A Schoolboy's Essay


by Realist II

I think there are lots of reasons why schools have to be able to use punishments. All children, especially boys, will be naughty if they can get away with it. If the teachers could not punish us, for instance, we would all muck about in class all the time and no one would get any work done. Also, there would be a lot more bullying and probably lots of children would do things like smoking which is very bad for you.

Another reason for having punishments in schools is that when children get bigger it is much more difficult for their parents to give them proper punishments and it is bad for you to be able to get away with things just because you are getting too strong for your father to punish you.

In our school we have lines and detentions and having to do press ups. They can be quite annoying punishments but they are not really frightening and so some boys go on being naughty. Sometimes the teachers tell your parents of you which means you get punished at home which is more of a punishment for younger boys who still get spanked at home but it is not much of a punishment for boys who are too old to be spanked.

I think that schools were probably much better in the olden days when they were stricter than they are now and you could get whacked on your backside for being naughty. I do not think that you have to have whacking for girls because they behave better than boys and anyway they are not as strong as boys so they can go on being spanked at home longer, but I do think that having the cane would be good for most boys. All boys need to be spanked at home so why shouldn't they get whacked at school as well? It is also very good for you to learn how to take pain without making a fuss and I have been told that in the olden days boys used to get whacked really hard and they were not allowed to cry and they had to bend over without anyone holding them down. Unfortunately most boys do make a fuss when their fathers spank them at home and they usually have to be held over their fathers' knees which I know because I have sometimes seen my friends getting spanked at home.

In fact I now have a deal with my father that I will not make a fuss, but that is only since this year. We agreed that now I am eleven I am grown up enough to take my punishments properly. My father also thought that I was too old to go on being smacked and so we agreed that he would use a slipper instead. What happens now is that when I am naughty I am sent to my room and then my father comes and gives me a good telling off. Then he says how many whacks he is going to give me, which will be between three and six. Then I take my trousers and pants down and I bend over the side of my bed and my father whacks my bottom really hard with his slipper. Our agreement is that I will get one extra whack if I do not take my trousers and pants down, one extra whack if I do not bend over or if I try to get up before it is over and one extra whack if I cry. That means that, if I was going to get six, I could end up with nine altogether. But I always take the whacking without a fuss. Also, my father always stops being cross with me as soon as I have had the punishment, which is very good.

I hope I will go on taking the slipper properly at least until I am a teenager but once I am about thirteen I will be too old for my father to go on whacking my bare backside with a slipper and if I was wearing my trousers the slipper would not hurt nearly enough. If I am naughty then I will need the cane but I know that my father will not want to have to cane me and anyway I expect I will be more difficult, like most teenagers, and not let him do it.

I think our school would be a lot better if the teachers were allowed to whack the boys. I think they should be able to use a slipper on boys in the junior school (which is from eight to ten) and then use the cane on the older boys in the senior school. That way only the younger boys would have to have their whackings on their bare bottoms and the older boys would not have to take their trousers and pants down because the whackings would hurt a lot even though they were wearing their trousers.

Another reason I think that whacking should be brought back is that our school went on whacking right up to the last moment when the government banned it in private schools and my brother, who was in the senior school then, has told me that all the boys thought it should go on. He certainly did, even though he was the last boy to get the cane. He was given six of the best by the headmaster for smoking when he was fourteen and he showed me the marks afterwards, which were awesome. He said it had hurt an awful lot but he knew it had been good for him and that he deserved it. I did not go to the junior school and so I never got the slipper at school when I was younger, but lots of boys in my year did and they all said it did them a lot of good and they did not think it was cruel or anything.

Another good thing about whacking is that teachers can do it in front of other boys so that they can see what will happen to them if they are naughty as well. That would mean sometimes having to wait till the end of a class in the junior school, so that the girls could leave and would not have to see boys getting whacked on their bare bottoms.

From the boys' point of view getting whacked is also quite good because not only does it teach you to take pain without a fuss but also the punishment is over and done with quite quickly. I realise that your backside will still be painful for quite a time after a caning, but at least you can get on with other things which you cannot do if you have a detention or lines. When I have talked about this with my friends at school they all agreed that they would much prefer a good whacking to a long detention. Also when we had a vote in our year 41 out of 48 boys voted that whacking should be brought back which was more than any other year. As our year is probably the naughtiest in the school and we would get more whackings than other years I think that the government ought to listen to our views and make school whackings happen again. Also my father and most of my friends' fathers agree that schools should be allowed to whack again. Some mothers are against it, but they do not understand that boys can take pain much better than girls and so they should not really be allowed a vote on it and the government should not listen to them.

SIMON, YOU'RE PUNCTUATION IS APPALLING. I WILL DEAL WITH YOU IN YOUR ROOM WHEN YOU GET BACK FROM SCHOOL.

DAD


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