A Catholic-School Veteran Tells All

Onemind
It is easy to make negative comments or snap judgements, even though you never attended one of these schools. Obiously you hold a unobjective view here. You also fall into the trap of lumping all Nuns together as disgusting human beings, wow! No prejudice there, I am sure!

Well, it's unfair to paint all nuns as sadistic though I would say SOME were. Regarding sending your kids to Catholic schools nowadays.: maybe if religion is your focus. I'd be cautious if education is your focus along with religion or a moral background. Those:glorified private Catholic schools someone scoffed about are probably the better bet with regard to education for various reasons but primarily because of monetary support. Catholic schools used to be the best in education with nuns that were well educated and unpaid. Now there are no nuns and you get what you pay for. I sent my daughter to a Catholic school(private rather than parish) for the primary years but then on to a private high school. The Catholic schools, except for one boys" school, could not compete educationally. They could not offer the higher mathematics courses and such and the education of the teachers was not as deep. Excuse me for dropping the name of Princeton University but I feel it's important to say that she went on to that university because we elected to give her the best education.

I was there, too. But, it wasn't fear and humiliation that I learned. I learned that I was there for the purpose of acquiring an education along with an appreciation for discipline, authority and respect for educators. Have you looked into the current conditions in our public schools? It is near total chaos. I would not think of sending kids into the public school system of today...unless maybe a charter school.

I look back on my own experiences with the one slap across the face and several whacks on the knuckles and really do not harbor any ill will towards the nuns. I had more nightmares at the time about having to pass the local public school on my walk to and from school knowing that several times a week I was going to get my butt kicked by guys who thought my wearing a uniform was an invitation to have some fun beating on the kid from the Catholic school. Nonetheless, I think I've turned out quite well adjusted, have never laid a hand on my children (I credit my parents in this - they never spanked or slapped), and the academic education I received has far outweighed the few incidents with the nuns. I've had a rewarding professional career that many childhood friends who attended the public school have not...and the one slapping incident, well I for one think I earned it...I was helping clean up after mass one morning and instead of pouring the leftover wine down the drain, I decided to put it to better use...when I showed up for class it took about five seconds for one of the nuns to notice the distinct smell of alcohol on me and the slap followed at the six second mark. I attended Catholic school for twelve years, and my daughters have done the same and are now doing quite well in college. I'm glad my parents did not cave in when I begged to go to the public school with my friends....the incidents in total probably add up to twenty seconds out of all those years...the rest of the time holds good memories, and friendships with former classmates to this day.

The good old days. They did away with discipline a long time ago and it's hard to argue with the results. The kids are now in charge in this new enlightened age and the results are dreadful. I wonder where David would be if not for the tough education he received? Writing for Newsweek? David whether you will ever admit it or not experiences like these ( oh poor baby) made you who you are today. These nuns where just giving you a preview of life. Life smacks you in the face when you screw up, you either learn that from a nun, a parent or later from a cop, jailer or a judge. I for one miss those days.

The good old days. They did away with discipline a long time ago and it's hard to argue with the results. The kids are now in charge in this new enlightened age and the results are dreadful. I wonder where David would be if not for the tough education he received? Writing for Newsweek? David whether you will ever admit it or not experiences like these ( oh poor baby) made you who you are today. These nuns where just giving you a preview of life. Life smacks you in the face when you screw up, you either learn that from a nun, a parent or later from a cop, jailer or a judge. I for one miss those days.

The good old days. They did away with discipline a long time ago and it's hard to argue with the results. The kids are now in charge in this new enlightened age and the results are dreadful. I wonder where David would be if not for the tough education he received? Writing for Newsweek? David whether you will ever admit it or not experiences like these ( oh poor baby) made you who you are today. These nuns where just giving you a preview of life. Life smacks you in the face when you screw up, you either learn that from a nun, a parent or later from a cop, jailer or a judge. I for one miss those days.

The good old days. They did away with discipline a long time ago and it's hard to argue with the results. The kids are now in charge in this new enlightened age and the results are dreadful. I wonder where David would be if not for the tough education he received? Writing for Newsweek? David whether you will ever admit it or not experiences like these ( oh poor baby) made you who you are today. These nuns where just giving you a preview of life. Life smacks you in the face when you screw up, you either learn that from a nun, a parent or later from a cop, jailer or a judge. I for one miss those days.

