The Story of the Titanic is Powerful Enough Without Convoluted Conspiracy Theories

Spend any amount of time on YouTube and you will soon discover a realm of paranoia and distrust - a world of conspiracy theories beamed onto the screens and into the minds of the young and credulous the world over. Some of these are hilariously daft, such as those surrounding the ‘Flat Earth’ concept. Others are fascinating yet overwhelmed by strange flourishes and out-of-this-world explanations, such as the Mandela Effect. Still more are fun exercises in lateral thought that tend to collapse under even the lightest scrutiny, though this doesn’t tend to affect their popularity. In this category I think you can confidently place the most famous conspiracy regarding the RMS Titanic.

Differences in deck A and B layout

This theory has it that the disaster was an insurance scam involving a switch between the slightly older yet almost identical RMS Olympic and the brand new Titanic. Some conspiracy advocates leave it at this - a strangely unexplained and seemingly pointless swap - but other, more sophisticated types tend to point to the Olympic’s collision with the HMS Hawke in 1911 and the idea that this fatally compromised the ship, leading to the White Star Line (owned by JP Morgan’s massive financial empire) deciding to cut their losses and gain insurance money back from a disaster that would lead to a pay-out (the Hawke collision didn’t, you see, as it was partly the fault of the Olympic’s crew). So far so logical, if you are happy to accept that a large maritime company that made its money from safely ferrying human beings across the Atlantic would risk losing its reputation and thousands of lives in such a manner. So, the story goes, the Olympic and Titanic were swapped, with the damaged Olympic being the one to hit an iceberg and sink in April 1912 and the spanking new Titanic to go on to lead an active life until being scrapped in 1935. It’s a tempting idea, isn’t it? Simple, effective and most importantly indicative of evil inhabiting the upper echelons of society.

But the slightest scrutiny destroys the theory. Any small amount of knowledge of the ships leaves the theory completely dismantled and untenable. For the theory to hold water, the two ships would need to have their accoutrements (name plates on both the ship and other paraphernalia) swapped without attracting much attention. They would also need to have any physical differences swapped too - and this is where things go wrong. For sisters, the Olympic and Titanic had significant structural differences, especially on decks A and B. The Olympic’s A deck was entirely open as a promenade deck, the whole way around the superstructure, whereas the Titanic’s A deck was enclosed for the forward half of the superstructure in order to squeeze in more super-posh suites with their own private promenade deck space. This was quite easily observed, even from a distance, and was the main difference between the two ships.

B deck was likewise significantly different, with the Olympic having uniform, evenly spaced windows (for the most part) and the Titanic having very muddled and chaotic window placement - this was a result of differing room layouts, again trying to squeeze further First-Class accommodation into the ship. Importantly, these two differences were not easy to swap. In fact rearranging the window on B deck would have taken months and would have been extremely obvious to anyone in Belfast watching the construction, and there simply wasn’t time to do such complex and expensive work.

The starboard screw of the Titanic wreck with '401' clearly embossed.

Furthermore, the wreck itself has given us lots of proof that the ship quietly rusting on the sea floor, two and a half miles down, is the Titanic. The ship’s hull number when it was being constructed by Harland and Wolff was assigned as 401; Olympic was 400. This number was stamped on lots of key elements of the ship, including the bells, ship’s wheel and screws (propellers). One photograph of one of the ship’s half-buried screws clearly shows the number ‘401’ inscribed into the bronze.

On top of this hard, physical evidence there are lots of other problems with the theory, including the one that is always problematic for any major conspiracy - secrecy. How such a desperately cynical and devastatingly catastrophic act as purposely causing a passenger liner with 2,200 souls aboard to sink in the middle of the Atlantic could manage to go unnoticed or without any whistle-blowing is frankly inconceivable. There is a great deal more I could add, and I am sure plenty of people will continue to disagree and will believe the conspiracy, but I feel that as we get to the 106th anniversary of the sinking at 2.20am on Sunday 15th April, it would be a good idea to remember that the poignancy and power of the story of a great ship brought low by grim happenstance is enough on its own, and any cheapening of that legend should be scrutinised fully to avoid tarnishing the memory of those lost for no reason.

My thoughts on zero-tolerance behaviour policy

What a miserable phrase ‘zero-tolerance’ is.  Its very existence condemns the concept of tolerance as something weak, haphazard or undesirable, something that ironically is not to be tolerated.  In a legal setting the phrase conjures up the harsh narcotics laws in the USA in the last 30 years, or perhaps the ASBO in the UK.  Zero-tolerance policing was a popular trend in the late 1990s and 2000s in both the US and Northern Europe, designed to combat anti-social behaviour and ‘crack down’ on persistent crime.  The policy in the USA led to a great deal of criticism, which is nicely summed up in this New York Times article of 2017.

In a school setting the connotations are more immediate and more specific – currently any talk of zero-tolerance schools will lead directly to the most famous proponents and examples, some of which are almost perpetually under fire from segments of the education community, and defended by others, often robustly, occasionally aggressively.  I won’t name them here as there’s simply no need – I am more interested in the semantics of the term ‘zero-tolerance’ and its impact on the world of education than I am in trying to ‘shame’ schools.

Tolerance, I feel, is a virtue that the privileged should seek to have in their dealings with the under-privileged, first and foremost.  It is a form of patience that those in positions of power should have with those who do not share that power, that majorities should have with minorities and that the wealthy should have with the less well-off.  It can work the other way, but primarily tolerance in my view is a balancer – a means of adjusting the scales to ensure those without privilege of any sort can still operate in a biased system.
In practice this means that a functioning society that seeks greater equality requires tolerance for difference, for unconformity, for any manifestation of ‘otherness’ at all.  Without tolerance, the imbalance will grow as the privileged benefit further and the under-privileged get more and more marginalised and maligned.  As you can probably tell, I disagree entirely with the idea that tolerance is a sort of ‘resigned’ dealing with unattractive or undesirable people or ideas with a shake of the head, begrudging them and the effort taken to work with them.  A tolerant person, I believe, is objectively better than an intolerant one, and I make no apology for thinking that.

