This year's Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling Test for Key Stage 2

 In the past, I  have made many criticisms of the way 'Grammar' is taught in primary schools. My main points are:

1. Grammar was only introduced into primary schools as a way of assessing teachers (Bew Report 2011). It was introduced on the basis that grammar has 'right and wrong answers'. This is false. Many of the questions asked on GPS papers create false binaries. That's because language is full of acceptable variants ie different but totally OK ways of saying and writing things. We shouldn't be fibbing to children that everything on the GPS curriculum is a matter of right or wrong. This is particularly the case with punctuation. 

2. The grammar in the Grammar curriculum is only one of several ways of describing language. It is particularly weak because it views language as a set of rules and rigid descriptions. Many of these rules are based on the way grammarians described the way Latin was written down hundreds of years ago. Another way of viewing language is that it's based on a set of choices. We choose what to say and how we say it according to many things going on in our heads and going on around us ie 'contexts'. We can, for example, identify some of these contexts as 'genre' (ie what kind of speech or writing is this?), 'participants' (ie who is speaking or writing? who is listening or reading), 'theme' or 'subject' of the piece of language we're looking at. 

This tells us that language is always and actually 'language in use'. If we are really interested in what children can do with language, we need to help them see and explore the differences and variations of language being used in actual and real situations. GPS takes language out of language-in-use and creates artificial sentences and demands that children 'spot' the rules or terms.

3. There is an error in the GPS grammar which says that a given word 'is' a given term eg the children are asked to say things like, 'That word 'is' an adjective.' Or,  'Those words are a 'fronted adverbial'.' One problem with this is that the terms keep changing. For example if I read, 'that's my book', I was taught in the 1950s/60s that the word 'my' 'is' a 'possessive adjective' or it 'is' a 'possessive pronoun' or even that it 'is' a 'determinative possessive pronoun' (!). It's now called a 'determiner'. So what 'is' it? Which one of the four is it? 

4. There are some big problems with the way these terms have been given and fixed. The most notable of these is 'tense'. In written ancient Latin, it made sense to say that a given 'verb form' was matched to a given way of talking about time. The grammarians could say that that verb form meant it was eg  'present' or 'past' and so on. In modern  English, this is clearly not the case. We use verb forms in flexible ways. We can use what GPS calls the 'present tense' in a passage that indicate the 'future' or the 'past'. What's more, we have other words to indicate time, words like 'tomorrow' or 'yesterday'. All this adds up to the idea that it would be better to talk about 'time aspect' (or some such) to indicate that we have whole structures to show what time frame we are using: a mix of verbs, adverbs, phrases, clauses and these are dependent on the 'contexts' that I mentioned before. The whole apparatus about 'tense' in GPS is false. 

5. The most pernicious aspect of GPS (formerly SPaG of course) is the crass way in which it's been used in relation to pupils' writing. It has reduced some children's writing to what I've called 'writing by numbers'. That's to say, a given so-called 'grammatical' feature has been identified as necessary for a child to reach the 'right' level of writing. This makes 'grammar' the master of what makes 'good' writing. But 'grammar' should at most be a means of describing some aspects of language not of prescribing how the 'best' writing should be. Again, if we worked on the principle of 'language in use' and used the 'contexts' I mentioned we would get to the idea of children learning how to use language in the best way for a given situation. We need different kinds of language for different situations.

6. There are some hidden messages in GPS: one notable one is what it says about class and culture. It elevates one particular language use above all others: a poorly defined 'formal' English as being universally suitable and desirable. This downgrades many other forms of English, speech,  local, diverse, and informal uses of language that have been part of culture and life for hundreds of years. 

I isolated some questions on this year's KS2 GPS test and posted my very short thoughts on Twitter. I've copied these and that's what follows now.

Question:

Circle the two determiners in the sentence below.

 In an hour, we will be getting on our train.

