Old School - New Technology

 

One of my grandchildren is doing Key Stage 2 Standard Assessment Tests, otherwise known as KS2 SATs exams this week. He’s on track, so I’m sure he will be fine. He likes to do his homework at my house, which is fine. In recent weeks, the homework has been SATs practice papers for Maths and English and a list of spellings to learn. Maths is good. He is a whizz at maths, except anything to do with mixed fractions. Not my forte, either, better ask Grandad. I’m good at passing the buck. I’m good at English. At least, as a published writer I thought I was until I encountered an English paper he needed a little help with. Thank you, Google, for topping up my old brain with ‘subordinate clauses’, ‘subordinating conjunctions’, ‘relative pronouns’ and many more terms new to me that I tried to quickly learn. I decided that although I have qualifications to prove I am (was) educated to a certain level, I finished up feeling a bit thick, and he’s not quite eleven.

He attends one of my old schools. I had five different primary schools due to my father’s job in the licenced trade taking the family to various towns. As a child, I was very unhappy at this school and failed to settle in. These days, someone would pick up on that and show care and encouragement to a child, especially coming in new to the unfamiliar. For all that I once hated it, I’m at home there, now. I look after the infant’s library as a volunteer. Previously, I worked there. I would be out of my depth now. Methods have changed so much, even since my own children’s primary school years. I suppose we must move with the times.

My grandson will go to high school in September, where things will be even less familiar to me. That’s if he tells me anything about it, of course.

In my day, the Eleven Plus created the great divide between Grammar or Secondary school, and made some of the exam failures, like me, feel disappointed and even worthless. The KS2 SATs won’t be responsible for anything like that, thank goodness.

When I was at secondary school, we had to use fountain pens in English. Handwriting was encouraged to be cursive and perfectly formed, something to take pride in. Untidy writers were made to practice on specially lined paper. Sometimes, English homework would be to learn a poem by heart. It would be recited in class. No escape.

My grandson has developed his own handwriting style, as we all do. At school, some work, including writing is done on an iPad. Modern technology is the way forward and as things change and improve, we must keep up. I am ‘old school’ in my ways and in my thinking, but coping, I think, in this digital age.

My poem is not intended to sound cynical, but more of a sigh to what has passed never to return. A comparison from then to now.

An Alternative Education

The 3Rs soon to be redundant
Computer-led kids will be abundant
With all information mega-quick,
It only takes a scroll down and click.
No need for any conversation
Included in their education.

Last year’s reception class have all gone
And taken a leap up to Year One
To drag sticky fingers on iPad screens
And work out what technology means.
Will this be their basic foundation
Instead of formal education?

Numeracy, or let’s call it Maths
Has rules to follow specific paths
Beginning with learning how to count
Then adding up and sharing out.
One click away from calculation
Takes away their education.

When did this digital preference start?
Oh, why no poetry learnt by heart?
‘Spell check’ becomes their favourite teacher
With ‘grammar check’ an added feature.
The only future expectation,
A self-taught on-line education.

The infants are learning to use a pen
It’s not a skill they’ll need again,
For a future spent staring on-line,
Social activity in decline
With hardly any interaction,
So they won’t need our education.

PMW 2015

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Old School

I recently asked AI about myself. It told me was I was one of the leading figures in educational developments in the twentieth century, which came as a revelation. I never knew.

Of course, my ridiculous biography said everything about our brave new world and how technology shapes our lives and, apparently, our histories. It wasn’t always like this.

I actually left teaching in 1999 after being a head of English for fifteen years. I found myself one day sitting in a staff training session when we were being introduced to the wonders of ‘white boards’. I remember clutching the piece of chalk in my jacket pocket, feeling like Butch and Sundance must have done as they realised they were part of the past and there was no hope for them in the era to come. Instead of going to Bolivia, I resigned and started a new life.

Back in the twentieth century, everything was so different. I was a teacher in a time when we taught ‘pupils’: ‘students’ back then were studying in HE. We had no idea that in a quarter of a century’s time, every kid would be walking around with a mobile phone, effectively a personal computer, in their pocket and would be doing their work on an electronic tablet. We’d have protested if we were told that every lesson in every subject must follow the same pattern, that all that matters is results and, above all, Powerpoint rules, ok?