So a zero-tolerance school is one that has eschewed the virtue of tolerance in order to attempt to improve progress and outcomes for all students, and in doing so has eschewed its commitment to providing a balance in its treatment of its students, whilst simultaneously claiming to be improving the balance – we have a potential paradox.  The issue lies in the difference between treatment of children and the outcomes of children.  Zero-tolerance policies and their effects (disruptive students removed from lessons or even schooling) are focused entirely on outcomes: getting the remaining children the best possible results.  Clearly this is not an evil motive; however, it neglects the more immediate issue of the treatment of children in the here and now, and this is where ethics and morality and indeed equality come into play.  This utilitarian focus purely on outcomes for the many ignores the needs of the few, but these few don’t disappear.  They don’t cease to exist, and these students dispatched by a zero-tolerance approach will grow up and will be members of society – members who have potentially lost their stake in society.

These students are often minorities in one way or another – potentially low-income, or have made little progress since primary school, or from a non-academic background, or have disinterested parents.  Removing tolerance for these people is removing their shot at any kind of equality, removing their chance of achieving some kind of normality.  It is having no patience for their individual difficulties, no patience with their behaviour as it impinges on the progress of others.  It is a short-sighted, limited policy that will inevitably cause later problems when these students grow into adulthood knowing that the system has no patience with them or the difficulties they have faced.  It would, I suppose, be great if all bad behaviour was simply selfishness, naughtiness with no root cause or societal basis – then perhaps we could simply wash our hands of these people as they have made the choice to behave in that manner; but unfortunately the world is not as tidy and easy as that.  Unfortunately the world is terribly complex, and the people within it even more so, and a zero-tolerance behaviour policy is one that immediately and abruptly removes any mitigating factors, brutally exposing a vulnerable minority to the same standards that far more resilient and well-adjusted individuals can meet with relative ease.

I am driven here most of all by my autism.  I hear too many reports of policies that demand, for example, eye contact and have a zero-tolerance attitude towards it.  Autistic people like myself find eye contact extremely difficult in a way that non-autistic people would struggle to understand, and this difficulty can in a child manifest in very difficult behaviour if handled poorly – we are a classic minority with specific requirements, and I would argue tolerance and patience with our particular needs is not much to ask for given the fact that we deserve as good a chance at life as anyone else.

I hope that the vogue for zero-tolerance behaviour policies has a short lifespan.  Education should be dedicated to balancing a precariously imbalanced system, not maintaining the biases that exist in society, and tolerance should not be a dirty word.

Three Scenes from an Awkward Mind

I know that face: that face means upset.  It's the angle of the head and the amount the eyes are closed, seen it many times before.  And usually it means upset with me because when she's upset with something else then the angle of the head is different and she doesn't do that thing with her mouth.  So I must have done something wrong, but I don't know what.  I went to get a mars bar after work - does she know about that somehow?  I should offer to get her something to see how she reacts, that'll tell me what I need to know.

Oh, didn't work.  She doesn't seem to want anything but wasn't snappy, but wasn't cheerful either.  Could she be upset with something that's happened that I don't know about?  But then why wouldn't she tell me?  I can't work it out and I don't think she'll tell the truth if I ask, as people don't do that especially when they're upset.  Her tone of voice I recognise though, so I'm pretty sure I've annoyed her in some way, but I still don't know why.

***

Don't say anything.  Please don't say anything.  I just want to get my drink and then go and sit down quietly.  Don't make eye contact, that will make him start talking, just keep looking at your phone and try to calm down, you're only getting a coffee from a new barista you've not met before.  Oh god, he's talking about the holidays, am I going anywhere nice?  Stock phrase - no, not this summer, you - and wait for the reply that I don't care about at all.  Why would I care about where this stranger is going on holiday?  Do that quick laugh of blended appreciation and understanding, always works.  Still don't look in the eyes.

***

An empty pair of seats.  Thank God. Train's a bit too busy, don't like the noise or the heat.  I'll sit by the window, put my bag next to me.  Please don't anyone sit down here.  Still people coming down aisle from both directions.  Are there any other empty seats?  Can see a few down there, one or two there unless they have short people in that I can't see.  Is putting my bag there rude?  Don't want to seem rude but don't want to have to sit next to someone all the way to Leicester.  Three people coming.  What chances do I have that I'll be left alone?  20%, maybe 30%? Maybe they'll be too awkward to ask to move the bag.  They've sat down elsewhere!  Rejoice! Relax!

...

What about when we get to Bedford?  Loads will get on there.  Shit, where will they all sit?  Wait for the platform....

...

Platform's bloody crowded.  Typical.  Bloody hell.  Here they all come.  That guys looking at the seat.  Oh god, he's going to sit down.  Scoot over as close to the window as I can, bag on knee, too awkward now to stand up and stow it overhead, so doomed to discomfort.  Got to keep legs away from his; can't let them touch, even a little.  Hope I don't come across as weird.

A diagnosis of Asperger's. Part Six

On Wednesday morning I went to Devizes for my third and final assessment appointment, four weeks after I had started.  These assessment sessions were about two hours long each, with the psychiatrist working her way through an enormous questionnaire that seemed determined to access every last neuron of my memory and experience, split into several clear sections.  In the first appointment we had covered social communication; in the second, social imagination, friendships and work; in this one we had something of a light relief period, as it focused on things such a motor capabilities and sensory quirks.  Needless to say, these appointments left me feeling extremely drained and worse, in Devizes.

By the end of the session, after I had discussed how I can't help but read and decode every single car numberplate I see (it's true, and pointless, and tiring), and how I am hugely over-sensitive to repetitive sounds, the psychiatrist looked at me and informed me that there was little doubt at all that I was on the autistic spectrum, and that specifically I had Asperger's.  I had it in spades, in fact,  The feeling of relief was powerful, as I had invested a lot of time and energy into the process, and had begun the long and arduous task of re-evaluating my life with this potential diagnosis in hand.  Discovering that there was no further doubt, and that I'd be getting my report through the post in a week or so, was hugely comforting and still is, a day and a half later.  We spoke for a while about my most immediate concerns (I made the most of being assessed by an actual psychiatrist - apparently this is quite unusual) and then we parted company.  I have spent the last 36 hours since thinking about what the diagnosis means.