My comment: 

EAT THAT YOU 50s and 60s EDUCATED FOLKS! 'OUR' IS A 'DETERMINER'. IF YOU DARE CALL IT WHAT YOU USED TO CALL IT YOU ARE A LOSER.

———-

Question:

Insert a hyphen in the correct place in the sentence below.

 We were very busy in the run up to the school play. 

My comment: 

IS THERE A POINTLESS RULE THAT YOU CAN'T PUT A HYPHEN IN 'SCHOOL PLAY'? REALLY? DOES THIS MATTER? I'M GOING TO START PUTTING A HYPHEN IN FROM NOW ON.

————

 Question: 

Circle the co-ordinating conjunction in the sentence below.

 I started drawing a car, but then I changed my mind because I had a better idea.

My comment: 

THIS IS AN EG OF ADULTS TRYING TO TRICK CHILDREN BY 'DISTRACTING' THEM WITH A 'WRONG' ANSWER. WHAT'S THE POINT?

————

My comment on the fronted adverbial question:

The absurdity of terminology:  the 'fronted adverbial' in 'With big smiles on our faces, we lined up for the class photo' clearly describes 'we', not 'lined up'. Therefore it's adjectival in content! But that term doesn't exist!

———-

Question:

Insert a colon in the correct place in the sentence below.

 Many fossils are not as big as people think some are so small that you need a microscope to see them. 

My comment:

THAT’S OK THANKS, I'LL USE A FULL STOP. MORE MISLEADING RUBBISH.

———-

My comment re ‘dashes’’:

There are two questions which ask you to put dashes in the correct place! What's with the fetish about dashes? Life is possible without putting dashes anywhere. More rubbish.

———-

Question:

Insert a semi-colon in the correct place in the sentence below.

 The suitcase was heavy the box was lighter but more awkward to carry.

My comment:

[ACTUALLY I'D PREFER TO USE A FULL STOP. IT'S NOT MORE 'CORRECT' TO USE A SEMI-COLON THERE. MISLEADING NONSENSE.]

————

Q12 requires you to make 'warm' and 'cool' antonyms! Absurd rubbish.

————-

Question:

Circle the correct verb form in each underlined pair to complete the

passage below.

William Shakespeare, the famous writer, is / was born in Stratford-

 upon-Avon in 1564 and later will move / moved to London where he will become / became an actor. Even today, Shakespeare’s plays

 are performed / performed around the world.

My comment:

WE KNOW WHAT ANSWER THEY WANT BUT IN FACT USING 'IS' AND 'WILL BECOME' IS PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE IN SOME CONTEXTS. THEY ARE NOT 'INCORRECT' FORMS.

—————

My comment on active-passive

On the 2022 KS2 GPS test there are three questions on active-passive forms. Three? Imagine being the examiners saying to themselves: 'Let's really hit'em with the passive, this year.' Like, why? Is it a 2022 thing?

—————————-

Why trying to stay alive is political

 It's easy to think of politics as the stuff they talk about on politics shows. Being ill at a time of national crisis, has brought me face to face with the fact that politics is about the everyday thing of being alive or - as in my case - trying to stay alive or finding that other people are trying to keep you alive or helping you get on your feet again (rehab). So it is that I've found that at every stage of coming home, there has been a constant political conversation and row going on about - for example - funding of the NHS, how the government approached the idea of an epidemic (social health policy or leave it to the market?), our attitude to old people, sick people, disabled people and vulnerable (so-called) people.

Then again, the partygate scandal has ripped a hole in the idea that the government is on our side when it comes to wanting to protect us. It shows them as thinking of themselves as a special case, as people who don't need to abide by the rules they set for us. I see that as analogous as to the way public health and education are run: - largely by people who are looked after by private medicine and who are educated in private schools. There is an inbuilt separation (or that they build in the separation) between them and us whilst at the same time giving themselves the right to run our health and education according to their world view.

