Secondary Modern
By COLM BROGAN MISS SO-AND-SO is WO good for us.' Such was the uninhibited verdict passed on a woman teacher of unusual culture and qualifica- tions by a secondary modern class in a school in a housing estate near London.
It was, of course, a verdict on themselves and, it faithfully represented the feeling of insufficiency that infuses the school and defeats the best efforts of a remarkably devoted staff. The boys and girls in the school are solidly working class, with an East End background. They do not feel themselves to be the victims of an arbitrary and unjust eleven plus examination. They do not feel that they were good enough for a grammar school. On the contrary, they feel that any teacher good enough for a grammar school is too good for them. '
Their attainment level lends no colour to the view that a considerable number of promising grammar school pupils are wrongly deprived of their opportunity. The work of the best pupils, with a handful of exceptions, would be considered mediocre in a second-rate grammar school. A small minority have agreed to stay on beyond the legal leaving age to try the GCE, but no one has much hope that they will do very well. There 'is one girl whose work stands out. Her private hobby is the collection and study of sonnets. She writes well, her mind is lively and curious, but nothing will persuade her to stay in school one day more than the law demands.
It would be absurd to generalise from exper- ience of one school, for tecondary modern schoOls vary in character and achievement even more than grammar schools. Southampton secondary modern schools have made a creditable showing in the GCE. Nevertheless, this school on the out- skirts of London may be taken as fairly typical of the kind 'of secondary modern school which caters for ,the children of homes where there is no tradition of further education and no family back- ground of knowledge and culture and ambition. It is by the success Or failure of this kind of schdol. that the secondary modern system will stand or fall.
A few months of teaching there was an exper- ience and a revelation to a woman with a good degree whose previous teaching work had been done in girls' grammar and high schools with a high academic standard and with a saool roll drawn almost entirely from the middle class.
The first thing that struck her was the failure of co-education on that social level. Mixing with girls in classroom and corridor did not teach the boys to be considerate, easy and polite. They were rude and almost literally shoved the girls around. They resented the girls and the girls resented the boys even more.
If the girls did not want to learn anything; at least they wanted to sit quiet and let the day pass peacefully. Not so the boys. Their lack of interior discipline was startling, it was a strict rule of the school, heavily laid down, that pupils standing in the corridors must not talk or lean against the walls. The rule against leaning on the walls was self-evidently necessary, for the repainting of the school costs several thousand pounds. Neverthe- less, every single time a class was standing in the corridor, a teacher had to order or pull boys away from the walls. This has been going on five or six times a day for five years, since the school was opened. It will still be going on five or six years from now. On the day before the Christmas break, there was, a party in the school. Two boys who were leaving walked the corridors, smoking and planting their feet against the walls. It was their 'last gesture of defiance, their personal and strictly unsolicited testimonial to education.
There was the same lack of discipline with regard to talking. Both boys and girls would talk, right through a teacher's own remarks and look surprised and pained when rebuked. After years Of training, they still could not accept the fact that they should remain silent while being taught. When this particular teacher said one day, 'I shall not go on talking until there is silence,' one boy, with refreshing candour, said, 'Miss, you're too particular.' It was painfully obvious that a very large number had never been made to do what they were told at home.
Their concentration was astonishingly weak. In a reading period a boy would throw down a book after reading two or three sentences and say, `That's no 'good.' The minority who enjoyed private reading were irritated by the greater num- ber who displayed all the symptoms of acute tor- ment at the idea of spending half an hour with a book. For ordinary lessons, the better pupils might be able to put their minds to a single matter of instruction for perhaps a whole period, the not- so-good for ten minutes and the worst for no time at all.
It would be easy, but quite false, to blame this lack of concentration on 'progressive' play-way methods in their primary schools: The written work of the pupils offered ample evidence that they had been carefully and thoroughly grounded in the essentials. They did not concentrate on their lessons because any lesson was less interesting to them than a fly on the window or a door that rattled.
'Schoolboy honour' was a conception unknown. A. boy who was blamed for the most trifling misdemeanour invariably replied, 'Miss, it wasn't me. It was him.' Corporate spirit was equally lack- ing. If one pupil or one class was praised, there was an immediate storm of protest from those who had not been praised. When examination marks were given out all the protest and all the argument concerned the anxiety of one pupil to get a better rating than another.
This need not be taken too seriously. It was literally childish. The pupils of this school were much more worldly-wise than their counterparts in a grammar school. But they were emotionally immature. Their backbiting and tale-bearing were as innocent as the fretful and self-Centred behaviour of five-year-olds. One experienced and sagacious teacher said that although the pupils were well dressed and well cared for in every material way, there was hardly one who did not have some obscure reason for insecurity.
The final and overwhelming impression was one of total lack of interest. The school had noth- ing to offer them that they believed to be of any value whatever. Educationists may talk of deepen- ing the aesthetic experience, rounding the per- sonality and enriching the lives of secondary modern pupils, but these words arc as thorns crackling under the pot for the pupils themselves. With the exception of the minority who have agreed to stay on, the sole aim and object of the , children is to get out the instant the law releases them. The world outside is Eldorado, to which their eyes and thoughts are ever straining.
It would be impossible in such a short period of service to get any clear idea of the home conditions and the home aspirations of the pupils. Neverthe- less, there were ample indications that a large number of them had interesting hobbies and out- of-school activities of a surprising variety. Un- fortunately, these hobbies and activities evoked the kind of interest which the school itself so sadly fails to evoke.
This is in no sense a criticism of the teaching staff, but very much the opposite. In spite of the apathy and the negative attitude of the pupils, nearly all the teachers devote time, labour and anxious care to persuade them that the school has something to offer. It is a thankless and unreward- ing vocation but they do not weary of well-doing. Nevertheless, their job is certainly wearing.
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