Ultimately it means a lot.  I don't think it will change who I am (though I fear I may 'relax' into it a little), as I have always had Asperger's, so there is no reason for change.  But it will (and to a point already has) change how I view myself and my interactions with the world.  How this pans out will be interesting to see, but I am determined to see things with a new optimism as I realise how far I have come with a brain that is not neuro-typical, and therefore how much further I could go.  I am hopeful that this diagnosis will bring peace of mind and comfort when I'm feeling low, and I am thankful for the opportunities and strengths it has brought me.

Where do I go from here?  That is the question, and I think I will continue to blog, as I'd like to go into more detail about living with Asperger's, in the hope it helps folk like me in future.  I am also going to immerse myself in the Aspie community and see what that brings.

A diagnosis of Asperger's? Part Five

Talking to someone with Asperger's must be maddening at times, especially if they are having an off-day and their usual coping mechanisms are playing up.  You see, for high-functioning Aspies, it is often the case that their condition is pretty much invisible to the people around them as they have become so adept at reading situations and hiding their discomfort (all at a cost - it's exhausting as hell).  Occasionally, however, these long-developed mechanisms and techniques can suddenly fail.  Being ill with a bad cold, having a chronic headache, having to deal with just too much stimulus can all leave a person with Asperger's naked and vulnerable, and leave the people around them confused and upset.  But how do these strategies get learned in the first place?

I know for a fact that a great many people I know would be sceptical or even dismissive of any suggestion that I have a condition as pervasive and seemingly-obvious as Asperger's.  All my life I have managed it too well.  Asperger's often has little impact on a toddler, and language can often be learned at the usual rate.  In children it can manifest itself in meltdowns (outbursts where things get too intense and the individual struggles to maintain control) or in poor behaviour in school but just as likely it can lead to nothing more unusual than a quiet child with a few close friends who simply doesn't tolerate anything unusual, noisy or chaotic - in short, people with Asperger's can go their whole childhood and teen years without a diagnosis, all the while finding ways and means to offset the constant anxiety, social difficulties and emotional exhaustion.  Twenty or thirty years of practicing and refining these skills (still much more conscious and 'forced' than a neuro-typical's social behaviour) can make an Aspie blend in, disappear, until something happens to strip them of their armory.

This is how I think it panned out for me.  I reckon that for my whole childhood I just 'got on with things' and simply avoided anything that I knew would make me anxious or uncomfortable.  I think I assumed everyone was the same, that anxiety was a constant state of mind for all of us and that therefore I should just live my life.  I spoke only to people I wanted to speak with, and these were mostly people who shared an interest.  I am told I was often thought of as rude or even ignorant as I would refuse to respond to questions or small talk, even at the age of eight or more.  I certainly only ever wanted to be left with my solitary hobbies - anything dragging me from them (school, trips out, holidays) I actively despised.  School became tolerable only because I was good at it and everyone seemed pretty happy to leave me alone (a miracle that I am thankful for).  In fact an abiding memory of my GCSE years was a particularly cruel set of caricatures that one of the form's more artistic members had drawn up of the whole class.  Some were truly vicious and even alarming, but mine was simply a man standing by a fireplace, pipe in mouth, neutral expression.  Thank goodness for that, I say.

So I learned to get by and always had a small coterie of friends (most of whom I have lost contact with - I am dreadful at maintaining any but the closest of relationships).  I have no idea how I was viewed, or whether anyone thought I was 'different' in any way, but certainly all was as well as could be expected.  It was the much, much later triple whammy of becoming a father, being made a middle leader and suffering from depression that tore my defenses from me and left me trying to figure out what the strange being within this lost cocoon was, and how it worked: suddenly I found myself struggling with conversation, always deeply confused by missed implications or body language.  Teaching, which had been paradoxically quite a successful career path for me, given that I was so accustomed to acting and being hyper-aware of my interactions, was suddenly impossible.  I had time off.  I gradually recovered and learned more about ASD, leading to my situation right now.

My armory is being repaired and renewed these days, and I am increasingly like my old self, most of the time.  But it has been quite an experience and not one that I would care to re-live.  Asperger's does not have to be a curse at all; all told I am probably glad that I have likely grown up with it as it has given me so much to be thankful for, but it can spiral quite badly and an awareness of this for both Aspies and their loved ones is of great importance.

Becoming a HoD, Part 2

I've been in the job now for eight working days, and in terms of energy and the heavy weight of my eyelids, it feels more like eight weeks.  The good news is that in terms of motivation and eagerness, I'm still pretty bright and bouncy, like a mad puppy.  It's odd that the ability to make decisions and simply make things happen does this to a person, but explains where dictators get their boundless joie de vivre from, I suppose.  I am working constantly in school from 7.30am until around 4.30, and thanks to the endless multitude of different tasks, I am always able to re-energise myself with a new or more interesting job.  I must stress here, however, that for me looking at levels of progress on a spreadsheet is a genuinely interesting job.  And fun too, once you break out the conditional formatting.  It's like being allowed to use crayola when in a restaurant as a child, carefully colouring in the line drawing of a circus that the place kindly proferred on entry.  I can't get enough of it.  Someone pass me the Burnt Sienna.

So I'm maintaining a spookily high level of motivation, which is good.  But I'm also focusing even more on my lessons.  I had heard from many corners that one of the first things to suffer when you shuffle into middle management is the teaching itself.  Happily, so, far, this is yet to happen; I'm treating every lesson like a particularly vital observation.  This is bound to be down to my high levels of motivation and the strange new confidence that promotion brings.  I aim to keep it this way, but we all know an ill-timed cold or bout of insomnia can play havoc with our best teaching intentions, so I will have to see how it goes.  There is also the matter of 'setting a good example' which is now a major factor.  The reality of being a classroom teacher is that you never feel responsible for the practice of your colleagues.  As Head of Department, you suddenly are.  It is imperative to practice what you preach, and so you become even more aware of what you are doing than ever before.  I think it'd be fair to say that this week has seen some of my best ever teaching.  How exciting.

