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The tingle o' the tawse

Many a time and oft... It stung like the devil on frosty mornings when your hands were cold. I recall in high school one lad who wore his watch facing inwards- when he held out his hands, the belt hit the watch and exploded it in a welter of springs and cogs. The teacher calmly proceeded to give him six of the belt, but then bought him a new watch, as that had not been part of the punishment.

The belt got your attention, and helped maintain discipline. I don't think it left anyone psychically scarred. There were a lot less attacks on teachers in those days too.
 
Soapy Sam said:
Many a time and oft... It stung like the devil on frosty mornings when your hands were cold. I recall in high school one lad who wore his watch facing inwards- when he held out his hands, the belt hit the watch and exploded it in a welter of springs and cogs. The teacher calmly proceeded to give him six of the belt, but then bought him a new watch, as that had not been part of the punishment.

The belt got your attention, and helped maintain discipline. I don't think it left anyone psychically scarred. There were a lot less attacks on teachers in those days too.

Unlike the birch, the cane, and the Halifax gibbet, the tawse and the tawse alone was invented specifically for pedagogical purposes. And precisely fitted for them.
 
Having been on the recieving end of both a cane (arse) and tawse (hand) I can tell you without hesitation that the tawse is FAARRR!! more painfull. That thing must have been made of Tyrannosaurus leather or something. Hurt like a bitch!
 
I remember one gym teacher breaking the arm of one of those school chairs with the one arm to rest your books on? As seen when the Blues Brothers meet the penguin?
I also recall one history teacher who, poor woman, should have been retired long ago. One day because nobody would admit to having laughed at something or other she decided to strap every boy in the class. So we lined up, she swung, the first boy got 2 pathetic smacks and slipped back to the end of the line. So did everyone else. She lasted nearly 20 minutes.
 
At my high school, in the shameful town of Bixby, Oklahoma, they used sawn-in-half baseball bats.

If you ever drive through it, spit.
 
Sundog said:
At my high school, in the shameful town of Bixby, Oklahoma, they used sawn-in-half baseball bats.

If you ever drive through it, spit.

Sawn in half baseball bats?

Not to get too personal, but how old are you? Just so I can get some historical context.
 
Wudang said:
I remember one gym teacher breaking the arm of one of those school chairs with the one arm to rest your books on? As seen when the Blues Brothers meet the penguin?
I also recall one history teacher who, poor woman, should have been retired long ago. One day because nobody would admit to having laughed at something or other she decided to strap every boy in the class. So we lined up, she swung, the first boy got 2 pathetic smacks and slipped back to the end of the line. So did everyone else. She lasted nearly 20 minutes.

One of my English teachers used to work at a school in which teachers were expected to tawse their pupils as a matter of course. On her first attempt, she was so nervous she missed, smacked her own leg, overbalanced and fell over. She never tried to use one again.

OTH the Scotch bastard who hit me used to take a windup like a baseball pitcher. If his office was big enough, I swear he would have taken a run-up.
 
My old biology teacher was famous for his 'Lochgelly heavy'. Never on the receiving end of that particular instrument but did get 'belted' many times by a rather sadistic metalwork teacher who used to patrol the corridors with his tawse stowed over his left shoulder (but under his coat).
I once was administered 'six of the belt' for throwing snowballs at the girls (one of whom is now my wife); this happened immediately after morning assembly where we had been warned not to throw snowballs. Three wacks of a leather strap on blue-cold hands leaves more than just welts I can tell you. I couldn't hold a pencil all day.
Aye, those were the days all right.
 
Abdul Alhazred said:


Sawn in half baseball bats?

Not to get too personal, but how old are you? Just so I can get some historical context.

I'm 47. This was in the early '70s. They would always find a coach who wasn't busy to administer the licks for maximum effect.

Perhaps this explains my no-spanking parenting philosophy. ;)
 
Jon_in_london said:
Having been on the recieving end of both a cane (arse) and tawse (hand) I can tell you without hesitation that the tawse is FAARRR!! more painfull. That thing must have been made of Tyrannosaurus leather or something. Hurt like a bitch!

I managed to avoid the cane, although my twin brother didn't. We're talking about the 60s here. He was sent to the headmaster's (principal's) office to wait for his punishment, but ran off. The head phoned our mother and she sent him back.
I can't remember what his crime was, but pretty minor stuff.
I annoyed my history teacher so much he beat me and two others with a piece of rubber hose. Welts across the bum that bled. Ouch.
Character building, that's what it was, character building............
 
