Columnist Chris Britcher remembers his school days in the 1980s, filled with corporal punishment, respected teachers and smoking in the staffroom...

When I attended a secondary school in Kent in the 1980s one teacher saw his long and illustrious career come to a grinding halt when he bashed the head of a pupil against the wall of a classroom. Repeatedly.

Clearly he wanted some gem of wisdom to get through the teenager's thick - albeit now bruised - skull.

It did, if nothing else, underline this particular teacher's reputation which had long since made its way into the corridors of the various feeder schools which funnelled kids into this particular establishment; putting the fear of God into us all in the process.

It was a tad extreme, but an incident, as you can imagine, which caused enormous excitement among those of us who had avoided such treatment yet could revel in the drama.

In truth, it was the sort of thing which gave you a certain respect for the staff - they could bite back.

In the same school, a friend of mine had his hand pierced by one of those big blackboard compasses being hurled by a maths teacher who wanted him to pipe down. It worked. Well, up until he started writhing in agony and pulled the offending piece of equipment out of the fold of skin in which it had embedded itself.

I can't remember quite what the outcome of it all was, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, his parents kicked up a fuss and, as far as my time at the school lasted, I never caught wind of him launching any piece of geometric gear at a student again.

So a lesson learnt at least.

While, in a less violent example, one teacher cut himself during a biology lesson and then memorably smeared the blood from his wound on the page of a pupil's exercise book.

Ruddy funny at the time, I can tell you. But slightly terrifying too. The lesson I took from it all was that it was probably best not to mess with the teachers.

But then I'd attended a primary school on the other side of the county where a misdemeanour would see you sent to the headmaster who, in his arsenal of punishments, had the ability to whack you with a cane.

Frankly, it had the desired effect on me - which was that I never stepped over the line enough to warrant what seems now like such draconian action.

'If a teacher dares get within an inch of a pupil today - let alone hurl something at them in exasperation - they are accused of assault, whack a teenager's head against the wall and they'll probably get their house burnt down...'

Yet this was an era when teachers would have few qualms about breaking the ice (literally) on the outside, unheated. swimming pool (state schools, remarkably, seem to all have them back then) and then pretty much pushing you in only for parts of your body to shrink back into where once they had come.

Or you were all forced to strip naked and have a shower while a teacher watched on.

Strange times really, viewed through today's eyes; just something to endure for those of us who experienced it. If that's what we were instructed to do, well, that's what we did.

But over the course of the last few decades, things have changed. Rule books were loosened. And, somehow, pupils have secured the upper hand over the teachers. That respect - earned through, partially, the threat of a bit of violence being meted out - has gone.

And not without good reason for the most part (the violence threat that is).

As a parent now, I would have been tempted to engage any teacher in some good old fashioned fisticuffs if they gave one of my kids a wallop. But I can't help thinking plenty of children need the respected authoritarian figure and discipline it is clear they are lacking at home - just as they did when I was a child, all those millennia ago. Granted, they don't need to be skewered on a massive compass to achieve that respect, but there's no denying it did rather help.

Speak to a secondary school teacher now and apart from drowning in relentless marking and unimaginable amounts of admin (and that's just during the summer holidays), they will tell you about their day being sworn at or threatened by teenagers with scant respect for any form of authority.

It's a far cry from my day, when teachers were (albeit grudgingly) respected and they could be seen spending lunchtimes socialising in the staff room, while a fug of cigarette smoke hung to the ceiling above them, clinging to the clothes of those who puffed away when they entered their post-lunch lessons.

Teaching today is a very different profession.

If a teacher dares get within an inch of a pupil today - let alone hurl something at them in exasperation - they are accused of assault and know that their career is about to explode in humiliating fashion. Whack a teenager's head against the wall and they'll probably get their house burnt down.

They have been stripped of so many of their powers; even suggesting school uniform is enforced runs the risk of at least one parent scuttling to the local newspaper bleating about why their little Johnny is no longer allowed to wear Day-Glo trainers or another moaning about why they have to cover up their daughter's face tattoo.

It's not the kids' fault. It's really not. The guilty finger must, surely, be directed at the parents who send them off with attitude, a lack of manners and an encouragement to speak to teachers however they please.

The reality is there has been enough time which has passed since teachers wielded power and respect, meaning those kids who didn't hesitate to shout back at a teacher or offer some choice verbal abuse, have left school and had kids of their own.

You can imagine the lesson they teach their kids about how to behave in the classroom. But then, I suppose, it has always been this way.

Parents perhaps need reminding teachers are actually trying to help their off-spring - to better themselves, discover about the world in which they inhabit, and, ultimately, emerge with the tools with which to prosper.

I'm not suggesting today's school children should be bowing and curtseying willy-nilly, but I am saying that for their own good having some respect for staff is no bad thing. You're not, after all, going to land a job by f-ing and jeffing at future employers, so why not fine-tune your social skills at an early age?

There's time for high jinks - that is, after all, what any school should be tolerating - but not if it's violent or bad-mouthed. And certainly not if it erodes any enthusiasm and love for the job good quality teachers have.

I'm not advocating a return to any form of corporal punishment for the kids. Maybe just for the parents.

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