As they used to flog girls in closed schools. Punishment in schools: what happened, what happened - say teachers from Thailand, Russia and Europe

Maintaining discipline is a difficult task, and not everyone can cope with this task. A bunch of restless children can drive anyone crazy and destroy a school in a matter of minutes. That is why punishments were invented, and today we will talk about the most terrible ones.

China

In China, negligent students were punished by beating their hands with a bamboo rod. This only seems harmless if you don’t know how many times schoolchildren received it... The most interesting thing is that parents only supported this method of raising children. It was canceled only 50 years ago.

Russia

In Russia, rods were used to beat the truth into children. In theological seminaries, people could be beaten with rods for excessive zeal in eating or for not knowing the names of all 12 apostles.

This is what they looked like, by the way. Rods are twigs soaked in water for elasticity. They hit hard and left marks.

United Kingdom

In the UK, schoolchildren were put on peas. Yes, this is where this tradition came from and quickly reached us; we also practiced such punishment. They stood on the scattered peas with their bare knees. Believe me, it doesn’t hurt only the first 30 seconds, and Russian schoolchildren sometimes stood on peas for 4 hours. Corporal punishment was abolished only in 1986.

Brazil

Children in Brazil are banned from playing football. No matter how simple it may seem to us, for any Brazilian child this is like death, because everyone plays football even during recess!

Liberia

In Liberia, children are still punished with the whip. Recently, Liberian President Charles Taylor personally gave his 13-year-old daughter 10 lashes for indiscipline.

Japan

Those who are experienced in torture are the Japanese. They had many punishments, but the most brutal were these two: to stand with a porcelain cup on your head, straightening one leg at a right angle to your body, and to lie on two stools, holding onto them only with your palms and toes, that is, in fact, it turns out - between the stools.
In addition, there are no cleaners in Japanese schools; punished students clean there.

Pakistan

In Pakistan, if you are two minutes late, you will have to read the Quran for 8 hours.

Namibia

Despite the prohibitions, in Namibia, offending students have to stand under a hornet's nest.

Scotland

A standard Scottish school belt is made from thick, tough leather by special order from educational authorities. They usually use it folded in half, and they say it’s better not to try this on yourself.

Nepal

Nepal. The most terrible punishment there is when a boy is dressed in a woman’s dress and, depending on the degree of offense, is forced to wear it for from one to 5 days. In fact, girls in Nepal are not sent to school; they are considered purely a burden and are fed very poorly. The boys cannot stand such a diet and begin to ask for forgiveness around the second day.

Subject school punishments very old. Many artists wrote their paintings about this, which allows us to conclude that this has worried people at all times.

But despite the progress, even now teachers allow themselves to raise their hands against students and punish them in sophisticated ways.

For being late, this teacher made him hold a chair over his head until “he hurt his empty head”

But this teacher completely lost his composure and could barely restrain himself. A high school student annoyed him by speaking out about his wife.

Until recently, in the social structure of many countries, it was believed that parental love consisted of strict treatment of children, and any corporal punishment implied benefits for the child himself. And until the beginning of the twentieth century rod was commonplace, and in some countries this punishment took place until the end of the century. And what is noteworthy is that each nationality has its own national method of flogging, developed over centuries: in China - bamboo, in Persia - a whip, in Russia - rods, and in England - a stick. The Scots preferred the belt and acne skin.

One of the famous public figures Russia said: “ The whole life of the people passed under the eternal fear of torture: they were flogged by parents at home, flogged by teachers at school, flogged by the landowner in the stable, flogged by owners of crafts, flogged by officers, police officers, volost judges, and Cossacks.”

Rods, being means of education in educational institutions, were soaked in a tub installed at the end of the classroom and were always ready for use. For various children's pranks and offenses, a certain number of blows with rods was clearly provided.

English "method" of education with rods

Folk English proverb says: “If you spare the stick, you will spoil the child.” They really never spared canes on children in England. To justify the use corporal punishment in relation to children, the British often referred to the Bible, especially the parables of Solomon.