Meanwhile, it doesn't take long to hear people on phone-ins or on social media slagging off the NHS, nurses, doctors, schools, teachers and conjuring up images of the people working in this sector as lazy, unfairly rich, unfairly leisured. In fact, the people who talk this way have turned any praise of nurses, doctors, teachers, assistant teachers into political statements. Believe it or not, there's a journalist who has posted a picture on twitter of nurses and doctors having a pizza together and claimed that in doing so they were doing just what Johnson did with Partygate. One problem: the photo of the nurses and doctors having a pizza was before lockdown! I'm particularly enraged by this because the nurses and doctors in the photo are the very people who helped save my life. What this makes me think is that this person's sneering tweet has made a statement by me like 'I"m grateful to people at the Whittington who saved my life' into a radical political statement! That's where we're at.

Interview with me from Ant Group

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/18qJGSf_e4vjfoh5VU4lSU3cZToOgZKYR/view

Paste this into your browser.

Enjoy!

Review of 'What is a Bong Tree?'

 By Chris Malone:

"I will try to put my finger on what I loved about What is a Bong Tree. I loved reading it so much that I carried it round the house, allowing myself a break from chores to read another chapter. I engaged in conversation by commenting in pencil in the margins; ‘Yes!’ ‘Haha!’ declaiming, underlining and asterixing.

Michael Rosen says you need stamina to read the ‘whole lot’ but I disagree with him on this point only. The collection is an easy read, especially if, like me, you are interested in the wide-ranging subjects of education, culture, politics, art, poetry, interculturalism, words and relationships. In my view, you simply need time to read the whole lot, and as the chapters are short, your pleasure can be spread over as long a time as you like. No hurry. I was aiming for the final section, ‘Politics, Education, Culture,’ as this attracted me most, but I started at the beginning and indulged in the autobiography, literature and poetry on the way. When I reached the penultimate chapter, ‘Languages of Migration,’ I stopped. I didn’t want the book to end.

The collection of 41 talks and articles in What is a Bong Tree is a luxuriant read with recurring themes and ideas grounded in real (unprivileged) life, with a consistent air of authenticity. Great to read aloud as the words on the page emanate from Michael’s own voice. The storying of the everyday.

So why did I love this book so much?

Firstly, the conversational tone (many of the chapters form written records of speeches and lectures) invites the reader’s participation. The oxymoron of oral writing. I liked this because it made me feel powerful as a reader. I was gifted autonomy. I was enticed to become a literature activist too.

Secondly, I know that I have become a changed person after reading it. Thirty years in the education machine, especially inspecting and working in local authorities, had drummed closed questioning into me. Michael’s ever-present cry that we ask the questions we don’t know the answers to, will stay with me. Embedded. As will his plea for children to choose their own reading material, and for classes to dance the words. We can hope that we will see an end to the stultifying extracts for counterproductive and indeed discriminatory SATs. Exam questions and the need to decode the code … not many of us have seen all this play out as a school parent non-stop for over 40 years, or noticed that the spinners in the newsagent used to be full of ladybird books, but now house spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Throughout the book, numbered lists of suggestions enrich the debate, for example in School Rules, the 10 Elements of Successful Arts Education.’ This book is no mere cerebral indulgence, the collection offers a wealth of practical approaches to effective teaching, at home and in the classroom.

Dive in, and this book might change you too …

Thirdly, as I am sure there will be for many readers, there were several personal hooks which propelled me into my own memories and values. Reading the book was reminiscent of those wonderful Open University units of the 1980s. My TMA (tutor marked assignment) would be entitled, What is a Bong Tree? and they would all laugh. I stormed out of a good traditional university literature degree, to study through the OU. I never felt as proud of my naïve life-changing decision as when I read Michael’s words about the lack of connection being made between English literature and the battle of ideas. Until we read Orwell. That was me, too. The Elizabethan World Picture didn’t provide me with the insight I needed into Greenham Common. Orwell did. And Steinbeck. And D102. And of course, having proudly taught innumerable children to read using a dynamic combination of techniques adapted to each child’s learning style, I revelled in the chapters that lambasted synthetic phonics. The good old days overlayed by Nick Gibbs got a ‘Haha’ in the margin. I passed the eleven plus, attended a secondary modern, and am proud of this. It was the year grammar schools were meant to end, and it grounded me. ‘Emil and the Detectives,’ ‘Junior Voices’. My childhood.

