Trivial Tales Of Everyday Madness: Faked Out Again

.....At the classroom at the other side of the corridor a man called Mr Paton had taught us. A rather undiscerning one-dimensional dullard of a fellow. Tallish, slim and aquiline featured. I was inclined to see him as intelligent, at least initially, but he was as quick to jump on the bandwagon of giving me the strap as Mrs MacDonald tended to be; she who had tossed my coveted POW! comic into the bin. She would give me 'the belt,' almost every day. It was obvious to her it gave me no lasting discomfort and better still, I accepted it without a qualm. It might have been a different story with some of the others, namely the girls, if they were less conditioned to accept such treatment, not being from a “broken home” as they say, and where neither of their parents could be described as out of control. It was a bit off that I just so happened to be the centre of attention with these people all too often, which coincided with my being an easier target as I had arguably less comeback. Though it was only the same one or two who would send me to Paton’s when I had fallen down somewhere in their estimation. That he could punish me when I had done nothing to him if at all seemed peculiarly arbitrary to me, as he was only another teacher, whereas to be sent to the headmaster made more sense. It was probably sometime after the new headmaster Young appeared on the scene that it stopped. I could be wrong, but that’s how I recall it. And Paton’s belt was hard. Or rather, being a man, he put more muscle into it. It seemed that my slim but strong physique and acceptance of pain was making things worse for me, if anythng. That if they got little reaction they put more effort into it. His buffoonery was confirmed for me one day when he confronted the whole class for some infraction or other, which he ended by suggesting the culprits own up to it. Here’s the thing. It may for all I know have been the pissing in the close episode and I’ve got my previous facts mixed up, and it was later and for something else entirely we had to see the headmaster, Young. Or, it could have been something else in Paton’s class. Whatever it was, it wasn’t serious, as no one had to administer justice as they saw it except him on his own discretion. When asked to own up, Colin Heron walked straight out. Paton, predictably, took this as exemplary behaviour, and he immediately dismissed him for being prompt. I felt instinctively if obscurely that this was bullshit. I knew Colin Heron a tad better than he did having been in the same class since I’d been at that school. It was a small school as I say, and each class was permanent through the years. Standard practice, in those days at any rate. I also couldn’t see why Colin’s quick response should negate anyone else walking out. Were we now all automatically guilty because it had been decided almost arbitrarily that he wasn’t, just because he knew how to flatter the self-inflated petty authoritarians? That behaviour was more important than the reality of the situation as I intuitively grasped it to be? This was the case, as I found out as soon as I did walk out. And why the former fell into place. Paton immediately pointed out I had only owned up to my guilt because I had just seen 'the other boy', to all intents and purposes, get off scott free. Naturally I was mistakenly assuming the same. A clear insult to his and everyone else’s intelligence. Who was I trying to kid, kid? I knew that somewhere along the line I had been hoodwinked, but not in the way he seemed to be assuming I was. If I

had done nothing it would have been no better for me, for all I knew. And who was he to assume I would let myself slink into the background to let others take any rap for it anyway? And who was I to watch the sneaky little shit Heron march up without a qualm like some local hero? (“Sir I cannot tell a lie for it was I…”) I knew what my motivations were, and that was good enough for me, even if I couldn’t quite fathom his, because clearly it wasn’t good enough for him. Quite the opposite in fact. But what was obvious to me was that Heron was an actor. What I didn’t grasp was that he shared the same mind-set in unspoken collusion. As soon as he walked out, the formerly “guilty” blended into the foreground and morphed into the “innocent” party, at the expense of the guilt of the rest of us. As far as we were concerned the die had been cast and we were damned if we did or didn’t – own up. Not that there was anyone around to inform me of this, or any of us. They didn’t really need to. I had already grasped the essence of it. That Patton, under the pretext of accusing me of trying to con him had conned me. I felt it wasn’t right, in a disturbingly significant way. That if it wasn’t right for me, for any of us, then that included Colin. It also included himself for that reason. In some profound way he was failing all of us. Through some socially acceptable pretext, hiding behind the rules and regulations and justified retaliation and punishment, he was radically missing the point. All was not right in his class and his world I felt, now mine. And as there was nothing I could do about it, even if I was capable of rationally and coherently explaining it to anyone if I had the chance, which was very unlikely, I knew this would niggle me for the rest of my days until I truly fathomed it. I wouldn’t have verbalised it that way as such, but intuitively knew this to be true because of the level, the intensity of anger and outrage I felt. I wanted to tell him this was garbage, that I wasn’t having it. But at the age of ten or eleven I didn’t have the selfconfidence, the conviction. And there was also the lingering doubt that I might be somehow getting the wrong end of the stick; that as it is subtle, then that’s more likely to be the case. On some level I knew he knew this. That he was the adult and even if I had the gall to stand my ground, I would only make it worse for myself. It was a telling experience in the light of later experiences, come a year or two later in Secondary school. Since then, corporal punishment has long been outlawed. And the teaching community has been up in arms about the behaviour of pupils over the years. There have been numerous calls to bring back the strap as they like to call it, and some kids are virtually psychopathic. But it’s equally obvious to me the threat of the infliction of pain was also used as a gag. To stifle further 'dissent.' You knew full well that if they disapproved, it was punish now and investigate later. Usually. But no questions were asked because many of them were in agreement and collusion that the infliction of pain was the quick fix as well as being personally satisfying. Punishment of the miscreant, the individual, of the body had always been the way to go. History bore it out and who were they to question tradition and long tried and tested means? And if you were unlucky or foolish enough to find yourself locked up in the sixties the same tradition was carried on, only more assiduously, and even ingeniously, where the

