Crime and punishment

Our years at school were spent dodging one punishment or the other. With the strictest of head mistresses we were prone to bumping into punishments lurking in each corner. Running down staircases was reason to be caned with a thin bamboo stick that really hurt. Shouting across to friends meant standing on our chairs for the duration of the class. Throwing stones at trees to get a fruit meant a dose of castor oil to purge our stomachs ( and considering the sorry state of our unhygienic toilets) this was a punishment we all dreaded. Our parents unlike the ones of today didn't rush to school to take up our case,we were told in no uncertain terms that we needed to deal with it ourselves and that was that. Press the issue too much and we would be told that there is no smoke without fire. Either way we didn't stand a chance.

Did that stop us from doing all the stuff that we did? No way, in fact we became rather good at getting away with it. While we didn't develop any long lasting love of our teachers,we did grow up to be a tough lot. Some scars yes but who doesn't have those. Overall we learnt to face trials and difficulty with a stiff upper lip and got on with our lives.

Today as we laugh at all that happened we tune in to this world of ours as it is today. Today if the same things happened to us,we would have spent more time at the school counsellors office or ended up in a psychiatric clinic doing therapy. Our parents would have rushed to reprimand the teacher without questioning if we were at fault. We would have changed schools all the time and thought that running away was the way to go and ended up as adults who were ill equipped to face the world,who ran away at the slightest indication of stress,we thought the world owed us a lot and that we didn't have to give anything back. We would have in short become the wimpy kids and even worse,the petulant adult. In retrospect am I glad I had strict parents,and yes I didn't enjoy school as much as some kids do today but I got an all round education on life ,not confined to academics alone and for that I heave a collective sigh of relief.