School is back in session \u2013 kids are wearing masks. I tried that in second grade. I had on my cowboy shirt and hat and wore a kerchief across my face like cowboys did when driving the herd. The teacher wasn\u2019t happy with some wisecrack kid walking into her class like a bank robber in an old western movie. <\/p>\n
\u201cTake off that mask and go to the back of the room and stand in the corner!\u201d I heard that a lot when I was in elementary school. I got to spend time in all the penalty zones – the corner, the cloakroom, the hall, and at the blackboard with my nose touching the slate. <\/span><\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t a special case. All the boys got the same shrift. We were itchy in school; itchy to get outside and play. It was reflected in our behavior. We daydreamed when we should have been learning the difference between its and it\u2019s. We shot wads of paper at the back of kids\u2019 heads instead of making an endless series of loops, an exercise designed to improve our writing skills. <\/span><\/p>\n We slipped a frog out of our pocket to see how he was doing when we should have learned to spell city, CITY, instead of CITEee. Girls, too, got punished, but not for disrupting class or acting like a jerk. They got in trouble for whispering, passing notes, and chewing gum. A sharp word from the teacher was all it usually took for the girls to shape up. Boys needed more; I don\u2019t know why, that\u2019s just the way it was. <\/p>\n Discipline was progressive. \u201cGive me the squirt gun,\u201d the teacher might say to start a scenario, followed by a series of more onerous punishments. \u201cGo stand in the cloak room,\u201d was a common second step. It wasn\u2019t so bad in spring and fall. It was just boring, hanging out in a narrow room with 25 coats, boys on the left, girls on the right. It was worse in winter; you were in exile with 25 sodden, wool coats. The smell of wet wool drying in a confined space is a punishment that exceeds the crime. I know it well, having served many sentences in \u201cthe hole.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t envy teachers today. They have to get the three R\u2019s across without the behavior adjustment tools that teachers used when I was in elementary school. Although teachers were authorized to spank kids back then, they rarely did. Just knowing they could was enough to keep us in line, most of the time. Any adult was apt to give you a whack if you misbehaved or got sassy. <\/span><\/p>\n