Two abusers. How fun! One to hit a child, one to watch.
How can you even find one person to partake in such an act, especially in a school setting?
Easily, because at the time, corporal punishment of kids was normal in the US, both at school and at home. Perceptions of what constitutes "cruel" have changed exponentially over the past half-century plus, and they still differ enormously by culture.
I don’t think permission from the parent was always the case. Must depend on where you lived. My dad didn’t know any of these stories until I was full grown and told him. I remember my stepmother finding out they paddled my stepbrother and marching into the school full on Mama Bear. It was a sight to behold.
It wasn't. In most parts of the US, corporal punishment or one sort or another was usual in schools up until the 1960s, and it hung on longer in religious schools. Wooden paddles were once standard Principal's office decor; they were usually kept hung on the outer wall just where kids could see them, as a visual deterrent. What a lot of people now don't realize is that many kids were given the choice of being paddled, and chose it deliberately. The way that it usually was presented was that you could take the "licks" immediately, then go back to class and nothing more would be said, and your parents would not be notified of what you had done. However, if you chose not to take the "licks", then your parents would be notified, and then THEY would be free to come up with whatever creative punishment they could think of. Most kids were way more scared of how angry their parents would be, vs. the known quantity of a specified number of licks from the paddle. Most common infractions rated 2-4 licks; in the districts where I attended there was a set list that specified the maximum allowed.
When the tide started to change I was in grade school, & I can clearly remember having to bring home a form that allowed my parents to opt out of paddling. By the time I hit high school the form was reversed; you had to sign to opt in and allow it.
(BTW, when I was in grade school the standard rumor was that our principal had an electric paddle; a frame that you supposedly stood in that could be set at a certain force. The rowdier kids reveled in scaring the bejeezus out of the goodie-good kids with that one. In actuality, the one special "innovation" that existed were drilled paddles; they had air holes to reduce wind resistance. (As I remember it, that model tended to be preferred by Principals who had come up via the gym-teacher route.))
PS, to be clear: Am I defending it? No. Eliminating paddling is a triumph of enlightment over ignorance, but where that was accomplished it was done so calmly, with reason and with data, and without trying to demonize parents who accepted it.
