financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
what about the time teachers whapped kids hands with canes?
Not sure about up North but corporal punishment in the Republic was still legal in my first few years at primary school, though it was probably dying out and the teachers themselves were turning against it. I do remember the year before the ban on corporal punishment came in, when I was in first class (I think, the equivalent of the US first grade) there was a lady teacher who was not shy of using the ruler on the kids' hands. Being a very quiet sort of kid and usually top of the class I never got the ruler myself except one time when the class had been so unruly she decided that everyone would have to get one stroke of the ruler on the hand. I can't say I was 'psychologically damaged' by the experience and I doubt if any the other kids were either, but, really, a grown adult hitting six or seven year old kids just seems wrong.
I also remember a few years later, when I was in fifth and sixth class, at which point the ban was definitely in force, there were these two obnoxious kids who kept disrupting the class, the male teacher had no control over them whatever and eventually resorted to whacking them on the head with his hand ever time they started their nonsense, the only effect this had was that they might shut up for a few minutes at most. Now, again, the idea of a grown man hitting kids is just wrong, but, frankly, these kids were really, really obnoxious. And, actually, this recollection is if anything an argument against corporal punishment, as it simply didn't work because they kept on with their messing and disrupting the class, until their departure to secondary school to create more havoc, doubtless (fortunately, not the same one as me).