Never Did No Harm

I was scarred by emotionally abusive primary school teachers. I wonder how many more there are like me?

Let’s talk about primary schools in Australia in the 1980’s. More specifically – let’s talk about abusive teachers. I’m not referring to sexual abuse, of which I have no experience and I’m not suggesting that my trauma comes anywhere close.

 I’m talking about vindictive, mean-spirited and perpetually angry teachers who were not fit to be educators but who got away with belittling, shaming and physically harming children year after year in a school system that should have done better.

 Australians who went to school in the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s have witnessed a profound shift not only in the way that formal education is delivered but in the philosophies that inform our treatment of children generally. Significant legislative reforms such as mandatory reporting of child abuse and the banning of corporal punishment have been embraced alongside more common sense approaches like letting kids go to the toilet when they need to and not publicly humiliating them for their academic shortcomings.

 For thousands of children, this has meant that modern schools have become a sanctuary from the torments of home. Indeed, many argue that the pendulum has swung too far; that teachers are now virtually powerless to enforce standards of behaviour in the classroom. But at least there’s very little chance these days that kids are copping abuse on two fronts.

 Where, though, does it leave those of us who did suffer prior to the 1990’s? Those who, years later, are still burdened with the damage? Childhood mistreatment - of any kind - can be a complicated demon to address. It leaves victims grappling with feelings of rage, shame, failure and denial. Perhaps that goes some way to explaining the determined, decades-long push to keep certain uncomfortable truths consigned to the past where they are less liable to scrutiny. Where teacher-inflicted cruelty is concerned, a few phrases are regularly wheeled out; “It was a different time.”, “It didn’t do us any harm.”, and of course, “Aaah, the good old days!”

 On behalf of generations of Australians - I call BS. It’s time we stopped glorifying abuse by dressing it up as nostalgia and had a national conversation about what really went on in our classrooms.

 I’ll start. It was 1987 and I was in Grade One at a government primary school in an ordinary, working class suburb south of Perth. My teacher was a woman in her early 60’s. We’ll call her Mrs Green. Why she chose to work with kids, I will never understand. From day one, she exuded zero warmth, compassion, friendliness, understanding or any other quality that would have helped nervy first years settle into school life. Instead, she was cold, critical, unapproachable and never said a kind word to any of us.

She would ridicule me in front of the whole class for always ending up last in line. This wasn’t good-natured banter. It was derision intended to shame me. I remember needing to go to the toilet and sitting with my hand up for what felt like half an hour while she blatantly ignored me. She would walk around our desks naming the kids who weren’t doing well and listing their faults. Such diatribes were always accompanied by a sharp rap on the top of the head with her knuckles.

 By way of context, during this period in my life I had no dad on the scene and I was an only child. My Mum was incredible. She was fiercely loving, encouraging and worked hard to provide me with everything I needed. But I was being raised by one person. There was no supportive “village” to help build up my resilience to life in general.

 I wasn’t an unpleasant or disruptive child. At worst, I was flighty and inattentive. I was also five years old; small, shy, aloof and the youngest in the class. In other words – an easy target. There were other vulnerable children with me that year. Some with single mothers, some with obvious learning differences, others with terrible home lives. One was in foster care.

 We were sitting on the mat one day and I wiped my nose on a tissue, scrunched it up and dropped it down beside me - presumably to put in the bin later. Mrs Green’s reaction was to bark at me to, “Get up and put it in the bin. You filthy little girl.” Another time, I didn’t get up out of my chair fast enough. Out of sheer impatience, she yanked my arm hard enough that I stumbled and almost fell over.

 That same year, I was sitting outside the classroom when I spotted a broken crayon. I picked it up and drew a small squiggle on the smooth concrete veranda. A passing teacher saw me, snatched the crayon out of my hand and smacked me. Even back then, I knew it was wrong. But I didn’t tell anyone.

 Once, a couple of boys got into a bit of a scrap. Nothing serious. I watched an elderly female teacher grab each of them by an ear and march them to the office – Trunchbull style. Why the ears? Why not just a firm grip on the shoulder? How was degrading and hurting them going to teach them to curb their aggression towards others?

 Things didn’t get any better in Grade Two. We’ll call this teacher Miss Wickham. She was in her 40’s and, looking back, it’s clear that she had serious anger issues. I’m not being trite. The first time she screamed in class was because one kid’s work wasn’t neat enough. “I wasn’t expecting that scribbly mess!”, she shrieked as she screwed up his sheet of paper and threw it across the room. The whole class sat stock still, shocked into silence.

