this is not fair (diary 1987/04/12)

Mr. Manion hab been ill for about 3 weeks and there were some supply teachers to teach us geography. But it was no fun with them, Mr. Manion told us little stories about foreign countries and it was very easy to learn from this. Today Our headmistress told us that he will not return to school. We will get an other teacher for the rest of the year: Mrs. Winford.
Mrs. Winford told us that she came from England and will teach us abour geography of Europe till the end of the year. At first she wanted to know how much we have learned until now. She made a test, we had to answer 20 questions about countries, rivers, mountains of different parts of the world. It was very hard to answer these questions.
She had a look at our answers and soon she started shouting at us: "No one of you has and idea of geography! What did you learn until now?" She was very angry. She told us that she would do a second test one week later. We should better study hard for this test and everyone who fails it will get punished.
Oh my god! How could she do that? We did not know much about geography because Mr. Manion always told us stories and now we would have to know every bloody mountain in the world? Thats not fair. I hope I will pass the test next week.

One week later
We all have read much about geography, we could name the highes mountains and the longest rivers all over the world. We were very happy to have learned so much.
Mrs. Winford came to the classroom and she carried a strong cane in her hand. When I saw her, my heart started beating wild and I was freezing immediate. She startet our lesson with this test she talked about one week ago. We had to name all countries of Africa including their capitals. I had no idea, in face i could tell eight countries but none of their capitals. Some of my classmates were in the same situation.

Mrs. Winford checked our answers and really, two girls had written down all countries and all capitals, some had left out one or two cities but just three girls including me failed the test by far.
All girls were allowed to go but we had to stay here. Mrs. winford told us about her disappointment about us and how lazy a girl must be if she has one week time to learn and fail this simple test. She told us each of us will get one stroke on the bottom for each wrong or left out answer. She started with Cynthia, she had to bend over her desk and got 21 strokes. She screamed and cried like a baby but Mrs. Winford gave all of them quite hard on her buttocks. Jane and Marie got 34 each, they had no correct answer to the capitals but they named all countries. At the end it was my turn. Mrs. Winford said thet she has never seen such a bad result. Just 5 countries were right and 3 of the countries I wrote down were on different continents. This would result in 52 strokes for missing countries and 57 strokes for missing capitals and 3 strokes for the wrong countries.
My legs got soft and I was shaking. I had to bend over like the other girls and Mrs. Winford lifted my skirt. She told me that its very hard to get 112 strokes so she will devide it into three parts. The first 40 strokes she would give me now, the second 40 I would receive tomorrow and the last 32 I would receive the next day. I started crying and tried to beg for mercy. "No mercy", she said, "you habe had about one week to study. Thats the punishment for beeing lazy, and its well deserved!"
She started to whip my naked cheeks hard with her cane. She had a little break after 10 hard stroked to let me calm down. Then she continued caning my soft skin, one hard stroke a second. After a second break I received again 10 strokes. I cried and shouted and stuggled but it did not habe effect. "the last 10 strokes", she said, "full force, to make you think about your behaviour". And I got it, she caned my cheeks and the upper part of my legs until thick red stripes and welts appeared.
At the end she told me to come to her room tomorrow at 5pm to get the next  part of my punishment. Then she left the room.