My Favourite Teacher

When I attended elementary school in Raleigh back in the 1950s, it was not uncommon for teachers to employ spanking to maintain discipline and academic standards. Though thirty years have passed, I still have fond memories of my sixth grade homeroom teacher, Mr. Richards, a kind but no-nonsense man in his fifties who was a firm believer in lessons applied to the seat of unruly or lazy students.

Some of the other teachers humiliated such students by asking them in a loud voice to stay after school or by interrupting class to take the youngster down to the cloakroom. Mr. Richards, in contrast, always seemed to understand that a spanking was embarrassing enough and he never resorted to such public gestures. Instead, he would simply wait until everyone had cleared out for recess and slip a note into your desk asking you to stay after school to "discuss" your problem with him. Any student who hadn't done his or her homework, who was late to class, or who acted up found themselves nervously checking for a "recess note" in their desk.

I can still remember the day I got my first recess note after Mr. Richards caught me passing a satirical drawing of him to a friend (and that after a warning earlier that day for passing notes and talking).

Most students were reluctant to admit to getting spanked after school - some insisted Mr. Richards had only bawled them out and assigned extra homework. Others made sure no one saw their recess note and pretended to stay after school only to finish up some project or another. They would always deny being taken to the cloakroom. With all this secrecy, I didn't know what to expect, especially as this was my first note. It read, "Please see me after school to discuss your behavior in class."

For the rest of the day, I couldn't concentrate on anything but the impending "discussion" and earned additional sharp looks from Mr. Richards when he noticed twice that I wasn't paying attention. Finally, at 3:00, the bell rang and I hurried to the girls room where I hid out for ten minutes, fearful that my classmates might see me staying late. When the last voices died away, I crept down the deserted hall to my classroom, hoping vainly that it was somehow all a misunderstanding or a dream, or that Mr. Richards would have forgotten and gone home. But there he was at his desk, correcting papers, with only a glance at me as I entered the room and sat down. After five minutes, he closed his red marking pen, put the papers into his briefcase, and turned to me.

"Well Nancy, can you tell me why you're here?".

As I replied, my quavering voice betrayed that I knew all too well despite my unconvincing attempts to excuse myself.

"Um ... uh ... I suppose it was because of those notes I was uh you know ... passing. It really wasn't my ... my fault. Janet Skinner sent me a note first and I was just uh answering her's."

Mr. Richards smiled in a gentle, knowing way which seemed curiously to half-accept my feeble excuses while suggesting he had heard them a hundred times before. It was a wise, understanding smile which reassured me even as it indicated such behaviour was unacceptable and had to be corrected. Though my heart continued to pound, I felt he was somehow on my side, that he really had my interests at heart. In hindsight, that was one thing I loved about Mr. Richards. Even when he was disciplining students, he managed to show them how much he cared. Standing in front of him that afternoon, I began to feel a little less anxious under his benevolent fatherly gaze. Had I not continued to pass notes even after being warned? And wasn't my drawing cruel the way it caricatured his face? Now I would just have to face up to the consequences of my own willful behaviour.

Mr. Richards reminded me of this with a few quiet remarks (though his expression had already made it all perfectly clear). He then asked me to come with him to the cloakroom to "continue our little discussion". As I followed him down the hall, I kept asking him,

"Do we have to go there? I didn't mean to disobey you. Can't we just discuss things here? I'll do extra homework. I promise".

He just replied, "Nancy, you had your chance in class. Now please come along as I've asked you."

My heart sank as we passed through the teacher's lounge, to the teacher's cloakroom in the back. He opened the door for me, flicked on the light, ushered me in, and closed the door. It was a small room about eight by ten feet with two walls all but covered with various coats on pegs. Along the third wall to the right sat a chair at a little table on which rested some school stationery, pens and pencils, and a ruler. Mr. Richards took me firmly by the arm and guided me until I stood facing the corner, my face nestled in among the coats so I could only hear him.

"Nancy, you've shown clearly today that my words are not sufficient to keep you in line in class. You're just like so many other girls and boys I've taught here over the years, bright enough but not very good at following verbal rules. In some ways it's not really your fault. Children are children and they just don't respond well to instructions unless they're backed up by more concrete reminders. It's time you had just such a reminder applied to the seat of your problem, young lady. I'm afraid you've earned yourself a good spanking. Now come over here. I'm going to put you over my knee and give you something you obviously need.

