A Catholic-School Veteran Tells All

What kids really learn when teachers resort to violence.

Published Apr 25, 2009

From the magazine issue dated May 4, 2009

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Every once in a while I run into someone who, like me, attended Catholic school in the '50s and '60s. These encounters usually follow a pattern. We establish terms of service—I put in 13 years, including kindergarten—test our memories of the Baltimore Catechism and the Latin mass, and recall things like meatless Fridays, the scourge of "impure thoughts" and Limbo, the nice but God-free place where babies who died before baptism spent eternity (and which the church essentially did away with in 2007). There is an odd charm to much of this, a quaint and funny weirdness that only another Catholic from that era can truly appreciate.

But the conversations inevitably turn to a decidedly less charming subject—getting smacked by nuns. I have no idea whether slapping kids across the face was officially sanctioned by the church in those days. I only know it happened, to me and plenty of other kids. The nuns who smacked me and my friends at our small elementary school in New Jersey were Sisters of Charity, a cheap bit of irony that always draws a chuckle when I talk about being on the receiving end of those holy rights and lefts. And let me say right here that not every nun I encountered in the early '60s resorted to physical violence. Most didn't, in fact, but the ones who did established a pervasive atmosphere of low-grade dread that still taints my memories of those years.

The offenses that brought down the wrath of the sisters included "talking back"—which was my specialty—swearing, fighting, fooling around in church, throwing snowballs at girls and so on. In other words, kid stuff. And because each nun had her own mysterious criteria, not to mention her own unfathomable (to us, anyway) moods, there was a nerve-racking randomness to the way punishment was meted out. A wisecrack might bring a dirty look one day and a slap the next.

Certain kids came in for more than their fair share of abuse. Some of these "troublemakers" simply could not contain their outrage at the treatment they received. They overreacted when hit—crying, yelling, stomping out of the classroom—thus establishing themselves as easy targets for future smacks. The rest of us learned early on to take our punishment without flinching. While I don't recall ever seeing a girl get slapped across the face, my brother Michael, two years ahead of me, remembers that the girls usually got whacked across the knuckles with a ruler; that was the method used on a seventh-grade classmate of his whose uniform skirt was deemed too short.

If there was an upside to the nuns' use of corporal punishment (a shameless euphemism that masks the inherent inequality at work when an adult strikes a child), it was the spirit of camaraderie it fostered among the students. It was us against them, all the way. We were united in our defiance of the nuns' authority—and the church's, for that matter—and we each felt every slap, not just the ones that fell across our own cheeks. Our parents weren't much help; they'd been through it themselves when they were kids and they accepted it. So we were on our own, and if it made some of us tougher, wiser and less trusting of people in power than we might otherwise have become, I guess that's a good thing. But I wouldn't want anyone else to go through the crap we went through. The use of physical violence against children in school may or may not create order and improve test scores, but it certainly teaches kids about humiliation and fear. And what fifth grader needs to learn about things like that?

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Posted By: kateri @ 09/04/2009 5:35:32 PM

As a retired teacher from the public school system (and a Protestant to boot!), I have to admit that I 'whacked some kids on the hands with a rulter." We were taught in our state university that it was approved discipline to ask a child to put out their hands and receive a rap. The nuns get the balme----they are easy targets of stereotype, but the public school teachers, the parents who said "I'll give it to you again" in support of teachers and even adults in the general had a different, not good, approach to disciplining children then. let the nuns off the hook, put it in the context of the time, and thank God we've changed.
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Posted By: marroyo @ 08/04/2009 2:54:06 AM

I served eight years at St. Albert the Great in a suburb of Chicago.

In third grade I experienced a focal seizure (at the time, an undiagnosed seizure disorder) I could not respond to the nun who had asked me a question. My next recollection was the nun grabbing me by my very short hair with two hands and violently shaking my head from side to side. Strange the humilation I endured afterwards was actually worse than the physical abuse.

In 1968 while in fifth grade, a young man who was happy but energenic or as they used to say "had ants in his pants" pushed the old nun to her shallow limits. The nun called this young boy's (who name is seared into my memory) mother and arranged for her to disipline her son in front of the entire class. I would speculate the nun had some input with this boy's mother, just how a "good Catholic" would handle the situation. In front of the entire class, she bent her son over a desk and with a leather strap she harshly, violently whipped this child. When finished the mother was exhausted, the nun stood smuggly satisfied and the boy turned such a deep red he was almost purple, but he did not cry, not one tear. Yes, the boy survived, but he lost his childhood that day, I spent another eight years with him as a classmate for the remainder of elementary school and four years in a public high school, he was never again a happy go lucky young man, it had been beaten out of him. I hope he knows he was not the only one abused that day. The experience left a mark on every child who bore witness.

While in eighth grade in 1972, we had a nun who took road trips and favors from the parents of students who suddenly became the best students, a miracle, under her tutorage, a lifelong average student would become a straight A student. Her pet students would actually receive test answers on such tests as the US Contitution test required at the time before entering high school.

I learned a lot in this Catholic school, very little had anything to do with Jesus Christ.
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Posted By: jaec45 @ 05/26/2009 11:02:05 AM

When I was growing up in the Philippines, in my Dad's town, we were Strict Catholics (or Closed Catholics). I started my Grade school "under the stick" of the Sisters of the Religious of the Virgin Mary (OVM). It was really hard for me then since I was a hyper little kid. These nuns will whack your open palms, your thighs (I was wearing short pants then), pinch your ears, pinch the inside of your thighs, and specially for me: I was forced to knell on the ground, In front of the school yard, on gravel, with arms spread out ( like the savior himself), for two hours! I don't even remember now what that was for. And there was no upside to it either, like Mr. Noonan says. Remember how slapstick used to be funny? Whoever gets it-is funny! I also recall my parents being embarrassed too in the Principal's office. I left that school in the middle of third grade with C+' and C's to move to my Mom's town about 20 hours by bus. There, I was re-enrolled in a big school ( a College), with much better "regular" teachers, run by the priests of The Society of Divine Word (SVD). There, I was able to recover. And my C's were dramatically changed to A's, they even placed me in the Honors Class! I finished my Grade School and High School with flying colors which made my parents proud. Then when I was taking some College courses, I came across The Sisters of Saint Bridget (OSB). These nuns are harsh and tough too!
I don't know why many of these nuns are wicked. I know some who are sweet and gentle too. But its like they were suppressed, repressed, or denied something, they want to get even at society in their own particular way! But come to think of it, things were hard in general in the "good old days". The rules then were: "Fear is the beginning of Respect" and " Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child". They didn't have a lot of Child Psychology books and Sensitivity Seminars back then. So now, still being a Catholic, all I can do to help them is pray: Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do. Amen.