[HPforGrownups] Re: Sadism or not ? McGonagall and her punishments

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 186651

Shaun:
I've been reading the great Sadism debate with interest. I've been lurking 
on the list a lot recently without posting, but reading most things, just 
recharging my Harry Potter batteries so to speak. This particular discussion 
is of the type that always interests me but I decided not to get involved 
for a while because once you enter a discussion you start to help shape it 
and I wanted to see the idea other people brought up to see if they changed 
my views before I posted. Well, I've been lurking long enough and have now 
decided to drop my own two knuts into the discussion.

First of all where am I coming from? Simply put, I am a school teacher and I 
am also an educational theorist. I write and present on educational topics 
and I have a pretty clear knowledge of both the practical side of teaching 
and the theoretical, research etc. My views are not necessarily always 
correct, nor are they necessarily popular but they are certainly strongly 
held views that I am happy to have challenged and defend.

As a teacher, I'm a strict one. I am as strict as I'm allowed to be, and I'd 
be even stricter if conditions allowed it. I don't think I'm a mean teacher, 
but I've been called that at times by students. I'm an effective teacher - 
my students get very good results. As an educational theorist, I am, for the 
most part a conservative and traditionalist.

And as a kid, as a student, I attended a wide range of different schools, 
including a couple that had a lot of characteristics that I also see in 
Hogwarts. I had a couple of teachers who were very similar in style to 
Professor Snape, and others very similar in style to Professor McGonagall 
and both of those groups contained teachers I regard as among the best I 
ever have. So I guess I'm also coming at this from a perspective of wanting 
to give Snape and McGonagall a break.

All right - biases declared, time to start addressing points people have 
made.

Alla:
>
> Are you saying that Snape does not **practice** inflicting emotional > 
> pain and that is why he cannot be called a sadist or are you saying
> something different? I of course cannot give many examples where he
> inflicts physical pain, but the ones where he inflicts emotional pain > 
> (the ones that I intepret as such of course) I can give a plenty. How
> about I will leave the ones with Harry for later and bring the one
> where he assigned neville to cut horned toads (that was their name in
> Gof<yes?). Yeah, I know, he may have needed them cut, no I would
> never ever believe that he could not find any other student to do
> that. I would never ever believe that he could not find another
> detention for Neville.
>
> And that is of course after famous threat to poison Trevis. No, I do
> not care if he really meant to do it. To me what matters is that he
> said it out loud and to me he did it because he wanted to cause
> Neville emotional pain and to me he suceeded very well.

Shaun:

I certainly agree that some of the punishments Snape inflicts are intended 
to cause emotional pain (personally I prefer the word 'distress' to refer to 
emotional effects, but that's semantics in this case).

But I would make the point that just because a teacher uses a punishment 
that they intend to inflict pain (of any sort) does not make the teacher a 
sadist.

Until comparatively recent, throughout the western world, and particularly 
throughout the English speaking part of it, one of the most common way 
teachers punished students was through the infliction of pain. 
Unambiguously - they used corporal punishment which was expressly intended 
to punish by administering physical pain.

I'm 34 years old - and I received such punishment at school. We're not 
talking about ancient history here. There are still parts of both the United 
States and Australia where such punishment is still used in schools. Are all 
the teachers who use and used such methods sadists? I wouldn't say so.

The largest survey involving British schools and punishment and rewards I am 
aware of was done around 1950. 86% of the teachers surveyed at the time 
believed teachers should be allowed to inflict pain as a punishment for at 
least some offences - were 86% of Britain's teachers sadists in 1950? I 
doubt it. My point is simple - just because a teacher believes inflicting 
pain as a punishment is justified in some cases and is prepared to do it, 
doesn't make them a sadist.

I don't use those methods myself because in the schools I teach in they are 
not permitted. But I support their use in theory. I'm no sadist - I just 
believe that the evidence is that such methods are effective in some cases 
at accomplishing a desirable goal. That's a contentious view and plenty of 
other teachers disagree with me - but the point I am making is if I was 
permitted to use such methods and if I used such methods I would be using 
them only in cases where I believed they were genuinely in the best 
interests of my students. Far from being sadistic, I'd be using them out of 
a desire to help my students. Not to harm them but to help them.

What's Snape's motivation? That's the important question and it's one I find 
difficult to answer definitively even to my own satisfaction. But I see some 
evidence that he is trying to do what is in the best interests of his 
students, and no absolutely clear evidence that this isn't his main 
motivation - and personally I'd need a pretty high standard of evidence of 
motivation before I called someone a sadist.