I turned, pleading to be let off, but he ignored me, pulling the chair out from the table and turning it so it faced the center of the room. He then seated himself and beckoned me over. Already tears were welling up in my eyes as I begged some other form of punishment but he just shook his head and smiled that his kindly, disarming smile. I shuffled over to him, at once pleading my case and responding to his instructions, my heart pounding wildly again. As he grasped me by the arm and pulled me forward over his lap, I uttered a sharp little cry of fear and struggled to escape knowing full well escape was impossible. Indeed, my struggles consisted of wriggling and kicking in place more than any real efforts to throw myself off his lap. By showing a certain obedience to his instructions even as I struggled to escape, I hoped on some level to reduce the severity of my punishment. He pulled me further over until my feet hung helplessly in the air and my face dangled down near the carpet. As I stared at it and noticed its brown and green fibers for the first time, I suddenly realized how the proximity of my face to the rug summed up the immaturity and indignity of my position. Face down, bottom up over Mr. Richards's lap, ready to receive a sound spanking for my naughtiness. I felt more like a kindergardener than a sixth grader,

After scolding me some more and getting me to admit what I had done wrong, Mr. Richards raised the back of my skirt and began smacking my panties much harder than I had ever expected. My cries and struggles jumped sharly in volume and tempo only to blend rhythmically with the sound of his large hand descending on my all too exposed, pantied bottom. SPANK SPANK SPANK SPANK As each spank fell, the smart in my fanny seemed only to fuel my deep embarrassment causing my face to burn as hotly as my rear. Even my tears, which now dropped freely onto the carpet, seemed hot.

SPANK SPANK SPANK - Mr. Richards held me firmly in place and continued his "concrete reminder", alternating from one cheek to the other, asking me quietly throughout if I was learning my lesson, if I would mind him in class now, or if he would have to take me back for another reminder next week. I struggled through my tears and cries to answer his questions, sensing this might earn me some leniency but the spanking just went on and on and on. SPANK SPANK SPANK SPANK SPANK In his steady, suprisingly calm rhythm, it seemed as if a set measure of punishment had been assigned in his mind and would be fully carried out.

After what seemed like about fifty spanks, he paused, took up the nearby ruler, and announced I would now get part two of my spanking on the bare. At this, I struggled much more seriously, determined not to allow him to spank my naked bottom. In response, he just placed one leg over my kicking legs, pulled down my white panties, and began slapping me vigorously with the ruler, moving first up and then down my bottom cheeks, covering both with each shockingly loud blow. Within thirty seconds, my outrage and shame yielded to the fire building up in my bottom which now danced frantically from side to side, trying to avoid the unavoidable. I'll never forget the new torrent of crying and tears released by that ruler as I lunged helplessly on his lap. Though my buckling and twisting was a desparate escape attempt, it was rhythmically interwoven with the very spanks it sought to avoid.

"This is what I call the ruler dance, Miss Nancy, when your bottom dances vigorously under this ruler. I never stop a spanking until I see a good ruler dance, hear truly repentant crying, and know the naughty student has truly learned her or his lesson."

On and on he spanked until I lost all dignity and began kicking freely in a manner which must have seemed shameless from his perspective. I didn't care by then. All I knew was that I was a naughty girl being soundly spanked. With a dozen final smacks, he finally stopped, leaving me to cry it out on his lap while telling me how well I had taken my spanking. Then he rearranged my clothes, gently raised me up, and kissed me on the forehead. Suddenly I found myself hugging him with all my strength and nodding into his shoulder when he asked me if I had learned a good lesson. As he escorted me through the door, he said,

"Nancy, I'm glad you've learned something from this experience. . We certainly don't want to have to bring you back here for another spanking in the near future, do we?"

With these words, I felt a few more spanks through my clothes as if to remind me of what would happen if I misbehaved again. As I walked home, still sniffling and all too aware of a hot bottom under my skirt and panties, I too hoped I wouldn't be seeing the cloakroom ever again. Yet late that night as I fell asleep, the fire in my bottom had turned into a glowing warm reminder of the day's events. Now detached from humiliation and pain, the spanking had receded into my memory and transformed itself there into something strangely comforting, a sign of Mr. Richards's love which would be renewed, could be renewed, if I were only to slip back into the inevitable misbehaviour of sixth graders. A month later, I did.