Regarding the famous Eton rods of the 19th century, they instilled terrible fear in the hearts of the students. It was a broom made of a bunch of thick rods attached to a meter-long handle. The preparation of such rods was carried out by the director's servant, who brought an armful of them to school every morning. A huge number of trees were used up for this, but the game was considered to be worth the candle.

For simple offenses, the student was given 6 strokes; for serious offenses, their number increased. They sometimes flogged me until they bled, and the marks from the blows did not go away for weeks.

The guilty girls English schools In the 19th century, people were flogged much less frequently than boys. Mostly they were beaten on the arms or shoulders; only in very rare cases were the pupils' trousers removed. In correctional schools, for “difficult” girls, rods, a cane and a thong were used with great zeal.

And what is noteworthy: corporal punishment in public schools Britain was categorically banned by the European Court in Strasbourg, believe it or not, only in 1987. Private schools resorted to corporal punishment of students for another 6 years after that.

The tradition of severe punishment of children in Rus'

For many centuries, corporal punishment was widely practiced in Russia. Moreover, if in worker-peasant families parents could easily attack a child with their fists, then children from the middle class were decorously flogged with rods. Canes, brushes, slippers and everything that parental ingenuity was capable of were also used as educational means. Often the duties of nannies and governesses included flogging their pupils. In some families, fathers “raised” their children themselves.

Punishment of children with rods in educational institutions was practiced everywhere. They beat me not only for offenses, but also simply for “preventive purposes.” And students of elite educational institutions were beaten even harder and more often than those who attended school in their native village.

And what is completely shocking is that parents were punished for their fanaticism only in those cases if they accidentally killed their children in the process of “upbringing.” For this crime they were sentenced to a year in prison and church repentance. And this despite the fact that at that time, for any other murder without mitigating circumstances, death penalty. From all this it followed that lenient punishment to parents for their crime contributed to the development of infanticide.

"For one beaten, they give seven unbeaten"

For example, the future Emperor Nicholas I, as well as his young brothers, were flogged mercilessly by their mentor, General Lamsdorf. With rods, rulers, gun cleaning rods. Sometimes, in a rage, he could grab the Grand Duke by the chest and slam him against the wall so that he fainted. And what was terrible was that not only was this not hidden, but he also wrote it down in his daily journal.

Ivan Turgenev recalled the cruelty of his mother, who whipped him until he came of age, complaining that he himself often did not know why he was punished: “They beat me up for all sorts of trifles, almost every day. Once a hanger-on reported me to my mother. My mother, without any trial or reprisal, immediately began to flog me, and she whipped me. with my own hands, and to all my pleas to tell me why I was being punished like this, she said: you know, you should know, guess for yourself, guess for yourself why I’m whipping you!”

Afanasy Fet and Nikolai Nekrasov were subjected to corporal punishment in childhood.

How little Alyosha Peshkov, the future proletarian writer Gorky, was beaten until he lost consciousness is known from his story “Childhood.” And the fate of Fedya Teternikov, who became the poet and prose writer Fyodor Sologub, is full of tragedy, since in childhood he was mercilessly beaten and “got attached” to beating so much that physical pain became for him a cure for mental pain.

Pushkin's wife, Natalya Goncharova, who was never interested in her husband's poems, was a strict mother. Raising extreme modesty and obedience in her daughters, she mercilessly whipped them on the cheeks for the slightest offense. She herself, being charmingly beautiful and raised on childhood fears, was never able to shine in the world.

Ahead of its time, even during her reign, Catherine II, in her work “Instructions for raising grandchildren,” called for a renunciation of violence. But only in the second quarter of the 19th century did views on raising children begin to change seriously. And in 1864, during the reign of Alexander II, the “Decree on the exemption from corporal punishment of students of secondary educational institutions” appeared. But in those days, flogging students was considered so natural that such a decree of the emperor was perceived by many as too liberal.

Count Leo Tolstoy advocated the abolition of corporal punishment. In the fall of 1859, he opened a Yasnaya Polyana school for peasant children and stated that “the school is free and there will be no rods in it.” And in 1895 he wrote the article “Shame,” in which he protested against corporal punishment of peasants.

This torture was officially abolished only in 1904. Nowadays, punishment is officially prohibited in Russia, but assault is not uncommon in families, and thousands of children are still afraid of their father’s belt or rod. So the rod, starting the story with Ancient Rome, lives to this day.

