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Location: Approximately 50 miles from Missoula MT/38 yrs full time after 4 yrs part time
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Catholic grade school. [1938>1946]: write on the slate black-board: 200 or 300 hundred times (depending on severity of my transgression:.)." I will not xx xxx xxxx!"
Catholic Military Academy (taught by Jesuits) for 1st yr HighSchool:.... Stand at attention holding a M1 Rifle with both arms fully extended overhead for anywhere from 30 minutes to 130 minutes, depending on violation!
Remaining Public HighSchool yrs:. .. spend up to 2 hours in study hall after 3:15 pm for violation.
Catholic College -- boarding student --:. would get restricted to campus for normally free time hours on weekends!
There is a punishment I remember me and others having at the school I went to when I was 7 or 8 where if you got in trouble, they would put you in a corner for 10-15 minutes and put a paper bag over your head, like the one you used to get in grocery stores. I remember when my mom found out she pulled me from the school fast. It took place in Albuquerque NM in the early 90s and it was a private school. I actually talked to my dad about it who confirmed it all.
I distinctly remember my last day as I was walking out a kid I was friends with was in some office with a paper bag over his head with eye holes, something they didn't always do. I am just curious if this was some kind of common punishment or if my school was just sadistic lol.
Not in my school. That's pretty ****ed up and I hope those *******s lost their licenses to teach.
Catholic grade school. [1938>1946]: write on the slate black-board: 200 or 300 hundred times (depending on severity of my transgression:.)." I will not xx xxx xxxx!"
Catholic Military Academy (taught by Jesuits) for 1st yr HighSchool:.... Stand at attention holding a M1 Rifle with both arms fully extended overhead for anywhere from 30 minutes to 130 minutes, depending on violation!
Remaining Public HighSchool yrs:. .. spend up to 2 hours in study hall after 3:15 pm for violation.
Catholic College -- boarding student --:. would get restricted to campus for normally free time hours on weekends!
That sounds like a somewhat stricter version of what I had 3 decades later. Like you, I went to Catholic school, elementary, high school and college, except for a couple of years. I graduated elementary school in 1976 and the only thing I remember is writing lines and an occasional punish assignment/composition. They had us write the lines on paper, not on the blackboard, and it wasn't very often. Maybe once or twice, we had to stay in from recess. Sometimes a kid had to stand and face the wall, but this wasn't that common either. I think our class was pretty well behaved. All in all, it was a nice experience with nice teachers for the most part, and none of the crazy stuff I read about other people going through.
High school definitely had discipline policies and by the second half, I was a bit determined to run afoul of them, having behaved pretty well up to that point. Standard discipline in high school was to stay after school for about an hour. Usually, it was a study hall type format, where we could sit there and do homework or read, as long as we didn't get up or talk. We could even take a nap if we chose, and I sometimes did. I guess the point was just to make us stay late as retribution for our infraction. For the underclassmen, it was a much bigger deal because they would miss their bus and have to find an alternate way to get home, and some lived a decent distance. Upperclassmen either had cars or friends who could give them a ride, so a detention after school was much less onerous for them. I had a car the last 2 years, and I was always willing to give a friend a ride home if we had stayed after school together and he needed a ride. Sometimes we went out for a burger or a beer after we got out (underage drinking was rampant then).
Occasionally, the dean of discipline changed it up, and had us do work details. I did a few work details - cleaning desktops, cleaning the cafeteria, moving furniture. Whether I preferred that or the study hall format depended on my mood. If I was energized and jumpy, I preferred the work details because I was up and about, the time went faster, and I could have a few laughs with the other kids sharing the punishment. If I was tired out on a day I had to stay for detention, then I wanted to just sit there and be left alone as I quietly served my time.
Your punishment where you had to hold the rifle overhead sounds pretty interesting. I never experienced anything like that, but I almost wish I had! At least a couple of times. How many times was that assigned to you, and what did you do to earn it? Did running afoul of discipline have anything to do with why you switched to public school?
All in all, I can't complain about the discipline I experienced. Most of my disciplinary incidents were in the last 2 years of high school, when I decided that I wanted to get into some trouble and make up for the previous years when I was good. I had to stay after school a healthy number of times but after the first couple of times, I realized that it didn't really bother me all that much. It was a minor inconvenience, and a price worth paying for the rush that came from breaking a rule. I never did anything too serious but I had some fun.
My worst offense was cutting a class sometimes to go drinking. One time, I went out to lunch and got too drunk to come back to my afternoon classes. For that I got about 2 straight weeks of detention, which was a real drag after about the 3rd day. But I still never regretted it... There were other times I cut class (senior year only, a handful of times in total) and I always got busted and got assigned to some time in detention after school. I even got busted once trying to cut out of an assembly. I also liked to try to get away with wearing sneakers (against the dress code, which I hated) and I got snagged for that on occasion. Talking and joking in class was another one, as was "creating a disturbance" in the library. I got kicked out of class once because I couldn't stop laughing when the teacher was yelling at the whole class, and ended up having to stay after school for 2 days. It was all pretty routine stuff.