In terms of the 'other stuff' - things to keep the department running - my primary realisation is how much there is to do, and how disparate it can all feel.  One thing I'm having to do, against my character really, is be more outgoing and positive with my colleagues.  My natural habitat, or indeed my cage were I ever to find myself incarcerated in some human zoo, would be a dank cave packed with electronic gizmos and Lego.  It certainly wouldn't contain other people.  So I find myself hoisted bodily from my comfort zone, going around the department chatting away and being as 'motivational' and 'nice' as I can muster.  Joking aside, it has been very pleasant, and I have a good role model to look up to - our Head of Maths has got this aspect of his role nailed, and is incredibly good at making his department exude positivity and optimism.  Their results are supernaturally good, and I think a good portion of this success stems from this - thus, as desperately odd it must seem to anyone who knows me, I must follow in his footsteps.

More about the admin side of things next time.  Right now, I've got to get some forms filled in.

Vampire Slaying, fifteen years too late.

I've never seen a vampire in real life.  Apart from some questionable characters seen during various festivals at Whitby, my life has been vampire-free, and all the worse for it, it seems.  I've recently been getting into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you see.  The endless joys of Netflix have enabled me to scoot merrily through seasons 1-6, and it is being made increasingly clear by Joss Whedon's critically acclaimed show that vampires make your life a whole lot more exciting.

Anya's Hallowe'en suit - like Bishop
Len Brennan, she is terrified of rabbits.

I should have watched Buffy at the proper time, of course.  It first aired in 1998, when I was fourteen, sitting comfortably in its demographic; however, I somehow managed to miss out on its charms.  Being an American show at a time when  The Simpsons and Friends were still pretty esoteric and niche on this cold, huddled little island made it almost imperceptible to me.  I am vaguely aware that it was on BBC throughout the late 1990s and into the 2000s, but I was busy with the grimy business of being a teenager and later a student.  I simply missed it.  But now, eager to make for lost time, I'm imbibing the contents of this macabre, funny and tightly plotted programme like a crazed man drinking Drambuie before Christmas is up.

It's tricky to define what makes Buffy such a good show.  I should confess that part of my joy is probably taken from my naive assumption that a show with a name as seemingly foolish as 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' must be awful.  How nice it is to have one's prejudices slashed like this - if only the same thing could happen to my view of Tories.  So, part of my enjoyment may stem from this astonishment.  However, the bulk of it is down to the character arcs.  In fact, they are more viaducts than arcs, given their complexity.  Buffy, for example, undertakes challenges and difficulties that shape, distort and bend her into one of the most complex characters I've seen in a TV show.  She dies at least twice (by Season 6 - I won't tell you how or why) and has family members come and go like Pop-Up Pirate.  She has a turbulent love life revolving around the undead themselves, and hates herself for it.  Her best friends are regularly put in mortal danger by her very existence.  She holds the fate of every living creature on Earth in her poor hands.  Watching her life billow and crease and occasionally fall apart is great fun.  The supporting cast have just as convoluted and myriad plotlines that weave and twirl around each other, creating a colourful, emotional and hilarious tapestry of death and despair.  The oxymorons mount up due to the very dichotomy at the heart of the show - it's a true horror-comedy.

So, a complex, involving show that makes you scream, cry and chortle in equal measures?  Yes; that's precisely what Buffy is.  A sample episode - the Emmy-winning 'Hush' from Season 4 - had me squirting hot tears of terror at regular intervals, thanks to the menacing yet oddly camp withered-headed villains that steal the voices of a population, leaving an episode almost devoid of dialogue (usually the show's strongest suit).  The characters resort to crude charades-style miming to convey the plot to each other, and to us.  Yet this is, of course, where the humour comes in - confusion, bewilderment and misunderstood gestures are always a grand source of amusement, after all.  So I dilly-dallied between fear and amusement like a man on a waltzers filled with twirling axes.

As for the archetypal Englishman, Rupert Giles... I cannot stress enough what a fine portrayal of a disconnected yet caring father figure this is.  Anthony Head gives a performance that even trumps his Nescafe adverts of the late 1980s (no mean feat, and you know it), and his departure is a harrowing moment that suggests that a vital safety net has been removed from underneath the Slayer, making her even more vulnerable.  I'm told he returns before the end, and I seriously hope he does, as watching the younger characters flounder and struggle to find answers without his wisdom and security is probably as stressful as actually trying to sort it all out yourself.

So, fifteen years late, I am discovering a show that has shocked me with its quality - a show that I am actually extremely sad to have missed the first time round.  I can only imagine how it would have impacted my impressionable little brain back then.  It even has an episode that is entirely in the form of a traditional musical...

Ghosts

I saw a ghost last weekend.  Or at least, that's what a noisy, irrepressibly excitable part of my brain is shouting.  It being my birthday, I was watching Skyfall on Blu-Ray (a tremendous experience).  Glancing toward the open door leading to the hallway I saw a whiteness pass from the open, darkened bathroom door beyond, into the hall and away from my field of vision.

I do not believe in ghosts at all.  As a youngster I think I hoped that they existed, but due to my scientific bent I have short shrift for anything supernatural.  This does not mean I don't find it all fascinating: I have a very deep-seated interest in all things ghostly and mysterious, as I feel it tells us a great deal about the human condition.  But I never thought I would see a ghost.  And the majority of my brain still insists that I haven't.  It was a trick of the light, or even an hallucination, asserts the side of my mind most closely aligned with Occam's Razor.  Imagine the implication of actually seeing a spectre in my bathroom: it would firstly mean that my flat is haunted and, quite frankly, sod that.  Far too stressful.  It would also suggest that there is perhaps life after death (if floating meaninglessly in someone else's bathroom is 'life' in any true sense), and this goes against all of my intuition and education.  Far easier to say that it was simply a sham - a trick, amplified by my silly brain.

But here's the thing: how easy it was for my brain to be fooled!  I would say I am a fairly sensible chap, with a keen sense of scepticism.  I always seek out the most realistic and reasoned arguments for or against anything.  And yet, last weekend, just a fleeting peep of something strange has led me to wonder what my waking eyes have seen.  I think this, in itself, suggests an answer to the big question: what are all these paranormal witnesses seeing.  All those thousands of men and women who have seen ghosts, UFOs, the Loch Ness monster, Pikachu and all, all of them have been fooled by their brains.  What they saw was something immeasurably dull - a stick, or a cloud of steam, or a little yellow rat - and their brains, their over-evolved, high-perfomance brains, have filled in the rest of the story.  The stick becomes an anachronistic plesiosaur, the cloud of steam a baleful spirit and the yellow rat is suddenly a fictional pocket monster from Japan.

