I've talked with a lot of guys who can't imagine that schoolteachers were ever allowed to administer corporal punishment to students. To tell the truth, I think these days it's probably a thing of the past. Unfortunately, however, it was a thing of my past growing up in rural Colorado, and there were three occasions I was paddled at school: twice in fifth grade, and once in sixth grade.
The first time I got paddled it was for talking in class. It was like the second day of the school year, and the teacher was trying to quiet down the classroom. I guess everybody else heard her but me. Oblivious, I kept on talking to a friend, really loudly I guess. I finally realized that everyone else had stopped talking, but the damage had already been done. The teacher called me up to her desk and gave me three hard swats with a paddle. I returned to my seat embarrassed, with my butt still stinging. After that, I made sure I was the best behaved kid in that class!
The second time I was punished was later that year, for throwing food in the cafeteria. Every once in a while a "food fight" would break out, and on this occasion four of us were caught and sent to the principal's office. Each of us got five licks with a paddle. One of the kids came out of the principal's office crying I remember. I was so scared, but kind of proud of myself afterwards for not crying or flinching hardly at all, even though it really hurt.
Well, any bravado I gained from that experience was lost after what happened to me in sixth grade with my science teacher Mr. Johnson. He was a really strict teacher, and he too kept a paddle in his desk drawer. But he also had other punishments, like making kids stand in the corner facing the wall all period, or making someone who was caught chewing bubblegum stick it to his nose. After witnessing the punishment of a few classmates in this fashion, and seeing a few paddlings, there weren't many of us who wanted to risk getting in trouble in that class. Least of all me, which is why I was so mad at my older brother one day for goofing off and dropping me off at school late after lunch. My brother had just gotten his driver's license, and it was the first day he had driven to school. I was happy that I could hang out during lunch with him and his friends, but I knew Mr. Johnson was not going to overlook my being late to class.
Unfortunately for me, I was right. As soon as I got to my desk, Mr. Johnson called me up to the front of the class. He made me bend over and told me to touch my toes. While I was in that position, with my butt facing the classroom, he walked over to his desk and took out his paddle. He then announced that I was going to get six swats with the paddle because I had come to class six minutes late. That wouldn't have been all so bad, but I was wearing a pair of old, tight-fitting pants that day, and after about the third swat landed squarely across my behind, I felt the seam on the seat of my pants start to rip open. The next swat must have torn the hole wide open, because the whole class starting tittering and laughing, and I knew why. I took the last couple swats, dying of embarrassment more than anything, with my underwear showing through my split pants. Mr. Johnson hushed the class, told me to stand up, and then, like he did with all students he paddled, made me face the class and apologize to them for making the teacher paddle me, wasting their time, etc. After that, with a very red face, I hurried to my seat, wondering how I could get home to get a new pair of pants without further embarrassing myself. Well, I didn't have to worry, because after class Mr. Johnson marched me over to the principal's office. I heard a lot of snickering and laughing behind me as I tried to cover my butt with a book. They called my mom to bring me a new pair of pants, telling her what had happened. She was so mad she refused to come in, and I had to close up the split in the seat of my pants with some safety pins they gave me and go around like that for the rest of the day.
That was pretty bad, definitely the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me, but I would have been happy if that was the end of it. When I got home my mom sent me straight to my room, and then when my dad got home she told him all about it. My dad didn't whip me very often as a kid, but he sure did that night. I remember having a couple belt marks on my butt and thighs for days after that, so bad that I wouldn't change in the locker at gym class all week for fear that someone would see. The only justice in the whole matter was that my dad gave my brother a worse whipping than I got, when he found out he was responsible for making me late to class, plus he took away his driving privileges for a month. My brother thought he was so tough and way too old to get the belt, but I heard him crying like a baby and pleading with my dad to stop. I couldn't say I was sorry, after what I had been through.
In seventh grade I went to a middle school where they didn't use corporal punishment anymore, and I don't think I got whipped at home much by that time either. But I just had to share that story with you in case any of you out there doubt that school spankings ever took place!