Last edited by dazzleman; 04-13-2019 at 04:51 AM..
...Occasionally, the dean of discipline changed it up, and had us do work details. I did a few work details - cleaning desktops, cleaning the cafeteria, moving furniture. ...
Slightly OT, but funny you mention work details. Our school had those too, but not for punishment. It was simply an expected item for high schoolers. We did a lot of painting, mowing, and cleaning around that school (I always wondered what the janitors were paid for given the number of toilets I cleaned). Walking around the grounds with a broomstick with a nail in it to pick up trash was a common duty. Every few weeks the boys would be assembled and given swinging blades to cut the banks around the football field (it sat in a large bowl with steep banks that couldn't be mowed). These lines of boys all moving counterclockwise around the field swinging in rhythm like Cool Hand Luke.
Slightly OT, but funny you mention work details. Our school had those too, but not for punishment. It was simply an expected item for high schoolers. We did a lot of painting, mowing, and cleaning around that school (I always wondered what the janitors were paid for given the number of toilets I cleaned). Walking around the grounds with a broomstick with a nail in it to pick up trash was a common duty. Every few weeks the boys would be assembled and given swinging blades to cut the banks around the football field (it sat in a large bowl with steep banks that couldn't be mowed). These lines of boys all moving counterclockwise around the field swinging in rhythm like Cool Hand Luke.
I heard that is done in Japan. I actually don't think it's such a terrible idea, within reason. I think it's good for kids to experience all types of work, and not to be taught that certain types of work, or the people who do that kind of work, are beneath them.
In my school though, the janitorial duties were almost always used as punishment, and I never did such work outside of a situation in which I was being punished. It wasn't really that many times - maybe 4 or 5 in my high school years.
Interestingly, there was a certain "prestige" to doing a "chain gang" work detail. Usually, it was reserved for kids who have gotten into more than just routine trouble and had earned multiple days of detention, rather than just one. So I liked to be seen doing those work details on the occasions when I did them. It definitely carried more prestige than just a regular detention, though that also brought bragging rights.
I actually received this punishment at home, not school. Spent plenty of time facing the corner, but mom frequently used a paper bag for me and my sisters for an embarrassing punishment.
When I was in kindergarten I had a crazy lady for a teacher and she would get frustrated with my ineptness and twist my pinky finger back, hard. I suspect it may have gotten broken once because one is a lot shorter than the other. I figure she chose that method because if a parent complained she could just tell them that the child had fallen at recess. Once she jerked my finger because I was struggling to push my hand into the modeling clay she was using for the little handprints we all did at that age, except that most teachers use plaster. Another thing I got in trouble for was drawing green flowers...she went ballistic over that one. To this day, whenever I see green flowers I take a picture of them and I have grown them in my garden. That’ll show her! Lol.
Do not underestimate a good smack. We used to get our smacked by all teachers. I graduated from a university and have multiple IT certificates.
I also received other non IT related trades certificates along the way too.
At the school I attended teachers could paddle until high school. (our school had all 12 grades in two buildings, 1-6 in one building and 7-12 in the other) I don't remember punishments after grade 8, but I do remember the paddlings. The one I remember best was in 7th grade. We had this one big kid, who had been held back several times, and should have been about grade 9 or 10. He knew he would get a paddling at some point, so had padded his back pockets with paper. That might have worked, except he was a smoker, and had put some strike anywhere matches in his pocket. One of them lit during a paddling, and he "lit" out for the boys rest room pulling his pants off as he went. Not sure he ever lived that down. Sadly he dropped out as soon as he was old enough. Back then, mid to late 60s, we never had any school shootings either. In fact, most of the trucks in the student parking lot had gun racks with at least one gun in it.
When I was an elementary school pupil back in the 1950's they still used corporal punishment. There was a large wood paddle in the principal's office and offenders were brought in and administered several whacks to the rear end. I believe girls were excluded. Don't believe parents objected.
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There were other times I cut class (senior year only, a handful of times in total) and I always got busted and got assigned to some time in detention after school. I even got busted once trying to cut out of an assembly. I also liked to try to get away with wearing sneakers (against the dress code, which I hated) and I got snagged for that on occasion. Talking and joking in class was another one, as was "creating a disturbance" in the library. I got kicked out of class once because I couldn't stop laughing when the teacher was yelling at the whole class, and ended up having to stay after school for 2 days. It was all pretty routine stuff.
