Tuesday 6 October 2009

A Class Transformed!

A group of prep school boys walk through town:
This is very much the kind of uniform that we enforced at the school.

One thing that the headmaster did say to me was that the reason he was a headmaster was primarily because he was a good judge of character and could see things in others that they couldn’t see themselves! I prided myself on this for a long while, and although I still think that there is some truth in his claim, it was probably more due to staffing shortages and a lack of volition on the part of the older teachers to go through the bother of revamping their lessons for another age group!

In those days, it was indeed more difficult for a woman to teach young lads of this age and I soon learnt that I had to prove myself to them. And the ‘art’ of the cane was the way that I seized back control of my class. The whole class caning that I carried out during my second week at the school was most definitely a deciding factor. A half hearted attempt or ‘token’ swat on each of the boys’ palms would not have earned me any respect whatsoever – I wasn’t yet an established figure in the boys’ eyes and any sign of mercy or compassion would have been taken as a weakness of character on my part and seized upon ruthlessly right through to the end of the school year.

In fact, it was the deciding factor as to whether I would continue at the school or leave it in utter defeat. What the boys did not realise is that, when I lined them up for their first ration of ‘gruel’, I was the one in the corner, I was the one who had to kick out with all her might and kick out I most certainly did! No amount of words spoken to these boys would ever have had the salutary effect that those fifteen well placed swats had.

I soon learnt that there was nothing that could quite match that small English prep school cane in terms of pure eloquence. It most certainly put forward a very convincing case in favour of conforming to my expectations as a teacher regarding the virtues of hard work, good behaviour, smart school uniform and respect for adult authority. When the boys returned after spending most of their break desperately nursing their sharply stinging palms, those knowing smirks were replaced by something altogether far more pleasant from their teacher’s point of view; a mixture of respectful obedience and a very strong desire to quickly learn how to avoid displeasing their new teacher.

I knew I needed to act quickly in order to maintain my new found status quo. I made the class stand whilst I spoke to them about my expectations concerning correct school uniform, how as the eldest they needed to set an example and how whenever they were in uniform they were ambassadors to the school and how I, their teacher was very disappointed and had absolutely no desire to see scruffiness in MY classroom. This was immediately followed by a very thorough and detailed uniform inspection during which pupils busied themselves straightening their ties, tucking in shirts, pulling up socks etc until I was completely satisfied with their appearance.

For the rest of the day, the boys looked wonderfully smart in their very English-looking prep school uniform with its traditional blazer and tie, short trousers and regulation socks. I felt a genuine sense of pride in them. I was their teacher, the one in charge, the one who had just won an important battle and had succeeded in transforming this group of insolent 13-year old boys into a class of smartly dressed, obedient young scholars. The boys’ appearance was now a total reflection of their new teacher’s values, standards and very high expectations as well as the resolutely traditional ethos of their school.

As the boys worked in silence, I quietly announced that they were not to worry about the time that had been lost from today’s lesson due to their uniform inspection. It would quite simply be made up for by missing their morning break time the next day!

1 comment:

  1. also me when I attended the primary School in the UK, I also brought the uniform with the shorts in Winter and with the snow. The sock adherent to the knee and not lowered to the ankles.
    If I violated the rule, I received strokes of cane on the naked legs and on the bottom.

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