20 Things You Could Get PADDLED For in a 1955 American Classroom

The paddle hung above the principal's chair in nearly every American school in 1955. Red lettering across the blade: Board of Education. Sometimes Applied Psychology. Sometimes Apply to the Seat of Learning. Some had a column on the back where names were already written in. A record of twenty specific things that paddle was swung for, in order from the small offenses you might expect to the ones that still seem impossible. Chewing gum. An untucked shirt. The wrong shoes. A whisper in the hall. A hand raised too late. At the heavier end of the list: talking back, the wrong hand for the Pledge, writing with the hand the body had been born with. Drawn from contemporary news coverage, district records, published memoirs, and the Human Rights Watch catalog of minor school infractions punishable by corporal punishment. Made for those who walked through an American schoolhouse door between 1955 and 1985. The recognition is the point.