Evocative quotes from the autobiography of philosopher Sidney Hooke (1902-1989) Off step. In a previous post, I quoted Hooke's description of his family's living situation. Here Hooke recalls the authoritarian education in American schools nearly a century ago.
“Although public school was attended religiously (the children feared the wrath of their parents far more than the threat of a truant police officer), the classroom experience was much more enjoyable. First , the discipline was strict. Our teacher was just Martinez. We sat upright, hands clasped on the edge of the desk or behind our backs. Everything was done according to a strict and rigid schedule, according to orders, and no matter how eager the students were to continue, the allotted time passed. The slightest violation of proper behavior, such as a whisper, dropping a paper on the floor, shoving or pinching, or dipping a girl's braid in an open inkwell, becomes chilling. The boys were the only ones who received the latter treatment, invoking sarcasm, snide reprimands, and corporal punishment, with a ruler about an inch wide in their outstretched palms and a heavy ferrule on their buttocks. And it was more humiliating than painful. What's more, I stayed after school and wrote hundreds of stupid sentences like “I'm not allowed to talk to my neighbors.” Conversely, “good” students were relentlessly held up as role models by insensitive teachers, unaware of how hateful the “teacher's pet” was to other children. This happened to me often. ” (p.12)
Young Sydney's schools seem to have drawn heavily from the educational traditions developed and promoted by Plato, St. Augustine and Kant.
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