We Must Open Our Eyes To The Truth

Squinty is a year 8 mixed race boy who sometimes has trouble concentrating in the classroom. He is a lively and inquisitive character but he is also sensitive. More than once, he has confided in me that though he appreciates her help, he doesn’t like the attention that is drawn to him by the presence of the Learning Support Teacher who accompanies him in lessons.

‘But why does Squinty have an assistant?’ you ask. ‘What is so special about him?’

Squinty is ‘blind’.

The case of Squinty raises an important question. Is he ‘blind’ because his optic nerve was destroyed at birth or because of what the well-meaning liberal does to him? Labelling students in this way only encourages their dependency on an overburdened state, and fosters an unwillingness to engage with real, meaningful challenges, such as competing to earn a higher salary than one’s peers. Unless we can shake him out of it – and more importantly, persuade the Leftie beaurocrats who dream up these notions to shape up and get real – Squinty is likely to continue hiding behind this lazy excuse of ‘blindness’.

On the whole, his peers are sympathetic and considerate; they help him in the classroom and stand up for him in the playground. More fool them. Of course, they aren’t to know the extent to which a child like Squinty is putting it on. Not that I blame Squinty – the broken education system’s low expectations of such boys makes it tragically inevitable that he will persist in hiding behind this label of ‘blindness’, stumbling through life, directionless .

And tragically, this culture of indolence is so deeply entrenched within British society that even his parents, despite being polite and educated, have persuaded themselves that their child cannot see.

Earlier today, Squinty’s best friends, Limpy and Hunchback, leapt to his defence as I led him off to detention. ‘Miss, it isn’t Squinty’s fault – he was born blind,’ they bleated. And of course, these words reveal a deeper culture of excuses, of low standards, and expecting the very least from our poorest and most disadvantaged. When I have Squinty repeat after me, ‘I’m responsible for myself, Miss, yes, I’m responsible for myself,’ I am fighting a generation of thinking that has left our education system in pieces – decimated by distorted, confused, jargon-ridden thinking whose worst excesses I have not only supported but encouraged for ten years, until my publisher’s recommendation that I change tack in order to promote my book.

And this raises another, even bigger, bigger question. Who’s really blind: the boy who ‘can’t see’ because his optic nerve was destroyed at birth by an excess of oxygen he received in the incubator? Or those well-meaning liberals who ‘can’t see’ the damage they’re doing to Britain’s future by mollycoddling boys like Squinty, Limpy and Hunchback?

Hands Up If

Fellow teachers, you may have come across this idea that sometimes kids should not put their hands up to answer questions in class because then it’s always the same kids who do – you know, some of them need thinking time, are less confident etc, blah blah blah. And we all know that hands-up can be a great buzz for Sir or Miss for that magical penny-dropping moment when the kid gets it. That is why I have always used hands-up with my students along with a range of other traditional and modern techniques. Of course that didn’t stop me from leading an initiative when preparing for Ordinary Comprehensive’s Ofsted visit last year in which teachers were penalised for using hands-up and for not using the hands-down technique.

 

In aggressively imposing this and other patently absurd and short-lived policies, I was not, as some have suggested, motivated solely by self-interest. I was not slavishly toeing a perceived line for the sake of my own career prospects. No. I was being loyal; I was slavishly toeing the line simply because it was, I believed, the line. It is how armies operate. And it is a good way to be - for most people.

Obviously I’m not like that any longer. This summer I became a maverick and a whistleblower in order to promote my book. Nowadays I am full of original ideas. It’s going very well!

Battle for Britain

Sorry for not posting for ages but it has been difficult finding the time, what with my new role as government advisor. (Super-Teacher, Sex Blog Queen and now Apparatchik-Chick – I am unstoppable!)

Speaking to the Select Committee last week, I feigned humility and awe – actually, the awe wasn’t entirely feigned, for who doesn’t get a little turned on by power and influence? – whilst at the same time being bold and outspoken. Indeed, I was forthright and uncompromising as I agreed with everything Michael and his team are proposing.

Where education policy is concerned, we simply cannot afford to underestimate the importance of supporting each successive government’s claim to be radically shaking up the system by introducing the 3 R’s and discipline back into schools. For years, like so many others, I have been campaigning for English and Maths to be reinstated at the heart of the curriculum. Long have we cried for some kind of strategy for dealing with the lamentable state of children’s Literacy and Numeracy. For far too long, kids in Britain have been doing pretty much nothing but P.E., Media Studies and smoking – and only one strand of this axis of nonsense is officially wrong!

I must applaud Michael for bravely bringing the battle to the complacent, well-meaning liberals. I remain astounded by this lot’s self-righteous indignation against the social segregation being tirelessly and selflessly fought for by well-heeled parents demanding that Free Schools be built for their children and their children’s friends.

Furthermore, making youngsters sit exams from the age of six is a wonderful idea. We already know, after years of positive feedback from teachers, how valuable endless formal testing is.

Fundamentally, however, it is a question of winning hearts and minds.

