Posted on by qscrisp

He nodded understandingly, and tossed in a grenade

I'm just listening to a discussion on the radio concerning the increase in Britain of teachers being bullied by children. I have some experience with teaching (a little), and I do think that, because everyone remembers their own experience of school (which is almost inevitably horrendous), almost no one is capable of sympathising with teachers here. But I DO! Personally, I never want to teach children of a certain age group again. I don't know what the answer to the problem is; I for one want nothing to do with it. If we're not careful, no one will want to have anything to do with it. We have gone from this to this.

Strangely, I can't find any actual articles to link to on this subject on the Internet, but there is this poem. I always used to hate it when our teacher read that poem out (as he often would) with a grin on his face at my primary school. "Well, do you think we want to be here?" I thought to myself in silent fury. Confronted many years later by classrooms full of revolting and ill-mannered teenagers who seemed to have learnt no respect from their parents for their fellow human beings, I often felt like saying to them, "Well, do you think I want to be here?"

I didn't. I left. Maybe we're all going to leave.

8 Replies to “He nodded understandingly, and tossed in a grenade”

  2. “U do post a lot of Moz, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.”I do. After becoming a little self-conscious about it, I am now almost defiant. But I’m glad that you find there to be nothing wrong with it. This is, after all, my blog. Kind of. I mean, thanks to the folks at My Opera, who have never shown any signs of wanting to interfere with content, which is great.I love ‘The Lazy Sunbathers’.Do you know where the title comes from? I expect you do, but the uninitiated may not. I quote:George Formby accused contemporary performers of being “lazy sunbathers” for not being more active in the war effort. It probably also refers to the days after Germany invaded Poland, where crowds of Berlin sunbathers went to the Wahnsee lake, in a state of denial about the forthcoming war.http://www.oz.net/~moz//nicked.htmhttp://www.oz.net/~moz//lyrics/vauxhall/thelazys.htmI particularly like the lines:Religions fallChildren shelledChildren ShelledThat’s all very wellBut would you please keep the noise down low.And the guitar is lovely. You know, I understand change, and I think it’s essential, but I don’t mind the fact that this song (one of the few of Morrissey’s solo career) is one in which the guitar could almost be Johnny Marr – that deceptively sparse, haunting picking. It does conjure up the old monochrome images from those classic Smiths sleeves.

  4. In the list of sources for lyrics, I notice under Bigmouth Strikes Again that they don’t mention Frankie Howerd. I was watching an old repeat of – I’m pretty sure – Up Pompeii!, and at one point Mr Howerd turned to the camera and said, “Now I know how Joan of Arc felt!”Also, with reference to Asleep, I see they don’t mention Wilde’s De Profundis. There’s a line in it somewhere like, “As we pace our cells, and those deeper cells which are our hearts.”

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