Our wonderful brains are flawed.  All you need to do to witness this is see a face in the wood-chip wallpaper round your gran's house, or a smiling clown in the pattern of clouds above you.  Your brain wants to see things that aren't there, as it is programmed to seek out movement, forms and most importantly faces.  All it took was a mote in my eye, or a gust of wind, to fool my brain into seeing ghosts.  And, the trouble is, once its in the mind, it's hard to shake the terror...

And this is the other thing at work, of course.  Deep inside our psyche is a strange urge to be terrified.  We all merrily seek out things that scare us (I watched Lightfields the other night, sequel to the excellent Marchlands, and spent the whole time peering through my fingers, waiting for a terrifying shock that sadly never came), to the point where we create or invent whole scenarios just to freak ourselves out.  On a global scale this leads to theme parks and a thriving horror film industry.  On an individual basis, this means telling exaggerated creepy stories and adding malign intention to everyday occurrences, like a fugue in a bathroom.

The myriad ghost stories and legends that litter the UK in particular are testament to these dual drives of wanting to be scared and the brain being able and willing to scare us.  The endless reports of ghostly figures, hideous demons and frightening alien encounters are, perhaps, all a product of our own fevered imaginations.

Either that, or they're real.

Part II - my favourite 'real' ghost stories:

1. The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, with her eyeless sockets and habit of floating down stairs.  This photo was taken by a photographer for Country Life magazine who was taking a nice shot of the staircase when he noticed this shape descending the stairs:

2. The Monk of Newby Church, which is just a photo really, with no associated tale.  But it's really tall and incredibly freaky.  Estimates suggest it to be around 8' tall, and no evidence of fakery or deception was ever discovered.

3. The hauntings of Pluckley, Kent.  This is the most haunted village in England, with at least 12 roaming spooks.  My favourite is the screaming workman in the old quarry.  He was crushed by a load of stone, and his scream is still heard on moonless nights...

4. The ghost bus of Ladbroke Grove: this was a terror in the 1920s, as it blared down the streets, lights blazing, with not a soul on board.  Not even a driver.  It apparently caused several car accidents.

5. The hairy hands of Dartmoor.  These critters materialise in or on your vehicle as you drive down the B3212.  They often appear over your own hands on the steering wheel, forcing you off the road.  Or, they thump and pat on the walls of your caravan, looking for a way in...

Units of work with overarching narratives

The council had decided it.  The beautiful village needed a bypass, and quickly.  Deaths on the main road had been occurring all too often, and it was time to act.  Three potential routes were established, and the villagers quickly decided on the route best for them, their families and their businesses.  Just as the contest between the routes  was getting fierce, the local vicar was killed in a hit and run incident.  There were rumours of murder…

So goes the storyline of a KS3 transactional writing/speaking unit of work that I have taught for several years.  Units of work that focus on the writing of news articles, letters, speeches and the like can be incredibly boring to teach and to learn from.  Endless lessons of writing different, meaningless letters to imaginary people can really wear down the motivation of even the happiest students, and are anathema to those who find school to be an annoyance.  I just couldn’t bear to put my students through this hell, so a few years back I trawled my imagination and dredged my memory for some way of making a unit of this type fun.  Year 8 English lessons from my own past swam into focus: a village, that every student is a ‘resident’ of, with careers, social anxieties, relationships, friendships and deep seated rivalries.  This was a unit of work I remembered well, delivered by my teacher of the time, Mr Fox.  And it was certainly memorable.  I barely remember any peers (apart from close friends) from my school days, but I certainly remember us all in the drama studio, acting our parts with gusto, arguing and back-biting about the pros and cons of Bypass Route A.  Happy days indeed, so it made eminent sense to steal this unit, give it some more flourishes and develop it for a full transactional writing unit.

The Village - drawn on MS Paint (I'm a masochist).

The reasons this unit work so well are two-fold.  One, it embeds character development into the scheme, giving the students open-ended opportunity to flesh out their villager, giving them traits, back-stories, motives and relationships.  This leads to very rich and detailed Speaking and Listening activities, and gives them an opportunity to add a very strong voice to their writing.  Two, it has an over-arching narrative: a story, that gives all of the written and spoken tasks a distinct purpose and flavour.  Yes, it is a fiction, and I imagine some would argue that transactional writing in a world of fiction is meaningless.  I would take issue with this, as the fictional world is grounded in reality and deals with real issues, but still: there is ample room to create narrative units entirely based in reality.

So, the story of the village and its problems provides a backdrop to a range of written and spoken tasks.  Travel guides or Wikipedia entries can be written for the village itself (writing to inform/describe for different audiences); character biographies can be drafted (writing to entertain and develop character); newspaper reports and editorials can be written, with a focus on the difference between certain newspaper types/audiences; even obituaries and epitaphs, for the poor dead vicar, can be written – it sounds macabre but the students enjoy trying this formal and prescriptive style for a change.  Spoken tasks can include speeches from characters about their opposition to council plans; drama activities based around protests and village hall meetings; full on debates, even.  There’s plenty of scope for elongating or shortening the unit as you see fit.  I found myself adding a sub-plot about finding old manuscripts in the ancient cottage - this involved the class decoding and creating a cohesive storyline from a differentiated range of renaissance-18th Century text excerpts.  This acted as a pleasant taster for the next term's unit of work - Twelfth Night.

The students love it, of course.  It’s very engaging, but obviously this isn’t the be-all and end-all.  They learn an awful lot, too.  With their defenses down, they absorb the skills and knowledge quickly, as it all makes more sense, with their writing linked to a central narrative.  It all means something, and adds to the overall story.  They can follow their tasks through, recognising that writing a sub-par news report on the Vicar’s death would show a lack of respect, and would not be print-worthy.  They make their editorials truly powerful and persuasive, as they really want a certain by-pass route to be successful.  Thus, their learning and practice of technical aspects, such as punctuation, leap in quality.  It’s astonishing how ‘real’ the whole thing can become, to the point where the students end up leading the narrative, taking it to strange new places.  For example, we ended up doing some creative writing based on animals being displaced from their homes.  A pupil had chanced upon an old episode of Animals of Farthing Wood and wanted to use it.  And it worked brilliantly, with excerpts from Wind in the Willows analysed, and the whole theory and technique of anthropomorphism explored.