It may sound paradoxical, but in order to move forwards we need British schools to resemble those in the third world. It does not so much matter that they are under-resourced, over-crowded and miles away from the families they serve; schools in the developing world, where they have them, are full of eager, smiling faces, driven to gratitude by the desperate, hungry hope of escape. Yes, my friends, by hope. Hope and fear. Healthy, natural fear. Both the immediate, irksome fear of violence and the more powerful, pervasive fear of being left behind. Here, in lazy, cosy Britain, we can but dream.

Let us just pray that we do not end up like Sweden.

(Apart from in the matter of Free Schools being allowed to make a profit, which I think I must be in favour of. I must remember to check… Better text him now while I’m thinking about it…)

The Deputy who Punched Children in the Face

Some have criticised me for not going to the press several years ago with the truly newsworthy revelations of systematic, institutionalised cheating in exams and my firsthand experience of senior teachers using violence against students at a Catholic school in which I worked. I can only stress again that I would not have been believed; teachers were paid hush money and silenced by a culture of fear. Not only that, I was still partially enslaved by pusillanimous Left-wing thinking. Also, I didn’t have a book to promote at the time.

Pale Face

Pale Face has been teaching here at Ordinary Comprehensive for three years. Today she came to my office in tears, declaring that she wanted to leave the profession. She was so choked up with emotion that the 5’6” mousy-haired 26 year old English teacher and amateur ballroom dancing runner-up from Streatham Vale, in blue blouse from H & M and sensible shoes from Clarks in a sort of taupe, slightly scuffed - whose identity shall remain a secret - was having trouble communicating. My heart filled with pity, so I tried to understand.

‘Can I get you a drink, Pale Face?’ I asked. She managed to shake her head between sobs and gasps. I let her have my comfy seat with the nice cushion and perched on the desk before her – a pose of confident authority with a hint of compassion.

‘I think I know what the problem is, Pale Face. You don’t like black boys. Is that it? I’m right, yes? You don’t mind teaching the white children, but you can’t bring yourself to help out the black boys.’

‘No!’ she spluttered, a little snot dribbling from her pink nose, ‘that’s an awful suggestion!’

‘Okay, okay, Pale Face. Calm down. So it’s not teaching the black boys that bothers you, it’s telling them off. You’re afraid to discipline them. Is that it?’

‘I’m not racist!’ she exclaimed, rather melodramatically.

‘Whoa there, Pale Face! No one’s calling you racist! Not that it’s the racists I have a problem with. It’s the wishy-washy Lefties with their political correctness and equality and their fear of appearing racist. I’m not blaming you, Pale Face. You can’t help yourself – it’s your Liberal upbringing. You’ve been brainwashed –’

She interrupted me, which I thought was a bit much, considering she’d invited herself into my office.

‘It’s got nothing to do with black boys…’ she insisted. I began to understand her predicament a little more clearly.

‘Ah! It’s the Chinese you’re not keen on,’ I suggested.

‘No, it’s not…’

‘Indians? South Americans? Wait – I’ve got it! You can’t stand the working class kids! Of course! Well, let me tell you something, Pale Face, and I think this might help you – but this stays between these four walls. When I started teaching, I couldn’t stand the so-called ‘working’ class kids with their idleness and their excuses. But then, over the years, I grew to understand something very important. Working with paupers makes you look good. It’s good for your CV, it’s good for dinner parties – it’s good for dating. It’s especially good if you imagine you may one day have to knock out a lot of column inches in defence of some hastily-conceived rant that was only ever cobbled together in the first place in order to promote your book…’

She interrupted me again.

‘I don’t have any prejudices against the kids, Miss G. I’m just finding the workload too much. I need a rest. I don’t think I’m cut out –’

I sensed the floodgates may have opened, so I showed her the door and advised her with as much sympathy as I could muster that leaving was probably her best option. A little later I heard that she had, mercifully, handed in her notice. Another one bites the dust!

Old Friends

When you’re as good at teaching as I am, it can be quite awkward sitting in the pub with colleagues trying to empathise with the problems they face. This is one of the reasons I usually avoid the pub on a Friday evening. The other reasons are that I do not understand the appeal of alcohol and socialising and that gathering material for my sex blog (link removed) is a fairly exhausting process. Friday night is prime hunting time.

Then there’s the awkward fact that some of my friends don’t like me these days. They’re all Lefties, you see. Apparently, there are lots of people out there who share my views - they just aren’t in my world. Mercifully, the blessed Internet (that wondrous tool so despised by queasy Liberals!) allows me to continuously gratify my new friends’ appetites for sensationalised tales of urban violence and misery. Oh, how they love to hear about the annihilation of the state school system by compassionate Lefty teachers tip-toeing around the place being respectful, tolerant and optimistic!

Plus, of course, many of my fellow-workers are still cross at me for showing them up in my book (released next April). It’s all rather petty.

New Friends

The advantage of having a face like Michael’s is that the press don’t speculate too much about his sex life. Which I would suggest in his case is just as well, judging from what he seemed to be hinting towards in his last text message.