Cheek Chaps

We’ve been talking and debating politics for weeks.  There is no doubt, whatever side of the impeachment issue you’re on – it’s intense!!  So let’s take a break, and reminisce about forty years ago.  Even that can be controversial. Let’s talk about – beating kids!!!!!

Back in the Day

I first started teaching in 1978, in a rural school in Licking County, Ohio.  Cornfields surrounded the high school; the joke was you had to push a cow aside to get a parking spot.  One of the big events of the fall was tractor day, when the seniors drove their tractors to school and paraded them in the parking lot.  A senior “prank” involved dumping dozens of live chickens in the school’s enclosed courtyard.  Each had a name tag, with the name of a faculty member written on it. We taught class looking out at the “chicken coop.”

Only a few years before I arrived, the school had been out of control.  There was little student discipline; freshmen took their lives in their hands even going to the restroom.  They hung from the hooks in the stall by their belts, kicking to get back down, or got wrapped in duct tape to the flagpole in front of the school.  (If you’ve ever watch the movie “Dazed and Confused” you’ll get the idea.)  The new Principal and Assistant came in to regain control.  They did it at the business end of a three foot wooden paddle.  

When I showed up as a student teacher, there wasn’t a whole lot of paperwork involved in discipline.  You gave a detention, fifteen-minutes before or after school.  Or, you the student went to the office, where they generally got paddled. One or two “swats” was standard, boy or girl, freshman or senior, it didn’t matter.  There was one senior who proudly had the record, fifty-four swats in a year.  I imagine he had callouses in the appropriate places.

Swats

Get in a fight:  two swats.  Cheat on a test:  one swat.  Skip school, a swat for each period you skipped.  Often students knew that they were going to get it when they came to school in the morning.  Some were better prepared than others.

The process was simple.  The student would go in the office, and the door would shut.  The principal would say, “is there anything in your pockets, empty them on the desk.”  Then the student would turn around, and place their hands on the desk, leaning slightly forward.  The paddling would begin.

Senior Skip Day

The principals weren’t interested in a “senior skip day.”  But the seniors were serious about it, and decided they were going out no matter what.  There was a problem for the track team members; they had to be in school for half a day to run in the meet that night.  So rather than skip the “skip day,” they came in at the end of fourth period.

The highly annoyed principals determined the punishment was one swat for every period missed.  Four swats:  my hurdler ruefully showed me the welts in the locker room before we went out on the track.  It didn’t seem to hurt his times though!

Equipment Failure

We were having a pep rally; the whole student body of over eight hundred kids stuffed int0 the five hundred person capacity gym.  We called it the “snake pit”.  The cheerleaders were on the stage getting everyone fired up, when one senior boy decided to have fun by going under the bleachers and poking up through the seats.

I was on duty, and dragged him down to the office.   During pep rallies there was usually one administrator left there: his job was to be “the goalie.” Kids misbehaving during the rally were sent down to him (or her) for punishment.  Thirty years later as Dean of Students, I often had that “goalkeeper” duty.

It was in the early 1980’s and paddling was growing more controversial.  So this time the assistant principal asked me to stay around and witness the punishment.  The boy followed the procedure, emptying his pockets on the desk, and “assumed the position” (thanks to Animal House for that catch-phrase of paddling.)  The Assistant Principal took the paddle back like Sabrina Williams going for a forehand winner, and swung.

The paddle hit, split in half, and fell to the floor.  The boy looked down, first left, than right, with a look of shocked surprise more than pain on his face.  The Assistant in his deep voice said, “take your wallet, you are dismissed”. The boy dashed from the room.  It was a good thing he left quickly; it was hard to keep a straight face as we picked up the paddle pieces.

Smack or Thud

The principals got pretty good at metering how hard they hit. They knew what a “good swat” sounded like.  The idea was a stinging “smack” that would remind the student about the cost of transgression.  Even the toughest senior guys left with tears in their eyes.

So when students attempted to pad themselves, the principals were usually aware.  It was the difference between “smack” and “thud.”  A “thud” would send a student to the office restroom, to get down to one layer of underwear.  It all sounds almost medieval now, but it was the standard process in those “ancient” times.

The Smart Kid

One boy decided he could beat the system.  He knew what was coming, and he went into the office with unusual confidence.  Wallet on the table, he placed his hands and faced the music.  The principal laid the first hit, a satisfying “smack.”  As he did, the boy’s t-shirt slid slightly above his belt, revealing something more than a Fruit of Loom label.

The principal asked, “…What is in your pants;” another question that couldn’t possibly be asked today.  Not smiling now, the boy reached back, and pulled out his “cheek chaps.”  He had cut off the top section of a western boot, split it, and placed leather “chaps” over each “cheek.”  The principal laughed, and gave the boy credit for creativity.  He then administered another swat, without leather protection.

We stopped beating students by the early 1980’s.  It did maintain discipline, but as the community became suburban, corporal punishment became unacceptable.  That made sense; if parents weren’t using corporal punishment at home it wasn’t going to work at school.  Besides, as an educator I never did understand how we could hit one student for hitting another.

But the concept has come down through time.  To that “beaten” generation of Watkins Memorial High School students, now well past fifty years old, they know what they need to “cover their ass.”  They need “cheek chaps.”