Creating story-driven schemes is time-consuming, but very rewarding.  I aim to storify all of my KS3 units in this way - I'm currently sorting out a First World War unit where the progress of the war is tracked by poetry and the biographies of Sassoon and Owen - and I believe that this will create English lessons that will be remembered for a long time.  There are limits, of course.  It would be unfeasible to create a narrative line in some units, I'm sure - but be imaginative.  Media units or transactional writing units can always be given a narrative (I have a Yr 9 writing unit built around the story of a decaying amusement park), and poetry units should be given some kind of central focus or tenet.  Novel and play units have their own narrative, of course, and I feel any persuasive module, either spoken or written, should have a story or major project at its heart.  

Ofsted Report: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Inspection Judgements:

The Achievement of Pupils is Satisfactory.

Pupils at Hogwarts have access to a reasonably wide range of esoteric qualifications, suited to its key demographic.  As an independent school, it does not have to follow the National Curriculum closely; however, it is disappointing to note that basic requirements such as English, Mathematics and Religious Education are all lacking or entirely missing from the school's syllabus.  This has had adverse effects on all students, many of whom have never even been taught basic KS1 or 2 literacy.  A few students have attended state or independent primary schools, and these students typically perform very well in contrast to their peers.

The majority of students appear to be under-performing, with most pupils struggling in all their lessons, most of which appear to be set at too challenging a level.  One particular class, which seemed to be based on A-Level chemistry, proved too difficult for even the most proficient students.  Only one pupil managed to complete the lesson objectives, mainly thanks to his use of an annotated text book.  However, certain subjects appear to be either very short-term, or far too easy for the majority of students.  An outdoors lesson was observed where students made very little progress over several lessons, simply performing the same repetitive tasks again and again, counting and feeding small maggot-like creatures.  Clearly the curriculum requires an overhaul to bring literacy and numeracy levels up to the appropriate level for such a prestigious establishment.

Extra-curricular activities are well-established at the school, with chess clubs, animal care groups and 'duelling clubs' all vying for popularity.  There is a definite sense of social responsibility among some students,  with evidence of a student-led campaign to get the canteen workers more breaks and holiday time.  The school library is underused, and often totally empty.  The librarian has no idea why this is the case.

The sixth form is indistinguishable from the main school, as the students all remain on to study to the age of eighteen.  The subjects offered remain the same, though with more rigorous examinations.  End of KS4 results are generally average, whereas end of KS5 results this year were disrupted by unforeseen and external events.  Students typically go into government posts, journalism or remain unemployed.

The Quality of Teaching is Unsatisfactory

Teaching at Hogwarts is generally very old-fashioned and lets the students down considerably.  Lessons are formulaic and, other than the occasional impressive display of skills from teaching staff, are dull and lifeless.  Lessons all too often revolve around tedious rote-work and use of text books.  The study of History is particularly poor, with very little teacher interaction and no group work of any kind.  Students were frequently found to be asleep during these lessons and, on one occasion, the teacher was also sleeping at their desk.  Clearly this is not good enough, and suggests that Senior Leadership need to have far more rigorous CPD in place for struggling teachers, alive or dead.

Teachers have very high expectations of their pupils - often far too high for their age and ability.  Again, during chemistry, the teacher was seen to display entirely unfounded expectations of a Year 7 class who could barely keep up with his description of various chemicals, poisons and antidotes.  Students in this class were often punished for their lack of prior knowledge - a worrying trend that the senior leaders of the school need to counter as soon as possible.

Assessment for Learning is not well implemented at Hogwarts school.  In fact, students seemed only rarely to be given assessments of any kinds, and homework tasks are often over-long and irrelevant (usually essay based).  Starters and plenaries are very rare, and usually students enter classrooms with a genuine fear of what they may be expected to achieve.  Tasks within lessons are often over-long and repetitive, lacking anything other than brief modelling from the teacher.  Lessons all appear to be two hours long, but it is hard to say exactly what fills this time, with lessons often dedicated to a single activity with little teacher feedback beyond simple criticism.  As such, the pace of learning is very slow in most subjects - most notably chemistry, biology, PE (which seems to disappear after Year 7) and charms.

The Behaviour and Safety of Pupils is Unsatisfactory

 Frankly, the quality of safety provision for students at Hogwarts is totally unacceptable.  Despite having a highly qualified, capable and over-worked school nurse, many severe and significant injuries have occurred in recent years.  The main sport played by the school, entirely internally, is incredibly dangerous and should be reviewed by the HSE immediately.  Several injuries from wildlife have occurred in recent months, with trees and large flying animals usually to blame - these hazards are not successfully monitored or kept safe by any member of staff other than the groundsman.  This kind of Health and Safety brief is not usually in the remit of a groundskeeper, and it is our recommendation that more staff are drafted in to help with this task.  There have been several deaths in recent years, all on site.  The recent loss of the previous headteacher was a severe blow to the school's reputation, and many parents have removed their children from the premises.  The headmaster's death went entirely unexplained, though rumours that a pupil murdered him are almost certainly hyperbole.  The death of a Year 12 student during an international competition was also kept from the newspapers, and the effects are still being felt across the school.  This summer, the school was disrupted by riots and pitched battles between rival sectors of the community.  Whether the school was an incidental victim of this outburst of aggression, or an active part of it, is unknown to the inspectors.  Significant damage was wreaked on the school buildings, with certain wings now closed for repairs.  In short, at present Hogwarts is a very unsafe environment for all students and staff.

Behaviour of students is very poor indeed.  Staff seem to maintain their grip on the school using threats of violence, and yet student disruption is at high levels.  Most of the worst behaviour seems to be focused around one particular 'house' within the school's pastoral system, but despite this clear correlation, no positive action has been taken.  Bullying is a very common occurrence  and is not dealt with very well by the pastoral team, which consists of some of the strictest staff members in the school.  Often the bullying between students can become physical aggression very quickly, with some students causing each other actual bodily harm.  The bullying of students by staff is at unacceptable levels, with some students singled out from an early age for grudges that seem to date back decades.  Most of these issues stem from the high levels of insular relationships that form in the school, between staff and pupils.  Much of this stems from the unsatisfactory usage of a house system, which seems only to make the students more insular.  Cross-house friendships are very rare and often mocked by other students, and even staff.  One house in particular seems to be very isolated, with students from all other houses declaring them 'evil', 'sly' and other derogatory terms; with a common room located in a cold and damp basement, and a Head of House who spends a great deal of time out of school, it is perhaps no surprise that the students are struggling.  Looking at the records, the House Championship has been corrupt for some time, with clear preferential treatment given to some houses over others.

