How Do You Spell Elephant?

Mrs. White was more than a little frustrated with her split grade two and three class. The silliness continued despite her frequent warnings. It was a Tuesday. I always remember Tuesdays. I hated Tuesday morning when I was eight years old. Indeed, in retrospect, I disliked it most of my school and working life. Tuesday morning, after opening exercises, always included answering the very boring questions in the Dent Spellers I used as a student and indeed as a teacher. It was a silent time of working at your desk. On that morning the whispering continued. I must admit that most of the time as a young child, I exhibited exceptional deportment. Her admonition was not aimed at me. Finally she said it. “The next pupil who talks will get the strap”. Young readers may be somewhat shocked with such severity, but such was reality in the fifties. We all knew beyond a doubt that the next person to speak without permission would most certainly be unceremoniously strapped in the hallway for all the school to hear. Three hits per hand was the minimum administered. I was positive that the child being strapped would not be me. Then it happened.

The student next to me asked in a hoarse but quiet whisper. “How do you spell elephant?” Without thinking, I whispered back, “e-l-e-p-h-a-n-t”. You guessed it. I was the only one Mrs. White heard and I found myself out in the hallway being strapped. The strange thing about the strapping was that she apologized to me before administering the corporal punishment. She knew that I was but the scapegoat. In order to maintain the discipline she expected in her classroom, someone had to be caught and punished. The very strange thing about my memory of that day is that I don’t remember the pain, I just remember the apology.

For the first third of my career as an educator, corporal punishment was allowed. Indeed on a few occasions, as a vice-principal, I was forced by similar circumstances and the demands of staff members to administer the strap. I would venture that the exercise was harder on me than the student getting the strap. I hated using the instrument that I still have as a souvenir of another time and place in my desk drawer downstairs. As a matter of fact, I have two straps which were never removed from the drawers of my desk for the remainder of my career after the abolition of corporal punishment in the early eighties. Oddly, the selection of a scapegoat was a common way of maintaining discipline. I once worked for a principal who strapped very infrequently, but always in the empty basement so that the very distinct noises of the leather hitting the hands could be heard clearly all over the school. The concept of selecting a scapegoat is very much a Biblical concept. In Leviticus 16: 8-10, we read the LORD’S instructions for atoning for sin.

8 "Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for the LORD and the other lot for the scapegoat.
9 "And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the LORD’S lot fell, and offer it as a sin offering.
10 "But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make atonement upon it, and to let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness.

The idea is that the sins of the people were placed on the scapegoat so that the goat could carry them away into the wilderness and they would be before the LORD, but at the same time forever gone. There is great beauty in this picture of the two goats. One goat is sacrificed in order to meet the lawful requirements of a holy God and the second goat is a type for the placing of all of our sins on Christ so that they may be taken away forever. What an opportunity we are given in return for our belief. We are no longer under the law. We have only to confess and repent of our sins and they are taken away forever through His finished sacrifice on the cross, never to be heard or seen again.

(Comments, corrections, suggestions or rebuttals are welcome. My email link is contained in “About me: view my complete profile” to the right of this page or use the comment section below which requires that you have a Google account.)