About how British schoolchildren rebelled under the slogan:
you can find out

The problem of discipline in British schools ah has long been a real headache for teachers and parents in the United Kingdom. According to the latest opinion poll, a significant percentage of Britons are in favor of reintroducing corporal punishment in the country's educational institutions. Oddly enough, the schoolchildren themselves also believe that only a stick can calm down their overly aggressive classmates.

Corporal punishment may soon be reintroduced in British schools. At least, the results of a sociological survey conducted by the Times Educational Supplement in 2012 show that residents Foggy Albion They don’t see any other way to calm down their over-the-top children. According to sociologists who surveyed more than 2,000 parents, 49% of adults dream of returning to the days when public spanking and other corporal punishment were actively used in schools.

Moreover, every fifth of the 530 children surveyed said that they fully agree with the parents who advocate the return of such “draconian” measures to restore order. As it turned out, not only teachers are tired of hooligans, but also the schoolchildren themselves, whose aggressive classmates interfere with their studies. The introduction of corporal punishment in English schools may soon become a reality, as this program is actively supported by the British Minister of Education Michael Gove, who believes that it is high time for “troubled” children to be shown “who’s boss.”

According to the official, almost 93% of parents and 68% of schoolchildren in the country believe that teachers need a free hand in terms of tougher punishments. However, not all British teachers agree with the Minister of Education. Thus, the head of the National Association of Women Teachers, Chris Keats, believes that “hitting children is unacceptable in a civilized society.”

Teenagers felt like masters of schools and began to violate classroom discipline with impunity. In 2011, teachers were finally allowed to physically prevent teenagers from acting if they threatened public order.

“If some parent now hears at school: “Sorry, we do not have the right to apply physical strength", then this school is wrong. It's just not right. The rules of the game have changed,” the minister said.

Also, the head of the country's educational department suggests that more men should work in schools. And he proposes to hire military retirees for this, who will have authority among the most passionate students.

In Britain, they began to officially abandon assault in schools only in 1984, when such methods of establishing order in educational institutions were recognized as humiliating human dignity. Moreover, this only applied to public schools. Corporal punishment was banned in England and Wales in 1999, Scotland in 2000 and Northern Ireland in 2003.

The main instrument of punishment in many public and private schools in England and Wales was (and is) a flexible rattan cane, which is used to strike the arms or buttocks. In some places a belt was used instead of a cane. In Scotland and a number of British schools, a leather ribbon with a handle - towsi - was very popular.

A common tool is a paddle - a special paddle in the form of an elongated plate with a handle made of wood or leather.

Another leader of world democracy, the United States, was also in no hurry to abandon the practice of bodily suggestion. Again, the private school system and public education should not be confused.

A ban on the use of physical punishment has been adopted in only 29 states of the country, and only in two of them - New Jersey and Iowa - corporal punishment is prohibited by law and in private schools too. Moreover, in the 21st state it is not prohibited to punish in schools. Basically, these states are located in the South of the United States.

However, private schools, including prestigious ones, have retained this tool of influencing students in their arsenal. The teaching staff of non-state educational institutions were only recommended to stop beating students. However, push-ups and other additional physical activity For particularly active students in the military spirit, it seems that they quite successfully survived the period of prohibitions.

By the way, completely canceled physical punishment were in Russian schools in 1917. At the beginning of the last century, other countries began to gradually abandon this practice. European countries- Austria and Belgium. Punishments were also abolished in Russian-owned Finland.

About the history of corporal punishment in England. Here's an excerpt:

The pupils were flogged for literally everything. In 1660, when smoking was prescribed to schoolchildren as a means of preventing the plague, one Eton boy was whipped “as never before in his life” for ... not smoking. At Eton, pupils' parents were charged half a guinea in addition to their tuition fees for the purchase of rods, regardless of whether their offspring was punished or not.

It should be emphasized that the matter was not only and not so much in the personal inclinations of the educators, which, as elsewhere, were different, but in general principles education.