vindictive, vicious aspects were there only for warden and reprobate to see, as it would take place in private; punishment was brought indoors and away from the eyes of the public. If it had been the policy in the sixties (and seventies) that another adult had to be there when punishment was administered, or better still, a parent, less of these situations would have come about. Not having any of these policies in place was so they did happen. Everybody needs someone else to blame. Neither do I believe it was warranted in my own case as often as they assumed. Or to put it another way, I don’t agree with the idea there was some dark force or aggression that they picked up on whether subconsciously or more overtly, in me. A view I read expounded recently in self-styled spiritual teacher Elkhart Tolle’s A New Earth. One could as easily say it was the light or sanity they saw in me that they resented. But it does seem obvious that as we used to relish watching individuals being garrotted and disembowelled in public and are now at the stage where hands on punishment of children is seen as a physical assault and rightly so (All those mums and dads who would never dream of hitting their kids only to have some dull, selfinflated mediocrity assume they can get laid into them under the pretext of a local authority), it only stands to reason that the complete dissolution of physical punishment for its own sake is the way to go and the mark of a truly civilised society or at least a right step on the way to getting there. It was obvious to me or became so, that there were so many personal factors and distortions in these people’s interpretations of situations, and of me that, as often as not, it amounted to little more than personal bias. There were no checks that I could see and the same carried on in Secondary school. When I was in primary two, our teacher, a Mrs Scott once woke me up by hitting me over the head with a big fat book. She was younger than the rest and clearly immature. One lunchtime I saw her parked out front, leaning her head against a man's shoulder, with her eyes closed. I assumed him to be a boyfriend or husband. But even then it struck me as a bit sleazy; somehow unprofessional. Or, to put it another way, needy and girlish. Not that I’m equating the two. I can’t recall her being around for very long in the way I can later teachers, but then I was only six or seven. I was in primary four when I’d be put outside the class to sit in the corridor. In primary five and six we had Miss Leaburn, who had read out my story to the class, and in primary six Mrs Palmer. But then we had her in primary seven, though I do recall getting one of these teachers twice, and so, over two years, only not in succession. Whatever the case, I was rarely belted by any of them if ever, Or maybe that’s the way I prefer to remember them, especially Miss Leaburn. Someone was sending me to Paton’s class when I was in primary six! It may have been a female teacher from another class. I don’t think it was Mrs MacDonald. On second thoughts I think it was, as she was an older teacher. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. If any of them ever felt they went too far or it wasn’t always quite as justified as they made out, then they’ll have felt as guilty as they attempted to make me feel, however unconsciously. On conscious terms, I think I’m the boy, or one of them, who they believed was

destined to never succeed in any real terms, their terms, in their opinion (And opinion is the key word here). Not if they had anything to do with it. As much a form of wishful thinking. They wanted it to be that way, and if that’s what happens then it’s as it should be and only proves they were right in their estimation all along... Always circular. But as with Paton, how can these people be accurate in their assessments of anyone or anything at all, when they don’t even know their own minds, let alone the minds of the pupils they condescended to? In this case, me.