Chapter Five: Sympathy Flies Out the Window
Miss a day or two and sympathy, understanding and tolerance flies through the window. I have the groups for only two days this week and they grate heavily on me. Imperfections writ large, puerility deflating my enthusiasm. I need to work with adults again, lifers and other unsavoury members of the criminal fraternity.
Paul’s going haywire. As a security man on Yom Kippur celebrations, large gathering of 6,000, he, alone, was responsible for security.
“There could have been bombs in the bag I was searching.”
Magnum doses of student mirth.
“Listen, I know what I’m doing. I’ve done it before, it’s tough checking all those people.”
Yes quite. Security of the rich and famous in the hands of the special needs with epilepsy. Could you imagine? An expensive dress, flash Gucci bag and a terrorist bomb being discovered by a poor soul who throws a gran mal at the most inappropriate moment. Mayhem and blood.
The proposed disco planning is becoming more fantastic. Private deals struck by Paul out of college are not shared with his fellows.
“This is the poster I did. Worked half the night on it.”
“But Paul, I thought the disco was Sunday night, not the Tuesday you’ve written.”
They’re dead keen, but the centre’s falling away as some resign themselves to a one man show unable to deliver the goods.
“And £2.50p a ticket?”
“Yeah, that seems about right. Not too expensive.”
“Do you think Sunday is a good night.”
“Yeah, seems to me.”
“When do most people go out?”
“Friday and Saturday.”
“It’s against my religion to do anything on Friday.”
“I’m Christian. What about my Sunday?”
The estate surrounding the college hasn’t a good reputation for night safety. The disco’s planned from 8 p.m. till midnight by which time busses are tucked up in bed, and the tube twenty minute walk where muggers often lurk. Several of the students are daily transported from the furthest reaches of north London by mini-cab. Who’s going to deliver and collect them?
“We’ll work something out!”
“Well, tell us?”
“Security shouldn’t be a problem. Any trouble, any swearing or drugs and we’ll throw them out.”
“Yeah”, adds Mark, “we’ll search them before they come in.”
“Can I see the tickets you’ve printed Paul?”
It’s a sheet of A4 with ‘Disco’ on it. No venue address, only a space for the punter’s name.
“Looks easy to forge.”
“No, it shouldn’t be. We’ll know everybody.”
“What happens when five or six people try to get in without ticket?”
“I can sort it out”, claims Paul.
“Yeah”, adds Mark, “we’ll have staff there.”
“Well, I’m not hanging around to get duffed over by large teenagers who don’t like being searched.”
I ask if anyone’s seen the building? Moments of disagreement. No one has. Its layout lost in a fog of unreality. My god, is this my fault? We break, and I go in search of the college youth worker, Jeannie. Another revelation: the students don’t want to use the youth club preferring instead the estate’s community centre for the standard £60 rate. Though Paul’s previously argued this is a special concessionary rate negotiated by him. I divest him of this fable in the group - ever so nicely. Later in the day he informs my acting senior he’s got the room free and intends to ask staff for donations to run the disco. Who’s in special need, me or the students?
We decide, with much prompting from me, to check out what the community centre offers. All twelve troop across the dingy litter strewn concourse, turn left at the bashed in phone box and a minute later are walking through the strong metal doors of the centre. Relief, the atmosphere’s warm and buzzing - chatter and tea, colourful clothes and bingo. Bill, pouring out tea, smiles. I recognise Lynne, one of the college cleaners. Well, someone to get sense from. The group are soon possied and shown around the centre, viewing, critically, its facilities. Paul goes off with Tony and Mark to examine ‘security issues’, and the rest, after a while, join me to eat an endless supply of biscuits. A little later I see Lynne and Paul in animated discussion talking fund raising. “We write to the shops in Brent Cross, they send us vouchers to raffle, that sort of thing. It’s a good way to raise money.” Paul’s eyes light up and is soon in deep negotiations. The centre’s an ideal venue. Not too large, despite a few students thinking it should be bigger - one hundred capacity is large enough I tell them.
Returning to college the group, now excited, decide the entrance fee should still remain at £2.50p but include food. “We’ll get our mums and dads to donate it”, suggests Paul. I like the mix, big person sophistication of ideas, youthful childlike reliance on mum and dad. But that’s the group, midway between teenager and child, veering madly with mood.
I discover Chandra’s going haywire. He’d phoned his old special school informing the deputy head, through a very garbled message, about disco money and “going to the dogs!” So deputy calls me requesting clarification. She feels reassured that we’re only planning to talk about our proposals and says she’ll arrange a time for them to talk to her pupils.
I receive a memo from my faculty head suggesting the group re-think their publicity material and re-write their letter to the RSPCA. Something about the corporate image being despoiled. He also suggested I talk to the finance officer on the legal implications of fund raising. On the positive side his memo will enable me to discuss with the group our timetable and plans, especially after half term - the break I sorely need.
2
Strange Harry’s in the gym. It’s my session for keep fit and dust off the seldom used ergometer. We pedal like doped lunatics for three minutes, constantly measuring our pulse, then collapse in a sweated heap on the scuffed from high heels floor. The session’s popular, but Harry, as is wont, is dreaming in another part of the gym and misses his ride. He explodes, picks up his performance record sheet, screws it up and throws it full force at me. “Why can’t I get my turn!”, he wails. “It’s not bloody fair. They’ve all had a go. Why not me? It’s not fair.”
“Sorry Harry, but you weren’t in the queue.” Having stormed from the gym I think no more of him and move the equipment to the store room. That’s a mistake because he’s about to ambush me.
“You’re a horrible person, I hope you get blown up by a fire work.” Oh, lordy, lordy I tut, now I’m for it. Running off towards the coffee bar, he decides he hasn’t finished, stops, turns and comes charging at me, screaming at the top of his voice, “I hope you get horribly burned. I hope your dad hits you!”
“Sorry, Harry, the poor bugger was cremated three years ago.”
No one’s ever seen Strange Harry do this before, he’s normally content muttering to himself and hiding in corners. Universally admired for his computer like brain he’s an absolute outsider. Informing staff that life’s been seen in Harry, roars of laughter break out, feeling progress, of sorts, has been made. However, I should have spent more time encouraging him to follow through his anger. A missed opportunity which probably won’t arise again.
The first year’s are getting stranger as half term madness infects them too, high as kites and not much chance of coming down this side of Christmas. But continuing our work from the previous week on fashion, I ask, “What would you like to be?” We dig out magazines, sensuous models, exciting photographs, images of what we should aspire to. We take large sheets of paper and begin to select images that appeal. Sunil’s first away full of enthusiasm. Tricia and Chung work together, slowly in between romantic chatter and much hugging. Lee looks for an image of a man on a horse, which he finds in an advert for Sisley, cutting it out with care. Sunil’s becoming earthy, snipping images of whisky, wild women and extremely fast cars. Pritt stick is devoured with enthusiasm and the image he desires quickly emerges. Lee, pondering another picture, a man reclining covered head to toe in bank notes, croons melodically, “who wants to be a millionaire”. Paul goes for a sumptuous living room with a coal fire and a comely woman standing in front of it. A smart red Fiat and another sensual woman is added to his fantasy image. Paddy’s slow - I’m getting concerned about this - finally selecting an image of a man riding a horse on a drovers track. Our loving couple are quietly moving on. Tricia announces she wants to be a cuddly teddy bear and Chung a footballer, lots of catalogue pictures of football boots.
Paddy, reviving, asks me to photocopy a piece from a woman’s magazine on Chinese horoscopes, and specifically a little box on the Rat.
Everyone displays their work and explains to the others what they want to be, but no one’s particularly receptive. Dean’s getting noisy, and once he’s shown his finished self - myriad expensive cars - decides no one else should be heard. We break for lunch realising we’ve overshot time.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Zen and the Memory of a long cycle ride
Summer now someplace far behind, a distant memory, naked on a beach. Byways of rural France, sticky heat, sharp lung rasping sears on inclines through run down villages. Over priced cafes, water and fruit, sandwich fromage for the day at the stops I’m forced to make.
My legs ache, and on long climbs my right knee feels even worse. Skin burns beneath over long exposure to continental sun. I revel in warm freedom, shorts and jersey from morn to evening. I’d forgotten the sensual nature sitting astride this thin steel and titanium machine, companion of sanity and escape since childhood. I’d raise my body stretching feline like, gripping bars firmly careered down long descents on well banked roads, thin hard tyres bouncing over sticky bubbled tarmac. Exhilaration. Breaking sharply, cranking this too heavily weighed machine into bends. Streamlined body parallel to top tube watching computer log up miles per hour not peddling.
Dancing on pedals, turning legs becoming brown as old memories return at speed, muscular hollows and defined sinew. Michelin map checking old routes first travelled decades previously. Then discovered France deserted, land of bountiful nature, wilting sunflowers, exhaustion and dehydration, though I never stopped drinking and fat fried off me in the searing heat wave of seventy five.
Welcoming municipal camp sites. Pitch tent first then a shower alternating hot and cold water until my skin cools and I feel able to dry my aching, limp body. After eating I repose beneath my lightweight nylon waterproof cocoon fixed into baked earth by aluminium pegs. My heart hardly appears to be pumping blood in waking state as I sink quickly into a state of unfeeling unconsciousness leaving no prints of my mortal presence. My body’s shrouded in a plum maroon sleeping bag, long zipped. Cast off sweat stained clothing my pillow, small torch within easy reach. Notebook partially scribbled aide memoire to the day’s events: record of distance, average speed, hours astride my steel horse. Odd comments, my reflections on this journey alone heading south Arthurian like clanging chain over miles of narrow highways beneath azure sky.
Welcomed in Normandy as liberator. Fifty years belatedly reliving war to banish aggressor from lush pasture’s rolling hills. National and regional flags hang from house to civic building, cotton bright colours of symbolic aspirations bowed on breezeless days of everlasting July sunshine. Newly named streets and places in English. Debts honoured freshly inscribed with British, American and Commonwealth names, regiments and ranks. Potted histories of military thrusts eastwards, inventories of causalities and deaths. Northern medievalism, stone rock hard, smote kindness, dug deep into my soul reminding me of loneliness. Kicked hard on pedals, matt black, after in clear town square fountains, drank my fill of antiquity. Wheels turn France, swallows my physical pain, enveloping me in expansive emotions and pride, memory and collective connections. Celebrations fade as my mind turns onto my destination: forest and sand.