The most famous “stickman”, who headed Eton from 1809 to 1834, Dr. John Keate (1773–1852), who once whipped 80 (!!!) boys with rods in just one day, was distinguished by a kind and cheerful disposition, his pupils respected him. Keith was simply trying to improve weakened discipline, and he succeeded. Many of the boys being punished perceived spanking as legitimate retribution for losing, for failing to deceive the teacher, and at the same time as a feat in the eyes of their classmates.

Avoiding rods was considered bad manners. The boys even showed off their scars to each other. Special significance had publicity of punishment. For older, 17-18 year old boys, humiliation was worse than physical pain. The captain of the Eton rowing team, a tall and strong young man who was about to be flogged for drinking too much champagne, tearfully begged the headmaster to flog him in private, and not in front of a crowd of curious younger boys, for whom he himself was authority and even power. The director categorically refused, explaining that the publicity of the spanking was main part punishments.

The ritual of public flogging was worked out to the smallest detail. Each "House" at Eton had its own scaffold - a wooden block with two steps (flogging block). The person being punished had to lower his trousers and underpants, climb onto the scaffold, kneel on the bottom step and lie on his stomach on top part decks. So his butt, the cleft between the buttocks, is sensitive inner surface the thighs and even the genitals from behind were completely naked and available for viewing, and if the teacher carrying out the spanking wished, for painful blows with birch twigs. This is clearly visible in the old English engraving "Whipping at Eton." In this position, the boy was held by two people, whose duties also included holding the tails of his shirt until the offender received all the blows assigned to him.

When justifying the use of corporal punishment against children and criminals, the British of the 19th century referred to the Bible. Of course, not for those episodes where Christ preached love for one’s neighbor and asked the apostles to let children come to him. Proponents of flogging liked Solomon's parables much more. Among other things, it contains the following maxims:

“Whoever spares his rod hates his son; and whoever loves punishes him from childhood (23:24).

Discipline your son while there is hope, and do not be disturbed by his cry (19:18).

Do not leave the young man unpunished: if you punish him with a rod, he will not die; You will punish him with the rod and save his soul from hell (23: 13–14).

Folly is attached to the young man’s heart, but the rod of correction will remove it from him (22:15).”

All arguments that the parables of Solomon should not be taken so literally, and that the rod mentioned there is perhaps a metaphor, and not a bunch of rods, were ignored by supporters of corporal punishment. In 1904, Vice Admiral Penrose Fitzgerald entered into a controversy with the playwright George Bernard Shaw, a fierce opponent of such humiliations. The subject of the dispute was punitive measures in the fleet. The Admiral bombarded Shaw with quotes from Solomon. To this, Shaw replied that he had thoroughly studied the biography of the sage, as well as the relationships in his family. The picture was sad: towards the end of his life, Solomon fell into idolatry, and his well-flogged son was never able to preserve his father’s lands. According to Shaw, Solomon's example is precisely the best argument against putting his principles of education into practice.

In addition to parables, supporters of spanking had another favorite saying - “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Few people knew where she even came from. It was believed that it also came from somewhere in the Bible. A lot of things are written there, and this saying has probably gotten stuck in there too. Somewhere. In fact, this is a quote from Samuel Butler's satirical poem "Hudibras", published in 1664. In one episode, a lady demands a knight to accept a spanking as a test of love. After persuasion, she tells the knight the following: “Love is a boy, by poets styled / Then spare the rod and spoil the child” (Love is a boy, created by poets / If you spare the rod, you will spoil the child). IN in this context the mention of flogging is more likely associated with erotic games and, probably, with a parody of religious flagellants, that is, lovers of self-flagellation. At least the idea itself is presented in a mocking manner. Who would have thought that stern, educated husbands would quote humorous verses?

The rods at Eton. Drawing from the English Illustrated Magazine. 1885

At home these gentlemen did not hesitate to follow Solomon's instructions as they understood them. If in working-class families parents simply attacked the child with their fists, children from the middle class were decorously flogged with rods. Canes, hairbrushes, slippers, and so on could be used as instruments of punishment, depending on parental ingenuity. The children also suffered from nannies and governesses. Not in every house were governesses allowed to beat their pupils - some in such cases called on their fathers for help, but where they were allowed, they were truly vicious. For example, a certain Lady Anne Hill recalled her first nanny this way: “One of my brothers still remembers how she put me on her lap when I was still wearing a long shirt (then I was at most 8 months old) and with all her strength hit me on the bottom with a hairbrush. This continued as I got older.” Lord George Curzon's nanny was a real sadist: she once ordered the boy to write a letter to the butler asking him to prepare a rod for him, and then asked the butler to read this letter in front of all the servants in the servants' room.

