Growing up in Ohio in the 1950's teachers were always given the upper hand when it came to how to "teach" kids and how they would learn the things they were required to learn each year in school. One of the first things we always learned on the first day of school was that each teacher had a paddle or a yardstick, and they instructed us that they were "NOT afraid to use it if they had to." I remember the first time one of us kids got our butt warmed, as early as first grade.
That time the teacher had made it clear that we did not leave the playground for anything, but Mark did. He left and went next door to the local grocery to get a candy bar during recess. When we came back in from recess, there was Mark apologizing to the teacher and the teacher recalling in his mind what would happen to any kid who disobeyed. The next thing we knew we heard the teacher say:
"Now find a desk and lay across it!"
And Mark did, and then the teacher lit into him with a three inch wide, quarter inch yardstick. Whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack! Six licks, one for each year of his young age. He go up and looked just a bit white, but he was OK...no tears.
I never thought it could happen to me. And it didn't that year. But the next year in second grade....well...lo and behold, it did! I was considered a bright kid by all the others, but they really didn't know. I had a hard time in school, especially with Math. One day the teacher returned to the classroom after having graded all of our weekly math tests. The look on her face spelled doom. You could just feel it in the air.
"Better than half of this class failed this Math test today! I am ashamed of you! You all can do better than this! And to make sure of that, I am going to give you this test over again tomorrow. And if anyone fails this test I will paddle them!"
The next day I dreaded the test. I knew I wasn't going to pass it no matter how much I studied. I would make too many mistakes, and I would fail.
"O God, let me pass this test, " I kept praying. And soon enough, we would find out. Less than an hour later, after recess, the teacher entered the room and said:
"Some of you still failed this time. Remember what I told you. If I call your name, come up here and take your paddling!"
Sure enough, as she went down the list, she called out my name. My heart skipped a beat, and my stomach felt like a Mac truck just rolled through it. I stood up and took my place right up front of the classroom with the other guys. She told us to face the rest of the class and wait, as she went to the closet and got out the paddle. It somehow looked bigger now...the kind that had little holes drilled all through it.
Standing there, I could hear the crack of the paddle over the other blue-jeaned butts, and I was still waiting for my doom. When she came to me I was so nervous, I was rocking back and forth.
"Stand still," she said, and she put her hand on my shoulder to steady me.
"Whack! Whack! Whack"
O God, it stung. I could have cried right there, but not if I was going to be brave like the other guys who got it. I remember walking back to my seat and sitting down very gingerly. I whispered a prayer that the girls in my class would not tell my sister (two years older than me), because if they did I would be in trouble at home, too. Mom and Dad had warned us that if we ever got a whipping in school we would get it again at home...only harder and with our pants down to make an impression.
If she knew, my sister knew, she never told on me. And I have kept it a secret all these years. Dad's gone, but Mom' s still alive. And she has never known about the whipping I got in second grade.
As for me, to this day I hate Math...even simple Math, because I learned some of it ...the hard way, in front of a whole class full of fellow students...all with their eyes glued on me!