How to make children behave

AT junior school in the 1930s, I was slapped around my head quite regularly. I never knew why and just came to believe that men teachers enjoyed hitting children. I also came to believe that my teachers hated me.

At grammar school in the 1940s, I was caned at least once a week for offences such as “playing with my pencil” and “looking out of the window”. I became more convinced that teachers hated me. By the time I left school, I had come to believe that teachers were sadistic brutes.

Throughout my teens I was a keen hiker, rock climber and “barner” (I slept in barns when I was on long hiking expeditions. I thought I wasn’t posh enough to use youth hostels).

Through these interests I developed feelings of pride and confidence – feelings which enabled me to cope with my teachers’ apparent desire to make me a nervous wreck.

At the age of 18, I was called up for National Service. During my two years Army service I was treated fairly and shown respect. There were no favourites. Furthermore, unlike the academic education I had struggled with at school, what I was taught in the Army was practical, meaningful and learnable. But that’s another story.

As a teacher, my approach to discipline was a blend of the free and easy hiker attitude to life and the Army style of self-discipline and respect for one another. I could never have caned anybody because I knew it was morally wrong, that it didn’t help children to learn self-discipline and that it could corrupt the minds of teachers who used it.

For much of my career, I worked with boys and girls who had been excluded from mainstream education because of behavioural difficulties.

During 42 years as a teacher (30 of them as a head teacher) I was never insulted or treated badly by any pupil. I cannot recall a single case of children behaving like bullies.

Now when I look back I am proud of the fact that throughout my career I had a child-centred approach to teaching. I’m sure there are many teachers with similar stories to tell.

From: J Brears, Little Heck, Goole.

I FULLY agree with the excellent article by GP Taylor (Yorkshire Post, March 3) and also Mr Ellison’s letter in reply (Yorkshire Post, March 12). I started school in the 1920s and we were then taught right from wrong.

You respected the policeman, teacher and vicar and if you transgressed the policeman quite often gave you a clip around the ear.

You did not go home and complain to your parents as you would probably receive another one for doing wrong.

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence soon began to behave.

I am afraid there are too many do-gooders to see the return of some form of corporal punishment, but it is long overdue.

From: John Gordon, Whitcliffe Lane, Ripon.

I SUGGEST that Education Secretary Michael Gove might consider planning a few more boarding schools since many single mothers seem to have great difficulty in controlling their male offspring once puberty sets in.

Taking a real gamble

From: Trev Bromby, Sculcoates Lane, Hull.

I HAVE just seen a newsflash, it seems some twit wants to put Deal or No Deal (Channel 4) on at a later time, because it is a game of chance. From there it all goes a bit hazy. Apparently it is not like proper gambling. Amazingly it relies on luck.

So what we want on at appropriate times is horse racing, mired in scandal and corruption; football, bogged down with near-sighted referees, inept linesmen, bad management, unfit and distracted players; cricket, with more fixings than Screwfix Direct; boxing, with more home town decisions, dubious scoring, biased referees and mis-matching.

All these and more are all right to watch before the watershed, as you can have a proper gamble on them. If you choose to lay a wager after reading the above much publicised and proven points, then you really are a gambler.

Shambles that cannot go on

From: David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Holgate, York.

WITH all the tensions and rows within the coalition Government, and the main opposition to their awful policies coming from former Conservative chairman Lord Norman Tebbitt, I hope this coalition collapses before 2015.

David Cameron is more like a Lib Dem than a Tory and the Liberal Democrats are like a prostitute; they will climb into bed with anyone. Surely this shambles cannot continue much longer?