Video transcript Discipline

[Music]

Dianne Robertson:In the olden days if your behaviour was a little disturbing, a little naughty, the teacher would write your name in a punishment book. Here is the name of some original children many … this is the 1890s. There was a boy, his name was Ernest, he was only eight years old, he was stealing apples from another boy’s pocket and he took tomatoes from the teacher’s garden. Here is someone else here telling a falsehood. Falsehood, oh false is opposite of true isn’t it? True and false. Falsehood must be when you don’t tell the truth. Another name for a lie. There was a young boy, he was only five years’ old, his name was William Hensby, he told a lot of lies, too many in fact and the teacher wanted him to start to tell the truth, so she decided one day to stop that straight away, no more telling lies in the playground. So she called him up the front of the room in front of everyone. Remember, everyone in the room was all different classes. First class, second class, third class, the room was full of children. He was very sad and very embarrassed, he came up the front, she’d had enough. Do you want to hear the sound of the cane first?

Student:Yes.

Dianne: I’ll do it in the air. We don’t use the cane anymore, it was a very strict type of discipline. And have a listen to this, okay. I’ll just do it in the air. We don’t use it these days. Wow, imagine that on your hands. Imagine that on your shoulder. Imagine that on the back of your knee. Or sometimes … yes. Now, I’m going to be a very cross teacher. ‘William Hensby, stand there’. Now, I’ll be William. ‘Oh please don’t give me the cane, I won’t tell lies again, I promise’. And she said, ‘Put your hand out’. He put his hand out, he couldn’t look, he turned away, he didn’t want to see. She lifted the cane and she gave it to him on his hand. I’ll do it on the sack. You can hear it then. Here we go. And she gave him … ‘Ow’, he said, ‘That hurt me, I’m only five, I promise I won’t tell anymore lies, I want to go home. I want my Mum’. So, she said, ‘If you don’t stop crying you might get another one’. And then he said ‘Oh, oh, oh, I will stop crying’. And he did. And he didn’t get another one. But when he went out into the playground he told the truth from that day on. So, he’s a very lucky boy.