tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82587287661355172652024-03-13T13:10:22.547+00:00Michael RosenA place where I'll post up some thoughts and ideas - especially on literature in education, children's literature in general, poetry, reading, writing, teaching and thoughts on current affairs.Ben Manleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05950038345290883116noreply@blogger.comBlogger1611125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-18882297057285860252024-03-10T13:05:00.004+00:002024-03-10T16:48:15.876+00:00Ofsted try to 'do' literature and end up with pap<p> <span style="font-size: large;">This comes from the new Ofsted Subject Report for English:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhcgvEpY8JDTqamGjiHKNGQLN7kkpkJcisM1jkcmy6TbiYkUW-zNdZ7J6e_phHMZlEZ9SV69s7HRETyvmbkpxfrDMhwWSuppo_1206wxgRpflk1jY_OmelqZmYD13Uo99iEI3G0AR_YwMxllWRKHJkPwGSENJmYU1SqoqfDMdaxPJjv5hvU06zsSbVNGHg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1282" data-original-width="2668" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhcgvEpY8JDTqamGjiHKNGQLN7kkpkJcisM1jkcmy6TbiYkUW-zNdZ7J6e_phHMZlEZ9SV69s7HRETyvmbkpxfrDMhwWSuppo_1206wxgRpflk1jY_OmelqZmYD13Uo99iEI3G0AR_YwMxllWRKHJkPwGSENJmYU1SqoqfDMdaxPJjv5hvU06zsSbVNGHg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;">There's a lot here to chew over: it's the kind of report that doesn't stoop to give evidence. So with one word (the opening word), 'Occasionally...', the need to provide evidence for the statement that follows is swept aside. It's one of those lovely, fuzzy words that can cover any complex phenomenon. Something somewhere always happens 'occasionally'. It's unassailable and so, the writers of this report hope, can't be disproved. Clever but not clever. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'In these schools...' - this is phoney specificity. Having said 'occasionally', the authors think they're covered to say 'these schools' as if we the readers are now holders of the evidence of which schools. In fact, not. It's rhetorical hoodwinking. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'...focus on issues of social justice or that pupils are able to access more easily.' A long time ago, someone noticed that the thing about Metaphysical poetry is that it 'yokes' together unexpected and heterogeneous images. This is a good example. The reasons why teachers might choose books that focus on issues of social justice are not necessarily anything to do with why teachers might choose books that are easy to access. In fact, I've seen teachers (and myself with my own kids) hold our noses over issues of social justice, when we've seen a child struggling to read, really taking off with a book that was easy to read but had questionable content. Mea culpa, but yoking these two elements here suggests an ideology behind the writing of this Ofsted document. It reeks of suspicion of teachers that they are funnelling literature into classrooms that is both focussed on social justice AND trashy. Again, no evidence given, but it works as a smear. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Line 5: 'literary merit'. What is this? Of course, here it goes undefined, as if we the readers and they, Ofsted, live in a world in which we agree as much on what is literary merit as we do over accepting the law of gravity. This too is an ideological trick. The writer scoops up the reader into an assumption that we are supposed to accept without question. In fact, the concept of 'literary merit' is highly contested. We know that critics and academics are in permanent conversation about literature, and that's part of the general conversation in the 'republic of letters'. Long may it last. But trumpeting from a postion of power and privilege that there is some kind of objective gold standard of literary merit, is not part of that conversation. It's power-play. Control through privilege. I'm not even going to try to mind-read what texts the authors have in mind. What's more significant is that they think that they can bully teachers with such a term, as if they are trying to make teachers nervous that a text they have chosen for KS3 students does NOT have literary merit. Well, there's hardly a text in the world that hasn't at some time or another been chastised by someone for not having literary merit! Remember, there were purists who once had a go at Shakespeare because his iambic pentameter was irregular and ragged! One of the least satisfactory games played by some critics and academics is to joust with texts as if it's their job to find holes and weaknesses in them. I can't think of how many times I've read criticism both in national newsapers and academic journals that seek to 'prove' that a given text is not quite as 'good' as it should be, or as not so worthy of praise as others say that it is. Even so, here this phrase hangs in the air like a critical policeman's baton. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then comes an extraordinary sentence: 'Schools do not consider how the study of these texts might prepare pupils for further encounters with even more complex texts, as opposed to developing their understanding of issues such as homelessness.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'Schools...' Which schools? This is an absurd generality. I read such generalities in newspapers every day, as with what 'men', 'women', 'children' supposedly all think or do, along with use (of course) of many racialised epithets. In these examples, we call it stereotyping but in essence, it's the same process going on here. Are the authors of this document aware of this and are using it to bully teachers or, laughably, are they not aware of it themselves? I don't know!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The proposition of the sentence holds within it an ideology around what is the purpose of the study of English in schools: it attacks the notion that we ask students to read texts that matter to them, in the here and now (an existential argument, if you like) , and proposes that we read texts at some pre-ordained idea of 'level' in order that we might proceed to a higher level in the tomorrow. It's the 'ladder' model of literary consumption: that we move from simple to hard, from naive to complex, from accessible to texts that require prior knowledge...and so on. Note here that it's the text that is supposedly developmental not the student! It's as if a text has a pre-ordained place on the ladder, and that every student should match up to that ladder's rungs. We know that most KS3 students are at a complex stage in human and psychological development. One of the fascinating and difficult things about working with students of that age is that within any one class, there will be students who appear to be miles apart in psychological, physical, emotional and social development. Slapping on to them a mythic ladder of texts and justifying why you're reading one text on the basis that it 'leads' to the next, is to deny the very circumstances of the students doing this. But then, that is indeed the ideology being recommended here, and it's been on the agenda from the very start of the Govean revolution. The student is irrelevant. Only the text and the knowledge of the text is relevant. It goes without saying, this turns the curriculum into perfect exam-fodder. An exam tests specific aptitudes in relation to a fixed, common text. It can't empathise with the conditions of the candidate. Education is constantly entangled with the thorns of this dilemma. This report is quite clear: teach the ladder. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'...understanding of issues such as homelessness.' This is the cry of the literary purist who has spent decades being infuriated that millions of people read in order to find out about the world. They hate what they decry as 'sociological' writing and reading. Notice the deliberate selection of 'homelessness'. It's a nice piece of bathos slotted in at the end of a sentence: a deliberate attempt to contrast the heights of 'further encounters with complex texts' with 'homelessness'. The joke is that the phrase 'further encounters with complex texts' is anything but a height. It's classic bureaucratic mincemeat. When we look at it, we can see that it's probably referring to some wonderful books, plays and poems, but because this report is evidence-less pap, we are given bureaucratic banality. And then they slug us with the horror that we might read a text about a family made homeless. What? Like Joseph and Mary? