Hamish McShanks

Ham Shanks Secret Diary w/e 2^nd September 2007

Do you remember when summer holidays seemed to last forever? Six lazy weeks of playing outside with your pals. That’s right outdoors! Although it was only outside for two reasons a) because you would drive your mum absolutely spare by lunchtime on the first day of your school holidays so she would kick you out of the house with a flea in your ear and b) Playstations, X-Box’s and Wii’s hadn’t been invented yet!

All those smug gits who proudly proclaim that ‘we were the healthy generation’ and tut nosily when they see kids glued to their gameboys or texting away on mobile phones. Lets not kid ourselves here; we are jealous. If we had been given the choice of playing outside on a p*ssing wet day or staying inside and slaughtering electronic Germans as we rampaged our way across mainland Europe saving the world from Adolfs evil henchmen; then I doubt you would have found very many of us outside.

‘Medal of honour allied assault’ is infinitely more appealing than ‘poke the used rubber Johnny with the pointy stick’ which was the only available entertainment as you sheltered under the railway bridge from the lashing rain. That’s right, despite the rose tinted memories of school holidays being filled with baking sunshine and halcyon days of football in the park, jumpers for goalposts and warm fanta at half time. We all know deep in our hearts that that was just b*llocks! It hosed with rain in the black and white days as well. You’ve just suppressed those memories and hang grimly on to the three decent days out of forty two we actually got. Replaying them over and over again in your addled brain till they string together into a false memory.

‘Why are you ruining my childhood Ham?’ I hear you mumble as warm salty tears pour down your glistening cheeks ‘Why are you stealing my youth’ you plead through red rimmed eyes, snatching a ragged breath between the mounting sobs. ‘Ach stop your blubbering and get a fecking grip’, ‘w.w.wwhat do you mean? You heartless bastard!’ Actually I’m not a heartless bastard, possibly a git, but that’s not important just now. What I’m trying to do is introduce some perspective about how we view the past. The reason for potentially destroying any vestiges of happiness from your formative years is because I’m getting rather fed up with the way the media portrays kids these days. After all I have a vested interest; I am an ex-child myself.

My gripe is particularly in reference to the annual debate that surrounds the A-level and Higher results. ‘Record Pass rates’ claims one headline with a sub text of ‘are exams getting easier?’ Hello! Talk about p*ssing on their parade. I thought the whole fecking point of the education system was to improve standards? To raise the bar and ensure that the next generation is always better educated that it’s predecessor? We berate kids for their behaviour at school, their lack of respect for elders and betters, their perceived indolence. Yet when they actually do pull out their fingers out of their backsides, when they actually buckle down and put in some hard graft to achieve a measurable result, how do we react? We pull the rug out from under their feet.

‘But the pass rates keep increasing, they must be getting easier’ comes the stock answer. Ok let’s think about a couple of things. Firstly for arguments sake let’s assume that the exam hasn’t changed but the methods of teaching have. Not only have they changed, they have improved! Pupils, sorry I mean students, also have access to external resources to aid their revision; the World Wide Web springs to mind. Parents are willing to pay for extra tuition or are simply taking a more active interest in their Childs education because they know without a decent bit of paper to wave as they leave high school then wee Jimmy is destined for a job in the chicken mincing factory. Might these factors not increase the pass rate?

Now if we also take into account that there is a little bit of ‘filtering’ carried out long before exam day to separate the high achievers from the footballers and ensure that only those with a reasonable chance of achieving a pass are actually allowed to sit the paper then we start to get a clearer picture ‘That’s outrageous Ham!’ I hear you cry ‘that would never happen in our free and fair country’, ‘Oh really?’ …..

Imagine the scene; you’re the headmaster of a state comprehensive school, the dinner ladies are on strike because some famous chef is forcing them to peel spuds rather than open packets of smash. You’re getting major grief over the schools performance in the latest league tables and the pressure is on to ‘raise the bar’ and ‘push the envelope’ before the governments minders come round and break your legs in three places for not submitting the raft of paperwork now required in triplicate should you want to wipe your own arse.

‘Little Tommy’ shuffles into your office, his hairy knuckles scraping noisily across the lacquered floor. He comes to a halt at the front of your desk and declares that his career aspirations are geared towards becoming an astronaut, at least you think that’s what he means as he points a fat digit to the sky and mouths the word ‘space’ through the fish bowl nestling over his head. You are in a dilemma, on one hand you are a teacher, you came into this job with noble intentions. You wanted to make the world a better place, you wanted to share your knowledge and inspire the next generation…..

On the other hand you know he’s thick as pig shit. He’s been held back for several years now due to an absence of any discernable brain cells and his fondness for pulling the legs off the school pets. You know in your heart of hearts he’s not even going to find the examination room without external help. Little Tommy’s not going to be living the dream; he’s off to the Chicken factory where at least pulling legs off things is actually a paid job. So let’s not kid ourselves; the exams aren’t any easier. The difference is they only let the kids who are actually going to pass them sit them in the fecking first place!

So credit where credit’s due. Let’s have a big hand for all those kids out there who got good Higher and A-level results; well done you guys. And for all you kids who didn’t quite make it ‘where the fuck are my fries?’ and ‘no I don’t want to go large for an extra 30 pence I want you to get my order right the first time you spotty fucking imbecile!’, ‘You might be able to hear me if you took the fish bowl off’, ‘Christ on a bike, kids these days, I don’t know…..’

Any complaints please address them to Gordon Brown and mark ‘Education, Education, Education’ (I told you everything was in triplicate didn’t I)