Gie the wean a pen ........................
One seminal moment in my teaching career happened about 5 years into the job. I had just finished my daily register - in ink of course - when Jane arrived late at 9.05am. “For goodness sake, Jane, you’re late again and I’ll have to change the register, says I.
Late, she replied. I couldn’t get my mum to wake up this morning. My wee brother was crying as he was hungry. There was no food. I ran down to my grannies to get money, then ran to the shop and bought bread and milk. Ran home, gave my brother his breakfast, got him ready and took him to nursery. Now I’m here!
I felt 2 feet tall. This 12-year-old had lived a full day before the school bell rang. I never dealt with a child like that again. I’d wait til they were seated and quietly talk about being late. As teachers we are not always aware of the hurdles some children have had to overcome just to get to school. As Sir John Jones reminds us in his fabulous publication ‘The Magic-Weaving Business’ we as teachers determine what kind of day they will have. Jane’s day in school didn’t get off to a good start and it’s possible it went downhill from there. Maybe she had no PE kit, no pen for English, no pencil for maths and almost certainly no money for home economics. This was in the late 1980s and I have a horrible feeling there are even more Janes in the 2020s.
She still came - almost every day.
We were doing something right
Someone in her family / background aspirational
School is sometimes the main constant in a child’s life. School has structure. School has routines. School has boundaries. School has adults who take an interest in you. School has lunch.
For some children, school is the best part of their day/week.
Look around the assembly on the last day of any term. Attendance is down, maybe the poorest stats of the session. Who is present? What children have trapped? In my experience, notwithstanding the offspring of teachers!, a great number of those present are the Janes of our school.
Since the start of this new calendar year and school term across the country, I’ve read too many posts under the guise of ‘building relationships’ ‘challenging classes’ ‘preparing pupils for life’ that include sanctions for not having a pen, being late, skirt wrong length and having to stand stock still in silence each morning. There’s even give the child a purple ink pen so their error in not having their own is recorded in their work! All allegedly designed allegedly to prepare our young people for “the real world”.
How on earth would any of these ‘sanctions’ have helped Jane? How do putative measures encourage children to come to school?
Of course, we need boundaries and ‘rules’. In fact, children, particularly those from chaotic backgrounds like the structure and certainty of these.
Teaching is a human activity and schools should be places of safety fun and enjoyment.
I’m not a softie - ask any of my former pupils or colleagues - but we must retain a values base in our schools.
Let schools be places children and teenagers want to attend. They want to come because the curriculum is relevant. They are treated with respect. Adults are interested in their growth. An adult may notice they’re struggling. I could go on.
The whole punish them for not having a pen ignores wider issues and mirrors my interaction with Jane. No understanding of the child’s circumstances, no understanding of what brought them to school today.
For all our sakes, give the pupil a pen and move on to the more important lessons - yes the curriculum but also modelling of empathy, support, assistance and community. These are the life lessons to instil.