Why did Snape impose the punishments he inflicted on Neville - what had 
Neville done wrong?

Well, Neville got the 'Horned Toad Detention' he received for melting a 
cauldron in potion's class. The sixth time he'd done that.

Now we don't have any particular details on any consequences that arose from 
Neville's melting that cauldon in this case - JKR doesn't give us any. But 
we know from previous incidents - including one in the very first potions 
class - that if a potion is somehow scattered around the room it has 
dangerous side effects. Neville melted a cauldron in that very first class - 
it burnts holes in other people's shoes, and caused him to become covered in 
boils. Melting a cauldron is *dangerous*. It causes danger to yourselves and 
to others. It's not a minor matter.

And Neville did it in his very first class, and he's still doing it three 
years later. And he's done it four times in between.

Now, I think the question might reasonably be asked how culpable Neville is 
for this error. *If* a student repeatedly makes the same mistake over and 
over again, it is possible there is some reason why they keep doing it that 
isn't completely in their control, and I certainly see a case for arguing 
that this is an issue for Neville (and I intend to discuss that a little 
more later in this post). But it's also possible that Neville could avoid 
these accidents - that they are not completely out of his control (again, 
I'll talk about this a little later) and if that is the case, then his 
failure to do so - his failure to correct a problem behaviour that he could 
correct, and which has potentially serious consequences for his own health 
and his own wellbeing, not to mention those of other students around him is 
worthy of fairly severe punishment - in my view anyway. I'm not saying that 
that is necessarily the best way to handle it - but I am not convinced that 
it's a bad way to handle it.

As for the threat to poison Trevor - to be honest, that's almost straight 
out of certain textbooks of teaching. There's a lot of people who believe 
the best way to deal with behavioural problems is to impose 'logical 
consequences' or 'natural consequences' on a student. Many people who are 
opposed to 'old fashioned', punitive ways of dealing with misbehaviour are 
actually the biggest supporters of the logical consequence approach and 
consider it far kinder and far more likely to teach students to modify their 
behaviour. The threat to poison Trevor is straight out of that very popular 
school of classroom discipline. Is the proposed consequence (the death of a 
pet) overly severe in this case (not to mention incredibly unfair to poor 
Trevor, never mind Neville for a moment!)? Yes, I think it is - but again to 
call a teacher who does it sadistic goes way too far in my view. The 
intention may be good.

Alla:
> McGonagall does **NOT** single out Neville when she is asking "which
> incredibly foolish person", doesn't she? I believe that **anybody**,
> anybody who would have confessed would have gotten exactly same
> treatment from her.
>
> So, while I do not like the treatment that she gives Neville, I
> totally think that she does not give a swat whom she disposes
> punishment to. While I think Snape very much does. I mean, cutting
> horned toads? Threatening to poison Trevor? Snape would have no
> chance to give anybody same punishment for the very simple reason
> that nobody else HAS a toad, no?
>
> So, yes, I just think what Mcgonagall does here simply cannot be
> described as sadism and thus not very relevant just as you seem to
> believe that what Snape does is not sadism.

Shaun:

Alla, here you are running up against one of the most controversial issues 
in education theory - whether or not it is fairer to treat all students as 
if they are identical? Or whether or not it is fairer to treat all students 
as individuals with different needs?

"Nothing is more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people."

Now, I am absolutely and unashamedly in the 'individualised education' camp, 
as opposed to the 'one size fits all' approach. I suffered incredibly as a 
child from being stuck in education that treated all kids as if they were 
identical and personally I believe such an approach to education is 
inherently cruel. But again, my viewpoint is not the only viewpoint on this 
and there are plenty of people out there who think 'fairness' means treating 
everybody the same.

This statement you've made seems to me to fall into that category - you're 
prepared to give Professor McGonagall the benefit of the doubt because you 
believe she'd have treated any other student in the same way that she 
treated Neville but you object to Snape's actions because you think he 
specifically targeted his approach towards Neville as an individual.

This isn't really the place for a huge argument over which approach is 
better, but I just want to point out that there is a lot of discussion over 
this - and a *lot* of educators would argue than in this instance, Snape is 
showing the greater insight and the greater care. By individualising his 
disciplinary approach, he increases the chance it will be effective, as 
opposed to just using a standard punishment for a standard case. Nothing is 
crueler than imposing a punishment that is very unlikely to be effective. If 
you have to use punishment, you want it to work and if it's punishment based 
on causing distress, that means you want to make sure it actually does cause 
distress.