Fresh ambition awakes as I mull through the route over breakfast. Pack my tent, cover my exposed body with sun protection. In the years since last time I’d forgotten dehydration’s toll; lip cracked salt mixes with breakfast’s fine pastry. With myself I dialogue each mile, egging my body into greater physical stress adding another mile to those already completed since day break. Saddle soreness immobilises unrealistic keenness to remove years from my age and relive thirties fitness. Day ending sunset slips beneath the hill I’d climbed to pitch my tent, transports me through the night searching recuperation.
Southerly each day. Another forty miles clicked off. The map, biro marked each night, records my Michelin guided route. It’s not possible to drink enough fluid. My daily stops centre around water, cafes, or roadside shops if the mood takes me. Gulp down ice coldness. I make ninety miles the third day crossing the Loire. Two more days each of seventy five miles. Forests become deeper, hills flatten, villages approaching Cognac poorer, more depressed, the roofs red, Mediterranean. Norman sentiments long forgotten. Neat rows of vine, quieter roads, crossing the Gironde at Blaye enter Medoc. Relax over a celebratory café plate du jour, soon my journey will end. Push on through the hundred mile barrier. The terrain is flat, limbs ache, tiredness fights a guerrilla war to sap me to force surrender to the exertion and weakness I feel.
Long straight roads. Parallel lines rise to meet the horizon, mirage wet tarmac. Miles tick off slowly. Now the sun once high and baking on my face is sinking and forest cool air refreshes me. Fatigue is temporarily allayed, a svelte deer scamps across the road. I revel in the secret life of the forest: a huge grin jogs spirituality, I dream of forever living deep within its morn and dawn dampness. Sun drenched late afternoons, filtered light shafted towards earth. Irrigation pipes spray water over reclaimed sand light fertile soil full of maize and reforested pines, I deliberate ride through them, drenched, my skin glistens coolly.
I peer at my arms my legs now deepening brown. Drink water, lower a gear clanking in the process, echoing in the quietness of the forest. Stretch my whole body high from the saddle and blue frame burdened with bags, sense satisfaction as I see the first sign to my destination. Pressing on victorious I greet old friends, pitch tent, organise my possessions, shower and sleep.
My legs ache, and on long climbs my right knee feels even worse. Skin burns beneath over long exposure to continental sun. I revel in warm freedom, shorts and jersey from morn to evening. I’d forgotten the sensual nature sitting astride this thin steel and titanium machine, companion of sanity and escape since childhood. I’d raise my body stretching feline like, gripping bars firmly careered down long descents on well banked roads, thin hard tyres bouncing over sticky bubbled tarmac. Exhilaration. Breaking sharply, cranking this too heavily weighed machine into bends. Streamlined body parallel to top tube watching computer log up miles per hour not peddling.
Dancing on pedals, turning legs becoming brown as old memories return at speed, muscular hollows and defined sinew. Michelin map checking old routes first travelled decades previously. Then discovered France deserted, land of bountiful nature, wilting sunflowers, exhaustion and dehydration, though I never stopped drinking and fat fried off me in the searing heat wave of seventy five.
Welcoming municipal camp sites. Pitch tent first then a shower alternating hot and cold water until my skin cools and I feel able to dry my aching, limp body. After eating I repose beneath my lightweight nylon waterproof cocoon fixed into baked earth by aluminium pegs. My heart hardly appears to be pumping blood in waking state as I sink quickly into a state of unfeeling unconsciousness leaving no prints of my mortal presence. My body’s shrouded in a plum maroon sleeping bag, long zipped. Cast off sweat stained clothing my pillow, small torch within easy reach. Notebook partially scribbled aide memoire to the day’s events: record of distance, average speed, hours astride my steel horse. Odd comments, my reflections on this journey alone heading south Arthurian like clanging chain over miles of narrow highways beneath azure sky.
Welcomed in Normandy as liberator. Fifty years belatedly reliving war to banish aggressor from lush pasture’s rolling hills. National and regional flags hang from house to civic building, cotton bright colours of symbolic aspirations bowed on breezeless days of everlasting July sunshine. Newly named streets and places in English. Debts honoured freshly inscribed with British, American and Commonwealth names, regiments and ranks. Potted histories of military thrusts eastwards, inventories of causalities and deaths. Northern medievalism, stone rock hard, smote kindness, dug deep into my soul reminding me of loneliness. Kicked hard on pedals, matt black, after in clear town square fountains, drank my fill of antiquity. Wheels turn France, swallows my physical pain, enveloping me in expansive emotions and pride, memory and collective connections. Celebrations fade as my mind turns onto my destination: forest and sand.
Fresh ambition awakes as I mull through the route over breakfast. Pack my tent, cover my exposed body with sun protection. In the years since last time I’d forgotten dehydration’s toll; lip cracked salt mixes with breakfast’s fine pastry. With myself I dialogue each mile, egging my body into greater physical stress adding another mile to those already completed since day break. Saddle soreness immobilises unrealistic keenness to remove years from my age and relive thirties fitness. Day ending sunset slips beneath the hill I’d climbed to pitch my tent, transports me through the night searching recuperation.
Southerly each day. Another forty miles clicked off. The map, biro marked each night, records my Michelin guided route. It’s not possible to drink enough fluid. My daily stops centre around water, cafes, or roadside shops if the mood takes me. Gulp down ice coldness. I make ninety miles the third day crossing the Loire. Two more days each of seventy five miles. Forests become deeper, hills flatten, villages approaching Cognac poorer, more depressed, the roofs red, Mediterranean. Norman sentiments long forgotten. Neat rows of vine, quieter roads, crossing the Gironde at Blaye enter Medoc. Relax over a celebratory café plate du jour, soon my journey will end. Push on through the hundred mile barrier. The terrain is flat, limbs ache, tiredness fights a guerrilla war to sap me to force surrender to the exertion and weakness I feel.
Long straight roads. Parallel lines rise to meet the horizon, mirage wet tarmac. Miles tick off slowly. Now the sun once high and baking on my face is sinking and forest cool air refreshes me. Fatigue is temporarily allayed, a svelte deer scamps across the road. I revel in the secret life of the forest: a huge grin jogs spirituality, I dream of forever living deep within its morn and dawn dampness. Sun drenched late afternoons, filtered light shafted towards earth. Irrigation pipes spray water over reclaimed sand light fertile soil full of maize and reforested pines, I deliberate ride through them, drenched, my skin glistens coolly.
I peer at my arms my legs now deepening brown. Drink water, lower a gear clanking in the process, echoing in the quietness of the forest. Stretch my whole body high from the saddle and blue frame burdened with bags, sense satisfaction as I see the first sign to my destination. Pressing on victorious I greet old friends, pitch tent, organise my possessions, shower and sleep.
Friday, 19 February 2010
Transformative and Inspirational Education Ticks no Boxes
Chapter Four
Mad Max and Bruce
Bruce is a popular name with students. Bruce Lee, that stalwart of teenage fantasy died a sticky death years ago, though many believe him alive and kicking, remains the most talked about. Max, Dean and Sunil, hero worship Him. In the previous year, another wild fan, Chandra, emulated this hero of the silver screen by repeating, ad nauseam, the poetic refrain, “You’re dead tomorrow”, and “it’s war”. Neither of which hole in the heart, the exhausted after three minutes gym work and epileptic, Chandra, could sustain. However, such threats sound important to the frequently bashed about by others, however, exotic photos of karate kings must be marginally better than rank pornography. Though I suspect they serve the same purpose.
Next in line of student Bruces’ is the American version: Springsteen. This famous rock and roll star secretly skulks beneath the chubby skin of Dean, waiting, genie like, to be released. How can I tell his mum and dad their son’s fantasises about “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll”, the holy triumvirate of the dispossessed without unleashing retribution at home?
I show the promised video, “Who do you think you’re looking at?”, filmed in the Kings Road, full of punks and assorted independent dressers, to the first years. Spiky tops, studded jackets, rainbow hair, flesh piercings in inappropriate places, and distressed black leather jackets. Inflammatory language about pubs barring them, preventing them gaining their alcoholic manhood, prohibiting them purchasing the very commodity they exist to trade for. The previous week we discussed asserting our personality and the means, and symbols, by which we do so. Punkish fashions and antics immediately raised the group’s hackles, clanking them off into wild comments.
“Look at them!”
“Ridiculous!”
“Shouldn’t be allowed!”
“Disgusting”, mumbles disgusted of Burnt Oak.
Paddy’s restless and fiddles with an antique typewriter at the rear of the room. Occasional dings of the return bell add comical interlude to a blank face strangely lost. As usual he ignores discussions though others argue animatedly. I pause the tape at various sections to ask questions, focussing on themes we’ve previously talked on.
“How old are you?”
“What have you done?”
“Who can know you better than yourself?”
“Think of what your experience has given you.”
“What would happen”, I ask, “if Paul came into college with spiky green hair, and a tasselled leather jacket?”
Shocked silence.
“I'd like to”, his voice chokes.
Dean giggles.
“Would Paul be a different person if he did?”
“I’d still talk to him”, blurts Dean.
Sunil appears unsure, dismissing the whole idea as weird.
“I’d like to be able to wear what I want”, asserts Chung.
“Why don’t you?”, I reply.
Dean laughs loudly to himself, but doesn’t share the joke.
“You try and tell my uncle. He doesn’t listen to me.”
“Come on”, I urge, “how do we assert ourselves? When should we be able to make choices and decisions for ourselves?”
“Well, I can’t buy my own clothes”, says Lee, “my mum buys them for me.”
“How would you like to dress?”
“I don’t know really.”
“Leather trousers!”, shouts Dean sartorially on the ball today.
“My mum makes my clothes”, adds Chung, “it’s cheaper that way.”
Sunil offers no comments on his desires.
Paul asserts he’d like to come to college wearing something different. He has a distinctive face - a strong expression and big blue eyes magnified through heavy spectacles. He has spina bifida and the top half of his body, powerfully developed, he’s the current arm wrestling champion, is in stark contrast to his lower parts. He’d like a studded jacket, though he’s unsure about green hair. Dean warms to our chat, laughing and giggling his way through the exercise. Moving from initial shock, horror hostility, “look at them,”, Dean, after seeing an attractive young woman in punk hair style, roars “she’s gorgeous!” He’s now laughing hysterically, working himself up in a way that doesn’t happen at home. Dean’s normally house bound with mum whilst dad, taking advantage of his job as driving instructor, has numerous affairs. Dean, I suspect, has become the stable man in his mum’s life. Linking arms until quite recently, unsure whether it’s love or Mrs. C’s imprisoning him through manic possession.
“I WANT TO DRESS LIKE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!”, shouts Dean, ear splittingly loud and clearly, unequivocally assertive. His fellow students are shocked by such a firm outburst. So am I. “What do you mean Dean? Go on tell us”.
“I want to dress like Bruce Springsteen. Jeans and a leather jacket.”
