Beware of Saudi high school teachers with big sticks

This post over at the Spanking Writers brought back memories of my Saudi "brother" from college.

W. and I were meeting for lunch at the student union after my Arabic class one day, where my professor had explained to us that it is common in Arab culture when a man and a women have to be together alone at, say, a bus stop, for the man to put his hand over his heart and say "you are my sister" (anti 'ukhti). So, at lunch I decided to try out my new Arabic and met W. with anta akhi - you are my brother. He looked at me for a second and then said, "yes, Meechelle, you are my sister." And we called each other sweetie brother and sweetie sister from then on.

What does that have to do with Abel's post? Well, one night when I was supposed to be helping W. with his history class, I got him talking about school in Saudi Arabia where apparently discipline varies considerably from teacher to teacher.

One teacher he had didn't even really care if they showed up and, if I remember correctly, even let them smoke in class (this is the Arab World, after all, where chain smoking is not only not banned, but sort of expected).

Another teacher, however, would walk into the room and bark out, "whoever didn't finish his homework, stand up!"

"And you just did because he was going to know in about five minutes and it would be worse," W. said.

Then he'd call the first student up, who'd hold out his hand upon which the teacher would slam his big stick. And if the student pulled his hand back, the teacher would start beating his leg until he put his hand back out.

"You always hoped you'd be last so he'd be tired," said W. "I was lucky. My hand never broke."

Um, yeah. Like I said, it varied considerably.