Fourthly, I loved the inclusion of Michael’s poetry, and the well-argued claim that literature is for adults and children together, when books come off the page, become social and belong to everyone. The hot potato poem, the torch, the lift, corned beef, the homework book … and the threads joining today’s experiences to Gradgrind, Miss Havisham, Trabb’s boy. These all resonated with me, as did the claim that English poetry books for children have traditionally featured dead, white, English men.

I also learnt lots of interesting things, about Michael’s unusual Jewish home experiences, peppered with Yiddish, and about the real meaning of Heim. Domestic life as a home university. How many fathers read Great Expectations to their children in a tent? I am sure that many mothers, like mine, ‘collected bits’ for school on walks. This selection is intensely and overtly personal, and gains impetus from that, but it also recognises the equal value of the full range of home experiences. In fact, by the end of the book, Michael upends it all. ‘I mean, just who is culturally deprived?’ ‘Teachers educated away from vernacular and oral working-class cultures have a unique chance to make up for this deprivation in our lives.’

Finally, I revelled in a disrupter’s portrayal of words: words don’t just bob about like lottery balls, they stick together, have secret strings. We can indeed subvert the power relationships between texts and utterances. The current education system in England is, we know deep down, all about ‘conform, conform, conform.’ As Michael says, ‘My son Joe did streets last term and the teacher didn’t even take them into a street.’

So, what is a bong tree? Now I understand, as I wallow in my bath of ideas, it is not only a nonsense, it allows the reader power. Agency. Brilliant!"

As if in a dream I hear the radio playing Ukrainian patriotic songs

As if in a a dream

I hear the radio playing Ukrainian patriotic songs

and lovingly produced discussions

about the history of Ukraine

and admiration pouring out of my radio and TV

for the brave people of Ukraine

daring to stand up to this terrible invasion

and I felt warm and sad at the same time

wrapped in the care and kindness of it all

and I was pouring out my admiration too,

and images from the TV came to me from last night

of hundreds of people squashed into a station subway

trying to get out on a train to Poland

and more sounds from the radio

of people on the border shivering and hungry and crying

not knowing if they could get out

while arcs of light flashed over apartment blocks

and the morning showed the cold grey ruins of people's homes

and I heard the words of sympathy

from our leaders

while they explained that Ukrainians

would need visas or relatives in Britain

if they want to come here

and I wasn't sure that people crushed

into the subway would have visas

or relatives here, would they?

so if they don't have visas and relatives

what happens to them in the freezing cold

on the Polish border?

and I thought about the care and kindness

coming out of my radio

and I felt uneasy

that I remember other invasions

other bombings,

and the same radio and TV stations

pouring out hours of words

on why similar bombings and invasions

were necessary and good bombings and invasions

and why those resisting were crazy and bad

and of course - as always -

why there wasn't room for people of those countries

to get out and come here

and I was left looking for the principle being defended here.

This principle can't be that it's wrong to invade

other countries.

The principle can't be that it's wrong

to bomb civilians.

The principle can't be that we must help

those who resist invasions.

The principle can't be that we must help

refugees.

But then I thought,

what's the matter with me?

what is the matter with me?

why am I looking for a principle?

Well, not a principle that lasts

or a principle that is valid in all places.

Our leaders' principles are things

they pick up, boast about

and then drop

in the hope that we can't remember anything

from before last week.

Or that we don't notice what else they do

in other parts of the world.