“Like a cowboy, pah!”, says Chung.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Have you any Springsteen records?”
“No I haven’t!”
“Well, why dress like him?”
Pressure and mounting questions increase Dean simply replies, “I just want to!”
Lee rises, shakes dust, wild escaped creature from Peckinpah set. Fair hair sticking up, blond tumbleweed rolling about his skull. Wire specs frame, a gait, caused by his bad feet, giving the impression he’s bum sore from too long in the saddle. To cap it all he’s long and very skinny, is the part. “Look at me”, he demands, “what do you think I should dress like?”
“Don’t know. What’s your opinion?”
“I think I’ll come into college with gel in my hair to make it stick up.”
Hurricane tumbleweed.
“Hope you do. We should try and be distinctive, make people take note of us. Shouldn’t we?”
“Mmmmm. I think so”, says Paul.
“Listen”, I say, “next week bring fashion magazines. Let’s think about how we can express ourselves through the way we dress.”
“Where do you get your clothes?”, Paddy asks me, breaking his lesson long silence.
“From the Oxfam shop in Highgate.”
They fall about laughing.
2
Time to resolve the Lee beating episode.
Max and his parents arrived sharp at the arranged time to meet the vice principal and myself. Opposite, in the cramped senior lecturer’s office, are Mr. and Mrs. Godlett. To my immediate left Max, head bowed and to be totally uncommunicative throughout the whole forty minutes. Vice principal to my right, and me with pen and notepad.
If looks killed I’d be stone cold, pierced to the quick by his tense father keeping his elsewhere anger inside his body. Mrs. Godlett, more relaxed, more resigned, ever so lost sitting fully in the chair, deferring to her husband. Max’s told students his father’s low opinion of me and my colleagues. This isn’t conducive to mature relations, nor in the reality of an institution, designed to encourage his son’s commitment to serious work. The parents’ nature is stacked against their child who’s expected to function in an institution they have no respect for. Nor to the people who work for it and represent its ethos. I don’t know why it was never the right place for Max, because his Bruce wants to kill and beat, not entertain.
I don’t like the feelings I’m having about possible outcomes. The Godlett’s don’t seem aware of the rules, don’t know how to play the game. They want to defend their son but aren’t listening, aren’t hearing what’s being said. They’ve taken no notice of what’s happened since their son enrolled last year. They’ve not objectively looked at Max nor recognised his problems. They’re cutting down his chances, lumber jacking his opportunities. Maybe he’s still a child to them, a big overgrown softy calling for his mum when the going gets rough. Where was his dad? Suspect he’s the tanning man, hide thrashing to correct offspring misdemeanours his own ghost memories couldn’t find the proper target for.
The vice principal is very good, calm, articulate and tough. It’s understood by staff college isn’t the right place for Max. He’s caused disruption, anger and fear to both students and staff. “We have six thousand students at this college”, the vice principal continues, “and I’ve not been to a meeting like this before. It’s not something we do lightly.”
Max, speak for yourself. A fate’s happening in your presence and you’re excluded from it.
“Where’s the proof of these allegations against my son?”
“I appoint staff for their professional integrity and experience.”
“What about other students abusing Max?”
Armed with every instance of his fighting meticulously written up together with records of his previous schooling it’s now my turn. “The student Max attacked last year has been on growth hormones for several years. This year Max attacked a student born with club feet, who’s had numerous operations and suffers from muscle wastage in his legs. Max’s far bigger and stronger, than both of them.”
“But this is the first time Max’s been involved in fighting”, said mum coming to his assistance.
“In his previous school they mentioned his fighting.”
“That’s right, there was one incident.”
“The report mentioned he was improving and not hitting people as much. It also mentioned Max’s size and voiced concern because of possible dangers.”
“Do you have medical facilities at college?”, mum asks.
And that was that. The vice principal offered college’s help to find a suitable course, even a work experience placement - but elsewhere. Such an anti-climax. I didn’t even feel pleased he’d left. Just a feeling of impotence. Max needs help, but who’s going to give it? I don’t follow the laid back notion of he’ll be all right, he’ll grow out of it. Smacks of complacency.
However, the week moves easier. The students don’t even ask about his whereabouts, apart from Chandra who issues dark threats of college being forced to take him back. Third World in north London. Staff kidnapped. Headlines in freebies deposited in leafy Finchley, one time prime ministerial hideaway, “Big ransom requested, reinstate student or staff will be executed.” Guess it makes the job interesting. Wonder if I’ll be as high on adrenalin this week without the grist of fighting Max’s antics.
3
Relative quietness descends on the group. We work on the money assignment in computers. We look through a local newspaper researching jobs suitable to their interests and qualifications. Paddy sees a cleaners job at £4.40p an hour. Lee sees a packing job in Cricklewood offering £6 an hour, whereas Sunil refuses to engage insisting he’ll become a property developer like his father. Paddy and Lee have great difficulty working out how much a week they’d earn, confused attempting to understand taxation and insurance contributions. Dean’s working merrily away until suddenly screaming, “Bloody Government. Bloody politicians”, then drops into silence, honour and blood satisfied.
They give themselves account numbers on the computer programme and tap in their first week’s wages - £200, though Sunil decides £484 sounds a nice sum to have. So do I! I decide that taxation, at this stage, will only confuse and befuddle them, though I explain about gross and net pay. Could be cash in hand I suppose. They go through the programme, practise depositing, withdrawing, cash cards and statements. They enjoy this, especially when it prints the information - including toy town money. I suggest they bring in catalogues next week to begin costing furnishing a bed sit. I ask Sunil and Lee to get their parents assistance to cost a week’s food for one person. They haven’t a clue about food, clothes, transport, the other day to day essentials. Because everything’s done for them they’re not allowed to acknowledge the cost of their own lives.
The second years are doing o.k., though Sammy’s taking more time off than usual. Jools is attending more regularly, though still stretches out across pushed together tables in death pose. I begin to feel anger at one specific student. Strange I never did towards Max, not at all, in general I found him likeable. The group are in the process of designing publicity and Paul, secretary of the Intro Trust, was given the responsibility word processing the letter we’d earlier drafted to the RSPCA seeking permission to raise cash for them. He’s great difficulty in reading Mark’s writing, even when it’s word processed and brings the first draft to me. I don’t like it, and tell him. It doesn’t make a good impression. It’s lost in a few lines on the A4, all typed from edge to edge without margin or paragraph breaks. I ask him how it might be improved.
“It’s o.k. I’ve typed before. I know what I’m doing.”
But it’s not right. Full stop. “Why not break it up a little. Give more space between the lines, move it in a bit. And where’s the paragraphs?” He doesn’t agree. I feel he thinks I’m talking twaddle.
“I know what to do”, he answers.
And indeed, I think he does, however, on this occasion he’s hopelessly lost. I feel he’s challenged me and I shouldn’t rise to it. But I want the finished product on college letter headed to be taken seriously and not filed in bin because of crass errors and spelling mistakes.
“I can type”, I tell him.
“So can I.”
“Yes, I can see. I’ve been doing it for twenty years,” the scoundrel murmours Dr. Johnson in the distance.
“Well, I’m seventeen.”
I feel flattered, he thinks I’m only twenty years of age and because he’s only three years younger than me experience shouldn’t make much difference! God be merciful.
I remember reading Paul’s file. His previous teachers mentioning he over-extended himself and liked to think he could cope no matter the demands place upon him. He returns after the break with an (almost) perfect top copy and I’m impressed.
Three second years are word processing addresses for the mail shot agreed last week, whilst Paul’s plugging away at the back of the room. The rest are working with me designing a publicity leaflet. We used the library’s art copy books and frantically search a suitable image to use as the Trust’s logo. Even Strange Harry joins in. Soon we have three potential images to use. The one I like, which I don’t pass comment on, they reject in favour of a cartoon image of a loveable mutt with a bone at its paw. We photocopy a few samples in different sizes and draw the group around to give their opinions.
Paul takes a break, as do the others, from word processing. We discuss a slogan and decide our name, Intro Trust, should go at the top of the paper with a logo beneath, underneath that a slogan we’re struggling to find.
“Helping all Dogs.”
“Help us to Help Dogs.”
“Help us to Raise Money.”
All is chatter as they discuss what slogan to use. Paul suggests an outstretched hand in the corner might look good, then searches to find a suitable image, demanding we produce 10,000 leaflets. I tell him get lost. Chandra wants me to photocopy a picture of lightening and the Devil. I tell him to buy a photocopy card. Chandra insists we talk about the Devil, I reply him some other time. On the positive side we decide to visit a local school to inform them of our noble cause.
4
Sunil loses control towards the end of the week and hits students. “I suppose Tricia will say I abused her, but I didn’t hit her hard. I was only playing.”
“Is that her opinion?”, I ask.
We meet my acting senior to discuss the incident in the base room. Another merry go around, deciding, this time, not to inform his parents, liberalism winning out - once more.
I was late Friday morning because I’d seen the head of my daughter’s school. She’d been upset by a teacher who’d pinched, poked and slapped her. This wasn’t the first time she’d been hit and I needed to talk to the new head. When I arrived I told the students’ the reason, asking them if they’d been hit at school. With one voice they said, “No!”
Sunil asked the age of my daughter.
“Six”, I replied.
“That’s terrible”, he said, “the teacher shouldn’t hit a child.”
Chung, ever protective, threatened to come to the school and beat up the teacher for me.
“What’s her name?”
“You don’t need to know”, I said, aware that Chung lives in the same street as her school.
Dean thought I should write a letter of complaint. I had with me information from the Children’s Legal Centre on legislation outlawing corporal punishment, and asked the group if they’d write to the Centre asking for more details of their work. I despatched Chung to the library to get their address - which I already had anyway. And write they duly did.
Mad Max and Bruce
Bruce is a popular name with students. Bruce Lee, that stalwart of teenage fantasy died a sticky death years ago, though many believe him alive and kicking, remains the most talked about. Max, Dean and Sunil, hero worship Him. In the previous year, another wild fan, Chandra, emulated this hero of the silver screen by repeating, ad nauseam, the poetic refrain, “You’re dead tomorrow”, and “it’s war”. Neither of which hole in the heart, the exhausted after three minutes gym work and epileptic, Chandra, could sustain. However, such threats sound important to the frequently bashed about by others, however, exotic photos of karate kings must be marginally better than rank pornography. Though I suspect they serve the same purpose.
Next in line of student Bruces’ is the American version: Springsteen. This famous rock and roll star secretly skulks beneath the chubby skin of Dean, waiting, genie like, to be released. How can I tell his mum and dad their son’s fantasises about “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll”, the holy triumvirate of the dispossessed without unleashing retribution at home?
