The survey contains several examples in which schoolwork itself became a disciplinary issue.
These cases reveal the close relationship between education and discipline.
Failure to Complete Work
The most straightforward offence was failure to do homework.
Repeated failures could be interpreted as deliberate neglect.
The thirteen-year-old grammar-school pupil punished in 1957 had failed to submit three sets of homework.
He later repeated the offence and considered the punishment only partly effective.
A Different Result
Another grammar-school boy was punished in 1964 for repeated failure to complete homework.
He stated that he did not repeat the offence.
Two pupils could therefore receive broadly similar discipline with different results.
Standard of Work
The 1959 case goes further.
The thirteen-year-old pupil had completed work, but the teacher considered its standard unsatisfactory.
The respondent remembered being surprised because teachers did not normally use the cane.
He subsequently took greater care for the remainder of the year.
The Problem of Ability
Such cases raise a question which cannot always be answered from the survey.
Was the pupil capable of better work?
A teacher who knew the child well might believe that poor work resulted from laziness.
But poor performance could also result from difficulty understanding the subject.
Effort and Achievement
This distinction is essential.
Punishment might encourage effort.
It could not create academic ability.
A child who knew the answer but could not be bothered to write it was different from one who genuinely did not understand.
The Educational Judgement
The teacher therefore had to make an educational as well as disciplinary judgement.
Was the pupil unwilling or unable?
The survey records the resulting punishment.
It cannot always tell us whether that underlying judgement was correct.