(When I was in primary school, I had a teacher who used to punish students 
by giving them extra mathematics problems. I enjoyed the problems so I used 
to do them for fun. One size fits all punishments might work for some kids, 
but they don't work for all).

Steve:
> Furthermore, IMO, although McGonagall was a no nonsense, strict
> teacher, I didn't see her as delighting in bullying students, but
> rather holding them accountable for their actions so that they would > 
> learn their lessons better and not transfigure themselves into a
> Volkswagen by mistake.

Shaun:

Yes, and I see Snape as a non nonsense strict teacher, who holds his 
students accountable for their actions so that they will learn their lessons 
better and not poison themselves or their friends, or make people break out 
in boils, melt other student's cauldrons...

I don't see Snape bullying Neville. I see Snape punishing Neville for 
genuine mistakes. To an extent, I think Snape's approach with Neville is 
pedagogically suspect at times (I think Neville would be more likely to 
respond positively to a gentler approach and... well, I'll get to that 
later) but I can see where he is coming from. Snape's approach may be wrong 
for Neville - but there are plenty of students that it's right for. Once 
again, though, this is another example (and this time it does involve Snape 
doing it) of how a one size fits all approach isn't generally a good 
approach in the classroom. It's not a sign of cruelty or sadism though - 
when I was a kid, this was actually the way I learned best, and touchy feely 
let's-be-nice teachers were just as bad for me as Snape seems to be for 
Neville.

a_svirn:

> You seem to be saying that meeting out abusive and emotionally
> painful punishments indiscriminativly is not sadism, while doing the
> same thing to a few select victims is? Not that McGonagall wasn't
> occasionally creative when it came to punishments. That night's
> outing to the Forbidden Forest? Not only it literally put her
> students' lives in jeopardy - I mean, there was someone out there
> desperate enough to kill Unicorns! - but just imagine how utterly
> scared Draco must have been! In the Forest at night with his worst
> enemies and a gigantic gamekeeper who is not known for his love of
> Slytherins, and who had moreover a grievance against Draco. I think
> he was every bit as scared as Neville was when Snape threatened to
> poison his toad.

Shaun:

I certainly agree a punishment that puts eleven year old children's lives at 
risk is excessive, although in the context of a magical environment when the 
school's Matron can cure injuries far more devastating than Muggle medicine 
seems to be able to manage, I find it somewhat difficult to assess precisely 
how dangerous the Forest Detention really was expected to be. Remember 
Hagrid points out that the students aren't in danger as long as they are 
with him or Fang. Also remember that the intention of the detention was not 
to find what was killin the unicorn, but rather to find the injured 
creature. Because we as readers know what was really there, and we know how 
dangerous it was, I think we may overestimate how dangerous that detention 
was meant to be. There's obviously some danger - but I don't believe anybody 
involved realised how much was involved.

And, yes, in some ways the detention was probably worse for Draco than for 
the others. As I've said "one size fits all" approaches affect different 
kids differently - even completely inoccuous 'normal' school detentions 
affect the kid who lives two hours away from school more than the one who 
lives five minutes away - but as Draco is a bully who loves scaring other 
people for no reason, I find it somewhat hard to sympathise with his added 
distress in this case.

a_svirn:

> I find it hard to believe that she didn't enjoy picking on students,
> even if she didn't smirk. I mean, why do it in the first place, if
> you don't like it?

Shaun:

Because you believe it is in the best interests of the student.

I've punished my students - and I have *never* once enjoyed doing so. In 
fact, generally speaking, I hate it. I didn't go into teaching to make kids 
unhappy. I went in to it because I want to improve things for them.

If a child is misbehaving you need to correct that misbehaviour. You don't 
have to enjoy doing it. In fact, you shouldn't enjoy doing it.

I love teaching in general - but there's still parts of it I don't like. 
Being a good teacher is, in many ways, about being willing to do the bits 
you don't like, not just the bits you enjoy. You're not there solely for 
your own benefit and your own pleasure. You're there for the kids and to 
give them what they need, whether they like it or not.

a_svirn:

> Here is a pretty girl exited and full of anticipation waiting for
> international delegations to arrive. And McGonagall snaps at her so
> that everyone would hear 'Miss Patil, take that ridiculous thing out
> of your hair.' I am not saying it's super cruel, but this is exactly > the 
> sort of pettiness we are invited to dislike in Snape.