I show the promised video, “Who do you think you’re looking at?”, filmed in the Kings Road, full of punks and assorted independent dressers, to the first years. Spiky tops, studded jackets, rainbow hair, flesh piercings in inappropriate places, and distressed black leather jackets. Inflammatory language about pubs barring them, preventing them gaining their alcoholic manhood, prohibiting them purchasing the very commodity they exist to trade for. The previous week we discussed asserting our personality and the means, and symbols, by which we do so. Punkish fashions and antics immediately raised the group’s hackles, clanking them off into wild comments.
“Look at them!”
“Ridiculous!”
“Shouldn’t be allowed!”
“Disgusting”, mumbles disgusted of Burnt Oak.
Paddy’s restless and fiddles with an antique typewriter at the rear of the room. Occasional dings of the return bell add comical interlude to a blank face strangely lost. As usual he ignores discussions though others argue animatedly. I pause the tape at various sections to ask questions, focussing on themes we’ve previously talked on.
“How old are you?”
“What have you done?”
“Who can know you better than yourself?”
“Think of what your experience has given you.”
“What would happen”, I ask, “if Paul came into college with spiky green hair, and a tasselled leather jacket?”
Shocked silence.
“I'd like to”, his voice chokes.
Dean giggles.
“Would Paul be a different person if he did?”
“I’d still talk to him”, blurts Dean.
Sunil appears unsure, dismissing the whole idea as weird.
“I’d like to be able to wear what I want”, asserts Chung.
“Why don’t you?”, I reply.
Dean laughs loudly to himself, but doesn’t share the joke.
“You try and tell my uncle. He doesn’t listen to me.”
“Come on”, I urge, “how do we assert ourselves? When should we be able to make choices and decisions for ourselves?”
“Well, I can’t buy my own clothes”, says Lee, “my mum buys them for me.”
“How would you like to dress?”
“I don’t know really.”
“Leather trousers!”, shouts Dean sartorially on the ball today.
“My mum makes my clothes”, adds Chung, “it’s cheaper that way.”
Sunil offers no comments on his desires.
Paul asserts he’d like to come to college wearing something different. He has a distinctive face - a strong expression and big blue eyes magnified through heavy spectacles. He has spina bifida and the top half of his body, powerfully developed, he’s the current arm wrestling champion, is in stark contrast to his lower parts. He’d like a studded jacket, though he’s unsure about green hair. Dean warms to our chat, laughing and giggling his way through the exercise. Moving from initial shock, horror hostility, “look at them,”, Dean, after seeing an attractive young woman in punk hair style, roars “she’s gorgeous!” He’s now laughing hysterically, working himself up in a way that doesn’t happen at home. Dean’s normally house bound with mum whilst dad, taking advantage of his job as driving instructor, has numerous affairs. Dean, I suspect, has become the stable man in his mum’s life. Linking arms until quite recently, unsure whether it’s love or Mrs. C’s imprisoning him through manic possession.
“I WANT TO DRESS LIKE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!”, shouts Dean, ear splittingly loud and clearly, unequivocally assertive. His fellow students are shocked by such a firm outburst. So am I. “What do you mean Dean? Go on tell us”.
“I want to dress like Bruce Springsteen. Jeans and a leather jacket.”
“Like a cowboy, pah!”, says Chung.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Have you any Springsteen records?”
“No I haven’t!”
“Well, why dress like him?”
Pressure and mounting questions increase Dean simply replies, “I just want to!”
Lee rises, shakes dust, wild escaped creature from Peckinpah set. Fair hair sticking up, blond tumbleweed rolling about his skull. Wire specs frame, a gait, caused by his bad feet, giving the impression he’s bum sore from too long in the saddle. To cap it all he’s long and very skinny, is the part. “Look at me”, he demands, “what do you think I should dress like?”
“Don’t know. What’s your opinion?”
“I think I’ll come into college with gel in my hair to make it stick up.”
Hurricane tumbleweed.
“Hope you do. We should try and be distinctive, make people take note of us. Shouldn’t we?”
“Mmmmm. I think so”, says Paul.
“Listen”, I say, “next week bring fashion magazines. Let’s think about how we can express ourselves through the way we dress.”
“Where do you get your clothes?”, Paddy asks me, breaking his lesson long silence.
“From the Oxfam shop in Highgate.”
They fall about laughing.
2
Time to resolve the Lee beating episode.
Max and his parents arrived sharp at the arranged time to meet the vice principal and myself. Opposite, in the cramped senior lecturer’s office, are Mr. and Mrs. Godlett. To my immediate left Max, head bowed and to be totally uncommunicative throughout the whole forty minutes. Vice principal to my right, and me with pen and notepad.
If looks killed I’d be stone cold, pierced to the quick by his tense father keeping his elsewhere anger inside his body. Mrs. Godlett, more relaxed, more resigned, ever so lost sitting fully in the chair, deferring to her husband. Max’s told students his father’s low opinion of me and my colleagues. This isn’t conducive to mature relations, nor in the reality of an institution, designed to encourage his son’s commitment to serious work. The parents’ nature is stacked against their child who’s expected to function in an institution they have no respect for. Nor to the people who work for it and represent its ethos. I don’t know why it was never the right place for Max, because his Bruce wants to kill and beat, not entertain.
I don’t like the feelings I’m having about possible outcomes. The Godlett’s don’t seem aware of the rules, don’t know how to play the game. They want to defend their son but aren’t listening, aren’t hearing what’s being said. They’ve taken no notice of what’s happened since their son enrolled last year. They’ve not objectively looked at Max nor recognised his problems. They’re cutting down his chances, lumber jacking his opportunities. Maybe he’s still a child to them, a big overgrown softy calling for his mum when the going gets rough. Where was his dad? Suspect he’s the tanning man, hide thrashing to correct offspring misdemeanours his own ghost memories couldn’t find the proper target for.
The vice principal is very good, calm, articulate and tough. It’s understood by staff college isn’t the right place for Max. He’s caused disruption, anger and fear to both students and staff. “We have six thousand students at this college”, the vice principal continues, “and I’ve not been to a meeting like this before. It’s not something we do lightly.”
Max, speak for yourself. A fate’s happening in your presence and you’re excluded from it.
“Where’s the proof of these allegations against my son?”
“I appoint staff for their professional integrity and experience.”
“What about other students abusing Max?”
Armed with every instance of his fighting meticulously written up together with records of his previous schooling it’s now my turn. “The student Max attacked last year has been on growth hormones for several years. This year Max attacked a student born with club feet, who’s had numerous operations and suffers from muscle wastage in his legs. Max’s far bigger and stronger, than both of them.”
“But this is the first time Max’s been involved in fighting”, said mum coming to his assistance.
“In his previous school they mentioned his fighting.”
“That’s right, there was one incident.”
“The report mentioned he was improving and not hitting people as much. It also mentioned Max’s size and voiced concern because of possible dangers.”
“Do you have medical facilities at college?”, mum asks.
And that was that. The vice principal offered college’s help to find a suitable course, even a work experience placement - but elsewhere. Such an anti-climax. I didn’t even feel pleased he’d left. Just a feeling of impotence. Max needs help, but who’s going to give it? I don’t follow the laid back notion of he’ll be all right, he’ll grow out of it. Smacks of complacency.
However, the week moves easier. The students don’t even ask about his whereabouts, apart from Chandra who issues dark threats of college being forced to take him back. Third World in north London. Staff kidnapped. Headlines in freebies deposited in leafy Finchley, one time prime ministerial hideaway, “Big ransom requested, reinstate student or staff will be executed.” Guess it makes the job interesting. Wonder if I’ll be as high on adrenalin this week without the grist of fighting Max’s antics.
3
Relative quietness descends on the group. We work on the money assignment in computers. We look through a local newspaper researching jobs suitable to their interests and qualifications. Paddy sees a cleaners job at £4.40p an hour. Lee sees a packing job in Cricklewood offering £6 an hour, whereas Sunil refuses to engage insisting he’ll become a property developer like his father. Paddy and Lee have great difficulty working out how much a week they’d earn, confused attempting to understand taxation and insurance contributions. Dean’s working merrily away until suddenly screaming, “Bloody Government. Bloody politicians”, then drops into silence, honour and blood satisfied.
They give themselves account numbers on the computer programme and tap in their first week’s wages - £200, though Sunil decides £484 sounds a nice sum to have. So do I! I decide that taxation, at this stage, will only confuse and befuddle them, though I explain about gross and net pay. Could be cash in hand I suppose. They go through the programme, practise depositing, withdrawing, cash cards and statements. They enjoy this, especially when it prints the information - including toy town money. I suggest they bring in catalogues next week to begin costing furnishing a bed sit. I ask Sunil and Lee to get their parents assistance to cost a week’s food for one person. They haven’t a clue about food, clothes, transport, the other day to day essentials. Because everything’s done for them they’re not allowed to acknowledge the cost of their own lives.
The second years are doing o.k., though Sammy’s taking more time off than usual. Jools is attending more regularly, though still stretches out across pushed together tables in death pose. I begin to feel anger at one specific student. Strange I never did towards Max, not at all, in general I found him likeable. The group are in the process of designing publicity and Paul, secretary of the Intro Trust, was given the responsibility word processing the letter we’d earlier drafted to the RSPCA seeking permission to raise cash for them. He’s great difficulty in reading Mark’s writing, even when it’s word processed and brings the first draft to me. I don’t like it, and tell him. It doesn’t make a good impression. It’s lost in a few lines on the A4, all typed from edge to edge without margin or paragraph breaks. I ask him how it might be improved.
“It’s o.k. I’ve typed before. I know what I’m doing.”
But it’s not right. Full stop. “Why not break it up a little. Give more space between the lines, move it in a bit. And where’s the paragraphs?” He doesn’t agree. I feel he thinks I’m talking twaddle.
“I know what to do”, he answers.
And indeed, I think he does, however, on this occasion he’s hopelessly lost. I feel he’s challenged me and I shouldn’t rise to it. But I want the finished product on college letter headed to be taken seriously and not filed in bin because of crass errors and spelling mistakes.
“I can type”, I tell him.
“So can I.”
“Yes, I can see. I’ve been doing it for twenty years,” the scoundrel murmours Dr. Johnson in the distance.
“Well, I’m seventeen.”
I feel flattered, he thinks I’m only twenty years of age and because he’s only three years younger than me experience shouldn’t make much difference! God be merciful.
I remember reading Paul’s file. His previous teachers mentioning he over-extended himself and liked to think he could cope no matter the demands place upon him. He returns after the break with an (almost) perfect top copy and I’m impressed.