I admit at times we wandered into class and asked, ‘Where did we get up to last time?’ or ‘Would you like to watch TV today?’ I admit that on a miserable day, we might have allowed a joke-telling session. I remember a headteacher once catching me perched on my desk doing an owl impersonation for the least able year 11s on a Friday afternoon. But school could be fun. It was about more than just achieving Grade 4. It was also about stimulating kids to think, enjoy learning and, in my case, to enjoy English.

My latest novel, ‘How Was It For You, Mr Pilgrim?’ is about a young English teacher starting out on his career. Set in 1976-77, in a light-hearted way it presents a society, people and schools as they were half a century ago. 

from the front cover of 'How Was It For You, Mr Pilgrim?'

No one could claim that everything was better – for a start, misogyny was rife (indeed, the Sex Discrimination Act had only recently been introduced) – and in many ways the country bore little resemblance to what we have today. There were just three television channels, there was no need to wear a seat-belt, take-away food meant fish and chips…

However, some things never change. Here, our hero, Paul Pilgrim, is doing battle with his most challenging group:

‘OK, there’s a book between two. Don’t fight over them. And you’ll need a pen later. Yes, alright, I’ll find some for all those who haven’t got one. Settle, settle. Shush. Gillian, keep your hands to yourself. And you, Jimmy – especially you, Jimmy. Quiet now, everybody. Come on, settle down. Quiet. This is about a dead soldier who’s been killed in a war in South Africa.’ He began to read: ‘They threw in Drummer Hodge, to rest uncoffined – just as found…’

‘Sir, what the f…? What’s that about? That’s stupid, that,’ Bobby Savage interrupted straight away. ‘He won’t be coughing if he’s dead, will he?’

‘Yeah. It’s rubbish. What’s it mean?’ asked Gail Hudson, as if he cared.

‘Oh dear.’ Paul sighed. He didn’t feel strong enough to survive the battle either…

Discipline, back then, came in very different forms. Not always in a good way. One boy in the novel is complaining because he’s always caned at least twice a week and it’s Friday afternoon and he’s only been caned once and he thinks it’s not fair keeping him waiting for a second beating until the very end of the day.

In this extract, one disgusting boy has been caught making masturbatory gestures at the deputy head of department:

‘Jimmy, you are a bad, bad boy,’ said Allison, standing over him. ‘And you should know that I am not fond of bad boys. They have to be punished.’ In another place, at another time, Paul would have loved to hear her say exactly the same thing to him, but here she was on a different mission.

Widdle tried to lean away but she grabbed him firmly by the left ear. Her long red fingernails bit into his earlobe and she twisted and lifted and the boy rose from his seat.

‘Agh. Agh. Gerroff, miss. Aagh. That hurts. Give up! Stop! Ow! Gi’ up!’

She held him there.

‘And what do you have to say, Jimmy?’

‘Ow. Nothing. Ow. I mean I’m sorry, miss.’

‘Louder.’

‘I’m sorry, miss.’

‘Very sorry, Jimmy?’

‘Very sorry, miss. Very sorry, miss.’

The class was loving it. Several thumped their table in approval.

‘I’m pleased you have apologised, Jimmy, for you have done a thing which is not acceptable. I am also worried that someone from my own class might hear about your disrespect later. So, do you know what we are going to do now?’

‘Agh, agh. No, miss. No.’ He was on his tiptoes and his pug face was even more contorted than usual.

‘We are going to take a little walk to my room so that you can apologise in front of my class too. Is that alright, Mr Pilgrim?’

‘Well, yes, of course, Miss Argent,’ said Paul, unable to take his eyes off the blood which had begun seeping from Jimmy Widdle’s earlobe and was trickling down her nails.

She walked Jimmy from his seat, still on his toes and with his head on one side. She left the door open. The delighted chatter in Paul’s room was drowned by the howls of laughter that greeted Widdle’s entrance next door.

‘She’s great, her,’ said Widdle on his return. ‘And she fancies me. She’ll do anything to get her hands on me, she will…’

If you were around in the 1970s, you might enjoy being reminded of what life, in school and out of school, used to be like. Or what it might have been like. If you weren’t around back then, you might be surprised by what you missed.

An early review of the novel said, ‘It’s full of fond, bawdy scenes, peppered with on-point satire on various kinds of posturing, and an underlying vision that juggles irrepressible optimism with something darker.’ And approval like that made even the author want to read it again.

The book is available in paperback, for Kindle and in Kindle Unlimited. If you want to find out more, take a look at www.keithbrindlewriter.com.

Keith Brindle

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