Terry Deary, author and actor, was a guest on the radio this morning. Deary is author of children’s history books such as “Terrible Tudors”.
The following are my observations about the interview.
Most of the conversation centred around Deary’s opinions and personal experience of school education.
Firstly, Deary criticised teachers for teaching him things that he was never going to use as an adult (he gave trigonometry as an example). This is a common, if absurd, criticism of the school curriculum. However, the main thing that struck me about this was where Deary focussed the blame: on teachers. It is not, in fact, teachers who decide what is to be taught in schools. The body that decides what is taught in schools is business.
It is business that has, for example, caused changes in the school computing curriculum so that pupils are no longer taught how a computer works. What pupils are taught instead is how to look up and interpret the information about different computer systems given in sales catalogues.
By blaming teachers for the ills of the education system, Deary is doing business a great favour: it directs attention away from business and what it is up to, as well as providing a convenient scapegoat.
Secondly: as I have said before, people have no idea what they give away about themselves in such interviews.
During Deary’s interview I experienced an unpleasant sensation of déjà vu. I felt the way I used to in the classroom when the pupils were particularloy unsettled and mayhem might break out at any minute. Deary showed himself to be very much a type: he is what teachers would call an “attention seeker”. As a former teacher of many years experience, I can spot these types a mile off. For the less experienced, for the less savvy, the clues were all there………
………….one way of attracting attention is to make trouble. Deary did this by accusing one of the presenters of making “a face” when he mentioned he went to Wales to learn acting. The presenter had, of course, to deny his accusation that she was prejudiced against Wales. Also, Deary criticised those of his teachers who did not make him the centre of their attention during lessons as bad teachers. Further, Deary recalled the first time he became aware that he enjoyed attention — his first time on stage at primary school.
Therefore when Deary criticised his teachers for bullying him into doing what he didn’t want to do, for example, it is wise not to take such criticisms at face value. In fact, as soon as one hears accusations such as bullying, one should know that they often reflect the behaviour of the accuser rather than the accused.
In fact, what Deary reminded me off was the sort of pupil who, after having left school, when he spots his former teacher in the street, goes up to him/her and, with a great show of pride, self-satisfaction and apparent “friendship” remarks: “I must have been the most badly behaved pupil in your class. Bet you were glad when I left school, then, eh?”
The last laugh is on the former pupil, however. For their behaviour damages themselves far more than it does the teacher.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: bad behaviour is the source of all our physical and mental ills.