9I went to a traditional school, and, regardless of what people may think nowadays, was quite the well-behaved little swot. So, in time, I reached the sixth form and became a prefect. As prefects, we had our own little common room, with a tiny kitchenette, and a TV and radio, where we could go in our break times and free periods. It was also a place where we could summon the little darlings from lower down the school when they had misbehaved. Of course, I'm too young to have been at secondary school when corporal punishment was still customary, and I don't know whether prefects at my school had ever been allowed to punish others in that way. That being said, the common room was over 100 years old, so there's a good chance that at some point in it's history, the pupils waiting to be called in were not there to be told to write a 500 word essay describing the inside of a ping-pong ball, but to receive a much harsher form of punishment.
On an intellectual level, I am very glad that those days are long gone. However, on a baser level, I can't help but fantasise over those GORGEOUS prefects who were my gods when I was lower down the school, and wonder what would have happened if they were allowed to wield canes, and if I had been a whole lot naughtier than I actually was... sigh :-)
3 hours ago
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So the old chestnut about the inside of a ping pong ball was still going in your day! I thought it might have died the death it desrved sometime before. At least you did not have the doble jeapardy of not submitting a sufficiently long/well argued/tidy essay - which woujld result in a caning. And believe you me, prefects were often sadists who should never have been allowed anywhere near a slipper, let alone a cane! I think you should rejoice that you were young enough to not endure the bully-boys (or -girls) so many of them became.
If you have ever seen the film 'If' you will have an idea of the caning that was dished out at my school. We had to be propped up otherwise the force of it would have driven us off our feet.
I think the threat of it certainly worked with gentler souls, but for the rest of us there was in fact a great deal of kudos in treating it nonchalantly. We had an end of term monetary prize for whoever got the most strokes during that term. It's the same thing as deliberately treading on a weever fish really.
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