Your tree branch put me in mind of canes, and the story wrote itself. Thanks for that 🙂
Caning was widely practised in schools here in the 60s and 70s. It certainly promoted obedience, but it did absolutely nothing for morale.
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I don't remember anyone misbehaving in school, and no teacher used a cane. When I was very young, in a rural school, I think the parents would beat the children if they got in trouble. Plus there was a lot of being left back. That is, a child couldn't advance to the next grade and would forever be marked by the stigma of being the oldest kid in the class.
When I moved to the city and went to city schools, there was a more drastic measure than canes: chronic behavior problem kids would be sent to a 'special' school. These were like reformatories, where little education took place and rough treatment of students (by staff and fellow students) was routine.
But no canes. In some parts of the U. S. children are subject to physical punishment in school, but not where I lived.
It's a strange world.
I remember being rapped on the knuckles for doodling in the margins of a workbook. That would have been 1962.
It is indeed a strange world, and getting stranger every minute it seems.