 About five minutes later, one boy - not the one she’d screamed at – was still sitting at his desk, arms wrapped around his lowered head as if to protect himself, in what I now recognise was a trauma response. This was brought to Miss Wickham’s attention. I’ll never forget the coldness of her response. “He’s just a bit shocked,” she said. “Everyone’s a bit shocked.” I’ve often wondered what that boy must have been going through at home.

 Miss Wickham would regularly scream so loudly and with such force that she would shake, her hands clenched into fists, her face bright red. She slammed a wooden metre ruler on a child’s desk so hard that the handle went flying off. Then she screamed, “Now look! I’ve gone and broken the ruler!” If it hadn’t been so frightening it would have been funny.

 Looking back, her outbursts were never over anything serious. She just couldn’t control her temper. My Mum went to the Principal about it. “I know”, he said, “I can hear her screaming all the way from the office. We all can.”  Was Miss Wickham spoken to? I don’t know. Was she disciplined? Offered a period of paid personal leave to get herself sorted out? I don’t know. She was certainly there for at least the rest of that year.

 I wanted to find out if anyone else had had similar experiences. So I turned to Facebook and found a page created for my primary school’s 50th anniversary reunion. Oh, boy! It is sad and perhaps very telling that an event conceived in such good faith ended up bringing to light so many disturbing allegations. As I scrolled through class photo after class photo from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, I took in first-hand accounts of former students being hit in the face with dusters, chalk, staplers - even maths books - thrown by teachers. I winced at their still raw memories of being whacked with sticks for not sitting up straight enough, of having rulers broken against their legs, of having their desks upended in anger. There was a teacher, it’s claimed, who would place his heavy, gold wedding ring over his knuckle and crack students on the head with it. He would also throw kids across the classroom, lift boys up out of their chairs by the neck hair or sideburns and toss school work out the window.

 “Great guy till he wrapped a cricket bat around your ass,” claimed one former student of a violent teacher.

 “Arse**** broke my finger with a steel ruler,” reminisced another.

 Oh, and that teacher who smacked me? According to one member who posted on the site, she would humiliate year ones by standing them on her desk in front of the class if they had wet their pants.

 I found other WA primary school reunion pages. Duster throwing, it seems, was standard practice prior to the 1990’s. There were further accounts of kids being thrown across classrooms, of being left with black eyes, of being violently shaken and called ugly. Other students were punched in the arms, slapped in the face and hit around the head.

One teacher had a habit of knocking kids’ heads together. Others liked pressure pointing, slamming rulers on desks, kicking the backs of chairs and ridiculing students if their families were struggling financially.

 Another teacher, it’s claimed, proudly kept count of how many rulers he had broken on children’s hands each term. One lady described getting whacked across the knuckles with a steel ruler for using a hyphen incorrectly in Grade Two. Another recalled watching in tears as her six-year-old brother was caned in front of the entire school until he wet himself. Is there anyone out there who truly believes that this was necessary and effective discipline? Or is there a very real possibility that it was, in fact, just plain old garden variety sadism in the guise of authority?

 For every account of mistreatment that I came across, there were at least two accounts of teachers who were kind and inspiring. While somewhat reassuring, I also found this sad. It confirmed that there was no rule book; that teachers who were cruel, didn’t have to be cruel. They chose to be.

 Children are not mini adults. They do not have the mental fortitude to recognise or to counter abuse. If a child is told that they are defective and unworthy of respect - or has that sentiment demonstrated to them - often enough, they will believe it. It becomes their truth and affects everything from friendships to schoolwork to future relationships.

 There is substantial evidence that children who experience abuse are more likely to become victims or perpetrators of intimate partner violence. We are witnessing an epidemic of violence against women in this country. Are we honest enough - brave enough - to consider the possibility that this horror could, to some extent, be a legacy of those good old school days we all remember so fondly?

 I suspect that hundreds of thousands of Australians still feel shame and betrayal over primary school teachers who saw fit to inflict so much fear, pain and misery upon them.

Let us finally give generations of school kids permission to be justifiably angry about what they endured. Some validation is long overdue.

 If you know, you know. It’s time to stop making excuses for abuse.