The Leadership and Management of the school is Satisfactory

Until his death, the previous headteacher had a very strong reputation in the local community and had steered the school through some difficult times.  However, accusations of favoritism dogged his career, and his lack of investment in quality teaching led to some very poor staff choices, including the appointment of unskilled staff for Divination (a spurious subject that has no academic rigour) and the constant poor selection of teachers for the difficult role of Defence Against the Dark Arts (a PSHE subject).  After the headteacher's death, the school was run by the Chemistry teacher, rather than the established deputy.  The reasons for this are unclear, but it is certain that it had a detrimental affect on the school and its students, many of whom were impossible to locate during our time at the school, suggesting serious problems with the school's safeguarding procedures.  Since the death of the last headteacher, there has been no clear line of authority for child-protection matters, with the issue usually left to arcane and vague concepts such as 'love' and making sure students are 'sent to live with relatives until the age of 17' to keep them 'safe'.  Middle management is a tier that seems not to exist, with the headteacher taking sole responsibility over every aspect of the school.  This is not an efficient model, and it is recommended that the school create a new tier of management to help the current headteacher with her workload.

Hogwarts School is awarded a grade of 4 (unsatisfactory)

Buy me a coffee!

Science on the Telly

Hurrah for Sir David Attenborough.  In a benighted world, he still calmly presents the facts of life in his wonderfully honest and sincere voice (easily the nicest voice in the world, after perhaps Ian McKellen’s Gandalf).  This is good, as the rest of the telly-world seems bent on providing mis-information, dogma and foolishness.  ‘Science’ is the abstract noun that gets the most punishment.  For whatever reason, the realm of science is treated as just that by the media – a fairytale kingdom, unknowable to the masses, and only really comprehended by a lucky few who possess the magical properties required, like jumping into an enchanted lake or breaking the back off a wardrobe.  ‘Science’ is a mystery, a bizarre concoction that seems to consist of huge, blinking machines, intimidating men and women wearing goggles and looking stern, huge explosions and Brian Cox.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in a recent episode of The Year of Making Love – a deeply misguided TV ‘experiment’ that attempts to prove that ‘science’ can match people up and make them fall in love.  Now, at first glance I thought this meant they would take people’s initials, plonk them on the periodic table and set them up that way (‘So, Annette Goon – you’re paired up with Alec Umbrella, and what a beautiful sight they are together!’).  But no.  The ‘science’ that is so mystically invoked by the utterly unlikeable Cherry Healy is, in fact, a few questionnaires, compiled by a couple of boffins who calculate what people’s hobbies are, and match them up that way.  If this is science, then so is putting forks in the correct section of your cutlery drawer.  There was nothing remotely scientific about the approach taken in the programme.  There was no concern at all about the incredible number of variables at work in this experiment, or the terribly subjective nature of the ‘scientists’, who shrieked happily whenever a couple were first introduced: “Ooh look, they’re smiling! They’re going to get on just fine; oh, these don’t look happy – look, he’s not impressed by her webbed fingers at all – this won’t end well”.  Hardly an unbiased observation.  The impact of having a camera crew slavishly follow these poor singletons on their dreadful dates  wasn’t considered at all.  I always thought science was about minimising the intrusion of the observer; having a camera lens right in your face when trying to enjoy crème brulee in a gastropub with someone you’ve just met doesn’t really suggest CERN levels of scientific rigour when testing their likelihood of getting all sexy.

But I could put up with all of this foolishness if the programme didn’t keep insisting it was all deeply ‘scientific’.  It got so deluded that it put me in mind of a crazed drunkard sobbing that he is really sober, whilst miserably urinating all over his duvet and staring, teary- and bleary-eyed at a photo of his dead dog.  ‘Remember’, Healy says, ‘that science has put these two together’.  Even the pudding-faced contestants kept insisting that their romantic successes and failures were all down to ‘science’, as if this was simply the name of the lead researcher.  Perhaps it is.

Hearing it so often ends up having a powerful effect.  There will be people who believe that it has now been proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that science can hook people up. To most, this will suggest that potions, or weird blinking machines can act as cupid.  They will take this misapprehension to the grave.  Yes indeed, it’s fine when it’s about something as ephemeral and pointless as this TV programme, but when the same thing occurs with science that matters, such as inoculation or nutrition  (read anything by Ben Goldacre to find out just what kind of egregious misinformation is out there) then we surely have to blow the whistle and demand that science is taken more seriously.  Surely?

People could argue that Brian Cox is the perfect saviour of this grim situation, but I would have to disagree.  His new series, Wonders of Life, is an exploration of biology by a physicist - odd and not altogether helpful, but then what do I know?  Maybe cross-discipline stuff is all the rage now.  Maybe I should start designing skyscrapers or performing brain surgery for a giggle.   But my real problem with this show is the man himself.  He's being hailed as the natural successor to both Attenborough and Patrick Moore.  How dare these faceless folk suggest such a thing?  If Brian Cox ends up 'replacing' Attenborough once he's gone (after what I hope would be the most wonderfully extravagant and beautiful state funeral humanity has ever seen) then I will set fire to my television and sit in a corner, grumpy, for the rest of my life.  He's just too there.  Here's a zebra, look at it's pretty stripes and happy face.  But wait, Brian Cox is standing right in front of it, gurning and bubbling like a moron about how awesome it all is.  Too much effervescence, too little information and far too much of Brian Cox's face.  Attenborough only rarely pops up to speak to us face-to-face, and that's the right way to be.  Cox just can't get enough of his own teeth on TV, and that's to our detriment.

We need proper, informative, classy science shows on the TV; all else is just fluff. 

On Tallness

I am quite a tall person – roughly as tall as a garden wall, or a little shorter than a ceiling.  I duck under doors and get cooed over by old ladies in chip shops.  It is a good thing, a lot of the time.