Three second years are word processing addresses for the mail shot agreed last week, whilst Paul’s plugging away at the back of the room. The rest are working with me designing a publicity leaflet. We used the library’s art copy books and frantically search a suitable image to use as the Trust’s logo. Even Strange Harry joins in. Soon we have three potential images to use. The one I like, which I don’t pass comment on, they reject in favour of a cartoon image of a loveable mutt with a bone at its paw. We photocopy a few samples in different sizes and draw the group around to give their opinions.
Paul takes a break, as do the others, from word processing. We discuss a slogan and decide our name, Intro Trust, should go at the top of the paper with a logo beneath, underneath that a slogan we’re struggling to find.
“Helping all Dogs.”
“Help us to Help Dogs.”
“Help us to Raise Money.”
All is chatter as they discuss what slogan to use. Paul suggests an outstretched hand in the corner might look good, then searches to find a suitable image, demanding we produce 10,000 leaflets. I tell him get lost. Chandra wants me to photocopy a picture of lightening and the Devil. I tell him to buy a photocopy card. Chandra insists we talk about the Devil, I reply him some other time. On the positive side we decide to visit a local school to inform them of our noble cause.
4
Sunil loses control towards the end of the week and hits students. “I suppose Tricia will say I abused her, but I didn’t hit her hard. I was only playing.”
“Is that her opinion?”, I ask.
We meet my acting senior to discuss the incident in the base room. Another merry go around, deciding, this time, not to inform his parents, liberalism winning out - once more.
I was late Friday morning because I’d seen the head of my daughter’s school. She’d been upset by a teacher who’d pinched, poked and slapped her. This wasn’t the first time she’d been hit and I needed to talk to the new head. When I arrived I told the students’ the reason, asking them if they’d been hit at school. With one voice they said, “No!”
Sunil asked the age of my daughter.
“Six”, I replied.
“That’s terrible”, he said, “the teacher shouldn’t hit a child.”
Chung, ever protective, threatened to come to the school and beat up the teacher for me.
“What’s her name?”
“You don’t need to know”, I said, aware that Chung lives in the same street as her school.
Dean thought I should write a letter of complaint. I had with me information from the Children’s Legal Centre on legislation outlawing corporal punishment, and asked the group if they’d write to the Centre asking for more details of their work. I despatched Chung to the library to get their address - which I already had anyway. And write they duly did.
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Inspirational and Transformative Education Ticks no Boxes
Chapter Three
Strutting the Minefield
The weekend’s not moving fast enough. I’m anxious to get to college, suicidally wishing away a good time to strut across the minefield awaiting me. I search out my acting senior lecturer voicing my opinions the trio should be suspended pending investigation. He listens, then excuses himself as he goes upstairs to see the principal. A few minutes later he returns, “Would you like to see the principal?”
She listens carefully agreeing with my suggestions, adding, “Phone the parents and explain what’s happened. I’ll speak to the faculty director who’ll see you later today.” Stage one completed, now where are the musketeers?
Lost soul Dean’s spied first. Walking vacantly in his usual daze he knows there must be life somewhere. But ferried and hand clasped each and every journey his existence is an empty orbit. The family runt prescribed growth hormones by medics was, last year, the butt of violence from Max towering at least a foot above him - the very embodiment of martial art ethics. He’s easily intimidated though on this occasion offers me no opportunities discover what happened.
“I did nothing wrong. I’ve said I’m sorry. We were only messing about.”
I don’t like playing authority figures, I’ve always been on the other side, certainly not a ‘guvnor chasing slackers. Is this inevitable in teaching I wonder, but I’ve no time to reflect. Dean sits frightened in my manager’s room, legs pushed together, head bowed, stumbling over his words. I ask if he knows his father’s driving school telephone number.
“No, I don’t.”
Both parents work during the day so I can’t contact them. However, as its within my authority to do so I order him off the site. Max takes it very differently. I remind him he hit other students last year and how Lee could have been badly injured.
“I didn’t kick him.”
“Who did?”
“It wasn’t me!”
He gets mad, quickly rising to a crescendo exactly as he did last year with the faculty director. His father’s similar. Body armour rigid, keeping the hurt child within away from crying out its pain. It makes me emotionally sick to think about it. Death camp child, brother dead, ordered not to cry her feelings and from her hidden tears a desert grew. Same old unconscious story of mankind. During the afternoon break I see Dean and Max sitting together in the common room commiserating like lovers. “Can you go please?” I see other students sitting by the stairwell, frightened, huddled together. Lee speaks, “They threatened me. Dean told me I’m dead tomorrow.” Even Chung appeared subdued. I walk up to where Max and Dean are conclaved. “Can you leave please.”
“No we won’t!”, Dean shouted. Terrific. When they’re supposed to work they won’t and leave college at the drop of a hat. Now they refuse to leave: upsidedownworld.
I seek out a colleague, a senior lecturer, who hands me a copy of the college guide, “A use for it at last?’ he inquires. “Yes,” I reply, “its got the number of the duty officer.” O.K., Max and Dean. Waving this scrap of funny coloured paper I tell them, with authority, “If you don’t leave I’ll call security.”
As they begin moving, Max starts on me, “I’ll get my brothers onto you, I’ll get you!”, before vanishing through the swing doors. I phone Max’s parents who are always available. His brother answers demanding to know why they weren’t informed yesterday, and doesn’t seem too happy.
There’s no sign of Sunil, perhaps his mini-cab’s late. He’s sixteen and requires a mini-cab to transport, collect, to protect and sanitise. I despair. I knew the streets of my Liverpool neighbourhood by five since exploring at three. Sunil’s no fool. His mock, “Help me, I can’t do this, I don’t know that, I forgot”, is merely half the story. Growing impatient I phone his parents. When I do it immediately becomes obvious he’s not told them truth. His father wants to know why Lee’s not been suspended. Him of the club foot, he of despairing tears in his special school, he of the quiet face, the timid soul, he of wasted legs and rolling gait. Sunil’s father sees no wrong in his son, “He’s such a gentle boy, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
His mother, taking the phone, understands more, “If he’s done something wrong you must tell me. Has he?” Sunil’s told his parents he was bullied by Lee. “No, it wasn’t like that”, I explain, “Lee could have been severely injured, he could bring a prosecution for assault.” Sunil’s mother continues, “Sunil says he was ridiculed because of his religion and race. I’ve told him before he shouldn’t take notice of such things.”
Talking to Lee’s mother a little later, she apologised for the trouble her son might have caused, telling me, “I've told him before if people say anything to him hit them back.” It’s strange the way offspring misinterpret parental wishes. Is it expecting too much for an adult to understand a child has their own life and follows it sui generis?
Nothing makes sense and this mish mash takes new turns when I phone Dean’s parents on Wednesday evening. Dean arrives at college on Wednesday morning, sitting in the common room as bold as brass, as down trodden as the Somme mire. “Dean, you’re suspended, please leave”, I begin, but quickly stop and think. The little sod hasn’t told his dad, and the dutiful protector of all things good on earth has simply done his daily duty and transported his little sunshine to Hendon. “Dean, did you tell your mum and dad?”
“No, I did not!”
Occasionally vibrancy sparks within his soul. Without fail he’ll use that phrase when he wants to assert his own self, except in this instance it’s misplaced. I have tutorials in thirty minutes and this verbally pugnacious nightmare’s in college. Let me chat to the college counsellor, maybe his skills could be used to effect. Brian’s loath to get involved because of previous finger burning experiences. He’s wary of being tossed into the role of authority figure and argues it’s not conducive to good counselling practice. “After all”, he confides, “it has to be a voluntary undertaking.” I can’t disagree, but a condition for Dean’s return to college last year was to receive regular counselling. More confusion. I’m of the belief that one has to be conscious of one’s life before attempting to sort its problems out.
Brian suggests Dean remains until midday when his father collect him and for me to
phone his father informing him of the suspension. I accept this as sensible, but not before another little drama when Lee tells me Dean’s calling him a “Cripple.”
I phone Dean’s father from home - I’m not staying at college until nine, when he finishes his late shift. He’s angry, very angry! “I was just talking about you!”, he shouts. “What’s going on? No one tells me anything. How did Dean get involved in this fight? Who was supervising him?”
“This is a college, students’ don’t get supervised at break times.”
“What!”
“He’s over sixteen and there’s no statutory obligation.”
“No what?”
“Statutory obligation,” I repeat.
“He’s only a child. He needs watching over and looking after. He can’t be left by himself. You haven’t heard the last of this. Who’s your college chief? Right, I’ll be in touch.”
Down slams the phone - another threat added to previous.
The following morning I meet the faculty director suggesting he talks to my students about their violence. He offers, but I detect a lack of interest and I don’t feel confident about his willingness to investigate the causes of student violence not its ramifications. Nor, if he did, do I think he’d involve students in any subsequent decision making. The trio need to be questioned individually, firmly without intimidation, but he won’t do it. I feel his message reinforces the notion students can sort affairs themselves, whereas I want them to see the world in terms of structures, formal and informal, that are mediated objectively. I don’t think his approach is conducive to this.
On the learning front Paul’s getting his weather project in order on Windows. The weather reports he brings in are matched by mine from the Guardian. We exchange information detailing the world’s weather and using an atlas we begin to discover our planet. Paul’s no sense of place, of earth, or distance, it’s as if the planet he lives on is alien to him. Paddy and Lee are word processing what they have done during the past week. Chung and Tricia, now holding regular phone calls at the weekend, are working together.
Thursday’s the best session with the group. We continue talking about relationships, though only Chung remembers to bring a photograph of himself, aged seven, which he passes around. Fortunately there’s no ridicule. I edge the discussion onto growing up. I want them to talk about the ‘self’ and ask them if they understand privacy and it’s importance. The ensuing discussion reveals they don’t like being ordered about by parents.
“Do this!”
“Don’t do that!”
They shout in unison.
“I’ve no time for myself!”, admits Chung.
It’s suddenly become hot. Lee offers to open the windows. Chung intervenes, “No, let me do it.”
Hold on mister! “You’re not respecting him. Lee wants to do something and you want
to prevent him.” I see the anger in his face. His muscles tighten, then, mercifully relax. He begins to talk again.
“I didn’t like Kuala Lumpa.”
“Why?”
“Well, they wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“What do you mean? Can you explain?”
“Well, one day I was having a shower and my cousin came in without knocking on the door. I felt embarrassed and went red.”
“Male or female?”, I ask.
“Male”, he responds.
Paul says his parents think they know what’s best for him. I ask the group if they think that’s right.
“No”, they answer uniformly.