In 1889, a scandal broke out regarding the cruelty of the governess. In English newspapers there were often advertisements like: “A bachelor with two sons is looking for a strict governess who does not disdain spanking” and further in the same cheerful spirit. For the most part, this is how sadomasochists had fun in an era when there were no chat rooms or forums of a specific focus. Imagine the surprise of Times readers when one of these advertisements turned out to be genuine!

A certain Mrs. Walter from Clifton offered her services in raising and training unruly girls. She also provided brochures on youth education, at a shilling apiece. The editor of The Times, where the ad was published, persuaded his friend to contact the mysterious Mrs. Walter. It was interesting to find out exactly how she educates young people. A resourceful lady wrote that her young daughter was completely out of control and asked for advice. The teacher believed it. Having communicated your full name, Mrs. Walter Smith, she offered to take the girl to her school for 100 pounds a year and treat her properly there. Moreover, she was ready to show letters of recommendation from the clergy, aristocrats, and high military officials. Along with her answer, Mrs. Smith also sent a brochure in which she described her method of influencing uncontrollable girls. She described so colorfully that, in the absence of other income, she could write sadomasochistic novels. What a pity that this particular idea did not knock on her mind!

The journalist decided to meet her in person. During the interview, Mrs. Smith, a tall and strong lady, said that there were twenty-year-old girls in her academy, and a couple of weeks ago she gave one of them 15 blows with a rod. If necessary, the teacher could come to the house. For example, to those individuals who needed a dose of English education, and the echidna mothers could not organize a spanking for them on their own. Being a punctual lady, she entered all her meetings in notebook. She charged 2 guineas for an appointment, like a true professional (doctors and lawyers demanded payment in guineas, while simpler people received pounds and shillings). Apparently, among her clients there were many masochists.

As soon as the interview with Mrs. Smith was published, a flood of letters poured into the editor. The loudest screams were those ladies and gentlemen whom the good governess mentioned among her guarantors. It turned out that Mrs. Smith was the pastor's widow, former director All Saints School in Clifton. After his death, Mrs. Smith opened a school for girls and asked her friends for letters of recommendation. They happily agreed. Then everyone as one assured that they did not know and did not know about Mrs. Smith’s educational methods. The grocer Mrs. Clapp, who, judging by the brochure, supplied her with rods, also disowned her. Thus, although many Englishmen supported flogging, no one wanted to get involved with such a scandalous and frankly indecent story. And the punishment of girls was treated with much less enthusiasm than the punishment of boys.

Corporal punishment was common both at home and in schools. It is not easy to find a medieval engraving depicting a school theme, where the teacher would not be holding one or another instrument of punishment in his hands. It seems that all educational process came down to them. In the 19th century, things weren't much better. Students from elite educational institutions were beaten much harder and more often than those who attended school in their home village. Special case- reformatory schools for young offenders, where conditions were simply terrible. Commissions inspecting such institutions, as well as schools in prisons, mentioned various abuses, overly heavy canes, as well as thorn rods.

One of the most prestigious schools in England, if not the most prestigious, in the 19th century there was Eton, a boarding school for boys founded in the 15th century. Eton College embodied the harsh English upbringing. Depending on the amount of knowledge, students were assigned to the Junior or Senior Department (Lower/Upper School). If the boys previously studied with a tutor or passed preparatory school, they ended up in the Senior Department. Students who had not yet reached the age of 12 entered the Junior Department, but sometimes it happened that an adult boy was enrolled in the Junior Department, which was especially humiliating. Upon entering college, the student fell under the tutelage of a mentor (tutor), in whose apartment he lived and under whose supervision he studied. The mentor was one of the teachers at the college and supervised an average of 40 students. Parents resolved the issue of payment directly with the mentor.