One moment they are friends with people

who are tyrants or backers of tyrants

and the next they are explaining to us

that the tyrants are tyrants

and friends of tyrants are the friends of tyrants

as if we didn't know that the tyrants are tyrants

and that they themselves are friends

with the friends of tyrants

as if we hadn't noticed this

as if we had now forgotten this.

And this is a cycle

that goes on and on turning,

it's turning in my mind

remembering my parents

talking of the leaders of their time

chumming up with Nazis

corporations selling oil to the Nazis

oil they would use to bomb us

and my parents talking of uncles and aunts and cousins

who criss-crossed the very same land

that the refugees are crossing now,

one who escaped

the rest who didn't

and it's a cycle

it's a cycle that grinds millions into the ground

burnt, dismembered, starved, maimed

and I am listening to the radio.

And I am listening to the radio.

'The Responder' - tragedy, comedy and 'genre'

 I watched 'The Responder' and it got me thinking about tragedy, comedy and genre. Traditionally, tragedy involves such elements as a flawed hero (or more than one main protagonist), who comes into conflict with the customs/culture/politics of the time or, for some reason, is plotted against. The end usually involves the death of the hero/heroes, and possibly some or even many others. While the tragedy unfolds we probably have a sense of doom and danger. There will be transgressions and/or fatal errors along the way. Revenge may be involved too. Traditionally, at the very end, after the deaths, there may well be the expression of renewal. 

Comedy may or may not be particularly comic. The defining characteristic of tradition comedy in drama is that all the plot lines resolve. If it involves love and sex, many of the people will end up as couples. On the way, there may well be ironic or even sad or tragic moments but they are, as I suggest, 'on the way'. 

There are interesting political differences between the two genres. Tragedy traditionally involves the hero in conflict with the social norms or even the politics of whoever is in power. Comedy may well involve conflict but quite often this is social and will express tensions to do with class or social expectations around the behaviour of men and women.  

The main way we have absorbed ideas about tragedy and comedy in Britain has been through Shakespeare and/or films or TV dramas that adopt the motifs and tropes from Shakespeare. Shakespeare, it is said, used Roman tragedy as his model but the plays are said to work some interesting variations on the genres. 'Romeo and Juliet' has two tragic heroes who come into conflict with the social and class ambitions of their parents and the rules of the governing power,  but Juliet is more dominant in that respect. 'Twelfth Night' is a comedy but the fate of Malvolio and the commentary from Feste offer us something different.

Shakespeare also created 'problem plays' that don't seem to fall into the traditional categories. 'Measure for Measure' is regarded as a prime example of this. (Aside: I'm not quite sure who the problem plays are a problem for. I rather like 'Measure for Measure'. It doesn't seem to me to be a problem.)

Now to 'The Responder'. As I was watching it, it seemed to be unfolding as a tragedy: we had a flawed hero, who was going against society's norms. There was danger, plenty of error and doom. There was a nasty death (murder), in the later part of the series which seemed to suggest that there was more to come. But no! The series ended with resolution, the main pair and a sub-plot pair overcame their problems and got together. Whatever transgressions there were, (ie crimes), were washed away in the resolution. There was no punishment - actual or metaphorical - for the crimes. 

So, was it a mix of traditional genres? We could easily envisage other endings - either the hero gets killed and/or some innocents who got caught in the crossfire. Why did the film-makers not go down that route? 

But those questions are irrelevant if it worked. So, did it work, dramatically, emotionally, socially, politically? There seemed to be a social commentary going on to do with people living on the edge, being hard up and trying to solve things illegally. Traditionally, that might well have ended up in death but instead it ended up in the ending we think comedy...hmmm....conundrum. 

I'm left with questions and a sense of unease.

(Great acting throughout, though! I was gripped.)

My father's uncle Martin and the Holocaust

 

Here's a third piece that I have recently written for History Works and Professor Helen Weinstein to be used by school students for their presentations. It was for this year's Holocaust Memorial day. 