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Further travels in the land of banality come with the last sentence when we find literature is reduced to something called challenging vocabulary and structures. Quite funny, isn't it, that on the one hand the passage trumpets the undefinable, abstract 'literary merit' and on the other gives us something as dry and dull as challenging vocabulary and structures. Just to be clear, this is TV quiz game stuff: 'hard words' and 'hard sentences'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Now we know what these people think reading in schools should be for. We are in pursuit of the ineffable, unfindable mirage of 'literary merit' while doing hard words and hard structures because next year, there'll be harder words and harder structures. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Who was it who talked of 'poverty of the imagination'. I've forgotten. But there's a lot of it going on here. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-67435876996979238672024-03-02T00:35:00.006+00:002024-03-03T02:10:46.966+00:00Poetry is 'memorable speech'.- [blog updated and extended]<p><span style="font-size: large;">The poet WH Auden coined or adopted the phrase 'memorable speech' to describe poetry (rather than define it). This is a rich vein to explore: 'memorable' implies both 'easy to remember' and 'worth remembering'.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There are many ways that we make poetry memorable in the sense of 'easy to remember' eg through rhythm, repetition, patterns of imagery, contrasts, ironies, figurative language that surprises us, humour, rhyme and so on.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Likewise, we have many ways to make it worth remembering: choosing subjects that matter to us, whether personal, cultural, political. Or perhaps to do with the world we go through: poetry can stop and look closely at something that might otherwise pass us by. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In a school context, poetry offers some educational aspects that people are concerned about. Because poetry is memorable, we offer young people 'chunks' of language that becomes portable. They and we want to remember it. One of the ways in which we acquire the shape, sound and grammar of language is to remember chunks of it. Again, and related to this is the way poetry can often act as a bridge between the spoken and the written language. As Auden observed, it is a specialised form of speech. A lot of it sounds like the spoken word, and most of it can easily be spoken. And yet it isn't speech, as speech in conversation is full of hesitation, incomplete fragments, interruptions, and a method that often needs more context and human gesture to make sense. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Another way to look at poetry is to see it as a specialised form of cohesion in language. Poetry sets up ways of making language cohesive using sound, repetition, exploration of lexical fields, contrasts, patterns of imagery and figurative language. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This then becomes a platform for helping young people explore symbolic language. There are many ways poems use symbols or a whole poem can be taken to be symbolic or representative of something bigger than itself. A haiku about a leaf falling may be representative of something much more than a leaf falling. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We've reached a point in education, where reading and writing poetry is something that has been quietly and silently shoved in a cupboard. Poetry in education isn't of itself or inevitably 'good'. It can be taught in a dull, tedious way especially if it's dominated by exams and the formulas needed for the exams. Poetry thrives when young people feel free to explore it and write it how they want to. This calls for poetry to be in poetry-friendly places, where poems are up on walls, where the kinds of questions we ask about poems are to do with how and what a poem might mean to you, how it reminds you of things about yourself, or other things you've read or heard, what questions you would like to ask of people in a poem or of the poet, and what the 'secret strings' in the poem that are the links between the sounds, images and lexical fields. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It's easy to forget that poems are ways that writers start conversations. We hope that a poem will fire off conversations that readers and listeners will have in their heads and with other readers and listeners. An exam-driven curriculum is much more likely to regard poems as boxes full of a finite number of facts and the job for a student is get the right facts and a sufficient number of right facts out of the poem. It's as if the system asks of students to think of a poem as an egg-box, and the student's job is get all six eggs out. To carry on the analogy, yes, it's possible to take eggs out of a box, but eggs only really start to matter when we think of things to do with them - fry, boil, poach, use in making cakes and so on. In other words, poems only matter when we can use and adapt what we find in them. That means listening to how we use our experience of life, experience of 'texts' (in the widest sense ie including songs, films, TV programmes) to lift meaning from a poem. 'What does this poem (or line, or phrase or word) remind me of?' 'What thoughts are triggered by the poem, line, phrase or word? Why? What's the link between what's written in the poem and what I've started to think about?' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This last is a matter of how we make links between two things - something in a poem, and something in our heads. If we can articulate what that link is, or what is in common between the two things, it may well be the first step towards abstract thoughts and ideas. The common point might be, let's say, 'disappointment' or 'regret'. One thing educators can do, is helpe students articulate and discuss such beginnings of abstract concepts that link poem (or part of poem) to student's experience. </span></p><b><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3 r-b88u0q" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Books</span><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> I have written which are entirely or partly about </span><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3 r-b88u0q" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">poetry</span><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">:
'What is </span><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3 r-b88u0q" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Poetry</span><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">?' (</span><div class="css-175oi2r r-xoduu5" style="align-items: stretch; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline-flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; white-space-collapse: preserve; z-index: 0;"><span class="r-18u37iz" style="flex-direction: row;"><a class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3 r-1loqt21" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/WalkerBooksUK" role="link" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d9bf0; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; text-overflow: unset; white-space: inherit;">@WalkerBooksUK</a></span></div><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> )</span></b><div><b><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">'Write to feel Right' (Collins Big Cat)