I ask how they learn. “Every day for, say, eighteen years, you learn something new, have experience. Only you know about yourself because you’ve lived it, felt it, thought it.” I have a quick idea for an exercise and get some large paper sheets and felt tips. “Listen, let’s write down things under the heading what I know”.
Lee instantly loudly complains he knows nothing. Paul begins immediately, and Chung and Trica get stuck in together, arms around each other. Lee’s just plain stuck.
“What’s going on?”, I ask.
“I’ve got a headache.”
“How do you know?”
“I can feel it!”
“Right. So you know something, don’t you?”
Thus, slowly with much cajoling, the list progressed with veracity to this:
“I know I’m a young man.”
“I know I go home.”
“I know I have a family.”
“I know I have blue eyes.”
“I know I’m the tallest.”
Here Chung disagrees, quickly standing up to prove he’s taller. Measuring himself back to back with Lee he concedes, amid mirth, several inches. Humour established, the group continues its task.
“I know I live in London.”
“I know London is in England.”
“I know some French.”
“I know English”.
“I know I’m a good arm wrestler.”
“I know I’m a good pool player.”
“I know I’m a good darts player.”
We have a short break to collect our thoughts. From knowing nothing a little structured reflection indicates each one knows a great deal. By expressing familiar facts and beliefs they’ve identified important elements in their life. Developing an appreciation of what they are is precisely what will enable them to realise they have power to determine, and change, their lives. Upon return to class Chung reads out his own extensive list.
“I know I need to learn more French.”
“I know I am good at football.”
“I know I am love sick about my feelings.”
“I know I have a heart.”
“I know where I live.” This is important for Chung who’s been to court numerous times to sort his proposed adoption by his uncle after coming to England to receive special education.
“I know my name.”
“I know I like Liverpool football club.”
“I know I need to learn more.”
We’re talking more realistically about feelings today, making progress, auguring well for the future. Next Thursday I’ve promised them a video, “Who do you think you’re looking at?” Should be good.
Another fire breaks out at college. Two female students set fire to some rubbish on a table in the common room, and as I walked in, they walked out. A student looks on at the proceedings. “Hey mister”, I call to him, heavy lumbering shape learning against the wall, “who were they?”
“Don’t know.”
The fire’s quite colourful now, becoming attractive as it leaps above the table, eating its plastic surface, bubbling brown smoke. I’m mesmerised. Last week a fire took place of potential epic proportions as a slighted student threw matches into a waste bin in the staff room. I remember the site manager’s advice with clarity, set the alarm off and get out. It’s too late in the afternoon to do that. I emptied a metal rubbish bin, picked up a drinks can and pushed the smoking flaming mess into the sticky green thing with a clang and a hiss. I then go upstairs to find the site manager. “There’s been another fire!” His eyes pop beneath his half moons.
“Follow me downstairs”, he commands. Mmmm. “Must see the cleaners about his. Happens all the time.”
I see Strange Harry and ask him to find the word ‘immolation’ in the dictionary. I push the swing doors and leave for the weekend.
Strutting the Minefield
The weekend’s not moving fast enough. I’m anxious to get to college, suicidally wishing away a good time to strut across the minefield awaiting me. I search out my acting senior lecturer voicing my opinions the trio should be suspended pending investigation. He listens, then excuses himself as he goes upstairs to see the principal. A few minutes later he returns, “Would you like to see the principal?”
She listens carefully agreeing with my suggestions, adding, “Phone the parents and explain what’s happened. I’ll speak to the faculty director who’ll see you later today.” Stage one completed, now where are the musketeers?
Lost soul Dean’s spied first. Walking vacantly in his usual daze he knows there must be life somewhere. But ferried and hand clasped each and every journey his existence is an empty orbit. The family runt prescribed growth hormones by medics was, last year, the butt of violence from Max towering at least a foot above him - the very embodiment of martial art ethics. He’s easily intimidated though on this occasion offers me no opportunities discover what happened.
“I did nothing wrong. I’ve said I’m sorry. We were only messing about.”
I don’t like playing authority figures, I’ve always been on the other side, certainly not a ‘guvnor chasing slackers. Is this inevitable in teaching I wonder, but I’ve no time to reflect. Dean sits frightened in my manager’s room, legs pushed together, head bowed, stumbling over his words. I ask if he knows his father’s driving school telephone number.
“No, I don’t.”
Both parents work during the day so I can’t contact them. However, as its within my authority to do so I order him off the site. Max takes it very differently. I remind him he hit other students last year and how Lee could have been badly injured.
“I didn’t kick him.”
“Who did?”
“It wasn’t me!”
He gets mad, quickly rising to a crescendo exactly as he did last year with the faculty director. His father’s similar. Body armour rigid, keeping the hurt child within away from crying out its pain. It makes me emotionally sick to think about it. Death camp child, brother dead, ordered not to cry her feelings and from her hidden tears a desert grew. Same old unconscious story of mankind. During the afternoon break I see Dean and Max sitting together in the common room commiserating like lovers. “Can you go please?” I see other students sitting by the stairwell, frightened, huddled together. Lee speaks, “They threatened me. Dean told me I’m dead tomorrow.” Even Chung appeared subdued. I walk up to where Max and Dean are conclaved. “Can you leave please.”
“No we won’t!”, Dean shouted. Terrific. When they’re supposed to work they won’t and leave college at the drop of a hat. Now they refuse to leave: upsidedownworld.
I seek out a colleague, a senior lecturer, who hands me a copy of the college guide, “A use for it at last?’ he inquires. “Yes,” I reply, “its got the number of the duty officer.” O.K., Max and Dean. Waving this scrap of funny coloured paper I tell them, with authority, “If you don’t leave I’ll call security.”
As they begin moving, Max starts on me, “I’ll get my brothers onto you, I’ll get you!”, before vanishing through the swing doors. I phone Max’s parents who are always available. His brother answers demanding to know why they weren’t informed yesterday, and doesn’t seem too happy.
There’s no sign of Sunil, perhaps his mini-cab’s late. He’s sixteen and requires a mini-cab to transport, collect, to protect and sanitise. I despair. I knew the streets of my Liverpool neighbourhood by five since exploring at three. Sunil’s no fool. His mock, “Help me, I can’t do this, I don’t know that, I forgot”, is merely half the story. Growing impatient I phone his parents. When I do it immediately becomes obvious he’s not told them truth. His father wants to know why Lee’s not been suspended. Him of the club foot, he of despairing tears in his special school, he of the quiet face, the timid soul, he of wasted legs and rolling gait. Sunil’s father sees no wrong in his son, “He’s such a gentle boy, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
His mother, taking the phone, understands more, “If he’s done something wrong you must tell me. Has he?” Sunil’s told his parents he was bullied by Lee. “No, it wasn’t like that”, I explain, “Lee could have been severely injured, he could bring a prosecution for assault.” Sunil’s mother continues, “Sunil says he was ridiculed because of his religion and race. I’ve told him before he shouldn’t take notice of such things.”
Talking to Lee’s mother a little later, she apologised for the trouble her son might have caused, telling me, “I've told him before if people say anything to him hit them back.” It’s strange the way offspring misinterpret parental wishes. Is it expecting too much for an adult to understand a child has their own life and follows it sui generis?
Nothing makes sense and this mish mash takes new turns when I phone Dean’s parents on Wednesday evening. Dean arrives at college on Wednesday morning, sitting in the common room as bold as brass, as down trodden as the Somme mire. “Dean, you’re suspended, please leave”, I begin, but quickly stop and think. The little sod hasn’t told his dad, and the dutiful protector of all things good on earth has simply done his daily duty and transported his little sunshine to Hendon. “Dean, did you tell your mum and dad?”
“No, I did not!”
Occasionally vibrancy sparks within his soul. Without fail he’ll use that phrase when he wants to assert his own self, except in this instance it’s misplaced. I have tutorials in thirty minutes and this verbally pugnacious nightmare’s in college. Let me chat to the college counsellor, maybe his skills could be used to effect. Brian’s loath to get involved because of previous finger burning experiences. He’s wary of being tossed into the role of authority figure and argues it’s not conducive to good counselling practice. “After all”, he confides, “it has to be a voluntary undertaking.” I can’t disagree, but a condition for Dean’s return to college last year was to receive regular counselling. More confusion. I’m of the belief that one has to be conscious of one’s life before attempting to sort its problems out.
Brian suggests Dean remains until midday when his father collect him and for me to
phone his father informing him of the suspension. I accept this as sensible, but not before another little drama when Lee tells me Dean’s calling him a “Cripple.”
I phone Dean’s father from home - I’m not staying at college until nine, when he finishes his late shift. He’s angry, very angry! “I was just talking about you!”, he shouts. “What’s going on? No one tells me anything. How did Dean get involved in this fight? Who was supervising him?”
“This is a college, students’ don’t get supervised at break times.”
“What!”
“He’s over sixteen and there’s no statutory obligation.”
“No what?”
“Statutory obligation,” I repeat.
“He’s only a child. He needs watching over and looking after. He can’t be left by himself. You haven’t heard the last of this. Who’s your college chief? Right, I’ll be in touch.”
Down slams the phone - another threat added to previous.
The following morning I meet the faculty director suggesting he talks to my students about their violence. He offers, but I detect a lack of interest and I don’t feel confident about his willingness to investigate the causes of student violence not its ramifications. Nor, if he did, do I think he’d involve students in any subsequent decision making. The trio need to be questioned individually, firmly without intimidation, but he won’t do it. I feel his message reinforces the notion students can sort affairs themselves, whereas I want them to see the world in terms of structures, formal and informal, that are mediated objectively. I don’t think his approach is conducive to this.
On the learning front Paul’s getting his weather project in order on Windows. The weather reports he brings in are matched by mine from the Guardian. We exchange information detailing the world’s weather and using an atlas we begin to discover our planet. Paul’s no sense of place, of earth, or distance, it’s as if the planet he lives on is alien to him. Paddy and Lee are word processing what they have done during the past week. Chung and Tricia, now holding regular phone calls at the weekend, are working together.
Thursday’s the best session with the group. We continue talking about relationships, though only Chung remembers to bring a photograph of himself, aged seven, which he passes around. Fortunately there’s no ridicule. I edge the discussion onto growing up. I want them to talk about the ‘self’ and ask them if they understand privacy and it’s importance. The ensuing discussion reveals they don’t like being ordered about by parents.
“Do this!”
“Don’t do that!”
They shout in unison.
“I’ve no time for myself!”, admits Chung.
It’s suddenly become hot. Lee offers to open the windows. Chung intervenes, “No, let me do it.”
Hold on mister! “You’re not respecting him. Lee wants to do something and you want
to prevent him.” I see the anger in his face. His muscles tighten, then, mercifully relax. He begins to talk again.