Since the mentor actually acted as a guardian in relation to the student, he also had the right to punish him. To carry out punishments, teachers also turned to older students for help. So, in the 1840s, there were only 17 teachers for 700 students at Eton, so prefects were simply necessary. Thus, the older students could officially beat the younger ones. Naturally, the matter did not involve sanctioned floggings; hazing also took place. One of the Eton graduates later recalled how a senior student began to beat his friend right during dinner, hitting him in the face and head, while the rest of the senior students continued to eat as if nothing had happened. There were a great many such incidents.

There was also a quasi-feudal system called fagging. Student from junior classes entered into the service of a high school student - brought him breakfast and tea, lit the fireplace and, if necessary, could run to the tobacco shop, although such escapades were severely punished. A sort of lord and vassal in miniature. In exchange for services, the senior student had to protect his subordinate, but no one canceled childhood cruelty, so the older students often took out their grievances on the younger ones. Moreover, a lot of grievances accumulated.

Student private school. In the background, his "servant" is preparing tea for him. Caricature from Punch magazine. 1858

Life at Eton was not easy even for high school students, even for children from wealthy families. 18-20 year old boys, tomorrow's graduates - in fact, young men - could also be flogged. For them, the punishment was especially humiliating given its public nature. Eton rods resembled a broom with a meter-long handle and a bunch of thick twigs at the end. The director's servant prepared the rods, bringing a dozen of them to school every morning. Sometimes he had to replenish his supply during the day. For ordinary offenses the student received 6 strokes, for more serious offenses their number increased. At Eton they always flogged their bare buttocks, and depending on the force of the blow, blood could appear on the skin, and the marks of the flogging did not go away for weeks. The rod was the symbol of Eton, but in 1911, Headmaster Lyttelton committed sacrilege - he abolished the rod in the Senior Department, replacing it with a cane. Former students were horrified and vying with each other assuring that now English system education will go to hell. Home school they simply could not imagine without rods!

In both the Junior and Senior departments, executions were public. Any of the students could attend them. This, in fact, was the effect of punishment - to scare as many students as possible in one fell swoop. Another thing is that the Etonians came to the floggings as if it were a show, to gloat rather than to brag about it. The students, who had never been punished at home, were in awe of such a sight, but they too soon got used to it. Judging by the memoirs of graduates, over time they ceased to be afraid or even ashamed of punishment. To bear it without shouting was a kind of bravado.

When sending their sons to Eton, parents knew full well that their offspring could not avoid being spanked. In this regard, the incident of Mr. Morgan Thomas of Sussex in the 1850s is interesting. When his son, an Eton student, turned 14, Mr. Thomas declared that from now on he should not be subjected to corporal punishment. He told his son this good news “face to face”; the college administration knew nothing about his orders. Young Thomas lasted four years without serious violations. But when an 18-year-old boy was suspected of smoking and sentenced to flogging, it was then that he revealed to his mentor that his father had forbidden him to obey the Eton rules. The principal did not write to the student's father and simply expelled young Thomas for disobedience. Angered, Mr Thomas launched a press campaign to abolish corporal punishment at Eton. After all, according to an act of parliament of 1847, it was forbidden to flog criminals over 14 years of age (throughout the 19th century, these rules changed, becoming softer and harsher). But if the law spared the backsides of young offenders, why was it possible to flog 18-year-old gentlemen? Unfortunately, my father never achieved anything.

From time to time, other scandals related to cruelty in schools broke out. For example, in 1854, the head boy at Harrow School gave another student 31 strokes of his cane, as a result of which the boy needed medical care. This incident was trumpeted in The Times, but the scandal did not entail any consequences. In 1874, Reverend Moss, headmaster of Shrewsberry School, gave a student 88 lashes with a rod. According to a doctor who examined the boy 10 days after the incident, his body was covered with scars. The most incredible thing is that the Times readers learned about the director’s cruelty from his own letter! Frustrated, Moss wrote to the newspaper, complaining that the boy's father had spread the word about the punishment to the entire neighborhood. It's like something serious happened! It's a common thing. Of course, the director was not removed from his position, they were only asked to continue to take into account public opinion and not punish students so harshly.