'What is a Bong Tree? (available through my website - see '</span><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3 r-b88u0q" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Books</span><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">' </span></b></div><div><b><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3 r-b88u0q" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">'Poetry</span><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> for Primary and Lower Secondary Schools' (available through my website - see '</span><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3 r-b88u0q" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Books</span><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">')</span> </b></div><div><b>Website:</b></div><div><b>www.michaelrosen.co.uk</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-43068990324359950222023-12-12T18:31:00.001+00:002023-12-12T18:35:18.341+00:00Letter sent to Guardian about Covid Inquiry and Herd Immunity<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />I've spent the last few days struggling with your headline and the testimony given by Mr Chris Whitty ('Herd immunity was never UK policy, Chris Whitty tells Covid inquiry' Guardian Nov 22 2023). Mr Whitty is quoted saying, “I don’t think I ever saw anybody on the record, or anybody sensible, aiming for it as a goal".</span></span></p><p class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></span></span></p><p class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">I've searched March 12 and March 13 2020, in the Guardian archive and elsewhere and I find, for example:</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Sir Patrick Vallance, England’s chief scientific adviser, has defended the government’s approach to tackling the coronavirus, saying it could have the benefit of creating “herd immunity” across the population." (March 13 2020) </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></span></span></p><p class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">Also from March 13 2020, ITV news website: "UK's chief scientific adviser [Sir Patrick Vallance] tells ITV News he hopes Government's approach to coronavirus will create 'herd immunity'."</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">Again, from March 13 2020, Graham Medley from SAGE was on BBC Newsnight saying, ‘We’re going to have to generate herd immunity…the only way of developing that in the absence of a vaccine is for the majority of the population to become infected…’</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></span></span></p><p class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">These statements seem to have been by way of explanations for Mr Johnson's comments the day before (March 12) , as reported by you "As many as 10,000 people in the UK are probably already infected with coronavirus, and many people should expect to lose loved ones, the government has said as it announced measures less stringent than those taken by other countries." And the article continued: "Britain moved from the “contain” phase of the crisis to the “delay” phase on Thursday...(March 12). The article goes on to itemise the measures NOT being taken to contain the spread of infection, such as cancelling large public events, social distancing, test-trace-and-isolate. </span></span></p><p class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></span></span></p><p class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">These non-measures seem to me to be enactments of a herd immunity policy. </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></span></span></p><p class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">I had great hopes that the Covid Inquiry would identify and clarify policies and approaches taken by the Government in March 2020. Instead, on this crucial matter of whether on March 12 and March 13 2020, the Government was or was not pursuing this herd immunity policy , I am less clear now than I was when I was doing my own private research. </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></span></span></p><p class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">Even less clear now and at the time in March 2020 is what definition of herd immunity was Sir Patrick Vallance and others using. Meanwhile, still hidden from us are what ideas were swirling round in Number 10 and the advisory committees about acceptable levels of death. The Prime Minister's WhatsApp messages might have helped illuminate this matter, but the available technological expertise seems unable to help us here. For the time being, all we have to go on are Sir Patrick Vallance's notes of what Johnson said from October 2020 about us oldies having had a 'good innings' and our having reached our time anyway. </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></span></span></p><p class="x_elementToProof" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">I don't see how we can find out whether policies were right or wrong at the time if we can't even demonstrate what those policies were. This matter affects tens of thousands of bereaved and injured people. </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">Yours </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, "system-ui", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">Michael Rosen</span></span></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-61956431669637055552023-11-22T10:09:00.000+00:002023-11-22T10:09:01.666+00:00Some responses to this week's Covid inquiry<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 20px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 20px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 20px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 20px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">(1) Patrick Vallance (from Guardian Nov 20 2023)</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 20px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Vallance diary:</span></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">“PM meeting – begins to argue for letting it all rip. Saying yes there will be more casualties but so be it – ‘they have had a good innings’,” before...saying: “DC says ‘Rishi thinks just let people die and that’s okay’.</span></p><p class="p4" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Out of bedrooms and wards</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">long lines of the dead</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">walk towards<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>you</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">asking you,</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">'Who were you to decide that</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">our innings was over?</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Who gave you the umpire's white coat</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">and upraised finger?</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Did you think we would never speak</span></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="background-color: white; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">from the graves you gave us?</span></span></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="background-color: white; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="background-color: white; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="background-color: white; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">(2)</span></span></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s1" style="background-color: white; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span>Patrick Vallance wrote in his diary that Johnson said of the Pandemic:</span></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“Most people who die have reached their time anyway.”</span></p><p class="p4" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">His worldview was ready to pounce on us</span></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">as if our 'time' is logged in on a universal spreadsheet</span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">which gave him the right to send us off to the morgue.</span></span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">(3)</span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Vallance's diary from October 2020</span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> "PM meeting – begins to argue for letting it all rip. Saying yes there will be more casualties but so be it – ‘they have had a good innings’, ' before saying that “Most people who die have reached their time anyway.”