A Catholic-School Veteran Tells All

School Sisters of Notre Dame. Not only a whack across the face, but hair pulled and twisted around. I do wonder if the Vatican knew of the corporal punishment meted out by the sadistic nuns back then.

After 8 years of physical and psychological abuse from the Sisters of Notre Dame in Massachusetts, I can say with great pain and discomfort that the treatment I and many others received has lasted a lifetime. They stripped us of our self respect, stole our dignity, and managed to take away our self confidence. I was also sexually abused by one as well. No child in those classrooms dared to question or tell anyone about this behaviour, for fear of further retribution. I will never forgive those nuns for the lifetime of sadness, mental instability, and total removal of my self esteem. Through the years it has cost me good jobs, promotions, and quality of life. I have never had the self esteem and sense of worth that one needs to succeed in life, because of their treatment. Slapping, ridiculing, singling one out in front of peers, making me sit under my desk in front of the classroom, putting me in the closet in the classroom because i forgot my homework, taking me uopstairs to the spanking machine (the school stockroom, where I was molested), and many other things they did, cost me my slef esteem for all of my life. I left the church when I was 16, as I found them to be a bunch of hippocrites, and seen that their bottom line is the almighty dollar. I hope thse nuns rot in hell. I call it the catholic conspiracy. How christian of them.

I say this half jokingly, but it's almost as of they (the nuns) had monthly meetings to trade ideas on worst practices. I went to a Catholic school in Brooklyn in the 60's, and the techniques of abuse were practically identical. One thing no one has mentioned yet was the non-physical abuse, like being demeaned and punished as a group because no one would give up some individual or small group of offenders. I am all for a disciplined learning environment, but my youthful enthusiasm for learning eventually faded and I became jaded and bitter at much too early an age.

I attended parochial school from Kindergarten through High School. in the 60's and 70's. Not once can I recall anyone being disciplined physically by the nuns who taught us. Instead they used "the eyeball", a cold stare that would scare a Marine and stop a locomotive, and it worked effectively. Classrooms were largely tranquil and the job of educating sometimes unruly kids was successful. Today, however, teacher discipline is almost non-existent because of restrictions placed on them. My sisters are teachers and bemoan the near impossibility of being able to contain their classrooms. And we wonder why the U.S. continues to rank so low in test scores? Corporal punishment, no. Some character-building discipline for kids, absolutely. As one sage school principal of decades of experience once said, "There are two things every child understands: the love of God and the fear of God."

This was not just Catholic schools. I was in public schools in the 70-80's. Paddles ruled, lifting kids off the ground on bad days. Rulers smacked legs that were not properly in front of you when seated. Some teachers hung their paddles in front for all to see. Many with holes drilled in them or names carved/burned in. The paddle that I remember most vividly was "Woe". A rather large paddle with holes and "Woe" carved down the middle. It's owner loved to put it to use or at a minimum keep the threat constantly over evryones head.

My parents say it was worse for their generation, seems less pervasive for our kids generation. Things change, just too slowly in some cases.

Yeah, it happened to me too. I actually look back sentimentally at that era of discipline, to tell you the truth. And when I get together with other Catholic school refugees, comparing notes on the various forms of punishment meted out in our school (sometimes unique to the "order" to which our nuns belonged) is a great ice-breaker; kind of like belonging to the same ridiculous fratenity, or something. (For instance, in 5th grade we had a particularly masochistic nun whose weapon of choice was a paddle board that she had drilled-out swiss-cheese style by the janitor. She kept that paddle soaking in a bucket of water at the back of the room. She even had a neme for her invention: "Pathneushis." Her contention was that the holes, combined with the soaking, made Pathneushis the ultimate administrator of pain with the minimum liklihood of leaving any evidence behind. I only saw her actually use it once. Generally, the threat of its use kept the rest of us in line.) But it is unfair to just blame the nuns. The fact is, at that time, if a neighbor saw me doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing, he'd be within his right to smack me as well. And I wouldn't run home to tell my parents either, for in all likelihood they'd give me another one before even finding out my side of the story! Ah, but I wax nostalcic...

