The Trendy Teacher
Every school had one, or they used to, the fresh-faced idealist straight out of teacher-training college armed with all the latest liberal ideas in education, determined to relate to the kids. In the 1970s you could identify the male version by their facial hair and corduroy flares, while the women tended to be wispy types given to silk scarves and maxi skirts.
One term at Secondary School we had this young English teacher with scruffy shoulder-length hair who, instead of making us read Shakespeare or any boring old nonsense like that, showed us clips from movies which we’d discuss afterwards. This being the 70s he didn’t show us any morally-uplifting, boys-own stories like Reach For The Sky or The Dambusters (too much like celebrations of the war-like patriarchy?) but instead we were treated to extracts from Hitchcock’s grisly serial killer movie Frenzy and Lindsay Anderson’s radical Public School drama If… Imagine the heap of shit he’d get into now for showing a bunch of 14-year-olds a film where the pupils mow down the teachers and parents with machine guns and bombs. I can’t remember his name now but I like to think of him as our school’s very own Howard Kirk.
He obviously knew the way to a boy’s heart was through nudity and violence because we actually behaved in his class, but that mostly wasn’t the case with the trendy teacher who usually exuded all the authority of a timid hamster, and in the Darwinian jungle of an all-boys comprehensive the kids are savage little sharks who can smell vulnerable fresh meat in the water from a mile away so they usually got eaten alive. Once we had a substitute Biology teacher called Mr. Bone (really!) whose life we made a living hell, and not just because of the comic goldmine that was his name. His first mistake was to tell us he was a vegetarian (the first one I ever met) which led to constant shouts of “have a nice roast lettuce for dinner Sunday, sir?” and trying to engage us in a chat about pop music by talking about Joni Mitchell’s latest album. It was like Cat Stevens trying to deal with a roomful of Noddy Holders. Every time he turned his back on us he was showered with a rain of pellets from the sacks of dried rabbit food in the classroom. He only taught us for a little while and when we asked our regular Biology teacher what had happened to Mr. Bone he told us that he’d walked out of a particularly unruly class one day and never came back. Last he’d heard he’d had a nervous breakdown and was living in a communal squat in Earl’s Court.
So if you’re out there somewhere Mr. Bone, I’m sorry we were such little shits. But you really should have just hit one of us over the head with a text book.
Download: I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing – The New Seekers (mp3)
Ho yuss. Thank you Miss Cooke, who got away with the long hair, the big floral skirts, the scarves and the modern poetry because she was really fanciable. (I met her years later at a re-union, and she still was. Sigh…)
My biology teacher was called Mr Newte. Happily, he overcame his name by being genuinely funny, and really /engaging the interest of the child/ by doing wacky-but-sound experiments.
There does not appear to be a tribute on this site to Ari Up. She’s far more important that most of the other old punks name-checked here. Some of your punters might not even be aware that she has died. I suggests you put up a video of Shoplifting, “shamnefully late, but better late than never.”
Simple answer to that is I never liked The Slits much.
Fab post Lee. Right up there with your best.
Re: what would happen if a teacher showed pupils ‘If….’ – especially true given the current student protests in the UK, and the involvement of school pupils in these. I didn’t see If…. till I was 30 and I loved it, but can imagine what an impact it would have had if I’d seen it when at school, particularly in school! Enjoyed reading this post thanks, now going to have a wee read through some of your other posts whilst I deliberate whether it would be crazy to attempt to get to work in the snow today.
Your post prompted me to scan an old school pic. I think its 1968, and our teacher for the term was from Canada. I can’t recall her name, but I guess you could say she was progressive, well at least exotic for ’60′s Glasgow. Image of pic here:
http://shufti.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/schoolpic68.jpg
Alistair
oops, fixed the pic orientation:
http://shufti.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/schoolpic68-e1291833353359.jpg?w=620
alistair
I recognized the pic used is from a set of pictures taken by a young teacher in Thamesmead in the 70s.
Here’s a link to the set on flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7718785@N06/sets/72157600401357917/
I know, I wrote a thing about those pictures a long tine ago (and asked him if I could use them)
http://www.londonlee.com/2008/01/way-we-woz.html
Lucky bastards.
I had Mrs. Hodgson (there’s also an ex-MP … The Lord Knight James Knight and Scotland centre Tim Exeter among that motley crew).
EC – 1974
Back when I was young to notice such things, I also had this “whoaaaarrr” teacher’s assistant. Mrs. Croning – the teacher on the far right – was not quite as stunning….
OCS 71
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74701469@N00/5260235581”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74701469@N00/2245927125“
Blimey, she’s lovely. Pity, as you said, you were too young to notice.
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