</span></p><p class="p6" style="background-color: white; color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">If true, these statements </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">gives us a picture of a Prime Minister </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">who thinks that our lives are governed </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">by some kind of cricket score card </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">with the twist that the scores are worked out </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">before the players take to the field. </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">When Johnson comes before the Inquiry, </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">perhaps the KC can press him on the point, </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">in particular by asking him </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">who it is who writes this score card and why. </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">When he gets an answer, </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">there's a follow-up question along the lines of </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">'So what's the point of doing anything to prevent </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">disease, poverty or war, anyway?' </span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">(4)</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Jolly old Boris</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">he always made us smile!</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Seems like he was killing us</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">all the while!</span></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-11385546572603172602023-11-17T17:27:00.000+00:002023-11-17T17:27:09.415+00:00Some ideas about writing and recovery<p><span style="font-size: large;">This week, I gave a talk to Lewisham headteachers about writing and recovery. I read some poems and talked about why and how I wrote them. Here's a very brief summary of some of the things I said:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">1. I learned from DH Lawrence's poems, like 'Snake' and 'Man and Bat' that there's a way in which you can write where one moment you are 'in' the moment and the next you are reflecting on it. I say that this is a bit like the experience of swimming 'in' a swimming pool and the next you're walking along the edge looking at yourself swimming. This kind of writing can be very immediate and a line later be quite detached. When you're detached, you can think of yourself as the questioner, asking yourself (in the pool) why you're doing it that way. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2. One way two write about big, difficult, very emotional things is to avoid writing a lot. All you need to do is 'write small'. Think of each thing you write as a stone from a mosaic or one piece of glass from a stained glass window. This means that you build up a picture from the fragments. But there's no pressure. You can take your time, just writing about a single sensation, or something that someone said, something that you said, something you saw, a glimpse. Then turn over your page, and create the next fragment. In time, the fragments will start to talk to each other. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">3. When you're writing about big emotional things, don't swerve away from writing about 'things'. In fact, do that: focus on the things that were 'there' in that moment: the table, the chair, the window, the tree, the plate, the hat...whatever. It helps you grab that moment and what was particular and special about it. It's called the 'thingness of things'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">4. When you write, remember you don't have to write in sentences. You don't have to write the way you do prose. You can write in phrases or single words. Instead of writing these in a line, as in prose (as I'm writing here in this blog), you can put each phrase or word under each other. Imagine you're 'unfolding' words and phrases under each other. It gives you a different sense of time, in relation to what you're writing about.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">5. Think of yoursel as a collector or as an archaeologist. You're collecting stuff to do with what you've seen, heard and thought about. You dig around in your mind to find memories, thoughts images. When one appears, grab it, put it down. Don't worry about making it bigger to start off with. Let it grow slowly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">6. Play the metaphor/simile game. Why or how is one thing like another. If you think that a given moment or feeling is like something else, try writing about that something else. If you think losing someone is like seeing a bus disappear over a hill, try writing in detail about the bus going over a hill and not about losing someone. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">7. Give yourself time to daydream. Give yourself time to grab the thing you're daydreaming about. Don't disregard or diminish daydreams. They are precious. Nurture them. Encourage them. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">8. Think of writing as a form of release, that relieves you for 'getting it out of yourself'. Release and relief. Which then restores you. Release, relief, restore.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">9. The school curriculum is about expected levels. This kind of writing is about unexpected levels. Always be free and open to the idea that what you write might surprise you, might be unexpected. Even aim at the unexpected. Write something that you don't expect yourself to write. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">10. Try banning emotion words. See if you can convey the emotion you want to convey without mentioning the emotion.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">11. Try doing impossible writing. Create phrases or sentences that express the thing you want to express but do it so that physically or materially it would be impossible. The man is lying on the pavement is possible writing. The pavement is carrying the sleeping man is impossible writing. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">12. Try banning adjectives and adverbs and putting all your effort into finding unusual verbs. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">References: I've written about writing poems in 'Write to Feel Right' published by Collins Education, Big Cat series. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And in 'What is Poetry?' published by Walker Books. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And in 'Getting Better' published by Ebury Books, (forthcoming Penguin)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Examples of me doing this kind of writing are in 'Many Different Kinds of Love' (Penguin), 'Selected Poems' (Penguin), 'The Advantages of Nearly Dying' (Smokestack).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There are two 40 minute pieces of me performing these fragments on our YouTube Channel, 'Kids' Poems and Stories with Michael Rosen'. One is called 'Many Different Kinds of Love'. The other is called 'The Death of Eddie'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-88713717583105369982023-05-25T13:16:00.037+01:002023-05-26T08:46:13.193+01:00My thoughts on this year's Key Stage 2 Grammar, punctuation and spelling test (which used to be the SPaG test)<p><span style="font-size: large;">I am looking at the 2023, 'Key stage 2, English grammar, punctuation and spelling test.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Paper 1: </span><span style="font-size: large;">questions'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My first thought, as ever, is to wonder about how many hours of work are required to put Year 6 students through this? And for what benefit? I ask this because I know that one of my offspring did this test, did very well at it, and when I ran though some of the terms with him a few years later, he had forgotten them all. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Ok - brief thoughts on some of the questions:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 1 asks 'Which sentence is a <b>command</b>?'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I've talked about this before as an example of how what this kind of grammar calls 'grammar' is very slippery. The word 'command' is not a grammar word. It's a word to describe how we say things to each other. We can command each other to do things in several ways: eg 'You must do this now!'. 'No running in the playground'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So what's going on here? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What they mean, but don't say, is that for the sake of this exam, a 'command' is a sentence that uses the 'imperative' form of the verb. We all know such words and usages eg 'Go out!' or even 'Please don't do that' which of course doesn't sound like a 'command' at all! </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So what you have is a typically fuzzy definition based on a non-grammatical word, when really they mean something else. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What ends up being tested here is actually not 'grammar' but a fuzzy mix of semantics (meaning) and 'grammar'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 2 continues with the GPS obsession with 'sentence types'. I can't figure out why they should be obsessed with this. Why is it important to give sentences a name, especially as some of the labels are 'fuzzy' anyway (as with 'command'). Question 2 asks 'Tick one box in each row to show whether the sentence is an exclamation or a question.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What follows are four sentences (with no punctuation mark at the end of them!) all beginning with 'How'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One of these is 'How disappointing it was that it rained on sports day'.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">You have to laugh. Who writes this stuff? This is straight out of 1950s middle class talk. Is there anyone left who ever says or writes such things? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This is supposed to be an 'exclamation'. Again, this is not a 'grammar word'. We can 'exclaim' in many different ways using different grammatical structures eg 'Oh no, I've lost my wallet!' Anyone having to subject themselves to this test knows that the word 'exclamation' here is being squeezed into being a 'grammar word' by linking it to a sentence structure. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Big irony here: in order to be able to ask this question, the sentences are not completed with a punctuation mark. Think about that. This test and the syllabus belabour children and teachers with the need (desperate need) to finish sentences with the 'correct' punctuation mark - question mark, full stop etc., and here is the test that is supposed to test such things, putting four sentences in front of children without the end mark. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, we know why they haven't. It's because they would have had to have put an exclamation mark after the exclamation! People will remember the hapless Nick Gibb coming on the radio trying to explain to millions of listeners how and why they were testing children on exclamation marks and clearly failing to do so. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Again, you have to laugh: the harder they try to be 'correct' the more likely it is that they'll end up putting something incorrect in front of children. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 3 asks the children to 'Draw a line to match each word to a <b>suffix </b>to make four different words. Use each suffix only once.' The four words are 'social', 'relation', 'child' and 'season'. The four suffixes are 'ish', 'al, 'ise', 'ship'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I sat up at this one because my 'school grammar' and 'university grammar' comes from the 1950s and 60s. Any of us taught these terms as if they were set in stone are always surprised to see that the terms can change. Anyone who cares about such things as suffixes, will notice that the four suffixes are not the same in kind. Three of them are additions turning them either into another noun (eg 'relationship') or into adjectives (eg 'childish'). One of them is an adjective that you have to turn into a verb (ie 'socialise'). </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was taught to think of verbs and verb endings as being 'conjugations' rather than being a stem+suffix. But, hey, there you go. If they're suffixes now, let'em be suffixes. It's all part of the arbitrary terminology diarrhoea that afflicts this subject. Someone reading this will blow a gasket longing to 'correct' me to tell me that they 'ARE' really suffixes, as if labels are more important than language. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 4 involves an Oxford comma twitch. People who write this stuff are obsessed with whether the 'Oxford comma' is right or wrong. (Imagine being such a person!). Some people nearly die if they see a comma before the word 'and'. If I was teaching Year 6s I would tell them that if they care about the health of others, they must remember that if any question asks you to insert a comma into a sentence, never, never, never put it in the front of the word 'and', or far off, someone may pass away. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 6 asks 'Which pair of words are <b>antonyms</b>?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Antonyms are not grammar. They are semantics. They have no place on a grammar paper. Grammarians know this. The fact that they are in a grammar test is testament to the fact that grammarians were cowed by Michael Gove when it came to devising this absurd syllabus. In fact, 'antonyms' are a weird concept drawn from tests and syllabuses from the 19th century. Linguistics has taught us over the last 50 years or more that there is no such thing as a synonym or an antonym. That's not how language works. Words are so full of lovely variation and 'connotation' that we can't tie them to such concepts as 'antonym' and 'synonym' - except of the sake of tests and TV quizzes. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The answer to this question is 'proper' and 'improper'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I'll state the obvious: 'proper' can be used in many different ways: eg 'he's a proper little devil', 'the proper way to learn a part is to cover the page', 'she was very polite and very proper'. The word 'improper' may or may not match the many ways we use the word 'proper'. Logically speaking then, they are only antonyms for the sake of this question! </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I quite often talk about how far from 'language-use', these grammar test go. This is a prime example. Language-use tells us that 'proper' is a word we can use flexibly, variously with nice, subtle differences. The word 'improper', less so. In order to answer this question, we invite children to dispense with the flexibility of language-in-use, and come up with a bit of absurd, non-grammatical labelling.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 9 - another non-grammar question. It asks 'Which sentence is the most <b>formal</b>?' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Others may help me here. I've struggled to find in course materials a reasonable and rational explanation of the word 'formal', as used in these tests. It's quite clearly not only a matter of grammar because these questions often slip in a slightly slangy noun or verb which is being used in a 'standard English' way (ie 'correctly') but is presumably not 'formal'. So here we have the sentence 'Please pack up all your stuff before you leave.' I guess that the examiners think 'stuff' is informal. This is not a matter of grammar. It's a matter of 'register'. They've decided that 'stuff' is not 'formal'. (Go figure!) </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>The formal sentence is, presumably: 'It is essential that you take all your belongings with you.' For this to be 'formal' it's</span><span> through its 'lexis' (ie choice of vocabulary) and not through grammar. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This is how 'grammar' gets afflicted with mission creep. 'Grammar' creeps into 'style' and telling children how they 'should' write. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 10 is a 'synonyms' question. More non-grammar in a 'grammar' test. 'Overjoyed' and 'delighted' are supposedly synonyms here. They are similar. Or they are in the same 'lexical field'. They each have different connotations. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 13 throws me completely:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'Insert a <b>colon</b> in the correct place in the sentence below.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Dipti is keen to practise the drums she wants to play in the school band.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Wot? I can't think of any circumstance where I'd put a colon in that sentence! Call me uncouth, but I wouldn't put any punctuation in that sentence, let alone a colon. I use colons in one restricted way only. I use them following a general word and before a list of things that are part of that general word, or as a mark to indicate 'like this'. So I might write, 'There are a few supermarkets round here: Sainsbury's, Asda, Lidl, Waitrose etc.' Or I might write, 'The rule states clearly that you can not run in school: 'Do not run in the corridors or classrooms'.' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Well, I didn't get my mark for that question. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 14 is 'Which question is the most <b>formal</b>? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What is this need to be 'formal'? Again the reason why one of the sentences is more formal than another is semantic not grammatical. 'I asked him to phone me when he got here' is presumably meant to be less formal than 'I requested that he telephone me on arrival.' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Somewhere deep in the minds of the examiners is the notion that 'request' is more 'formal' than 'ask' and - here's the exciting bit [irony alert], the construction 'that he telephone me' contains what they say is....a 'subjunctive'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Note: not all grammarians are convinced that this IS a subjunctive. Some think that it's some strange bit of English usage that can be ring-fenced and labelled but best not to dignify it with the term 'subjunctive' because it doesn't 'conjugate'. This means that it can't really be compared with, say, the subjunctive in French, which is really an extraordinary, subtle, complex form that can be used to indicate a mix of doubt, caution, suggestion, tentative thought and so on. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">However, Michael Gove said that he wanted the subjunctive in the test. The grammarians said they weren't too sure about that. Michael Gove was sure. That's why the children learn it. That's why this sentence is included in the test. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Question 18 asks the children to spot the use of the 'present progressive'. I include this one because once again it gives me a laugh. Back in the 1950s and 60s, we were taught that there is</span><span> a tense called 'the present continuous'. That's what it IS, we were told. That verb form IS the present continuous. The present continuous IS that particular verb form - usually expressed by '-ing' endings on the end of the stem of the verb. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One reason why it was interesting, they told us, is that French doesn't have that verb form. It's expressed with a phrase that looks like 'in train of..' ('Je suis en train de manger un croissant' 'I'm eating a croissant') </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then at some point, some grammarians decided that it ISN'T the 'present continuous'. It IS the 'present progressive'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Why? Why did it change? Who decided? Why did that then become THE term? What bit of new knowledge about this verb form has necessitated this new term? I dunno. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 29, sees a visitation of the dreaded 'fronted adverbial'. However, it's in its most diluted form. (I sense a retreat from this monster.) All that the students are asked to do here is punctuate it with a comma in the right place. As it happens, there is a trick in the question. Many of the children will have learnt it in a mechanical way - there's only time to learn it mechanically. One of the sentences is 'Luckily for us the ball rolled slowly past the goal.' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The trick here is that many children would bung a comma in after 'luckily' because that's how they were taught the dreaded 'fronted adverbial. Trouble is, on this occasion, the f.a. is 'Luckily for us...' Boooo! Trick question. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 31 is another bite at the exclamation cherry. Why so interested in exclamations and exclamation marks? Do they matter that much? When you think of all the amazing, exciting things to say about language, or all the exciting language activities you could be doing with children, and you end up with talking about exclamation marks! Doh!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 33 asks 'What are the underlined words in the sentence below?'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">You have a choice of answer: a relative clause, a subordinate clause, a main clause, a noun phrase.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This is a perfect example of the dull cul-de-sac that grammar takes you into. You have a phrase 'The girl with curly red hair' and all that grammar is interested in is what you can label it with. The question asks 'What are the underlined words..' as if the label IS that use of language and that use of language IS that label. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Again, there are all sorts of things we could say about that use of language, the least significant and least useful for 10, and 11 years olds is what label you can stick on it in order to test teachers whether they can teach 10 and 11 year old children that this label is important. Older school students perhaps, but 10 and 11 year olds? Really?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 39 asks the children to 'Complete the sentence below with an appropriate subordinating conjunction.' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In an ideal world, how vital is it for 10 and 11 year olds to know the difference between coordinating and subordinating conjunctions? Let's say that the great god grammar decides that they should all know that there are such things as 'conjunctions' (I think we called them 'joining words' when I was at primary school in the 1950s). How vital is it that they need to know that there are two kinds of conjunction and that there'll be a test which will try to see if you can get it right? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As an aside, and nothing to do with this question, I have never bought the idea that 'but' is a coordinating conjunction - 'and' and 'or', fair enough, but why 'but'? A clause following 'but' is often dependent in meaning on the clause that comes before it. Maybe it should be called a thing of its own - 'a depending conjunction'. See! You can play the grammar game too!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 40 is a nasty, trick question. The examiners know that hard-pressed teachers say that adverbs are often '-ly' words. So of course here's a question where the adverb is not a '-ly' word. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'The boy had seven brothers, each one quite different from the others.' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This reminds us that the term 'adverb' is stupendously useless. 'Adverb' sounds like it does something to verbs. Sometimes it does. Hooray. But it also 'does' something to adjectives, as with the word 'quite' here. And it can also do something to whole sentences, as with 'However, he couldn't find his keys.' That used to be called a 'sentence adverb' but now we have to call it a 'fronted adverbial' and we're all so much more intelligent and able to deal with the problems of the world, as a result.