When I was in Standard 1, I recall, a teacher took a few students out of the hall during assembly for making noise.
Apparently, they were to remain outside the hall and wait for further punishment once the assembly was over.
I was seated inside and stared at them the entire time (I was quite shameless, obviously).
Then I heard that teacher tell another teacher that if the punishment doesn't set them straight, she will take them to the wheel.
...
Something about that always managed to stay in my memory purely because my curious mind wanted to know what the heck she meant by 'the wheel'.
Why would a wheel be more of a threat than the punishment?
Want to know what my curious mind managed to figure out when I became a teenager?
I figured she must've meant THE WHEEL.
The Breaking wheel.
The Catherine wheel.
I have insane obsessions with different aspects of history every once in awhile (most of the time) and my obsession with medieval torture/killing devices was probably one that people knew about the most because it lasted the longest.
When I read about the wheel, and how they tie a person to a wheel and pretty much beat the shit out of them till all bones are broken and they eventually die of dehydration or whatever (or in some cases, they sped up the death with fatal blows), the memory of that teacher came back and I had an EUREKA moment.
And then I got a little horrified.
Did that teacher know what it meant by the wheel?
Or was she just quoting a line she heard and liked?
Did she know the historical context of it?
If I had known then what I know now, I would've informed her that some people were broken on the wheel for NOT TALKING.
And maybe it would've been a suitable punishment if those kids killed someone.
