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Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 5:08 pm
by J.R.
Can't say I agree on the 'mental' issue.
On the other hand - There are the top draw tories who got beaten regularly at Eton etc, and then carried on paying a fortune to have the pleasure of having it done again in the west-end of London !
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 10:45 am
by Andrewc
J.R. wrote: ↑Sun Apr 15, 2012 3:11 pm
jhopgood wrote:J.R. wrote:Bob Rae used to use blackboard rubbers, if memory serves !
It was nearly always chalk when I was in his class.
As a man of habit, he always threw his brief case on to the desk as he came in, but stopped this when someone opened the window and the the brief case ended up outside.
1.
DING-DONG ! I remember that particular incident, oh so well, John. He always used to stride, full-steam into the class.
I suspect Rae had some difficulty in changing his brief case throwing habit because I distinctly recall some of us duplicating the open window incident and the suppressed howls of laughter when after a few failed attempts he marched in, slid his case along the table top and him being somewhat stunned when it shot out of the window. To his credit he fetched it himself. If memory serves me right under the window were small ponds but (sadly?) the case landed on dry ground. This incident would I guess be around the second half of the '60s.
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 6:44 pm
by robert totterdell
Corporal punishment was rife in my day. And it was administered in a way that was not required for basic 'chastisement' as I was told by the former Chair of the Council Guy Perricone. It was brutal and savage and often for pure sexual gratification. Newsome was renowned for it. Bob Sillett, that's the housemaster who covered up sexual abuse introduced a special technique that he was very proud of - The Tangent method; where you brought the cane down on the top of the buttocks rather than on the base - i.e. vertical as opposed to horizontal.
The corporal punishment regime at CH was awful and used for very minor misdemeanors whilst allowing gross misconduct of masters in the form of sexual abuse.
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 7:02 pm
by sejintenej
J.R. wrote: ↑Thu Jul 05, 2012 5:08 pm
There are the top draw tories who got beaten regularly at Eton etc, and then carried on paying a fortune to have the pleasure of having it done again in the west-end of London !
and there are top drawer idiots whose ienjoyment is likened to standing, fully clothed in a cold shower tearing up five pound notes. Equally secondary school drop-outs could be taking birds across country and letting them go and hoping that said birds will fly home to a half handfull of seed. Anylone's hobby is considered stupid by the next fella who, himself, is considered a moron by the third person.
Just think, John, they were helping the economy by keeping people gainfully and legally employed, and not beating the dickens out of some stranger on the Clapham Omnibus.
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 8:14 pm
by rockfreak
robert totterdell wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 6:44 pm
Corporal punishment was rife in my day. And it was administered in a way that was not required for basic 'chastisement' as I was told by the former Chair of the Council Guy Perricone. It was brutal and savage and often for pure sexual gratification. Newsome was renowned for it. Bob Sillett, that's the housemaster who covered up sexual abuse introduced a special technique that he was very proud of - The Tangent method; where you brought the cane down on the top of the buttocks rather than on the base - i.e. vertical as opposed to horizontal.
The corporal punishment regime at CH was awful and used for very minor misdemeanors whilst allowing gross misconduct of masters in the form of sexual abuse.
I would agree with that Robert. I was there from 1952 to 1960. No corporal punishment now but has hooliganism and bad behaviour got any worse as a result since we were there? I don't understand why some posters are trying to justify it and say they deserved it. They were children. Perhaps the old Christian attitude of original sin was still pervasive back then. As you rightly point out, we certainly know about some of the abusive behaviour of the teachers.
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 9:00 pm
by sejintenej
rockfreak wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 8:14 pm
. No corporal punishment now but has hooliganism and bad behaviour got any worse as a result since we were there? . As you rightly point out, we certainly know about some of the abusive behaviour of the teachers.
In answer to your question I reckon the answer is yes. Not necessarily in terms of numbers of actions relative to the population but definitely in terms of the degree of violence. It is the difference between scrumping apples and carving up peoples' faces or extracting their intestines. Some classrooms are described as a madhouse because teachers hve no authority to enforce discipline and in some (rare) cases parents get violent with the teachers. I blame it also on parents who often do not impose discipline at home.
Someone suggested that some physical punishment is acceptable - Par;liament has even moved in that direction but the problem is in creating a dividing line between acceptable and abusive.
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2018 9:43 am
by Foureyes
"
...as I was told by the former Chair of the Council Guy Perricone."
I am not sure that Perricone can be considered an authority on what happened in C.H. in the past. I looked into his CV when he was appointed Treasurer and he was educated at one of the more expensive Catholic schools - either Downside or Ampleforth, I forget which - and then became a solicitor, fund manager, and then moved into general management. His selection as Treasurer of C.H. came as a complete surprise - he was not even a member of the Council of Almoners at the time.
I am not, for one moment, suggesting that he is dishonest or making things up, but only that he is not an Old Blue and had no involvement with C.H. at the time in question, so can only have depended upon reports from others, which may not necessarily have been disinterested.