A real hell on earth was the boarding school Christ's Hospital in London. After 12-year-old student William Gibbs hanged himself in 1877 after being bullied, the school came under parliamentary scrutiny. It turned out that from eight in the evening until eight in the morning, none of the teachers looked after the students. Power was concentrated in the hands of the elders, and they did what they wanted. William Gibbs had a conflict with one of the prefects. The boy had already run away from school once, but he was returned and severely whipped. And when the second escape was unsuccessful, William chose suicide over yet another humiliation. The doctor's verdict was “suicide in a state of temporary insanity.” The rules at school remained the same.

It should be noted that corporal punishment was banned in English public schools, as well as in private schools receiving government subsidies, only in 1987 (!). In the remaining private schools, corporal punishment was abolished even later: in 1999 in England and Wales, in 2000 in Scotland, and in 2003 in Northern Ireland.

Despite the assurances of pornographers, girls in English schools XIX centuries were flogged much less often than boys. At least this applies to girls from the middle class and above. The situation was somewhat different in schools for the poor and in orphanages. According to a report from 1896, reform schools for girls used rods, canes and thongs. For the most part, girls were hit on the arms or shoulders.

Although girls got much less treatment in schools than boys, girls' boarding schools were also sometimes terrifying. Anyone who has ever read Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre will remember the gloomy Lowood orphanage, where the humble Helen Burns was bullied by the teacher Miss Scatchard. The prototype for Lowood was the school for daughters of clergy in Cowan Bridge, Lancashire, which the Brontë sisters attended. The school was designed for the daughters of impoverished priests who did not have the opportunity to hire a governess for their daughters or send them to a more expensive boarding school. It was for financial reasons that Patrick Bronte, the father of future writers, chose Cowan Bridge.

Cowan Bridge. Drawing from J. E. Stewart's book The Brontë Edge. 1888

Pupils were taught spelling, arithmetic, history, grammar, embroidery and home economics. Each girl's education, including room and board, cost her parents £14 a year (for drawing, music and foreign languages had to pay extra), but this amount did not cover all expenses, and the remaining budget was collected from philanthropists. Alas, free cheese only comes in a mousetrap, and the same applies to cheap cheese. However, Patrick Brontë found the school satisfactory and sent his eldest daughters, 11-year-old Mary and 10-year-old Elizabeth, there in July 1824. In the fall of that year, 8-year-old Charlotte and 7-year-old Emily joined them.

The school at Cowan Bridge was headed by the wealthy clergyman William Carus Wilson. Elizabeth Gaskell, biographer of Charlotte Brontë, emphasizes it good intentions, blaming unscrupulous staff for all omissions. Be that as it may, the philanthropic Mr. Wilson should be concerned not only with spiritual growth students, but also about their nutrition. The food at school was terrible: the girls choked on burnt oatmeal, sour milk, rotten meat and rancid fat. The rice puddings were also disappointing, because to cook the rice the cook took stagnant water from a drainage barrel. And on Saturdays, the students were treated to a real feast - a pie made from potatoes and meat scraps. Accustomed to simple, but healthy food, the girls left the table hungry.

The Brontë sisters barely had time to recover from measles, but icy stone floors in their bedrooms and chilly classrooms awaited them in Cowan Bridge. Every Sunday the pupils had to walk 3km to the church in Tunstall to hear their benefactor Mr Wilson preach. In the summer the walk was pleasant, but in bad weather it became a real torture, especially for hungry and cold children.

Little Charlotte was shocked for the rest of her life by what she saw at Cowan Bridge School. After the death of her mother, Maria Brontë took upon herself the care of younger brothers and sisters, but at school the kind and hardworking girl was disliked by one of the teachers, the prototype of Miss Scatchard. There was no end to the nagging and punishments. One day Maria became so ill that she could barely get out of bed, and the students promised to tell the headmistress about her illness - perhaps Maria would be allowed to spend the day in the bedroom. But the girl was so afraid of the teacher’s anger that she began to get dressed, albeit very slowly. At that moment, “Miss Scetchard” flew into the bedroom, pulled Maria out of bed and threw her to the floor with all her might, continuing to scold her for her sloppiness and laziness. Having risen with difficulty, Maria still managed to get dressed and went down to the dining room, where she was immediately punished for being late.