Anyway, as twisted as it might sound to those of you growing up in the "time out" generation, I've always felt that (for me) the gauntlet of discipline I experienced growing up was more an advantage--a "character builder," if you will--than a disadvantage.

I was in Catholic grade school the same time, 50's & 60's. It was tough. We had the Sisters of Mercy. They showed none (nun). We were whacked, slapped, hair pulled, sent to stand in the "cloak room". Once I got sent to sit in the second grade class for awhile. I was in the fifth grade at the time. And kids were getting beat up at recess by other kids taking out their frustrations. The nuns didn't care. It's different today. I would send my kid there now, but not if the same atmosphere existed as it was back then.

I attended school with the Sisters of Mercy for eight years in the 1960's. I never saw a child hit. Our sisters were kind, gentle and caring. The worst punishment we received was extra math problems. I loved these women.

To a large degree, "corporal punishment" was an effort by the female clergy to duplicate the environment of the best(?) English public (meaning exclusively private) schools where "caning" (getting flogged with a cane) was the norm. I remember that the nuns in my school even had male teacher visitors from England who they proudly invited to inspect our contingent of student street crossing guards, of which I, and every 7th grade boy, was a member. Later in life, when I was entrusted by my government to the tender care of Marine Corps DIs (Drill Instructors), I recall feeling "This is no threat at all. I've been through this all before."

Tsk. I went to a parochial school in a notoriously tough place, South Boston, in the 1960s. It was an Irish Catholic area all the way, and nobody questioned the Church and its actions. Up until the 4th grade, we were made to bend over a desk and spanked with a wooden paddle. After the 4th grade, we were hit on the open palm with the same wooden paddle. During penmanship class, the nun patrolled the room and, coming up behind you, if she thought you were holding your pen too tight, she'd bash your hand with a ruler and the pen would go flying. NOBODY told their parents they were being hit - because your parents would figure you did something to deserve it and you'd probably get hit again by your parents. If you've seen movies about Southie (The Departed, etc), you can see it was a rough place to grow up (think Whitey Bulger), so maybe the nuns figured they had to resort to violence to maintain order. But I can tell you that the physical violence didn't do anywhere near the emotional damage that the mental abuse did: having kids sit in the classroom according to their overall semester score. That meant that everyone knew that the kid in the last seat of the last row was the class dummy. I always sat in the in the second or third seat of the first row (I could never dislodge that Geraldine Cuddyer from that first seat!) but I can only imagine the humiliation of the kids in the last row. The nuns definitely were not up on the fine poinst of child psychology.

Maybe you didn't know but the state of Nevada allows corperal punishment. My son was whacked across the face by a
teacher. So don't blame it all on the Catholic schools. AND he was hit in the 1980's.

I went to catholic boarding school in France but myself or others never got corporel punishement. Most of the nuns were very strict but never abusive.

I was in Catholic school for a short time after moving from NJ to CA in the early 70's. I got my knuckles whacked with a ruler by the nuns more than once for the simple offense of asking questions. I had just moved from a private school where inquisitiveness and creativity was encouraged to a place where trying to learn more than rote memorization was discouraged with a vengeance.

I lasted half a year before my parents pulled me and we switched Churches too. Violence in school should be discouraged and for all those who feel that kids just need a good slap/punch/kick ??? you are nuts. Violence begets violence???something those in the Church should know.

And for the record my wife and I are raising our 4 kids Christian but non-Catholic. I wouldn???t put them through the garbage I went through.

I, too, was punished ny the Sisters of Charity in New Jersey. The prevailing thought by these sisters was that everyone in the class was quilty at all times! They were abusive on many levels: physical, psychological, and spiritual. Often, we were told that God didn't love us. A very scary thought for a child. I hope that soon these nuns will be held accountable by the law. So many children were injured by them over the years. Nothing about it was funny.

Boy am I glad I spent time reading an article about events that took place 40 and 50 years ago that we already knew about and gave us no new insight. I wish I couold get paid for not adding value in my job.

I was a product of the public school system in Florida. In the 1960's everybody used corporal punishment. We would have assemblys where students would be called up in front of the school & spakned with a paddle. It wasn't just a 'Catholic' thing.

Poor baby, was your psyche damaged?