Sejintenej wrote:
"... Some classrooms are described as a madhouse because teachers have no authority to enforce discipline and in some (rare) cases parents get violent with the teachers. I blame it also on parents who often do not impose discipline at home."
Is that a general observation or is it referring to C.H.?
David
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2018 10:00 am
by ZeroDeConduite
Downside and/or Ampleforth had/have an equally bad if not worse reputation for brutality and abuse than CH.
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2018 4:08 pm
by postwarblue
So far nobody seems to have dragged up McNutt, so I shall. His technique, as recorded in Norman Longmate's 'A Shaping Season', involved putting the target in a particular crouch on a chair so as to maximise the pain and then retreating into his study cupboard so as to get a good run-up to maximise the whack. If that's not deliberate sadism what is? By the time I came up to the Upper from the Prep (where is was entirely, mercifully unaware of Pink's proclivities) in 1947 he was no longer a housemaster so I wonder if Flecker had become involved.
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2018 8:24 pm
by rockfreak
sejintenej wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 9:00 pm
rockfreak wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 8:14 pm
. No corporal punishment now but has hooliganism and bad behaviour got any worse as a result since we were there? . As you rightly point out, we certainly know about some of the abusive behaviour of the teachers.
In answer to your question I reckon the answer is yes. Not necessarily in terms of numbers of actions relative to the population but definitely in terms of the degree of violence. It is the difference between scrumping apples and carving up peoples' faces or extracting their intestines. Some classrooms are described as a madhouse because teachers hve no authority to enforce discipline and in some (rare) cases parents get violent with the teachers. I blame it also on parents who often do not impose discipline at home.
Someone suggested that some physical punishment is acceptable - Par;liament has even moved in that direction but the problem is in creating a dividing line between acceptable and abusive.
You seem to be moving this discussion out into the wider world rather than CH, although perhaps you feel that CH then and now merely mirrors the trends in the wider world. OK, but I'm a bit wary of this supposed golden age that always existed way back when. What about the ferocious Teddy Boy gangs in the big cities in our youth (Glasgow, Liverpool and the Elephant Mob in London)? Mods and Rockers in the 60s, Skinheads after that - a nasty bunch in my experience.
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2018 10:58 pm
by sejintenej
Foureyes wrote: ↑Thu Sep 27, 2018 9:43 am
Sejintenej wrote:
"... Some classrooms are described as a madhouse because teachers have no authority to enforce discipline and in some (rare) cases parents get violent with the teachers. I blame it also on parents who often do not impose discipline at home."
Is that a general observation or is it referring to C.H.?
That is more general than specific. Yes, there are schools (and we have plenty round here) where parents struggle to keep their children at chosen schools but there are also schools where parents don't care and children run riot. I suspect that CH is far closer to the first though parents are separated and cannot maintain close control over their kids. Who knows? we might get younger OBs copying their etonian peers and paying to get beaten simply because masters don't use the cane (JR please note
).
Thinking about worse schools there is one where a boy with several forms of dyslexia was given no help for his own problems but was put aside to help special needs pupils. It was at the same school where pupils played chicken at the gate (one child was killed in the street) and ran neighbours ragged and the headmaster's reply to complaints was that it was nothing to do with the school and he would do nothing.
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 12:40 am
by robert totterdell
You know I love you lot, as you represent the 'body and soul' of CH. Guy Perricone (not an old Blue) lasted one year as Treasurer & Chair. He did not understand CH and he can not be blamed for what he wrote to me - he followed the line. In just three weeks I am addressing the council - 2nd November- and I will be asking some very serious questions, especially as the current newly appointed Treasurer & Chair of the Council was a year above me in Maine A when Peter Burr was both abusing me and raped me. In my questions, I will be asking about him as he was not the nicest of boys!
I have been silent for a bit but stick with me, please.
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 8:50 am
by Foureyes
May I correct the statement:
"Guy Perricone (not an old Blue) lasted one year as Treasurer & Chair."
It is certainly correct that Perricone was not an Old Blue, but he was actually Treasurer and Chairman of the Council from April 2013 to September 2018, a period of 5 years 6 months.
David
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:15 am
by J.R.
robert totterdell wrote: ↑Sat Oct 06, 2018 12:40 am
You know I love you lot, as you represent the 'body and soul' of CH. Guy Perricone (not an old Blue) lasted one year as Treasurer & Chair. He did not understand CH and he can not be blamed for what he wrote to me - he followed the line. In just three weeks I am addressing the council - 2nd November- and I will be asking some very serious questions, especially as the current newly appointed Treasurer & Chair of the Council was a year above me in Maine A when Peter Burr was both abusing me and raped me. In my questions, I will be asking about him as he was not the nicest of boys!
I have been silent for a bit but stick with me, please.
I'm sure we are all looking forward to your later report on your upcoming meeting.
Re: Corporal Punishment by CH Teaching staff
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 8:32 pm
by Golfer
This is an intriguing discussion. Where, on balance, do people stand?
Is the CH you loved dependent on corporal punishment to maintain the standards of dress and discipline many of you value?
Or should corporal punishment never have been allowed?