Just because a school is still allowed to use controlled corporal punishment in certain forms, doesn't mean all the old practices of the past is permitted.

Remember my first year at grammar, where our maths teacher left at the end of term 1. He drove a bubble car, so may have been trapped in it in his garage & just died!!

Seriously, we then had a student teacher with the appropriate name of Prime, who was fond of ear clipping, flicking & pulling.

I may've been just shy of my 12th birthday, but I complained to the Lower School Head-who sent me to the Head. That was quite awesome, but when they found out Prime was doing this all the time when people got sums wrong etc., action was taken & he went rapido.

The Head was not prepared to tolerate what he called abusive behaviour from anyone to anyone in his school. This was in early 1964.


Steve

Hi Willy. The fascinating subject of ear pulling - not! We had an entire thread on it once, which you'll find here. The title of the thread is based on some sort of rhyming slang.

In an effort to raise the tone of said thread which was mainly populated by what have come to be known as 'Fun Pesters' (Alan Turing © 2009) I introduced the topic of Murgha (sometimes Murga) punishment, apparently once (and possibly still) widely practised in schools on the Indian Subcontinent. Doctor Dominum has, I seem to recall, complained recently here or elsewhere about someone wasting his time with a lengthy email on this subject. It wasn't me, honest!

However, the dedicated aficionado of ear pulling should certainly be aware of this rather exotic variant in which the unfortunate victim is required to pull his or her own ears. Least you find yourself in that category, Willy, here is a brief description courtesy of Wikipedia:

Murga (also spelled murgha) is a form of punishment mostly used in the Indian subcontinent, i.e India, Pakistan, etc. Murga means "Adult male chicken" in Hindi. This is a punishment in which the punished person takes the position of a "murga". This is done by squatting, and then bringing the arms between the legs and firmly holding the ears. It can be very painful after a few minutes. Murga can also be used as a position for spanking, thought it is rarely used.

There are many variants of the murga punishment. Some of them are:

Standing Murga In standing murga, the bottom of the person should be held as high as possible. This is considered a severe punishment and can get very very painful after 10 minutes.

Sitting Murga In sitting murga, the person is allowed to rest their bottom on their arms, i.e the bottom can be brought down. This is milder than the standing murga, and can be bearable for longer durations.

Murga Parade In murga parade, the person in addition to being in murga position, has to walk. It can be either standing or sitting murga. However, more distance can be covered if it is done in standing murga. This can be extremely tiring for both legs, hands and back. This punishment can be made harsher by making the person parade under the sun. If done properly, it will hurt the ears also, because of irregular movements.

Heels Touching Murga In this type of murga, the heels of the person should remain in contact. It can also be either sitting or standing. This is a very severe form of murga.

Warning One: Do not attempt any of the above unless you are young, fit, extremely flexible, and not wearing a tight skirt! The perils of the American Brace position for paddling fade into insignificance at the side of those potentially consequent upon attempting to assume any Murgha position!

Warning Two: Should you be an earnest seeker after truth anxious to extend your knowledge of school CP in other lands you will find a great deal about school Murgha punishments and the indignities thereof in Web Forums supposedly intended for young people from the Indian Subcontinent. 'Schoolgirls' complaining of its use on them in mixed classes and 'schoolboys' enthusiastically advocated its use on their female classmates. Boys will be boys the world over! Beware though! For some reason I do not fully understand many of those Forums are absolutely loaded with Trojans and other unpleasant software. Possibly this is how the excellent software writers who hail from that part of the world hone their undoubted skills. This one used to be safe, and according to my system still is. Your mileage may differ though!

This 'murga' punishment sounds worse than a caning to me. I can't imagine a schoolboy or schoolgirl sitting or standing in an acrobatic position for an extended time while holding or pulling their own ears.
This is certainly not what I had in mind when I mentioned this practice by some teachers of just pulling or pinching the culprit's ear for a few seconds. In fact this was considered more of a warning than a punishment, and in my opinion would fall under the category of mild, or even very mild, punishment.
I remember when some teacher who was overseeing the boys playing in the schoolyard would call out a boy who was behaving improperly or dangerously, both for himself or others, would pull his ear and tell him to behave, and the boy would then fly away and continue playing as if nothing had happened. Of course it depends on the severity and force used and by the prolongation of this punishment that could be taken into the more severe CP category.
About those Indian school or 'education' sites, I came across one or two of them when looking under the heading of school punishments and this 'murga' seems to be a favourite with them since it is mentioned all the time and in length. Actually I didn't know what it involved exactly, even after reading those posts at length, because they seem to take it for granted that everyone knows, so they never give a description of it, but keep mentioning it all the time as part of routine punishment in Indian schools. It is probably unheard of outside of that country. It would be interesting to make a thread on this forum about "Unusual Punishments in Schools", but it probably already exists.
Anyway my intention of starting this topic was about milder forms of punishments at schools. I also mentioned leg slapping which would fall under this category.

Hi Willy. You say:

This 'murga' punishment sounds worse than a caning to me. I can't imagine a schoolboy or schoolgirl sitting or standing in an acrobatic position for an extended time while holding or pulling their own ears.

Difficult to comment. I've never been caned and I certainly haven't tried Murgha. As I know only too well from climbing my ape index (arm span ÷ height) is pathetically low, so I doubt if I'd ever have been able to get my hands much beyond my knees, let alone grasp my ears. I certainly can't now! However, here on YouTube is a lad who can! Supposedly a school punishment, though I doubt it. Very brief and shot in the wrong orientation on a mobile phone but nonetheless full standing Murgha! The folk in the Sub-Continent appear to have a bit of a thing about ears and punishments. There's a gentler variety of Murgha often used for girls (sorry Jenny ) which involves crossing your arms and gripping your ears and doing knees bends. I can't remember what that's called - I think it begins with U.

And you say:

It would be interesting to make a thread on this forum about "Unusual Punishments in Schools", but it probably already exists.

Can't recall such a thread while I've been here, though I've seen a few punishments described in other threads that were so unusual it's difficult to imagine that they ever happened, at least not without the perpetrators being arrested!

And finally you say:

Anyway my intention of starting this topic was about milder forms of punishments at schools. I also mentioned leg slapping which would fall under this category.

The latter was my nemesis and what gave me a permanent aversion to being punished at school. But it was a long time before secondary school and anyway most longer established visitors here can recite it backwards. However, for the masochists among you here it is again!