At mealtimes

our father would say to us:

‘You know - I had two French uncles

they lived in France.

They were there before the war

but they weren’t there at the end.’

We sat there 

not knowing what to think.

‘What happened to them?’

We’d say.

‘I don’t know,’ he’d say

‘They probably died in the camps,’

he’d say.

Camps? 

What camps?

We didn’t know about camps

where people went 

and never came back..

It was mysterious

and awful.

It made us sad

and afraid.

My brother said

it gave him nightmares…

l thought of the Tower of London

dark grey, 

the prison

the torture chamber in there.

I didn’t know what they were really like.

As years went by

I found out about these camps.

I started to research

to find out what happened to my father’s uncles:

I went to libraries

I looked online

I wrote emails.

I went to America

to talk to relatives there.

More libraries

more searching online

more emails.

Bit by bit

I started to find things

about my father’s two uncles.

Martin and Jeschie.

It’s like I was tracking them down.

I found out that Martin and Jeschie 

lived in eastern France

but when the war broke out

they - like millions of others

took to the roads.

they fled to the villages and towns of western France

They called it The Exodus.

Let me tell you about what happened to Martin.

I found a trace of him

first in a little seaside place

with a group of others from the east.

Because they were Jewish

they had to wear a yellow star.

One document said that Martin

refused to use his clothing ration 

to make the yellow star.

Then he moved to a village inland.

I wondered:

did he run away?

Was he in trouble because he protested about the

yellow star?

He was with his brother-in-law - who was not Jewish - 

and they were staying with a landlady.

I wondered

were they hiding?

It was 1943.

Everyone knew that Jews were being rounded up

and deported.

No one knew where they were being deported to

but they knew that no one was coming back.

They called this place Pitchipoï.

One day,

the German Kommandant in the nearest city 

issued a command.

‘All Jews present in the region must be arrested in the first hours of January 31, 1944 and they must be transferred as soon as possible to the closed camp of Drancy’. 

The command went to the Prefect.

The Prefect gave the command to the Sub-Prefect.

The Sub-Prefect gave the command to the French police:

the gendarmes.

On that One Day

January 31, 1944

at 2.30 in the morning

four gendarmes called at the door of Martin’s landlady.

Martin opened the door, 

the gendarmes arrested him

and they took him to the nearby town

where other gendarmes gathered together

all the Jews of the region.

Then the gendarmes wrote up their report.

I wonder did they do this back at the police station

or in the village cafe, perhaps? 

They wrote that Martin Rozen

was born on 18 August 1890

in Krosniewice in Poland.

They wrote that he was naturalised French

they wrote that he was of the Jewish race.

They wrote that he was 1m 62 tall.

with dark brown hair,

brown eyes

he had a scar

he had an oval face.

He was wearing yellow cotton trousers

and a grey cotton jacket.

Were these his pyjamas, I wondered.

It was the middle of the night.

He was wearing a Basque beret

• had he put it on to be polite? 

I wondered.

He was wearing flat shoes on his feet.

Were they his bedroom slippers?

I wondered.

All four gendarmes signed the report.

That’s what they did on that One Day.

That was their work. 

Martin was taken to the Drancy Camp

from there he was taken to Paris Bobigny station

where he was put into a cattle truck

on a train that went straight from Paris

to Auschwitz 

This was Convoy 68, 

carrying 1500 Jewish men, women and children

on one day February 10 1944. 

Out of the 1500, 42 came back.

Martin was not one of them.

I often look

at the gendarmes’ report.

It’s careful.

It’s neat.

it has a lot of detail.

The details of what happened

on that One day 

January 31 1944

That’s why my father said to us,

‘You know - I had two French uncles

they lived in France

They were there before the war

but they weren’t there at the end.’

But my father didn’t live long enough

for me to tell him

what I had found out about 

what happened to Martin. 

He never knew.