“Brother Camillus, a likeable man, had experienced problems in controlling the sizeable junior secondary classes. His mistake was in trying to have jokes and fun in classes full of rather insensitive adolescents who took the opportunity to release pent-up energy with noise and unruly behaviour. Brother Camillus would respond with the strap, become very unpopular, […]

“Occasionally a “smart aleck” would produce a steel ball-bearing and endeavour to split up the “glassies” and “agates” in the ring. If he was a small kid, the players would demand immediate relief under the “no ball bearings” rule, and expel him from the game. If he was one of the big kids there was […]

“There were mean-spirited boys who would insert wads of blotting paper into their classmates’ inkwells so that the dipped pen would emerge with an inky blot that flopped out onto a page of neat work, ruining it, and earning the owner a bad mark, or the cuts, or both.”

The nib, when its prongs had separated too much for writing purposes, could be attached to a paper dart and, with perseverance, this could be made to stick upside down in the ceiling by vigorous throwing when the teacher was distracted or out of the room. When Brothers changed classrooms at the end of periods, […]

The classroom of the 1940’s was often a dreary place for the student. Time passed on tortoise legs as endless periods of algebra or “Mort d’Arthur” filled the day. In those war-time classroom the distractions had to be manufactured from the few possibilities available. Before ball-points, the school-boy used a pen with a steel nib […]

Even the Brothers who taught well, and were liked by their students, used the strap or the ruler turned on its edge. The reasons for this were that classes grew larger and more difficult to handle, staff changes brought Brothers who were less attuned to the friendly spirit of the pioneering years, and people in […]

Corporal punishment had been used sparingly in the first few years of St Bede’s. The seniors in their tiny classes were treated as responsible “near adults” and a friendly relationship between teacher and pupil developed. George Laube, who had attended De La Salle Malvern in 1937, recalled that the atmosphere at St Bede’s was much […]