Appearance and reality was a concept which I found pretentious and sententious when I was doing A Level and studying ‘Hamlet.’ Now I find the concept a way of looking at everyday life!
I am not, of course, suggesting that murderous Uncles snuggling up to their dead brothers’ wives while plotting the bloody destruction of their neurotic nephews are the ordinary stuff of the staff of our school – but I am suggesting that, in our own small way, we are playing out the plot of some creaking old melodrama.
On the surface we are the staff of an ordinary primary school; dig a little deeper and the seething resentments; the quotidian insanity; the raging conflicts; the exponential frustration and hysterical placidity are all components of a set of circumstances which are more redolent of the worst excesses of phagocytes in a self destructive battle against invading bacteria than the academic calm of an institute of learning!
God knows that the day to day life in most schools makes the turbulent life of the Medicis look like one of the more placid adventures of The Wooden Tops (ah! Happy memories!) There are certain aspects of school life carry on in an almost automatic way. Some things are so uncontroversial that even the most litigious minded member of the staff room or the office can find little to engender angst: not so in our school.
No matter how apparently insignificant the idea, action, thought or piece of bureaucracy connected to the life of the school – you can guarantee that a drama will be constructed, the scale of which would seem to threaten the Western Way Of Life As We Know It!
Just take yesterday. Change over time for lunch time duties? Conflict! Preparations for celebrating Carnival? Confusion! Going on a trip? Exasperation! Finding a projector screen? Frustration! Purchasing trivial items? Rejection! Conversation? Conspiracy!
And so it goes on.
My continued tenure of employment becomes more and more problematical: every time that I make a determined approach to the job some piece of bureaucratic nonsense makes me wonder about the whole prospect.
The real problem is the way in which the school is organized and the tortuous process by which a decision is finalized.
I am not, of course, suggesting that murderous Uncles snuggling up to their dead brothers’ wives while plotting the bloody destruction of their neurotic nephews are the ordinary stuff of the staff of our school – but I am suggesting that, in our own small way, we are playing out the plot of some creaking old melodrama.
On the surface we are the staff of an ordinary primary school; dig a little deeper and the seething resentments; the quotidian insanity; the raging conflicts; the exponential frustration and hysterical placidity are all components of a set of circumstances which are more redolent of the worst excesses of phagocytes in a self destructive battle against invading bacteria than the academic calm of an institute of learning!
God knows that the day to day life in most schools makes the turbulent life of the Medicis look like one of the more placid adventures of The Wooden Tops (ah! Happy memories!) There are certain aspects of school life carry on in an almost automatic way. Some things are so uncontroversial that even the most litigious minded member of the staff room or the office can find little to engender angst: not so in our school.
No matter how apparently insignificant the idea, action, thought or piece of bureaucracy connected to the life of the school – you can guarantee that a drama will be constructed, the scale of which would seem to threaten the Western Way Of Life As We Know It!
Just take yesterday. Change over time for lunch time duties? Conflict! Preparations for celebrating Carnival? Confusion! Going on a trip? Exasperation! Finding a projector screen? Frustration! Purchasing trivial items? Rejection! Conversation? Conspiracy!
And so it goes on.
My continued tenure of employment becomes more and more problematical: every time that I make a determined approach to the job some piece of bureaucratic nonsense makes me wonder about the whole prospect.
The real problem is the way in which the school is organized and the tortuous process by which a decision is finalized.
Our school reminds me of one of the more grotesque creations of Dickens where a Scrooge-like character doesn’t allow a single detail to escape his arid attention. This nit picking interference ensures that innovation peters out in a black hole of obstruction. Ideas in our school are like so many of the rivers in Spain – they peter out into an insignificant dribble of water which simply soaks away into the earth.
As long as you continue to regard day to day life in the school as a never ending source of anecdote rather than a productive working environment – then you might survive!
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