Shaun:

Yes, it is, to an extent, you're right - and I think it's just as wrong to 
criticise Snape for doing it as I do to criticise McGonagall in this 
instance. Parvarti is doing the wrong thing. She's reprimanded for it. I'm 
sure she didn't enjoy it, but she's not meant to enjoy it. It's an adverse 
stimulus intended to correct an inappropriate behaviour. It's basic 
behavioural theory.

a_svirn:

> Certainly, she didn't *have* to do it. Snape used Neville
> squeamishness to bully him with horned frogs? McGonagall did the same > 
> with Lavender and mice. And Lavender had lived though the trauma of
> loosing a pet bunny. (Ok, a bunny is not quite the same as a mouse,
> but still probably close enough to make an impressionable person
> uncomfortable. And Ron used to have a pet rat, which *is* pretty
> close.) And while Snape threw "idiot boy" at Neville, she called
> Lavender silly girl for being squeamish. I suppose `idiot' is
> somewhat worse than `silly', but that's a kind of difference without
> much distinction, really. (It may even be a gender thing: Snape calls
> Hermione silly, rather than idiot.) Does she *have* to pick on
> Parvati? Does she *have* to denigrate her students' mental abilities?
> Does she *have* to make Neville suffer for something that is so
> obviously out of his control - bad memory? Quite the contrary - she
> has to absolutely make sure that certain adjustments are made to make
> things easier for him. Instead, she goes out of her way to make life > 
> difficult for him and misses no opportunity to draw everyone's
> attention to his condition. Oh, and by the way, if she had done her
> duty the situation with the stolen passwords wouldn't have occurred.
> So not only her punishment was abusive, she was actually scapegoating
> Neville.

Shaun:

OK - now I'm going to start talking about the thing I said I'd get to later. 
In particular, I'm going to discuss what I believe Neville's learning 
problems are and how they should be appropriately dealt with by teachers. I 
am, for the record, special education trained and have, at times, worked as 
a support teacher for children with learning disabilities.

Let me just tease out what small section of what I've just quoted.

"Does she *have* to make Neville suffer for something that is so obviously 
out of his control - bad memory? Quite the contrary - she has to absolutely 
make sure that certain adjustments are made to make things easier for him."

This is your opinion - and you're entitled to it. But speaking, myself, as a 
teacher, I don't entirely agree with it.

The second part - I don't have that much problem with that, although I would 
phrase it differently. A teacher has a duty to provide accomodations for a 
child with learning disabilities to ensure they can overcome or circumvent 
those difficulties to the extent possible. This does *not* necessarily 
involve making things easier for the child. In fact, sometimes it involves 
making things harder.

To explain what I mean, let me use traditional letter grades (A-E). If a 
child has a learning difficulty that means they get Ds, which is better for 
the child in the long run? An approach which makes things much easier for 
them - and they get Cs? Or an approach that makes things harder for them - 
but they get Bs? You don't want to make learning harder for a child with 
learning disabilities if doing so serves no purpose whatsoever - but 
sometimes by making it harder in particular ways, you can have a better 
impact on the child in the long run.

The first part of the statement you made and I've quoted is the one I do 
disagree with - because it assumes that Neville's memory problems are out of 
his control. I don't believe that is really the case. Yes, the problems are 
real - but he almost certainly has the ability to do something about it.

I believe Neville, as described in the books, has CAPD - central auditory 
processing disorder. It explains his memory problems to a great extent, and 
it certainly explains why he has such difficult in Snape's classes where the 
lessons generally consist of following lists of instructions. CAPD is 
common, and it comes in different degrees. Neville's is actually a pretty 
mild case - he does pass most classes - but unfortunately for him there are 
a few areas where it rears its ugly head - Potions class because of the 
nature of the subject and to some extent because of Snape's teaching style - 
and when it comes to remembering words (auditory sequential information) 
like the passwords.

The thing is CAPD can be managed. Most learning problems can be.

One thing I tell students with LDs is this.

"You have CAPD. That's an explanation for why you find school hard. It's not 
an excuse."

It is unfair in many ways that some children have to overcome difficulties 
that others don't. It is unfair that Hermione finds schoolwork so easy 
(although she works very hard as well) and Neville finds it so hard.

