What else do we expect!

With the glorious spitefulness that teachers are used to, today is exactly the sort of day that yesterday should have been: bright, warm, sunny – but a school day.

With the resourcefulness for which teachers are famous, I was able to rationalize the downpour yesterday as a necessary part of nature refilling depleted reservoirs and refreshing streets and vegetation rather than taking it personally as part of the vindictiveness of a deity who obviously had some harsh, unsympathetic teachers and he is now getting his own back by making virtually every weekend less than climatically satisfactory.

This morning is the official opening of the Examination Season for the kids and the scenes that greet one as one makes one’s way towards the staff room remind me of a grammar school just before a test, where all the pupils are clutching books or scraps of paper and talking hopelessly or frantically with other testees to try and guess the mind of the examiner. This school is perhaps a little different from my experience of a grammar school because all (ALL) pupils revise, even the naughty ones, though only at the last minute.

Because examinations are such an omnipresent part of the school life, and because they have a multitude of subjects the kids are constantly trying to stuff their heads with yet another set of facts. They have become adept at short term memory storage and are able regurgitate material that would delight Mr Gradgrind’s heart. The only problem is that I am not sure what use they are making of all the knowledge that they are showing that they know “at that time.”

If knowledge is compared to a grain of sand then the pupils in this school are busily acquiring bucket-full’s of the stuff but, if I am allowed to continue the metaphor, I don’t think that they are making many sandcastles! Such, it seems to me, is the Spanish Education System.

Last week I saw children with long lists of countries and their capital cities; a list on which they were going to be tested. I know in Britain we have probably gone too far in the other direction and don’t make kids learn lists of facts without a “reasonable context” in which to situate them; but this means that the end result is that they do not have the factual basis to situate themselves in a world where opinion is valued but the factual basis behind the opinion is essential. In Spain arid lists of “thing to be learned” seems to reign supreme while the context which makes facts important is largely ignored.

There is something totally refreshing in pontificating about a system which, although all around me, is not something in which I actively participate – our level of existence being defined by external examinations set by the Cambridge Examination Board!

My “lesson” this evening is beginning to worry me. My future pupils does not seem to relish the challenge of speaking English and I am not sure that encouraging a reluctant English speaker is what I want to do at the end of my school day. My visions of lofty discussions about the nature of art seem to be evaporating together with my enthusiasm – but I should give it a chance and see what happens. A new experience if nothing else!

I am, if nothing else, a snob about glassware and cutlery. When I have Waterford, Wedgwood and Stewart why should I drink from anything less? And plastic is simply beyond the Pale. And yet.

I am in the process of trying to find a way to compromise between the acceptable and the outré. Perhaps that is putting it a little too dramatically, but it all comes down to the fact that my house starts at the first floor.

A barbecue outside means that everything which is necessary for the meal to work has to be taken down a long flight of stairs. And of course brought up again at the end of the meal. Not too onerous one might think, but irritating enough for shortcuts to be suggested. One of them is the use of plastic plates, implements and glasses. At the end of the meal (to hell with recycling) everything can be tipped into a conveniently situated bin. Job done.

I am ashamed to admit that I have now willingly bought plastic knives, forks and spoons. I have a variety of plastic glasses ranging from long tumblers to monsters that can take a British pint (not that I can get one anywhere near me) and a range of plates and bowls.

If I am going down market then at least I am going to do it with a full canteen and dinner service in a substance that I have not eaten from since the pseudo-melamine days of my first job in Kettering and the £10 bargain box bought with disbelief from a temporary shop at the bottom end of St Mary’s Street which saw to all my place setting needs for years!

That box contained eight of everything from dinner plates to plates so small as to be practically useless. It had various types of serving bowl and serving spoons. It had a gravy boat and a conserve jar and lid – and all in brown plastic, except for the dinner plates which had a printed design in lighter colours on them. There were tea cups and saucers – all in brown plastic and the crowning glory was a set of eight cut plastic glasses. These were not as grotesque as they might sound and were in use for years. Admittedly not at glasses, but in use none the less!
The use of this extravaganza of the man made was extended by people who knew me simply not accepting that I could possibly be serving food on anything as mundane as plastic. But I did! I once had a dinner party and came in with food (in the brown serving bowls) to find one of my guests looking at the underside of the plate “Trying to find out the name of the pottery” – such is the power of pretention!

I think that the move to Spain finally saw the end of the Plastic (I think it deserves the capital) and not one piece has come over with me: still not bad for something bought over thirty years ago!

Not many consumer durables last that long!