I attended Catholic elementary school headed by Franciscan nuns, most of whom came from the Canarsie section of Brooklyn, NY. While not every one of them was physically abusive, many were. We, too, banded together drawn instinctively to protect one another from the physical and emotional abuse we received at their hands. We were 30 kids who went from kindergarten to 8th grade together as there was only one classroom for each grade and so we were a pretty tight group. We witnessed abuse over and over again. Slapping was an everyday occurence but there were much harsher punishements. As the author states, some kids were always targets. The church told the adults birth control was forbidden and large families were the norm for most of us. We were a working class neighborhood. I came to understand early on that the poorer you were, the more children your parents had, the worse your punishment always was. Heaven forbid your parents were divorced. The mental cruelty for this had no end (as though you had anything to do with this event). And if you weren't the brightest kid in class, that was not a reason to help you but a reason to humiliate and shame you. We had one poor soul in class who was so nervous he would wet his pants when the nuns picked on him. And I swear theywould pick on him to make him pee his pants so they could then humiliate him for wetting himself. I have witnessed countless pointers broken over children's backs. Rulers across the knuckels was an everyday occurrence even in kindergarten. Total public humiliation was something we expected everyday. And you never told your parents, because that generation of parents just knew you had done something to deserve it and you only got it again when you got home. We learned through fear - fear of punishment, fear of eternal damnation and just plain fear of those 5' something dynamos who could stop you in your tracks with just one glance! I have never really fully understood or forgiven those nuns for those 9 years. Sometimes I still get choked up when I remember how mean those nuns were to us and very often with little or no provocation. After all, we were KIDS! My children did not go to Catholic school, although we are practicing Catholics. I don't dwell on those days but I have tried to understand the whole thing. The most reasonable explanation I can come up with is that for the most part those were very frustrated women will very limited educations possessing for the most part only AA degrees and no understanding of little children or adolescents at all. I did not go to Catholic High School although my siblings did and they found it very different than grammer school. But I had had enough. I know nuns do not do much hands-on (no pun intended) teaching these days. I think that is probably a very good thing.
survivor58

I'm glad I never attended one of those schools. Uptight, sadistic nuns in charge of children? My best friends' parents switched him to to a Catholic elementary school when we got to the 5th grade. I wanted to go too because we were friends but my parents wouldn't allow it. When, after a short time, I started hearing the horror stories from my friend I wanted to beat those nuns up. Disgusting human beings is all I have to say about the lot of them.

I grew up in Catholic Schools, now send my kids to Catholic Schools. Discipline is something that I learned along the way and has served me well and helped me maintain my integrity as I watch a country desperate for some values suffering from the unscrupulous acts of people put in leadership positions. The only physical abuse I experienced growing up was from the public school kids so I'm guessing your article is based more on the culture of where you grew up and not just the teachers at your school. Obviously, you're writing for Newsweek so somewhere along the line you were instilled with some Discipline to accomplish your goals and I'm guessing Catholic School had something to do with that. Unfortunely you failed to acknowledge that. Today, there are different kinds of Catholic Schools and I've had priests tell me they wouldn't even recommend some schools because they are just glorified private schools but lack the religious foundation. After a recent move to Virginia, the school we chose for our kids isn't the newest or in the most desirable area, but it is the only Catholic School in Southeast Virginia that still has Nuns, Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and by God's Grace it is the only "Blue Ribbon School" in the surrounding seven cities. Imagine that, Catholic Scools are still producing wonderful young adults that enter into the world with Discipline to overcome the challenges that they will face. I don't condone any abuse or irrational behaviour of Clergy and if it's happening needs to be stopped, but I'm here to tell you Catholic Schools are a blessing for our country, because of them, there are citizens with integrity to do the right thing.

I was raised in an orphanage. Ir's important to preface some of the bad experiences I had there with this comment: it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It took me away from a more problematic existence of abject poverty and allowed me to get educated and live life with a moral framework. I am in no way rigidly moral but I have respect for my fellow man(the golden rule).
We had a nun who used to take us into the lavatory area to discipline us. The infraction may have been talking in the dorm past lights out or whatever. She would lift us off the ground by our ears which after a couple of times caused tears in the skin there and bleeding. It was painful and cruel and I remember others crying and pleading before one day I got my turn. It's a hard thing to forget.