“I didn’t like Kuala Lumpa.”
“Why?”
“Well, they wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“What do you mean? Can you explain?”
“Well, one day I was having a shower and my cousin came in without knocking on the door. I felt embarrassed and went red.”
“Male or female?”, I ask.
“Male”, he responds.
Paul says his parents think they know what’s best for him. I ask the group if they think that’s right.
“No”, they answer uniformly.
I ask how they learn. “Every day for, say, eighteen years, you learn something new, have experience. Only you know about yourself because you’ve lived it, felt it, thought it.” I have a quick idea for an exercise and get some large paper sheets and felt tips. “Listen, let’s write down things under the heading what I know”.
Lee instantly loudly complains he knows nothing. Paul begins immediately, and Chung and Trica get stuck in together, arms around each other. Lee’s just plain stuck.
“What’s going on?”, I ask.
“I’ve got a headache.”
“How do you know?”
“I can feel it!”
“Right. So you know something, don’t you?”
Thus, slowly with much cajoling, the list progressed with veracity to this:
“I know I’m a young man.”
“I know I go home.”
“I know I have a family.”
“I know I have blue eyes.”
“I know I’m the tallest.”
Here Chung disagrees, quickly standing up to prove he’s taller. Measuring himself back to back with Lee he concedes, amid mirth, several inches. Humour established, the group continues its task.
“I know I live in London.”
“I know London is in England.”
“I know some French.”
“I know English”.
“I know I’m a good arm wrestler.”
“I know I’m a good pool player.”
“I know I’m a good darts player.”
We have a short break to collect our thoughts. From knowing nothing a little structured reflection indicates each one knows a great deal. By expressing familiar facts and beliefs they’ve identified important elements in their life. Developing an appreciation of what they are is precisely what will enable them to realise they have power to determine, and change, their lives. Upon return to class Chung reads out his own extensive list.
“I know I need to learn more French.”
“I know I am good at football.”
“I know I am love sick about my feelings.”
“I know I have a heart.”
“I know where I live.” This is important for Chung who’s been to court numerous times to sort his proposed adoption by his uncle after coming to England to receive special education.
“I know my name.”
“I know I like Liverpool football club.”
“I know I need to learn more.”
We’re talking more realistically about feelings today, making progress, auguring well for the future. Next Thursday I’ve promised them a video, “Who do you think you’re looking at?” Should be good.
Another fire breaks out at college. Two female students set fire to some rubbish on a table in the common room, and as I walked in, they walked out. A student looks on at the proceedings. “Hey mister”, I call to him, heavy lumbering shape learning against the wall, “who were they?”
“Don’t know.”
The fire’s quite colourful now, becoming attractive as it leaps above the table, eating its plastic surface, bubbling brown smoke. I’m mesmerised. Last week a fire took place of potential epic proportions as a slighted student threw matches into a waste bin in the staff room. I remember the site manager’s advice with clarity, set the alarm off and get out. It’s too late in the afternoon to do that. I emptied a metal rubbish bin, picked up a drinks can and pushed the smoking flaming mess into the sticky green thing with a clang and a hiss. I then go upstairs to find the site manager. “There’s been another fire!” His eyes pop beneath his half moons.
“Follow me downstairs”, he commands. Mmmm. “Must see the cleaners about his. Happens all the time.”
I see Strange Harry and ask him to find the word ‘immolation’ in the dictionary. I push the swing doors and leave for the weekend.
Friday, 5 February 2010
Inspirational and Transformative Education Ticks no Boxes
Chapter Two
In a Leaky Tub
I’m furious as first years show signs of sorting themselves for the worse as emerging leaders fight over the mess of the feeble. I search for explanations, the repressed grievance of one origin finding a target elsewhere to ignite persecution. Always on the weaker. I’m expecting trouble, an unsettling inability to concentrate on immediate tasks. Closed worlds of students’ corridor talk excluding staff begins its chatter. Charged unconscious anger threatens to ruin whatever plans I have. I’m sailing the Straits of Magellan in a leaky wooden tub whilst the navigator gets blind drunk.
Sunil’s asleep in the science lab, great heaving sighs of bored indifference after offering excuses for the non-arrival of work he’d promised. Max, the self-proclaimed martial arts expert, with great prompting, stumbles over simple questions, spiels about fitness and the heart which he identifies on the right of his chest. I notice Lee’s being wound up as aggression is poured like oil, over him. A physically weak young man, with the heart of a lion who’s attempting to enjoy life with exuberance, despite his headaches. Attending hospital regularly because of club feet, his innocent doe eyes attract both positive attention and contemptuous violence from those denied his charm and kindness.
It’s warm so we go outside to the college car park and learn how to use the pulsometre and sphygmomanometer, taking readings before and after exercise - in this instance running around cars. Tricia and Paul scoot their chairs at breakneck speed, much to the amusement of onlookers. There are surprising results. Tricia’s pulse rate actually decreases after exertion, I’m flummoxed to know why. Max, after his short run, looks the unfittest. The group keeps together, but only just. Sunil attempts to slope off with Dean, but I summon them back.
One of the caretakers joins us, “You enjoy doing this?”, he says, then offers himself as a volunteer for testing. I can’t get a reading for his blood pressure, and, amidst great laughter, declare him dead. Lee falls whilst running, but quickly picks himself up, thinking nothing more of it. I tell the group to take their results to their numeracy tutor to bar chart them, after which they can word process a report of what they did and why.
I visit Hamish in the bakery to cadge some delicious student baked produce, and to check how they’re getting on: restively it transpires. Max hasn’t turned up, Lee’s been the butt of aggression and Chung threw flour into Sunil’s face. These two have been at each others throats since induction, but are reluctant to tell me what’s going on. I suspect it’s on the lines of Sunil making racist remarks against Chung and mocking Tricia’s disability. Sunil’s a habit of touching Paul’s neck, pinching him, but he’s too pleasant and forgiving to complain. Chung feels he’s a duty to protect the weaker members of the group, and informs me Sunil messes with Tricia’s wheelchair. Lee likewise accuses Sunil of being “unkind”. After hearing these points I tell them to report anything bad that happens, “Don’t”, I implore, “try and sort it out yourself.”
Dean’s deteriorating under the influence of his fantasy figure, Jacky, otherwise Max, who imagines himself Jacky Chan, world famous kung-fu exponent. There’s always some money disagreement between them; Max saying Dean owes him, Dean denying it. Dean blows with the wind becoming apologetic if he’s wrong or challenged. I saw his parents a number of times last year when the conversation ran as, “sit still, do as you’re told. Shut up. Listen will ‘ya.”. Barriers making it difficult to make inroads into Dean’s thoughts and motivations. He never takes work home and college, in reality, a friendly and sociable respite for him. Two sides are taking shape. On one side, the workers, the motivated and willing, Paddy, the bright one, forever apologising and needing to relieve himself so often I lose count each lesson. Lee, the one with gusto, Paul, quiet, astute, wanting to become a computer programmer. Chung who talks about his feelings and is fast becoming the group’s protector. Finally, Tricia, Chung’s girlfriend, depressed, unable to achieve what her ambitions demand and always talking, always inquiring.
On the other side Sunil, Dean and Max. The former two irritants, the latter problematic and dangerous. Max is showing little interest in the course, and his aggression hasn’t abated over the summer vacation. I don’t feel happy about the lack of support last year when his violence was intolerable, nor the lack of clarity over the policy to adopt in the face of it. He acts as if he shares some secret, some inside knowledge about the group I’m not party too. I’m sure, though, that fear motivates him, fear of embarrassment, of expressing feelings, of standing up to his family. Life’s a bad mixture of mummies’ and daddies’ unmet needs, and their offspring being chewed up by them.
Sunil’s the most complained about. When Sunil left the class room during our ‘positive statements’ exercise nobody would say anything positive about him. Paul was deliberately silent, as were the others. Ever vocal Dean shouted he was a “prat and a nutcase”. I had to make the running, prompting comments, though I shouldn’t. When Sunil was invited back to hear the comments, Dean, being consistent if nothing else, screamed at the top of his voice, “you’re a prat!” I change the subject matter asking, “How will you know when the right partner comes along?”, I get the usual answers.
“Big tits!”
“Nice legs!”
“Smart clothes!”
“Sexy!”
“Intelligent!”
Going a little deeper Chung suggests he’d do a blood test and investigate the potential partner’s family history, then “take her to bed!” Dean argues being in bed with a partner is “Dirty!” The group jump on him.
“Why?”
“It just is. It’s dirty.”
In eyes of the group Chung’s and Tricia’s feelings are evident. Chung takes much ribbing.
“When’s the wedding?”
“You’re jealous,” came the simple and direct reply.
No one mentions feelings and love. I broach the words and ask, “What does love
mean to you?”
“Do you love your family?”
“How do you describe love?”
“Do you feel good?”
“What happens when no one loves you?”
“You get violent”, Chung replies.
“That’s right”, adds Max, “you get angry.” Well, well, I think to myself. Chung tells the group that he can remember his earliest schooldays, but refuses to be drawn to say more. Paul adds a note of maturity when he suggests, “You can get angry with somebody and still love them.”
Sunil sees a photograph in a magazine I’d used to help introduce the subject.
“That’s what I fancy”, he says spotting an advert for exotic lingerie; no head, no legs, all torso. A few pages on an advert for Givenchy of a naked hunk of a man shouldering a woman in grainy black and white, all machismo and veiny muscle. I wonder aloud what would happen if all women wanted men like this. “You’re far from hunky Sunil, like most of us”, adding, “Do you think it’s real?”, to end our session.
Later in the day a colleague informs me Lee’s been beaten by Sunil, Max and Dean. “I knew something had to happen”, I tell her. Elaborating she tells me Lee’s head was banged against the wall and was in floods of tears. But I haven’t eaten yet, nor had a break since nine. I go to the canteen where Lee approaches me, red eyed, deeply unhappy. “What’s happened?”, I ask.
“Nothing, it’s o.k. now, I’ve apologised to Sunil.”
“Pardon?”
“He wants his pencil case back.”
“You mean the one I picked up from the lab yesterday?”
I see Sunil by the swing door, at the other side of the canteen, peeping over.
“Lee, Sunil knows who I am, what I look like, and where I am. You’re neither his winged messenger, or courier. If he wants his case he can walk over and ask me.” Lee walks away to return a few minutes later with the same request, additionally talking about the incident. I tell him how serious the incident is and that I’ll have to discuss it with my manager. Lee nods his head and shuffles his club footed walk across to where Sunil’s watching the proceedings like some deranged wing manager in a failing panto.
“Give me rest”, I think.
Lee returns. We talk on the same theme, discuss the same subject.
