Interesting to hear that you took part in a pupils' strike, Rob!
Katharine wrote:I'm currently reading a book by Angela Brazil which was first published in 1904...
...The boy is about 8, and is struggling to learn all the names of the books in the Old Testament, (which I believe is about 40). His sister is trying to help him, but he finds it difficult to remember them all, especially in the correct order, so is tempted to stop trying and just accept the caning he'll get for not knowing them all.
I know it is only a story, but I'm sure it was reflecting attitudes from that time. It seems incredible that a small child would physically punished for failing to remember such a long list.
I agree that it sounds terribly unfair but I too imagine pupils in some schools would have received canings for that kind of thing back then and would have been labelled lazy. It probably wouldn't have been acknowledged that some children might have put in a lot of effort yet still find such a task difficult.
Watching the 1980s episode of
Back in Time for School earlier this evening took me back to my own schooldays, as I started at the local comprehensive in 1981. I stayed out of trouble but heard of other pupils being caned every so often (it always seemed to be boys rather than girls who were subjected to corporal punishment). I remember well the fruit-shaped rubbers with a sickly-sweet "fruity" smell, crimped hair, funky plastic jewellery and leg warmers! I didn't much like the emphasis on business and technology in the curriculum as I preferred creative writing and literature. Unfortunately, at my school we had a lot of "chalk and talk" and spoon-feeding in subjects like Geography, History and Science so I felt next to no enthusiasm for them. It was only later in life, through travelling and talking to people and reading and watching educational TV programmes, that I realised how interesting those subjects could be! We didn't have problem-solving or Robotics, which might well have appealed, and we only touched computers a couple of times in about 1985 (even then, they didn't work properly).
Despite the rioting, the Falklands War, the teachers' strikes, the high unemployment figures, the negative attitudes towards homosexuality and the 'AIDS - Don't Die of Ignorance' campaign, the bright clothes and pop music gave the decade a feeling of life and jollity. Watching the programme, I enjoyed seeing Nik Kershaw and hearing songs from other artists of the time, including
Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics,
Don't You Want Me? by The Human League and
True by Spandau Ballet.
Although I saw technology becoming increasingly important in the 1980s, I had no idea how quickly things would progress regarding computers, robots, etc. - though I was always fascinated by
Tomorrow's World and watched it through much of the 70s and 80s.