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Question 41 is a beast. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> 'Complete each sentence with a word from the same <b>word family</b> as <u>proud</u>.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The graphic shows two sentences with a blank and the word 'proud' under the blank. You have to change the word 'proud' so that it can fit in the blank. The two sentences are:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'We [BLANK] represented our school in the competition'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'We took [BLANK] in representing our school in the competition.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The first is, presumably 'proudly' and the second, presumably, is 'pride'.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Why do I say it's a beast? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I don't know this term 'word family'. People will have to tell me if that's taught these days as a concept. It's a new one on me. I must keep up. I've staggered through at least 11 years of grammar education without knowing this term, so I'd better add on a bit more work in order to keep up. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It makes sense to grammarians to think of a word like 'proud' in such a way that they can turn it into 'proudly' and 'pride'. If you look at language-in-use, we can ask ourselves, how often do we 'turn' a word like 'proud' into 'pride'. That isn't how we construct sentences. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>We create language-in-use according to who's speaking and writing, who's listening and reading (ie the participants); according to the subject-matter of what we are saying and writing (sometimes called the 'field'); and according to the type of talk and the type of writing that we are performing (often called 'genre'). We hardly ever do what this test question asks us to do, which is shunt between grammatical forms to slot them into blanks. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-40048011816065254172023-05-21T15:09:00.005+01:002023-05-22T01:56:46.891+01:00Three Twitter threads on reading, language and a response to an article in the Sunday Times today by Nick Gibb <p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">TWITTER THREAD ON NICK GIBB AND READING BEGINS HERE:</span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I will try to tackle the untruths (in this article below by Nick Gibb) in my tweets that follow</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">How <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>we won the phonics war and got England reading</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The modern debate about how to teach children to read was triggered in 1955 by the publication in America of Why Jonny Can’t Read. Rudolph Flesch’s book told...</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">NICK GIBB'S ARTICLE HERE (from Sunday Times today) </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz xt0b8zv x1fey0fg" href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-we-won-the-phonics-war-and-got-england-reading-fblxm89lk?fbclid=IwAR1C_iZDUMwhbFEuVLAmcnUDqd6NzocB90UoFOdGyj8-0eztIp3BfKNGC_o" rel="nofollow noreferrer" role="link" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0" target="_blank">https://www.thetimes.co.uk/.../how-we-won-the-phonics-war...</a></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">My tweets begin here: </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">1. Gross oversimplification of 1950s methods and what replaced them eg the 'Beacon Readers' focused explicitly on phonics+meaning simultaneously (as described in the teachers' accompanying guide). </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">2. Analysis of the Clackmannanshire schools shows that there were factors at work in those schools other than those to do with how reading was being taught. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">3. Phonics wasn't 'dismissed'. The argument was over whether phonics should be integrated with other methods or not. Gibb advocated 'first, fast and only'. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">4. Gibb cites improvements in the phonic screening check scores. Reading lists of words out loud is not reading. It's decoding. Pure phonics (first, fast and only) teaches children how to decode. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">5. Gibb makes the leap from pure phonics (his favoured method) to 'reading for pleasure'. If the govt were serious about 'RfP' it would put as much resources into RfP as it does into phonics. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">6. You'll notice that Gibb has shifted from 'first, fast and only' (which is what he was saying in 2011) to 'first and foremost'. Why? What caused him to shift? </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">7. He attacks the Institute of Education's research on reading but simply labels them as the enemy. No argument. No discussion. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">8. Missing from the article is the retreat from the excessive, politicised claims that Gibb made in 2011 ie that systematic synthetic phonics teaching would 'eradicate illiteracy'. It hasn't. And anyway, he's adapted the 'purism' of 'first, fast and only'. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">9. Missing from the article is the problem of the mismatch between the phonics screening check scores (ie decoding) and the scores for the key stage 2 English tests (ie 'reading') . Why do these latter tests flatline? Where's the magic improvement supposedly won by pure phonics? </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">10. The Pirls results simply show an improvement in ranking. According to Pirls the Literacy standards in England stayed the same. According to Gibb, and the magic wand of systematic synthetic phonics, they should have massively improved. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">11. Why is Gibb being enthusiastic about 'reading for pleasure' and what is he really doing about it? He knows that the evidence that putting books into children's hands to browse, choose and read (and to discard!) improves literacy is overwhelming. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">12. He is being enthusiastic here because he knows the evidence. (I personally handed him the evidence at a meeting at the DfE) but it needs resourcing, supporting, training and given space in the curriculum. Simply saying 'Reading for pleasure' doesn't do the job. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">13. Even so, if in the last 10 years, Nick Gibb has done some amount of fostering and encouraging reading for pleasure, if then he claims success for literacy levels, how will he (and others) distinguish between success due to phonics and success due to Reading for Pleasure? </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">14. At the heart of the matter is whether 'meaning' matters as and when you learn to read. The 'pure' phonics argument was (still is?) that you should teach the abstract 'alphabetical principle of the writing system of English') BEFORE you deal with meaning. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">15. Though I (and others) are typified as being people who were 'against' phonics, that is untrue. I (and others) said that we were in favour of 'blended' methods which involve phonics but include reading for meaning eg through reading picture books - as many parents do anyway! </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">16. Fave Gibb moment: sitting with him on a panel in front of parents. He tells them that if they gave their young children books that included words that were NOT phonically regular, it would 'confuse' them. I went home and threw away our picture books immediately. Not. