Recently, the media featured a school teacher being fired and even arrested after slapping a child in her class. It brought to mind the time a teacher slapped me.
It was years ago while attending a one-room schoolhouse. Some of us kids were talking while our teacher was working with the smaller kids. She warned us that the next one caught talking would be punished. I swear I didn’t say a word after that, but my teacher thought I did. When she came to my desk, I looked up at her, probably belligerently, and said it wasn’t me that talked. She told me to go outside on the front porch. She followed me, and after shutting the door, proceeded to "talk" to me. I kept insisting it wasn’t me that had talked, and she slapped me. I think it
surprised us both, and I’m
sure she regretted it as soon
as she walked back into the
classroom.
When I got home and
told my father, he didn’t go
to the school board or even
confront the teacher. He
just took me out of school
and sent me to a boarding
school, which I loved. I
quickly made friends.
Though teachers often
spanked kids with switches,
at the boarding school they
mostly used talk to shame
us. One night some of the
girls planned to sneak out
a window and meet boys.
I didn’t want to be left be
hind, so I took my blanket
and pillow and lay down in
the dry bathtub. I quickly
fell asleep. When the time
came to leave, the girls tried
to wake me, but I was too
sleepy. Of course, they got
caught and were punished
- I’m not sure how.
The next day the main teacher called me into her office. She said, "Marie, I’m so proud of you for not going out with those girls last night." I never told her I would have gone if I hadn’t been too sleepy.
I knew my husband had gotten whippings in school. I asked him, “How many?” He’d gotten a few, one he remembered for shooting paper wads He was often sent to the principal’s office down the steps at Gravette School to get the board on his behind.
My oldest son Dan got many whippings in his younger grades. He always came home and told me I finally said, "The next time you tell me you got whipped in school, I’m going to spank you when you get home." He either never got spanked again or didn’t tell me. The only time I nearly confronted the school about discipline was when my "good" son Bill got spanked in junior high. His teacher had said the next one who said a word would get a spanking, and Bill hadn’t heardher. So he continued talking, which resulted in the unfair punishment.
I often took one of my children out of church for misbehaving, and spanked them. When adults would see a parent taking their ornery kid outside, they’d smile their approval. Today even a parent has to be so careful of disciplining a child in public for fear of being arrested.
I don’t know when it became illegal to whip children in school, but grown-ups don’t dare even touch a child today, and there is little respect for authority. My youngest sister is a teacher and laments the lack of respect. She recently got a job teaching Spanish in high school, and in an email wrote, "I deal with back talk, stealing and cheating almost daily. I’m doing my best to hang in there! I know God has me there for a purpose."
Maybe spankings weren’t so bad after all.
Marie Putman is a former Gravette resident and regular contributor to the Westside Eagle Observer.
Opinion, Pages 7 on 11/14/2012