But that's how the world is. Neville has memory problems. There's two things 
he can do in that situation - let those problems dictate his entire future. 
Or fight to find a way to overcome them.

And while a kind teacher might let him get away with the first approach, a 
good teacher will try and force him to take the second.

Now I'll fault Snape to an extent on his teaching style. He's teaching a 
subject that draws heavily on a auditory sequential approach (following 
lists and procedures and learning rote information) and he's teaching it in 
a highly auditory sequential way (reinforced by a kinaesthetic approach if 
you want to get techincal). That's great for any auditory sequential 
learners in the class (Hermione seems to be strongly auditory sequential as 
as well as strongly visual spatial) and not bad for any kinaesthetic 
learners (Harry would likely fall into this category as well as being visual 
spatial), but for somebody like Neville who as I say I think has CAPD - it's 
not good. A teacher ideally, should try to teach in a way that addresses the 
range of learning styles. Snape doesn't do that. A lot of teachers don't 
unfortunately. And Snape doesn't even have the advantage of any real 
training. I think he teaches in the way he learned best - which again, a lot 
of teachers do. And that doesn't work for all kids.

Snape's approach isn't working with Neville, because Snape hasn't identified 
the problem Neville actually has in the classroom. But most teachers aren't 
particularly good at that (I'm specially trained to do so, most teachers are 
not). Snape thinks Neville simply isn't trying hard enough - and to an 
extent, he's probably right, Neville probably could try harder, but only if 
he's given a starting point.

As for McGonagall and the passwords, Neville's memory issues make it harder 
for him to remember passwords. It doesn't make it impossible (if it did, he 
also wouldn't be able to remember people's names, and similar). Now, yes, it 
would be nice if somebody sat down with Neville and taught him some of the 
strategies CAPD people can use in this situation, but the bottom line is, he 
has to overcome this problem and he is capable of doing so.

And remember - he's not being punished because he can't remember the 
password. He's being punished because he wrote them down and he wasn't 
supposed to. That's not the same thing. His difficulty in remembering is not 
his fault. Choosing to write them down however is a deliberate choice.

a_svirn:

> Yeah, that one punishment that lasted for nearly half the term. And
> which he didn't really deserve in the first place, since she was the > one 
> at fault. How about that time when she pointed out - with a
> theatrical sigh and before the entire class - that his grandmother
> had sent her the permission form because she didn't trust Neville's
> memory? She didn't *have* to it this way, did she? But why miss a
> good opportunity to embarrass a student?

Shaun:

Because it's hard for a child to overcome learning difficulties. It's 
*really* hard in a lot of cases. And the only way it can really happen in 
most cases is for the child to *want* to do it.

And most of the time, the end result of *wanting* to do it isn't going to be 
all that spectacular. The child isn't going to wind up doing brilliantly at 
the subject. They are not going to reach the stage where they find it easy. 
So you can't encourage them to work hard to deal with the problem, by 
telling them it's going to be nice and easy and you're going to find things 
easier at the end.

You can't really use an approach of positive encouragement, because the end 
result you are aiming for is - at least to start with - incremental 
improvement rather than dramatic improvement. And if you can't use a 
positive approach to get the child to change, then all you're left with is a 
negative approach.

Making it unpleasant for them not to do well. Imposing unpleasant 
consequences when they don't perform.

It's hard, yes - but if the aim is to improve things for the child in the 
long term, it's the correct approach.

a_svirn:
>
> And Snape too did feel that he had to discipline students. I am sure
> Umbridge felt that she absolutely had to do everything she did. You
> know what's interesting, though? Flitwick apparently didn't have to
> bully his students for the Greater Good. Nor did Lupin. Nor did
> Sprout. Even though they too were Hogwarts professors.

Shaun:

Actually we don't know that at all. We can probably safely assume they 
didn't need to 'bully' Harry, Ron, or Hermione, and maybe even Neville to an 
extent. But we don't know that Flitwick wasn't constantly telling Dean 
Thomas off. We don't know that Professor Sprout doesn't have Crabbe and 
Goyle out digging in the manure pile after every lesson. We don't know these 
things because JKR does not show us every single interaction between 
students and teachers - she only shows us the ones she needs to show us to 
make her story work.

