A bleak vision shakes me awake. One of those 4am shockers. Your mouth goes 'O', your hair goes Rebekah, you go bolt upright – the full Munch! It's as clear as pins that your teaching days were wasted…
I see children lining up for their first day of Big School under the dappled light of a chestnut tree in the north playground, like Blake's Holy Thursday. Imogen, Dragana, Gina, Dennis Plum and Dave Mania. I am their tutor. I am taking a register and marking them. I check out their names – and much else.
Zap! Fast-forward 5 years! The mites zoom to their dooms.
I see the same children under that chestnut tree. It's GCSE results day. They're waving their grades and leaping and hugging, or cursing and weeping. Cameras flash at pretty blondes. Melanie Phillips lurks in dismal shades. Most pupils have done terrifically well. Surely good news? A harvest of A*s! More children than ever have been given a chance of not being able to afford higher education.
So why is it such a bleak vision?
I predicted it all – every single grade – in that first register. I prophesied it all – and self-fulfilling prophecies are the very worst of teachers' sins. How? With shoddy, vile criteria. Tawdry signifiers. Things like names, class, postal codes, hair cuts.
It seemed to go like this:
Seaweed sandwiches, sharpened pencils, conditional tenses, and father's bedtime stories – A*. Imogen.
East European – at least a B. Dragana.
Hoop earrings, pink things, sugar things, fluffy things on pencils, smurfs, dotting "i"s with circles – borderline C. Gina.
Being Dennis Plum – D. It is written. The Delphic oracle said so.
Turkey twizzlers, no pencils, chicken stare, skull cut, living in King Hell Mansions, absent father with spider tattoos, never been read a bedtime story – E. Dave.
Thus do I dispense tots to their fates. Dear me – 1500 hours of busy, caring pedagogical intervention have made no difference. I feel deep shame. I seem to have lurched towards vile genetics, a monstrous determinism. My knowledge is a curse. I'm a prophet without honour, the Tiresias of Academe.
I wake up.
It's GCSE results day 2011.
I see children under a chestnut tree. They wave grades in dappled light. Some hug, some weep. Who's that? Imogen? Plum? Cameras flash at pretty blondes.
What's that? A smurf? Don't be daft. Is that moaning Mel, droning "dumbing down" in dismal shades? Avaunt bleak vision!
Get a grip! Get positive! Most pupils realise their potential. That's better. My teaching days weren't wasted. Were they?
We make a difference. Don't we?
