Corporal Punishment

An unfond memory

Mr. Khan walked through the Grade Seven classroom door and strolled to the desk. The chatter amongst the twelve-year-old pupils had long subsided and silence took its place. The jovial atmosphere was replaced with apprehension and fear.

You see, whenever Mr. Khan entered the class with the cane in his hand, everyone knew he wasn’t happy. He was not a teacher who would send you to detention. He believed in taking care of the situation himself, and the cane was his discipline weapon of choice.

He taught English, my worst subject. I dreaded this class especially after we had had a test. It wouldn’t be long before the test would be marked and the results revealed to everyone. The class had just had a composition test, where we had to pick between three topics and write a two-page essay. I had chosen “Waiting at the Train Station,” and thought I had written a nice piece. Seeing Mr. Khan’s cane made me uncertain.

“Here we go again,” said Mwema, sneering at me. “Feeling nervous, Tabitha? Should we get you a tissue?”

Mwema’s taunt caused light laughter from those nearby. No one dared let out a guffaw lest it land them in trouble. Mwema was referring to the last incident of caning where the pain caused me to shed a tear. I was the only boy who cried, causing me to fall beneath the girls in wimpiness and be forced to accept the name Tabitha.

“This was some of the worst writing I have ever had the displeasure of reading,” Mr Khan began. No “hello.” No “how are you?” “I hope your bums are prepared. I’m very unhappy.”

He smiled when he spoke, and his voice wasn’t raised or slowed. He sounded normal, like he was about to embark on something natural, like breathing.

He picked up the first paper. “Amani!” he called.

The silence was so thick that the scraping of Amani’s wood chair on the concrete floor echoed. Her footsteps sounded like drumbeats as she made her way to the front.

“Well done, Amani,” announced Mr. Khan. “Fourty-five out of fifty. This composition was well written, with good punctuation and sentence structure. The narrative was perfect and the story flowed nicely to its conclusion. Good work.”

Amani returned to her seat, her smile filling her face. I watched her, pleased at how the process began, seeing a glimmer of hope that I may escape as Amani did.

“Clifford!”

I found Mr. Khan hard to read. Every time a student was called up, I looked for a tell-tale sign that predicted a caning or not: clutching the cane tighter, eye contact or not, whether he picked the paper up or left it in the pile, anything.

“Fourty-eight out of fifty! Wow, Clifford! Looks like the extra tutoring is helping. This was the highest mark. Congratulations.”

I wanted to applaud but no one else did.

“Derek!”

As Derek approached, Mr. Khan asked, “What do you think Derek? Thirty out of fifty. Do you think I should cane you?”

“It’s a pass so, no, I don’t think I deserve to be caned,” said Derek.

“Thank goodness I’m the teacher and you’re the student.” He tapped the table with his cane, gesturing Derek to place his hands there. “Seventy percent is a pass in my class,” he said as he gave Derek two whacks of the cane. Derek winced.

“Elijah!”

Elijah stopped a fair distance from Mr. Khan’s reach. “How did I do?” he asked.

“Come here and I’ll tell you,” said Mr. Khan.

“I don’t want to be caned.”

“Then, hopefully, you did well. Come.”

Elijah stepped closer and then snatched the essay from Mr. Khan’s grasp. Whatever he saw caused his eyes to widen and step away from the teacher. Mr. Khan tapped the table with his cane.

“Put your hands here, please.”

Elijah stepped backwards, shaking his head. I saw the first sign of Mr. Khan losing his composure.

“Elijah! Come here now!”

He took a step toward Elijah who turned and fled out the door. Mr. Khan stood still for a moment, clearly surprised by the events as they unfolded.

“Close the door, please.” His voice showed that he was a little shaken.

Mr. Khan was clearly calling names out alphabetically. This meant that I, Thabo, would be close to last. One by one the pupils came up, some to accolades and others to the stick. Mwema, who unfortunately escaped a caning, Peter, Randy, Refilwe, Simon, Sisanda, Teboho. My heart pounded in my chest.

“Terence!”

When Terence got close enough, Mr Khan grabbed his arm, and yanked him closer. The cane whistled as it cut through the air and landed with a thwack on Terence’s behind. I thought he heard the cane crack. We gasped.

“Twenty out of fifty.”

Mr. Khan’s voice did not line up with his actions. You would think he would be yelling in anger, his bloodshot eyes shooting daggers at his victim. But no, he was calm, almost soothing. It made him appear more callous.

The cane came down again, landing on Terence’s knuckles as he had sought to soothe his bum with an instinctive massage.

“Aaah!” he screamed.

“This composition was void of any punctuation,” Mr. Khan informed the class. “It didn’t even have a full stop. There were no paragraphs and the grammar was atrocious.”

I blinked quickly, willing his eyes not to well up as I empathised with Terence. I silently took a deep breath, trying to slow my heart down. I hated this. Mr. Khan didn’t care that English was not the first language of any of us and many had a difficult time grasping things like sentence structure and grammar. Some couldn’t understand that you would “chop down” a tree and then “chop it up” for firewood. He needed to be more understanding.

“‘He don’t care about the heat’ is not a correct sentence,” said Mr. Khan as he caned Terence one more time. “Correct it for me.”

The classroom was so quiet that you heard the tear that dropped from Terence’s face hit his shoe.

“He doesn’t care about the heat,” he stammered.

Mr. Khan gave him his paper and sent him to his seat with a look. As he was about to sit down, he spun and said rather loudly, “This is not my paper!”

I stopped breathing.

“What do you mean?” asked Mr. Khan. “Whose paper is it?”

Terence looked in my direction.

Ground, please swallow me now, I thought.

Terence didn’t have to say anything. His expression said “sorry.” Everyone eyes were on me, some sympathetic, some gleeful, others unreadable.

“Thabo, come here, please,” ordered Mr. Khan.

I lost control of my bladder.