My headmaster in the early 50s believed in the use of the cane. After he had gone to another school, he once caned 300 boys in one day. The result was a hernia, and he was off work for six months...

I have to say that he was a much more popular figure than his successors, who were less inclined to use corporal punishment.
 
In grade school and high school in the 40s and 50s in Connecticut, the only physical punishment I ever saw was when the coach who taught health lost it one day and bounced a kid off the classroom wall.
Usually, the punishment was to be send out to the hall. Not very effective, especially if I came prepared with a paperback book to read, tucked under my shirt in the back.
 
ChrisH said:
My headmaster in the early 50s believed in the use of the cane. After he had gone to another school, he once caned 300 boys in one day.

Three hundred in one day? That's twelve point five per hour.
 
Any physical punishment of pupils was outlawed in 1966 over here and rightfully so. If a teacher has to use violence in order to maintain discipline he/she really should have choosen another profession, it's pathetic.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
I was caned once. 6 of the best because I had unknowilngly HELD a ruler which was stolen from the art room. My parents complained, and my punisment was withdrawn from my permanent record. Big deal - it didn't stop my hurt feelings or my hurt bum.
The teacher that adminstered the punishment was a bully, pure and simple. I admit that I felt a 'spiritual lift' when I heard that he died a few years back.
Peter
 
Bikewer said:
They're still quite popular in BDSM circles. Or so I'm told....

Indeed. But what sets the tawse apart from other forms of beating children is that it was specifically designed for teachers.

I've done a bit of googling. The Lochgelly Tawse has a home page.

As a naïve American, I first became aware of the expression "six of the best" from a biography of Alan Turing. But that was caning, not the tawse.

I was smacked around quite a bit myself, but not officially.

Here in God's country we have plenty of "whoop-ass", but it's not so formalized as in the old country.
 
I find the phrase "It was specifically designed for teachers" to be a bit ambiguous.
 
Jeff Corey said:
I find the phrase "It was specifically designed for teachers" to be a bit ambiguous.

You use a belt is to keep your pants up. It can also be used for discipline.

Unlike this mutipurpose thing you wear around your waste, the tawse has but one purpose, teachers hitting children on the hand.

I suppose you could hit them on the bottom with a tawse, but that is not its proper purpose. For that there are canes and birches. Or your own hands. :p

Did you click the link?
 
I remember seeing film of this in "action"; in So. Africa pre-Aparthied. They did a little segment on 60 minutes or somesuch on the schools there. Long time ago.
 
Abdul Alhazred said:
You use a belt is to keep your pants up. It can also be used for discipline.

Unlike this mutipurpose thing you wear around your waste, the tawse has but one purpose, teachers hitting children on the hand.

But the rattan cane and the paddle are also designed purely for corporal punishment. They may well have evolved from household items used as spanking implements (the walking cane and hairbrush being obvious examples), but the tawse surely evolved from the belt too.

In all three cases, the punishment implement is useless for the purpose of the item they grew out of (though Randi might as well brush his hair with a paddle :D ). I just can't see how "the tawse alone was invented specifically for pedagogical purposes".
 
The nuns used yard sticks on us. Some were found if throwing things or using the cord they tied around their waists to hit you upside the head.
 
We got the 'official' Cane from the Head or his deputy.
Classroom punishments were a whack with a ruler on the hand, a gym shoe on the backside or, in our old Tech Drawing class a Flexi Curve on the hand or backside depending on the nature of the transgression.

Great days....
 
The tingle o' the tawse

Looks like it should be the name of a Reel or Polka played by the Chieftains :)
 
When at school, I was given the tawse by my Maths teacher (this would be 1973 or 74). Just for fun, he was also the man who took the Karate Club at dinner times. Stang like heck. When I taught for a while in the early 90s they were banned but one of the old teachers had left his tawse in the drawer of my desk. I used to demonstrate it to pupils by putting some chalk on the edge of a desk then striking it with the tawse. Produced a very smooth cloud of dust. The 90's kids couldn't believe that we used to be allowed to use that on anyone.
 
Only got the belt once, when two other guys jumped me in the corridor in S1 (this will mean nothing to the Sassenachs). We all got three of the belt. Bit nippy, mind.
 
I've seen the title a million times. I always wondered what this thread was about.

If you can't manage kids without hitting them, pack up your ****, hang up your dryerase marker, you've got no business teaching,
 
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