The worst thing...

[caroljoyce]

That happened to you at school?

I hated this teacher till the day she died and beyond...

When I was seven years old I had to stand up in front of the class & spell 'They' I spelled it with an A - thay. She asked me to repeat it the correct way & I was so terrified of her that I once again spelled it wrong. She hit out at me knocking me on the floor and banging my head on the iron bar of a table that was at the front of the class room.

She dragged me up said 'Sorry I didn't mean to do that' and sent me back to my seat.

Nothing else was said - I didn't tell my parents - just took it for granted that teachers could hit us.

Oh if that had been today eh?

Do you have any bad memories from school days?

[laurie53]

Teachers, some of them, did that sort of thing back then.

We had one who didn't use a cane but a length of lath.

In the winter, when your hands were really cold, he wouldn't cane you hand normally, but make you put your fingertips together and hold them upwards. Then he would hit them with the flat of it.

With fingers already tingling from the cold that took a special sickness of mind.

[Maywalk]

My memories go back to being in the Sisters-of-Mercy home in the 1930s. This is an excerpt from the book I wrote.

These Sisters of Mercy were not so merciful I have to say. My mother was a Catholic but my father was C of E and my mother let me go in good faith to this care home.
While in the care of this home I was mentally and physically abused by these so-called Sisters of Mercy.
I can remember from the age of four having to scrub a floor, which I could not see properly because I had a patch over my good eye. I was trying to see through one that was nearly blind and I was beaten across the back with a broom handle because I had missed some water that I had not wiped up.Or being rapped across the head or whatever part of the body was closest to hand for no apparent reason.

I remember one day being behind a nun who was particularly vicious towards the children. She possessed a very nasty streak in her and unfortunately I was following her in through a very heavy door which she deliberately let go of just as I put my hand on the wall to help myself up the step. The door swung to quickly and split my thumbnail in two.
I was told that if I cried I would be put in the broom cupboard all night. My thumb was wrapped in a cloth that was sodden with blood in no time, the cloth was changed the next morning but I had to make do all day until the evening to have it changed.
That thumbnail has never grown properly because it splits in two as soon as it gets to a decent length. I have also been locked in a broom cupboard for four hours at a time for some minor misdemeanour.

[Andere Richtingen]

Maywalk, you're now another one on the list of people I know who suffered at the hands of nuns. Many of them seem to have some very un-Christian habits and those who taught in girls' secondary schools seemed to be the worst, determined to make their adolescent charges' lives an utter misery. On the basis of other women's accounts of their school days, I would never, ever have allowed my daughter to attend a convent school.
Oddly, OH had a Catholic education and reckons the nuns at his primary school were lovely women and the monks at high school were also a very decent bunch. Well, it's nice to know there are some good ones around.

I don't recall anything bad at high school but my primary school headmistress was a horror. She ran the village school like it was North Korea and heaven help anyone who questioned her methods.
I recall especially her habit of lashing out with a blackboard ruler at the legs of any child who missed a step in the country dancing sessions. I frequently had very sore legs and I loathed country dancing.
But the worst ever was being forced to sit in class with my left wrist tied to the chair so that I was forced to write with my right hand. This went on for weeks and she enjoyed ridiculing my clumsy attempts at writing right-handed in front of the whole class. It only stopped when my mom, who worked for the local GP, found out and told her boss. He came storming into school, summoned the old bat to the staffroom and let fly. I never found out what he actually said to her but she came out in tears, untied my wrist without a word and the subject of !eft-handedness was never mentioned again.

[Maywalk]

A lot of that sort of treatment went on years ago Andere but it would not be tolerated now.

[lavonne]

When I was about 6 yrs old my teacher pulled my hair, but I had no idea why,my Mother complained and the teacher said I was typical of an only child complaining over nothing, she got a shock when Mum said I was not an only child but had 3 brothers on the forces & a sister in war work.
My sister was a chatterbox & I remember her telling me that her teacher threw a lump of chalk at her once,only she ducked & it hit the teachers favourite instead

[ciderman_nz]

I must be very lucky. I have never had any complaints about any of the 14 schools I attended. Only one small bullying attempts which turned out well. I have archived all these sort of writings for my grandkids to read in 30 years time when I am not here.

Our first home in New Zealand was in Brown’s Bay , north of Auckland and about a half hour bus trip to Takapuna where I went to my first school. The school bus picked us up every morning at about quarter past eight and we were packed in like sardines for the trip to Takapuna Grammar school. As a recent arrival to New Zealand, I still had some kind of ‘Pommy’ accent and I found that although most of the kids were friendly, one or two used to poke fun at me. This was usually in good fun and no malice was intended but on one occasion a fifth former , so about two years older than me, started to pull my hair. After a bit of ignore it started to hurt and I reached over my head with both hands and clamped onto his wrist. Without any plan, I stood up and turned around to face my attacker. This, of course, caused his arm to rotate and he let out a cry of pain and burst into tears, much to the enjoyment of his classmates who all laughed at him in his pain and clapped me on the back like the winner of a contest. It was all, of course, not planned but by chance I had dislocated his elbow, as we found out later. There were no repercussions although he had to go to hospital to get fixed. It was put down to an accident in the crowded back of the bus and no blame was attached. Which, in a way, was true as I had no plan of attack just hurting hair.

[Monika]

I have a deformed little finger on my left hand due to a damaged tendon after being hit by a male teacher at junior school; his weapon of choice was a three foot rule.

He became worried and anxious when he found out at home time that my swollen black-and-blue hand prevented me from putting on my coat to go home.
He turned up at my house later and went with me and my mum to the doctors who examined me and, mistakenly, declared that it was only bruised and would get better in a short while.

Looking back at his behaviour, along with that of other teachers I have known, I have long believed that there were many who should never have had charge of children - being borderline psychopaths or, at least, not being the full shilling.