As for Umbridge... my biggest problem with Umbridge is the fact that she 
repeatedly punished Harry for something he wasn't doing. I find the precise 
form the punishment took somewhat disturbing (although in reality I don't 
think it was probably any worse than the canings I received at school a few 
times) on a visceral level, but *if* Harry had actually been lying, it would 
have been another matter. Even then, though, as a teacher if you use a 
particular punishment and it doesn't work the first couple of times you try 
it, you should try something else - even if Umbridge truly believed what she 
was doing was punishing a liar, he just kept on telling the same lie, so she 
should have changed her approach. Nothing is more cruel than a punishment 
that doesn't actually work.

Also - there are some teachers who have some sort of natural gift that means 
they can get away with using punishment a lot less than other teachers. 
That's a wonderful talent for a teacher to have - but those of us who don't 
have that talent can't just decide not to use punishment because we wish we 
didn't have to. Every teacher has to find the methods that work for them as 
a teacher. It's not always the same methods as other teachers have found 
effective. Personally, I'd much rather have a classroom where I never had to 
do anything to a student they didn't like - but when I've tried that, 
everythings collapsed so I couldn't teach effectively. And maybe that's 
because I'm not the best teacher in the world - but I still have to be the 
best teacher I can be. And that means doing what works for me, and gives my 
kids what they need, even if it's not the same as the teacher next door. And 
she shouldn't use my methods if they don't work for her.

So maybe Sprout and Flitwick can teach in a way where they don't need to 
'bully' other students. It doesn't mean McGonagall and Snape would become 
better teachers simply by copying them - anymore than they'd become better 
teachers by copying Snape and McGonagall. Different approaches for different 
teachers are what works. Nobody has yet come up with the perfect unified 
teaching theory.

a_svirn:
>
> I don't see any problem with that. If students misbehave teachers
> assign detentions. That's standard Hogwarts practice.

Shaun:

Yes, and standard practice at my school involved hitting us on the bottoms 
repeatedly with three foot lengths of cane.

Seriously - from a pedagogical point of view, Hogwarts constant use of 
detentions as a way of punishing misbehaviour is not much easier to defend 
than the constant use of the cruciatus charm would be. Or the constant use 
of writing lines.

Schools are most effective at dealing with student misbehaviour when they 
use a wide range of different strategies for dealing with misbehaviour - not 
when they seem to have focused on one. Hogwarts detentions are somewhat 
better than the practice in a lot of Muggle schools where all detentions are 
virtually identical - but it doesn't represent good practice.

a_svirn:
>
> There is nothing inherently bad in slicing toads, cleaning bedpans,
> scrubbing floors or rearranging Filch's file cabinet. Sprout would
> make students to prune some particularly disgusting herbs, I imagine. > As 
> I've said upthread it is in itself neither degrading, nor cruel.

Shaun:

Now, here's where we get into some very interesting issues - who says these 
detentions are neither degrading nor cruel?

To a great extent, that is in the eye of the beholder - there's no simple, 
and clear way you can absolutely compare these things.

What one child will regard as a disagreeable experience, another might find 
absolutely disgusting, and it's not always easy to know which is which.

Seriously - if Neville has CAPD, as I suspect, getting him to rearrange 
Filch's filing cabinet *would* be cruel. It's a task that almost entirely 
draws upon the sequential thought process and a CAPD child would find it 
very distressing. Most kids wouldn't - a child like Hermione would breeze 
through it, in fact - but there are children for whom such a task would 
border on the cruel. Getting a child who suffers from Dabrowskian 
overexcitabilites to prune particularly disgusting herbs, would likewise 
almost certainly cause them considerably more disress than an equivalent 
amount of time writing lines with Umbridge's pen.

And even without special issues applying, remember Harry wanted Ron's 
detention back in Chamber of Secrets because for him, Muggle cleaning was 
nothing to worry about - while for Ron, it was a much more difficult task. 
Not cruel in that case - there's nothing wrong with a punishment being 
difficult - but it illustrates how even seemingly inoccuous punishments can 
effects different students differently. And a surprising amount of the time, 
some things can be 'cruel' even if you don't realise it.

(When I was 10, I found myself in a lunchtime detention that I didn't really 
deserve. The teacher in charge thought she was being kind by telling me I 
could colour in instead of doing the maths problems the other kids had to 
do. She had no way of knowing that colouring in caused me extreme distress 
and a considerable amount of pain - she thought she was being nice to me. 
It's not always all that easy.

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia