Variations on punishment
To everything there is a season….and for one of my nuns, making a whole class write out a chapter from the religion book because we were misbehaving, was the season for punishment. These days, whenever I hear the Byrds sing ‘Turn Turn Turn” on the radio, I remember that day. The chapter we had to write out included the verses from Ecclesiastes 3, about the seasons of life.
In terms of punishment and discipline, both were in abundant supply. And it could range from a simple comment to a physical assault.
My second-grade nun, when she thought we were getting too full of ourselves, would say something like, “Who do you think you are, Lady Jane?!” I always wondered who “Lady Jane” was, or what she did. I expect it wasn’t good, but I knew better than to ask.
Art class
One of my least favorite punishments was for them to take away our Friday-afternoon art time. It was always such a sad, frustrating, and depressing Friday when, yet again, you heard, “Okay, since you can’t behave, no art class today.”
It was as if art was seen as a reward or play, a tool to control behavior, instead of a vital component for balance, and mental and emotional well-being. It got treated like a bastard stepchild in the hierarchical strata of learning priorities. It lowered the subject of art to a status below things like math or geography, when for the student with an art gift, it could be EVERYTHING. It took away their one afternoon a week to get instruction in the one area of life that maybe was their genius and a moment to shine. And the Sisters didn’t seem to get that, for some of us, art was survival, like breathing.
Even for students who weren’t as interested in art, it deprived them of the chance to have a well-rounded creative learning experience. Even those who love science need to learn how to use art to relax, and more importantly, to think outside the box to find creative solutions to science problems.
When I taught science at the museum, I tried to get across to all that Liberal Arts classes are as important as calculus. Maybe even more, because Liberal Arts classes teach you to think, reason, ask questions, and broaden your creativity. That one class could have more effectively helped all of us to positively express our emotions. Instead, we had to bottle them up or act out our frustrations. By using art to punish a few, they deprived all of us of an experience to learn a valuable subject, do something positive, and touch our souls.
However, at that time, there was no awareness of things like ADHD or neurodivergence. It was not known then that art was something that could be harnessed to calm overactive kids struggling to sit still all day, or as a way to express emotions and be creative. And I had no awareness of any of this. I only knew I was upset.
Other options
As to other punishments, there were the usual: Go to the Principal’s office, write some sentence 100 times on a sheet of paper or the blackboard, or stay after school. I was never sent to the Principal’s office except for the time the school nurse was going to take me to another school for a hearing test. But I did get the “Stay after school” one. The first time, I stayed, but on the other hand, I knew better. Being short, I got in the middle of the kids marching in twos out of the classroom at the end of the day, and escaped before Sister caught me.
There were, of course, the physical punishments. My mother spoke about having a nun in her childhood who threw scissors. The pastor of the parish made it clear to the Mother Superior of the order never to send that Sister to our school again. There was another who had been a terror in her youth, but by the time we got her, she was old, mellow, and more like a grandmother. So you could just never tell.
“Sister Rampage”
There was one nun I had, though, in 4th grade, who I will refer to as Sister Mary “Rampage.” Sister Rampage, to my 4th-grade self, was a huge woman. She was stocky, seemed very tall, and had the build of a linebacker or Sherman tank. In fact, when she barreled down the aisle at you in anger, “Tank,” was the image I had in my head.
Aside from being physically intimidating, there was her behavior. I named her Sister Rampage because that was the new word she taught us that year, one that she used to describe her behavior.
If we were not acting appropriately and didn’t stop right away, she would threaten to “Go on a rampage.” Which was a worthless threat, because if she said she “might” go on a rampage, she had already decided to. If she got triggered, she rampaged. There were definite anger management issues in that one.
The bottom line is that her ultimatum to us was nothing more than her warning to prepare ourselves for the onslaught. Once she made her announcement, the rampage began.
She would bite her lip, roll up her sleeves, and barrel to the back of the room. There, she would spin around and come up one of the aisles. At that moment, students on both sides of that aisle would grab their desks and brace themselves because someone was going to get hit. If you failed to brace yourself, you might get slammed forward into your desk when her open palm smacked you on the back.
Given that quite often, none of us were really sure why she was angry in the first place, no one ever knew who was about to get hit. And by the end of the school year, EVERYONE got hit, at least once. Even the boy who never talked in class, never did anything wrong, and had an A+ average.
The rest of us were in shock when she hit him because no nun had EVER even yelled at him. So, he was probably the most traumatized of all, because he wasn’t used to that. The rest of us had received enough physical punishment to know how to absorb it. But when he got hit, he turned beet red, started coughing, and nearly choked.
Another time, she literally lifted a friend of mine out of her seat by her neck. I certainly hope my friend told her mother.
The one time I did stay after school for punishment, it was with this nun. I didn’t dare question her yelling at me. I just assumed I was wrong and had hurt her feelings. I even made her an apology card while I sat there in detention, because I just accepted that I was the bad one.
Was there any excuse for this behavior? Absolutely not. And frankly, this was abuse. But this was also the way it was. No one questioned it. Everyone just knew that’s how this Sister was. In fact, it was almost a source of competitive pride amongst students back then to boast that they had the toughest nun that year.
But the reality is, this was “normalized abuse.”
I will note that several years later, when I was in my 20s, I happened to run into her at another facility. They said she was there, and I was ready to call her out for being such a bully. When she walked into the room, I was shocked to see she was actually this short, old lady. Still, there was a part of me who wanted to say, “So, do you want to bring it on now with someone your own size?!”
Such a different world today
All of this said, and with Sister Rampage as the exception, I liked being at school. It was better than home — if that tells you anything. At school, I was taught, sometimes harshly, but I learned. Maybe the nuns weren’t always the easiest to deal with, but most of the ones I had were determined to help us learn. And learning, even then, was somehow very important to me.
In all fairness, I also want to say that I have met nuns since, in this current age, and they are not the same ones from my childhood. The modern nuns are highly educated, amazing women who often work on the front lines of social and racial discrimination. Many work with women struggling to be single parent or afford food. One nun I knew described herself as being “on the fringe,” to fight for things the modern patriarchal church and priests ignored. And she was definitely a fighter for women’s rights.
So like I said above, you just never know. In fact, one of the reasons I got out of my house years later was due in no small part to a very kind nun whose ministry was spiritual guidance and counseling at a retreat house in Middletown. I’ll speak of her later.
Soul Mosaic 
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