The original premise of these articles was to illustrate my career in teaching whilst enduring lockdown and as the articles progressed it unfurled its brief to encompass all manner of moans, observations, nitpicking and flights of surreal fantasy. Last summer I stepped off the hamster wheel of teaching supposedly to spend my days exploring the savannahs of a post full time job field of opportunity. This year was meant to involve spending the whole of May driving to Sicily but Simon Cowell ruined that (see previous articles) so whilst Mrs H was tripping the light fantastic my old school took the opportunity to ask me to teach two days a week. I took up the offer – on my terms – and here I am again… in the swim. It genuinely feels like I haven’t been away. One thing has changed though and it’s not great. I noticed it before I retired but one year on it’s become much more obvious. Lockdown has definitely changed the nature of some children. I am teaching 8-11-year-olds this time round and each class contains several children who seem to have no attention span and very little in the way of an understanding of social responsibility. There always used to be the odd student who didn’t ‘get it’ but now the balance appears to have tipped the other way.
I’m not sure what the answer is but for me it could be as follows: No phones in school at all until 16, whole lessons dedicated to socialization skills and empathy workshops, days out exploring their environment and the lives of other members of their society, meals cooked by each other for each other, etc. We are in danger of losing our collective sense of society in the broadest terms if we do not address the current wave of alienation sweeping through our youngest members.
Rant over. This week has seen a slew of new releases from excellent artists. I have been floored by Bonny Light Horseman‘s new album for example. However I have also been listening to the Marcus Mumford solo album from last year given to me as a birthday present and the new Felice Brothers is tantalisingly close. The radio show was another blast this week featuring Stewart Forgey, BLH, Eels, DBT, a world-exclusive play of a new My Girl The River track and much more. As ever…
