At the chalkface The bag lady


LONDON. EDGWARE Road Tube station. The Friday evening rush hour. The platform teems with the workforce, many a bit dazed and confused. Disinformation, conducted in moon language, ululates off the walls. A train finally clatters in. “Is this okay for Paddington?”


says a young woman to an old dotard in a tea cosy. “Yes,” I reply. This is my manor. She smiles, despite being burdened by massive baggage. Her twiglet arms lug great sacks of it. Her back bends with a most voluminous load of it. My goodness, she must be lifting three times her own bodyweight. She totters into a carriage, whacking a couple of pinstriped, cheerless suits. I help her off with the rucksack – narrowly escaping a savage hernia. “What’s in this?” “Marking!” A teacher. Of course. She’s


got that bone tired look. A science teacher from Hackney Academy going home for a break. Fat chance. Of course marking’s essential,


but it’s also the curse of the teaching classes. I used to take mine back by bike. A perilous activity. Once I nearly wobbled to extinction on the Shepherds Bush roundabout. I tell her I was a teacher. Isn’t this beyond the call of duty? Couldn’t she have done it in school? “No time. Too busy. We’re getting done next week.”


The usual mob – inspectors,


consultants, leadership persons. “Bollox isn’t it?” “Nothing you can do – you


play the game.” The workforce gazes blankly


on. Some hide under the Evening Standard. There’s a photo of the prime minister in full compassion mode gazing like a creeping Jesus at some terrifically photogenic inner city tots. “Read to your


children, however busy you are!” he preaches, “it’s good for them!” Who knew? Shall I write it down? So are libraries, small classes, their own rooms, a roof –


and a trust in their teachers. “Paddington!”


I help her back on with


the rucksack. She smiles, totters out against the


teeming hordes and wobbles


slowly up some stairs. Our train clanks on. I feel a


rather portentous rant coming on – like a Tube train loony. A fierce


encomium about teachers being wonderful, decent, honourable, near saintly types, who are bullied and burdened by clots. Lions and Donkeys stuff. How this teacher seems a significant emblem of all this. This Bag Lady in the City, this Exile in Pandemonium, nourishing young minds against too many odds and condemned to a life of Gradgrinding drudgery... but I resist it. Oh well, it’s half term soon – the heart declares a holiday.


• Ian Whitwham is a former secondary school teacher.


Never forget: (from left) Holocaust survivor Ben Helfgott MBE and students Sam Tuck, Georgia Evans and Lucy Johnstone, speak with the prime minister, David Cameron, who also signed the Book of Commitment (inset)


Holocaust survivor visits Number 10 by Daniel White


The story of a Holocaust survivor moved the prime minister and deputy prime minister this week as they hosted an event to emphasise the importance of education about persecution and genocide. Ben Helfgott MBE survived


being sent to a number of Nazi camps during the Second World War including Theresienstadt and Buchenwald and he told his story to the two political leaders and a group of 6th formers during an event at 10 Downing Street to mark Holocaust Memorial Day last Friday (January 27).


While Mr Helfgott survived the


war, in the final days of conflict his father was shot leaving him alone with his siblings. Following the War, he arrived in England, and went on to become British weight- lifting champion, captaining the weightlifting teams at the Olympics in 1956 and 1960. He is now treas- urer of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. During the event, run by the


Holocaust Educational Trust, David Cameron and Nick Clegg both signed the Book of Commitment, which is placed in the Houses of Parliament every year enabling MPs to pledge their support to fight- ing forms of prejudice and hatred.


Holocaust Memorial Day marks


the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp Auschwitz- Birkenau in Poland and events took place across the country last week to mark the day. Mr Cameron wrote in the book:


“With each year that passes since the end of the Holocaust, we have a greater responsibility than ever to remember the dreadful events that took place. “By learning from history, we


must pledge that nothing like this ever happens again. I commend you for the excellent work that you do, educating new generations about the suffering of the past and ensuring that we never forget


one of the darkest periods of our history.” Mr Clegg wrote: “With each pass-


ing year, the need to remind the world of the darkest chapter in our common history becomes all the more acute – because to forget is to risk a repeat of history. And that must never ever be allowed to happen.” The 6th form students attend-


ing Downing Street were Georgia Evans, Lucy Johnstone and Sam Tuck from Jack Hunt School in Peterborough, They had all visited Auschwitz-Birkenau and now act as ambassadors for the Holocaust Educational Trust. For more information, visit www.het.org.uk or www.hmd.org.uk


News


SecEddigital You can:


• Search the issue for keywords • Access archived editions


• Bookmark and annotate pages for colleagues • Email issues and news directly to the editor • Search the latest teaching jobs


If you want to receive


SecEddigital free every week, email editor@sec-ed.co.uk


16 SecEd • February 2 2012


UK education news, best practice features, the very best comment and opinion


– All to your email, All for free – Register now!


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16