“We’re friends now. Don’t do anything about it, please.”
“Lee it was a serious incident. You might have required hospitalisation. I have to do something about it.”
He walks off and finally I enjoy my food in peace.
I see Chung and ask him what he knows of the fight. It’s the same old story emerging; Sunil ganging up with Dean and Max to insult and abuse others. Chung says he only held back from hitting them because Tricia restrained him - otherwise all hell would have been let loose. All these problems were discussed last year, especially Max’s violence and his throwing a punch at me, but nothing was done. I go looking for the perpetrators and find them in the computer room. Dean apologies to me, “It won’t happen again”, he reassures me.
“That’s not the point. You’ve a choice to get involved or not.”
“I'll bring my friends to college.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No it isn’t.”
“Thanks.”
Max tells him to shut up, then laughs. Everything’s a joke to him. Nothing institutionally happened last year, and he knows, or thinks, he can do anything with impunity. Later, when Sunil’s sitting next to Lee word processing the science lesson where Lee fell, he writes, “Lee fell and ran to Richard crying”. I tell him that’s cruel, feeling beneath his callousness.
I ponder where my responsibility lies: to students who want to work, have a good experience at college because they choose to do so. Or to those who’ve no interest whatsoever in college or to the opportunities made available? Is my job to constantly break up fights, maintain order, correct their emotional dysfunctions or assist students educate themselves, discover about life and take opportunities surrounding them? What am I to do about keen and willing students who see negative behaviour unpunished? Will they become as apathetic and demoralised as last year’s group? Is the message do nothing, it’s o.k., college is a doss, do what you like, nothing will happen. Already the group’s divided. There’s bullying, and I don’t see why keener students should have their college education laid waste by immature stupidity. I leave college reflecting the day’s events.
In a Leaky Tub
I’m furious as first years show signs of sorting themselves for the worse as emerging leaders fight over the mess of the feeble. I search for explanations, the repressed grievance of one origin finding a target elsewhere to ignite persecution. Always on the weaker. I’m expecting trouble, an unsettling inability to concentrate on immediate tasks. Closed worlds of students’ corridor talk excluding staff begins its chatter. Charged unconscious anger threatens to ruin whatever plans I have. I’m sailing the Straits of Magellan in a leaky wooden tub whilst the navigator gets blind drunk.
Sunil’s asleep in the science lab, great heaving sighs of bored indifference after offering excuses for the non-arrival of work he’d promised. Max, the self-proclaimed martial arts expert, with great prompting, stumbles over simple questions, spiels about fitness and the heart which he identifies on the right of his chest. I notice Lee’s being wound up as aggression is poured like oil, over him. A physically weak young man, with the heart of a lion who’s attempting to enjoy life with exuberance, despite his headaches. Attending hospital regularly because of club feet, his innocent doe eyes attract both positive attention and contemptuous violence from those denied his charm and kindness.
It’s warm so we go outside to the college car park and learn how to use the pulsometre and sphygmomanometer, taking readings before and after exercise - in this instance running around cars. Tricia and Paul scoot their chairs at breakneck speed, much to the amusement of onlookers. There are surprising results. Tricia’s pulse rate actually decreases after exertion, I’m flummoxed to know why. Max, after his short run, looks the unfittest. The group keeps together, but only just. Sunil attempts to slope off with Dean, but I summon them back.
One of the caretakers joins us, “You enjoy doing this?”, he says, then offers himself as a volunteer for testing. I can’t get a reading for his blood pressure, and, amidst great laughter, declare him dead. Lee falls whilst running, but quickly picks himself up, thinking nothing more of it. I tell the group to take their results to their numeracy tutor to bar chart them, after which they can word process a report of what they did and why.
I visit Hamish in the bakery to cadge some delicious student baked produce, and to check how they’re getting on: restively it transpires. Max hasn’t turned up, Lee’s been the butt of aggression and Chung threw flour into Sunil’s face. These two have been at each others throats since induction, but are reluctant to tell me what’s going on. I suspect it’s on the lines of Sunil making racist remarks against Chung and mocking Tricia’s disability. Sunil’s a habit of touching Paul’s neck, pinching him, but he’s too pleasant and forgiving to complain. Chung feels he’s a duty to protect the weaker members of the group, and informs me Sunil messes with Tricia’s wheelchair. Lee likewise accuses Sunil of being “unkind”. After hearing these points I tell them to report anything bad that happens, “Don’t”, I implore, “try and sort it out yourself.”
Dean’s deteriorating under the influence of his fantasy figure, Jacky, otherwise Max, who imagines himself Jacky Chan, world famous kung-fu exponent. There’s always some money disagreement between them; Max saying Dean owes him, Dean denying it. Dean blows with the wind becoming apologetic if he’s wrong or challenged. I saw his parents a number of times last year when the conversation ran as, “sit still, do as you’re told. Shut up. Listen will ‘ya.”. Barriers making it difficult to make inroads into Dean’s thoughts and motivations. He never takes work home and college, in reality, a friendly and sociable respite for him. Two sides are taking shape. On one side, the workers, the motivated and willing, Paddy, the bright one, forever apologising and needing to relieve himself so often I lose count each lesson. Lee, the one with gusto, Paul, quiet, astute, wanting to become a computer programmer. Chung who talks about his feelings and is fast becoming the group’s protector. Finally, Tricia, Chung’s girlfriend, depressed, unable to achieve what her ambitions demand and always talking, always inquiring.
On the other side Sunil, Dean and Max. The former two irritants, the latter problematic and dangerous. Max is showing little interest in the course, and his aggression hasn’t abated over the summer vacation. I don’t feel happy about the lack of support last year when his violence was intolerable, nor the lack of clarity over the policy to adopt in the face of it. He acts as if he shares some secret, some inside knowledge about the group I’m not party too. I’m sure, though, that fear motivates him, fear of embarrassment, of expressing feelings, of standing up to his family. Life’s a bad mixture of mummies’ and daddies’ unmet needs, and their offspring being chewed up by them.
Sunil’s the most complained about. When Sunil left the class room during our ‘positive statements’ exercise nobody would say anything positive about him. Paul was deliberately silent, as were the others. Ever vocal Dean shouted he was a “prat and a nutcase”. I had to make the running, prompting comments, though I shouldn’t. When Sunil was invited back to hear the comments, Dean, being consistent if nothing else, screamed at the top of his voice, “you’re a prat!” I change the subject matter asking, “How will you know when the right partner comes along?”, I get the usual answers.
“Big tits!”
“Nice legs!”
“Smart clothes!”
“Sexy!”
“Intelligent!”
Going a little deeper Chung suggests he’d do a blood test and investigate the potential partner’s family history, then “take her to bed!” Dean argues being in bed with a partner is “Dirty!” The group jump on him.
“Why?”
“It just is. It’s dirty.”
In eyes of the group Chung’s and Tricia’s feelings are evident. Chung takes much ribbing.
“When’s the wedding?”
“You’re jealous,” came the simple and direct reply.
No one mentions feelings and love. I broach the words and ask, “What does love
mean to you?”
“Do you love your family?”
“How do you describe love?”
“Do you feel good?”
“What happens when no one loves you?”
“You get violent”, Chung replies.
“That’s right”, adds Max, “you get angry.” Well, well, I think to myself. Chung tells the group that he can remember his earliest schooldays, but refuses to be drawn to say more. Paul adds a note of maturity when he suggests, “You can get angry with somebody and still love them.”
Sunil sees a photograph in a magazine I’d used to help introduce the subject.
“That’s what I fancy”, he says spotting an advert for exotic lingerie; no head, no legs, all torso. A few pages on an advert for Givenchy of a naked hunk of a man shouldering a woman in grainy black and white, all machismo and veiny muscle. I wonder aloud what would happen if all women wanted men like this. “You’re far from hunky Sunil, like most of us”, adding, “Do you think it’s real?”, to end our session.
Later in the day a colleague informs me Lee’s been beaten by Sunil, Max and Dean. “I knew something had to happen”, I tell her. Elaborating she tells me Lee’s head was banged against the wall and was in floods of tears. But I haven’t eaten yet, nor had a break since nine. I go to the canteen where Lee approaches me, red eyed, deeply unhappy. “What’s happened?”, I ask.
“Nothing, it’s o.k. now, I’ve apologised to Sunil.”
“Pardon?”
“He wants his pencil case back.”
“You mean the one I picked up from the lab yesterday?”
I see Sunil by the swing door, at the other side of the canteen, peeping over.
“Lee, Sunil knows who I am, what I look like, and where I am. You’re neither his winged messenger, or courier. If he wants his case he can walk over and ask me.” Lee walks away to return a few minutes later with the same request, additionally talking about the incident. I tell him how serious the incident is and that I’ll have to discuss it with my manager. Lee nods his head and shuffles his club footed walk across to where Sunil’s watching the proceedings like some deranged wing manager in a failing panto.
“Give me rest”, I think.
Lee returns. We talk on the same theme, discuss the same subject.
“We’re friends now. Don’t do anything about it, please.”
“Lee it was a serious incident. You might have required hospitalisation. I have to do something about it.”
He walks off and finally I enjoy my food in peace.
I see Chung and ask him what he knows of the fight. It’s the same old story emerging; Sunil ganging up with Dean and Max to insult and abuse others. Chung says he only held back from hitting them because Tricia restrained him - otherwise all hell would have been let loose. All these problems were discussed last year, especially Max’s violence and his throwing a punch at me, but nothing was done. I go looking for the perpetrators and find them in the computer room. Dean apologies to me, “It won’t happen again”, he reassures me.
“That’s not the point. You’ve a choice to get involved or not.”
“I'll bring my friends to college.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No it isn’t.”
“Thanks.”
Max tells him to shut up, then laughs. Everything’s a joke to him. Nothing institutionally happened last year, and he knows, or thinks, he can do anything with impunity. Later, when Sunil’s sitting next to Lee word processing the science lesson where Lee fell, he writes, “Lee fell and ran to Richard crying”. I tell him that’s cruel, feeling beneath his callousness.
I ponder where my responsibility lies: to students who want to work, have a good experience at college because they choose to do so. Or to those who’ve no interest whatsoever in college or to the opportunities made available? Is my job to constantly break up fights, maintain order, correct their emotional dysfunctions or assist students educate themselves, discover about life and take opportunities surrounding them? What am I to do about keen and willing students who see negative behaviour unpunished? Will they become as apathetic and demoralised as last year’s group? Is the message do nothing, it’s o.k., college is a doss, do what you like, nothing will happen. Already the group’s divided. There’s bullying, and I don’t see why keener students should have their college education laid waste by immature stupidity. I leave college reflecting the day’s events.
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