I went to see NEDs last week. It was powerful stuff. Well, it was for me. Before I went into the cinema I heard someone asking whether the film had subtitles. I should have said, The c-word is the same in Glaswegian as it is in English so I don't think you'll have any difficulty. Joking aside, this film was so close to home for me, quite literally. (I'm talking about my childhood home.)
Although access to education was easier in the 70s because of student grants, and there was a general consensus that we should work towards a fairer society, for some of us the greatest barrier to education was created by bad teachers. Teachers who would subjugate and bully the children in their care. Teachers who had low expectations of their pupils. Teachers who were discriminatory. Teachers who bore a grudge against older siblings who had attended the school previously.
With hand on heart, I can say that I truly hated school. Throughout my secondary years I felt let down by the teachers at my school in the same way that the main protagonist of NEDs was let down. There were teachers who actually sought out to destroy the educational potential of some of their best-performing students. And once that student seeks some kind of solace in antisocial or petty criminal activities, or becomes withdrawn and depressed and starts to dabble with solvents, it becomes harder to remain part of the academic mainstream. I didn't read all about it in New Society or a sociology textbook. I actually experienced and witnessed it happening.
One member of my family has sought to live outside the mainstream, someone who is self-sabotaging, self-destructive and never in regular employment. Someone with potential. Someone who once wanted to be an architect. It didn't happen. Similarly, my own education was disrupted as a consequence of a bullying and sadistic deputy headteacher who decided that I was not worthy of an education, not because my grades were not good (they were very good) but because of an inexplicable personal vendetta. In recent years, I have been in touch with some former schoolmates, only to learn that the same teacher used the same tactics on them.
Not everyone joins a gang and gets into fights but I do know that there are some wounded souls out there whose lives were built on very shaky foundations.
5 comments:
Dig, I am glad you reviewed this as I prob would not have gone to see it, but now I am more keen to. I am sorry you had such a horrible time at school and were bullied. It sounds as if the film had real resonance for you. I cannot imagine what it was like to be bullied - by a teacher for godsake! I have to say I loved school - a state school in quite a bad area but with very mixed intake of pupils from outlying areas, I was one of the posher ones - I was so geeky and shy until my last year then I started to get trendy. One of my brothers - the darkest skinned - experienced racist bullying from neds, being mixed race he was an instant target, but I have to say the teachers were brilliant. And one day a punk rocker - who everyone in school was scared of - took my brother under his wing and my brother was instantly cool and never bullied again. I think this 'adopting by a punk' was a teacher's idea and it worked very well.
Well have to say that I too loathed school. In the 60s and 70s I went to a 'nice' Grammar School which was very academic and very 'straight' (as in tow-the-line, do and be what and how everyone else does and is) and I'm just not like that ...and I'm very stubborn...so I stuck to my guns and stuck out like a sore thumb.
My grades were good too but grdaually they got poorer ...... every day was miserable and undermining with teachers similar to yours unless you were a pupil who towed the line.
Dont know if I could watch NEDs but interesting to see your review
Your story sounds horribly familiar, Digi, and I hated school too most of the time. I would like to go and see NEDs now.
I wouldn't suggest NEDs as a romantic Valentine's date at the cinema! Maybe watch it on Film 4 when it's shown on TV perhaps. I had to go and see this film just to come to terms with what went on at school so it would have been a different viewing experience for me.
Bullying by teachers was commonplace in my school and those who were on the receiving end just accepted it. I learned that one of my previous teachers - more of a verbal bully as I recall - was later sacked for assaulting a pupil. I hope he was never employed as a teacher again.
If you are bullied by a teacher, and in my case by the deputy headmaster, where can you go? Who can you tell? My parents would have always taken the teacher's side because nobody would have ever questioned someone in a position of authority back then. I can recall phoning the Samaritans at the age of 14 and the guy on the other end of the phone thought it was some kind of prank call by a bored teenager.
What I didn't get about the nasty teachers was that they themselves had often come from the old tenement areas and had very likely have grown up with poverty and overcrowding etc - but found their opportunities through education. So why did they deny kids in their care to have the same opportunities? I've never understood that and that's probably the one question I'd like to ask if I ever had the misfortune of meeting one of those teachers again.
It does seem to be the case that certain people inflict the same kinds of cruelty that they themselves were once subjected to. Although this gives a perspective it does not, in my opinion, excuse it. Every adult, unless there are extraordinary mitigating circumstances, is responsible for their actions. It is good to know that the deputy head was eventually sacked. But you are still left with the fall-out from his treatment of you. Shame on him.
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