Being tall is a permanent state of being, of course. This means that I have always seen the world through the eyes of a tall person, as I can’t really remember any times prior to being around 13 in any meaningful detail.  To me, an eye-line at roughly 6’4” is the norm, and my perception of the world hangs upon it.  After all, tall people get a unique view of the world, much like worms or fleas do. We see the hidden places – the places where people put things to forget about them, areas in towns where no graffiti has been daubed, spaces over and above things where secrets lie.  I can see the top of the lockers at school, for example.  Fascinating hoards of miscellany can be discovered there – old pens, bits of paper, ragged lumps of food, mouldering old doughnuts.  They all inhabit this dead zone where no normal people visit.  They belong there.  The tops of vans are equally intriguing.  Rarely seen by human eyes, apart from those souls that linger on motorway service station skyways, they offer a fascinating glimpse of the unknown:  there is nothing particularly to see, you understand; it’s more that you are glimpsing virgin territory when you look at the roof of a transit van.

The deep recesses in train’s over-head shelves can’t escape my gaze, and nor can top shelves.  Top-most shelves are always the best of all.  That’s where we put all of our least wanted paraphernalia – things we can’t quite do away with, but things we don’t want to consider in a meaningful sense.  It is a relegation zone far more potent than the bottom shelf (that’s where we put our guilty pleasures), and yet I see them in every house I visit.  As a fan of the forgotten and abandoned, these bleak spots are an endless source of fascination – a top shelf filled with books offers a glimpse into the psyche of an individual that years of intimate friendship cannot beat.  A shelf lined with dusty ornaments and trinkets paints a picture of a long life of endless unwanted Christmas presents, and their associated cocktail of emotions:  guilt, disappointment and fury.  A top shelf of records points to a careless obsessive, a nostalgic clutz clutching his vinyl, but no longer interested in ever playing it again.  To tall people, this is all on display.  Beware ever inviting a tall person into your home.

But height is not always a blessing.  Often it causes pain, discomfort, a certain sense of injustice.  In the same way as a world designed for people of average height affords us illicit joys, so too it can ruin our day.  Washing dishes is a painful chore, marked with tremendous pain in the lower back and shoulders.  The pots and pans are far away, you see.  Manhandling them is tiring, especially when bent-double over the sink.  My head is so used to being whacked into things that it no longer hurts when I do.  Rather than a searing jolt of pain when I crack the top of my head on the hood of the oven, I get a mild tickling sensation, twinned with a quizzical glance around the vicinity.  I’m confident that if someone shot me in the head I would simply give it a quick rub and move on.  Food is a constant issue for the very tall, too.  Calorie intake is around 3500-4000, and this can be expensive.  Vast piles of pasta, whole pizzas, massive steaks and whole gallons of water can be a very pricey breakfast.  The trouble is that for someone around 6’7” to lift their arm to take a sip of coffee requires so much more energy! My left arm weighs around the same as a chest of drawers, and my legs weigh as much as three times this amount.  It’s a wonder  I get around at all.

So, next time you see a freakishly tall person, consider their lives.  Think about all the strange things they’ve seen, and pity their pained, endlessly hungry lives.

English and Boys-Only Groups.

When I moved to my current school, I was given an all-boys Yr 10 class.  They were the disinterested, naughty, often hostile students that had been a bit of a nightmare in Yr 9, plus a few quiet lads who'd flown under the radar for three years.  I was the only male teacher in the English department, and so it was believed that I may have half-a-chance of getting these students on track, and maybe even wring a few grades out of them.

A year and a half on, and these boys are in the middle of year 11.  They are benign, funny, talkative, opinionated and often hard-working, and I wouldn't swap this group with any other.  It seems to have worked.  They are mostly on course for their targets, or above; their behaviour is generally very good indeed, and their attitude to learning is incredibly positive.  I think biting the bullet, and including gender in your differentiation to this quite extreme extent is a good thing, and not to be shied away from.  So, what are the benefits of this segregation?


1. No distractions.  This is the obvious one, and its been debated to death in the larger debate about segregated schools.  But within a mixed school, taking the boys away from the 'charms' of the female students seems to have a positive impact on their attention span and their learning.  They have no one to show off too, and as boys are usually pretty intolerant of idiotic bravado when women aren't around, this can become a positive cycle.  It helps if the teacher leads the way on this, highlighting foolish behaviour by labelling it using the student's lingo ('weak', describing poor quality humour, has gone down a treat!).  They latch onto this pretty quickly and the class benefits immensely from it.

2. Toilet humour.  There is no better way to get a gaggle of malcontented boys on side than making jokes about (and sometimes actually demonstrating) farting.  With no girls in the room to temper such grotesque behaviour, the potty-based 'banter' can reach disturbing new highs, with the level of trust within the room increasing with every foul joke.  Soon, every student feels comfortable in the classroom, knowing that banter is redirected from personal attack, to general 'blokish' silliness.  The teacher has to set boundaries, of course, and they will be stretched; persevere, though, and you can end up with the class wrapped around your little finger.

3. Similar interests.  I'm not going to say that all boys share the same interests, but it is reasonable to suggest that many discontented young men, around year 10/11, do have some interests in common.  In a group such as this, these interests can be made full advantage of.  Video games, films, football - these can all be used as starting points into modules, or even assessments themselves.  Recently, my Yr 11s completed a GCSE S&L discussion based around the future of video games, and it was fantastic!  Wonderful debates abounded, and lots of marks were awarded, as they actually wanted to listen to each others' ideas.  We have a 5-minute chat at the start of every lesson, before the starter, where we share our experiences - films we've watched over the weekend, Saturdays' football scores, video game highlights.  This leads to bonding and a sense of community, and before long, everyone's pushing in the same direction.

4. Camaraderie.  My group have really achieved this - they are 'all in this together', and are very happy to help each other out and offer new ideas to the lesson.  This could happen in any group, of course, but I feel that it has happened more quickly, and more strongly than in mixed groups, as the boys feel special.  They know they are in a boys only group, and a low one at that, and this has brought them together.

So, get those troubled boys together, add a dollop of poo-humour, chat about Grand Theft Auto, and then sneak in a bit of learning every now and then.  The results can be very good indeed.