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Showing posts from August, 2015

Mrs Parker's Electric Paddle

We Knew It Was For Our Good When I was a kid there was discipline and order in the classroom. Teachers could actually teach, and kids could actually learn. We had a healthy fear of punishment, and we knew it would certainly come if we deserved it.   A ll of us kids instinctively knew it was not abuse, but a justified response to misbehavior and rebellion, or an attempt to prevent us from doing things that were dangerous or harmful. We knew our parents and teachers (generally speaking) loved us and were trying to educate us and train us to be mature and responsible. Mrs. Parker's Electric Paddle In my third year of elementary school, we moved from the old, white, wooden schoolhouse into a new brick facility.   When I stepped off the bus onto the new school grounds, the word was going around that our principal, Mrs. Parker, had an electric paddle installed in her new modern office. None of us wanted to face that mysterious and unknown instrument. Whenever one of the boys was sent