This paper focuses on the now-discarded practice of corporal punishment at Morris Isaacson High School, an important public school in Soweto. Corporal punishment, widely accepted by both students and parents, was central to the disciplinary regime of the school during the 1960s and 1970s. 'Morris' was one of the very few high schools in Soweto to remain open and functional during the turbulent 1980s; some argue that it was the rigid discipline that allowed the school to survive in a context of generational upheaval. During the late 1980s and early 1990s pressure mounted on the educational authorities to abolish corporal punishment until it was eventually outlawed under the new constitution in 1996. Though many saw this an important victory for human dignity, there remains a very popular nostalgic narrative that blames the abolition of corporal punishment for the collapse of school discipline in the democratic era.