In the spring of 1825, Maria became so weak that Patrick Bronte had to take her home, where on May 6 she died of tuberculosis. And when Elizabeth followed her a month later, her grief-stricken father took Charlotte and Emily away from Cowan Bridge. But the memory of what they experienced remained with them forever.

After a fair amount of digging on the Internet and contacting education workers, we learned that there are still plenty of monsters in the world and there are schools where punishment is much worse than our red paste.

Third world countries

What can we say about Africa, where the most severe punishments for the most common children's pranks and pranks are still alive. In Namibia, for example, the offender must stand under a tree with a wasp nest for several hours. This is especially true for girls who do not have the right to study at school and sometimes come to look at the boys. It’s called school too for me!

Liberia and Kenya are not far behind. There children are whipped for disobedience.

In Myanmar (for those who don’t know, this is small state near China) and even worse. For the most common children's mischief (talking in class, running during recess, mistakes in assignments), the child is hit with a cane on the calves, hands and butt in front of the whole class. For more serious mistakes, schoolchildren are forced to squat with their arms crossed, while the so-called “teacher” pulls his ears.

What about in civilized Europe?

But in France, for example, a student may get caught because of his parents, who are late to pick up their child from school. They even introduced fines for those who were late picking up their child more than twice. In this case, the baby receives bad behavior.

Germany is more loyal to its new generation. But there is also punishment, which students fear like fire. Summer school. If you have not reached the number of hours of visits, no matter for what reasons, whether illness or something more serious, the school obliges you to attend a special summer school for three weeks every day instead of vacation. educational institution. Naturally, parents pay for this education.

Rest of the world

For many centuries, Brazilian teachers have used corporal punishment as the most effective punishment for spoiled people. But now the education system in Brazil is humane, and the worst punishment for a misbehavior is a ban on playing football during breaks.

But the Japanese became famous for their sophistication in punishing the future generation. A schoolchild who did not pay attention in class was previously forced to stand with a bowl on his head and keep his leg at right angles to the ground. Now the Japanese regret the past stage and give their children maximum opportunities for personal growth.

Glorious America cannot be ignored. The education system here, in my opinion, is the most complex in the world. After all, there are so many states, so many criteria for evaluating students. In some places, physical abuse of children also occurs: here in Alabama, Georgia, and Arkansas.
It was Alabama that thundered throughout the world when the mother of seven-year-old boy Jonathan Curtis filed a police report about the beating of her son by a teacher. According to the boy, he received numerous injuries and bruises because he looked into without permission classroom ! Moreover, during the investigation of the incident, the director of Jonathan’s school stated that the teacher was right and this punishment was absolutely fair.

But in most cases, as in USA and neighboring Canada, the heaviest punishment is considered to be a ban on the student attending educational institution for a while. Moreover, if a child was punished because of disobedience during a lesson, parents are obliged to take their offspring to a psychotherapist at this time to understand the reasons for such behavior.

As for Russia and Ukraine, in our country, of course, such absurd methods of education are not common, but there are isolated cases of strange, and sometimes cruel punishment children.

For example, in many domestic schools students are left without recess or even answers in class simply because their parents did not sign the teacher’s remark or memo. Once I personally observed a picture of how an experienced 50-year-old teacher with extensive work experience left a second-grader in the office during a walk, only because the mother did not sign the footnote with the grades. And what kind of upbringing is this, you ask?

But Buchanskaya school No. 5 Kyiv region became known throughout the country for such a method of punishment as the “board of shame.” Anyone who was late or came out of uniform was immediately photographed on the spot and posted on a board with offensive inscriptions. This innovation was the initiative of the school director, but, thank God, it did not catch on.

These are the schools of the 21st century. Does anyone really need to be reminded that every child is bright personality with the precious and fragile inner world? And we, adults, are obliged to protect, develop, love and invest in everyone little man all that is good and correct that we can give. And if suddenly you encounter a cruel and absurd attitude towards children from a school or parents, do not remain silent! Tell us about it, save a life that has just begun!