Wow, David, what a whiner. I also attended catholic schools in the 60's. I had nuns for teachers and they were not afraid to use disipline. Yeah I got smack plent of times. And I deserved it plenty of times too. The nuns, though extremely strict, were fair. Everyone was expected to behave and you were there to learn. In this time of rampant bullying in schools, so severe that some children are driven to suicide, I long for teaches that can actually have control over the self-absorbed kids parents are parading out into society. NO BULLY would have had a chance against the nuns that taught me. And by the way since you're through dirt at a reletively easy target these days (not so original David), let me point out that I attended catholic schools in the South - before intergration took hold. That catholic school in town was the only school that allowed anybody to attend. And it was these same, tough as nails nuns, that stood up to the threats of a loarge portion of the community and refused to back down. As a result, many of the black children in the town were able to get excellent educations and were expected to by the nuns to achieve at as high a level as anyone else. This was something that was not afforded to them by the public schools of the day.
So David, in our current "enlightened" society where so many parent thinks their child is gifted and deserves never to be held accountable for innapproriate behavior because it may squelch their creativeity..... Wake up. Education is difficult - as is being an adult in our society. And those same children that are indulged by their communities often prove to be a real pain for the rest of us when they grow up and can't figure out why everything doesn't go their way. You may hate the nuns..... but then again, I'll bet you paid attention in school. And now you have a job working for NEWEEK. So who exactly taught you to read and write?

My mother attended Catholic school in Cleveland, Ohio and she used to tell me stories not unlike the short-skirt remedy you listed in your article. You do have a point, and as the product of (and my mother is proud of this) public schooling, I now attend the University of Notre Dame where, thank Jesus, they don't slap us. And we love our in-house priests for that reason among many others. Your generation braved the tougher love of Catholicism and allow me to say that just hearing those tales retold is enough sometimes to keep me and my fellow Catholic schoolers in line. Camaraderie accounted for, I've even heard some of the nuns and priests swear around here from time to time.

Duck walk around the classroom, rulers on the knuckles for bad penmanship, left-handed person forced to write right-handed (didn't work), standing at the blackboard with your nose in a chalk circle,....This is what I remember about Catholic schools......and I wasn't a bad kid

I also was a student at two different Catholic grade schools, one in Boston and the other in Norfolk, VA. While I am sure there was some corporal punishment doled out by the Nuns I rarely saw this happen at the schools I attended. It seems very fashionable to bring out anything possible concerning being Catholic. Just to add some balance to this issue, I found the Nuns to be caring, loving women for the most part as well as excellent teachers. Lets try to have some fair and balanced views here. I am sure I am not the only one with a positive experience. Of course, it is human nature for those with negative views or experiences to overwhelmingly responed to these type of articles.

I too attended 8 yeras of parochial school in Baltimore. The famed "Pink Prison", Our Lady of Mount Carmel. But, what struck me most were the names the nuns selected as their own, Sister Tomas-Mary, Sister John-Anthony. An dientity crisis? The forms of "punishment" described are all too familiar. I cannot count the number of yardsticks broken across the palms of my classmates and I. Although, I do believe I may have the record. Mostly, I flet sorry for them. What a life to lead. Teaching, the convent, and church. That was it. But then again, that was their choice. However, there was one enduring angel that was most responsible for getting me through it all. A lay teacher by the name of Mrs. Mentzer. You will alwsys remember one teacher who had a significant impact ion your leife, and she was it. In the sea of black and white kamakazee uniforms stood an angel in white. That was Mrs. Mentzer!

I do know this, my parentswanted to extend this education plague by placing me in an all-male Franciscan teaching order of "brothers". None of that for me. I intentionally failed the entrance exam by closing my eyes and picking the answers. The result, I went on to public schools, then a BS, and MBA, a commission as a military oficer followed by management positions in major US companies. So, did the nuns have an effect on my life? Absolutely! So much so that I vowed NEVER to send my sons to a "Pink Prison".

May they rest in peace!

I also was a product of Catholic primary and secondary schools. While I am sure that Nuns did slap or spank students on occasion, my experience was that it happened very rarely in the schools that I attended, one in Boston and the others in Norfolk, VA. I did on a few occasions see knuckles get hit with a ruler but again, not very often. I found the Nuns to be caring and excellent teachers. Since it is fashionable to bash anything Catholic these days, I just wanted to add some balance to this issue. By the way I was taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame and Dominicans.
JCDJR1948

I went to public schools from K-8 in the 70's and 80's. My first grade teacher paddled me and some other kids for getting our pant legs wet during a rainy recess, and would regularly put rulers down our backs if we weren't sitting up straight. Around 4th or 5th grade, another teacher (not my own) made it a point to keep me after a subject session switch to demean and ridicule me in front of her own class. I was a very shy and quiet student so I don't remember exactly why I was punished.

8th grade on, I went to a Catholic high school and experienced none of that. There were no nuns in the high school so I can't say what they were like in the elementary school.