Pupils
Schoolboy language OR Houseman explores a labyrinth of meaning and obfuscation
Even the inherently honest schoolboy has a complicated relationship with truth and the language he needs to express it. This is often driven by an essentially generous desire to give the answer he thinks we want to hear. At least, this desire is partly generous: the boy may wish to make his apparently unhappy interlocutor happier; but he is chiefly motivated by a desire to make his own life easier in the short term by bringing an undesirable conversation to a speedier conclusion. Often the schoolboy cannot quite see exactly why his teacher or housemaster is cross with him. “I am sorry I offended you” a pupil once said, when I berated him for not handing in any work. I considered trying to explain that he slightly misjudged the significance of his work by assuming that a lack of it caused me personal offence, but realised that his original statement meant he was unlikely to follow that argument. On another occasion I received a letter of apology from a boy whom I had stopped treating some younger boys unfairly. Did he also write a letter of apology to the boys he was trying to bully? It is possible, of course, that he was genuinely sorry for giving me an hour of administrative duties recording the incident, but I think this unlikely. The schoolboy can also be creative in his use of
tenses in order to give the answer which he thinks will bring an uncomfortable discussion to an end. I recently confronted a boy in my house after listening to an exasperated teacher telling me at length that he had missed several coursework deadlines: “Have you finished that history coursework yet?” “Yes. I am going to do it this evening.” “If you are going to finish it this evening you cannot say ‘yes’ in answer to my first question.” “But I am going to finish it this evening.” Inspectors and, increasingly, Senior Management Teams, like to trust schoolboys and to accept their statements. They ask them direct questions about their lessons and their teachers. “Do you receive effective feedback from your teacher?” Of course a good teacher must do this, and the inspector needs to know, but he rather overlooks the fact that the schoolboy is rarely able to assess his own progress and what a teacher has done to help him progress. Current educational theories strongly encourage pupils to give their own opinions. Thus enfranchised, the schoolboy believes that his opinion holds the same validity as that of the expert, regardless of his own level of ignorance. Not all schoolboys are necessarily dishonest all the time, but it is foolish to act, or even to draw a conclusion, solely on the basis of something a schoolboy has said. If a boy is not lying, he is probably just wrong. Much of this stems from the fact that he does not understand a high proportion of the words his teachers use when talking to him. I was discussing a boy’s reports at the end of last term. Things had not gone very well in maths. “What is your reaction to this report from your maths teacher?” “I think it is unfair.” “Oh really? Why is that?” “I don’t like where he says I am not meticulous.” “Do you know what ‘meticulous’ means?” “No.” When I explained the term, he conceded that perhaps this was a valid criticism. Our discussion had taken longer than I had originally intended, but I had probably managed to prevent a phone call beginning with the words “my son’s maths report is unfair.” Just before the Christmas holidays last year, I asked a colleague what he felt had been the most time-consuming aspect of the job in his first term in his house. “I seemed to spend hours on the phone to parents trying to explain the reality behind stories they had heard from their son. Is this normal?” he asked. “Do you have any advice?” “Anticipate the news which is going to prompt parental
Spring 2018
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