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">17. And beware value of Pirls rankings:</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Pirls themselves say: "Research findings suggest that many test-items do not necessarily perform in a comparable manner across countries and languages, which undermines the comparability of the pupils’ average performance estimates." (2016) </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">18. In case people think I'm lying about govt adherence to 'first, fast and only' while Gibb is now saying 'first and foremost' (note the retreat), here is what Ofsted is saying right now: ie 'first, fast and only'. (You're out of sync Nick!)</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD75pDX9e_h6dYq7UeElpiV9Et-oijYqH9D3nz0-CuyGZK0GZXIG620rRO1yfEvxCaZbNob4QDZKUaDOFgagXtCVZrZGzqnEo9MxretVEEflPs0QP4x05pQkJcucD-zgBVlPefQ7_eVr4oQWU7s62JJnfOZijFaooZMGou75QvIsMBKt7AjHMdeLqH/s1026/Screenshot%202023-05-21%20at%2015.04.50.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="354" data-original-width="1026" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD75pDX9e_h6dYq7UeElpiV9Et-oijYqH9D3nz0-CuyGZK0GZXIG620rRO1yfEvxCaZbNob4QDZKUaDOFgagXtCVZrZGzqnEo9MxretVEEflPs0QP4x05pQkJcucD-zgBVlPefQ7_eVr4oQWU7s62JJnfOZijFaooZMGou75QvIsMBKt7AjHMdeLqH/s320/Screenshot%202023-05-21%20at%2015.04.50.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Image</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">19. In fact what Ofsted are demanding here is absurd both in the field of reading and writing. It demands for example that we all stop sharing picture books with our 4,5,6 year olds! It demands stopping children experimenting writing eg their names, mostly not phonically regular! </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">20. Before Nick rushes to the newspapers to talk about this stuff, he should check what it is that his inspection system are trying to enforce on to early years, and then write about that.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">THREAD 2</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Second twitter thread today on reading and language:</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">1/There's an educational theory like this: clever people have broken down a particular bit of knowledge into its constituent parts. In education we'll start with the smallest bits, we'll call them 'building blocks' (metaphor borrowed from mechanics) and 'work up' from there.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">2/ There are several problems with this: a) what are being called 'constituent parts' may be disputed b) there may be 'parts' or 'processes' which are <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>crucial but which may not have been included in 'constituent parts' and the pedagogic one c) (see next tweet)</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">3/ c) that simply because a chunk of knowledge CAN be broken into certain supposed constituent parts, it may not follow that this is the best way to teach that chunk of knowledge.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">4/This is particularly so in the case of 'reading'. Reading is a kind of knowledge which involves many processes that's because language is complex and reading it is likewise.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">5/ It's possible to break down 'reading language' into various constituent parts and it's tempting to start with the smallest parts and 'work up' calling the smallest parts 'building blocks'. But we can ask, does this correspond to 'reading language'?</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">6/ The case in point is saying eg 'reading at its 'smallest' level is 'letters and sounds' so we should leave the bigger stuff - like 'meaning' (ie what language means) till later.' What's the problem with this?</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">7/ At heart, the problem is that it imports a 'mechanical model' (ie from the building trade - 'building blocks') into a mental and intellectual activity - reading language. We have developed language in order to make meanings for ourselves and between ourselves.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">8/ The theory behind first, fast and only systematic synthetic phonics is that it's desirable to start with the mechanically devised smallest units of language and leave the other stuff till later.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">9/ This asks of children to suspend their responsive, reflective, intellectual, interpretive selves while they decode and are tested for their decoding abilities. We see that some children can do this. Some can't or won't.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">10/ It's not the magic wand that the proponents have always claimed that it is. Essentially phonics teaching teaches phonics pretty well. It doesn't teach irregularities (because that needs other methods) and it doesn't teach meaning (ie interpretation, reflection).</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">11) Another answer might be to say, 'don't keep trying to find a magic wand in technique and think more about resources (ie books, libraries) and staffing (ie librarians, teachers, teaching assistants)'.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">12/ Another answer might be to look at the theory underpinning this. Instead of being 'mechanical', why not try being 'dynamic'? This involves thinking of all the processes of language and reading and moving between them as we teach and as children learn.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">13/ In case this sounds fiendishly difficult, just think of sitting with a four year old reading 'The Gruffalo' or 'Where the Wild Things Are' together for the 10th or 30th time (!) because the child has asked you to do that.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">14/ What happens? You read, the child joins in, asks questions, you answer, you ask questions, you talk about the pictures, the child points at words, you point at words, you point at letters, the child points at letters. When you're away from the book, you refer to it...</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">15/ Maybe you play with some of the sounds or ideas in the books. When you're out for a walk, you hunt for a Griffalo or a Ruffalo or a Tuffalo. Maybe your child draws their version of one of these. Maybe you scribe a story the child tells about it, maybe they try to write it.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">·</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">16/ Maybe you have some magnet letters (or some such) and you make words to do with The Gruffalo (or anything else (mum, dad, family names, local places, foods we like, or made-up words) using the letters.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">17/ None of this is as complex as the theory behind it ie 'dynamic' instead of 'mechanical'. The child is engaged with many elements and processes at the same time using their reflective, intellectual, interpretative minds putting the whole 'chunk of knowledge' together.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">18/ Of course at any time of choosing, we can 'notice'/talk about/look at patterns in English but neither extreme is true ie English is neither completely regular nor is it totally irregular. It's fun making up words using the regularities. Thus 'Jabberwocky' by Lewis Carroll and</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">19, eg Ning nang nong (Spike Milligan), plenty of Edward Lear's stuff and nursery rhymes. They use the regularity of English to create new words, names and sounds. Thus 'Humpty Dumpty' (which only occurs in that form in that rhyme but is readable because of the regularity of it.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">20/ But the power of these rhymes is that they are funny, they are playful, they are memorable, they are adaptable (make up your own), they are full of meaning and puzzlingly possible interpretations (was Humpty pushed?) and they are stories (narratives).</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">21/ So if you read these kinds of 'texts' with young children and play games with them, and integrate those into writing (in different forms pen-paper, fridge-magnets, writing in sand, pastry, mist on windows etc) you are teaching the whole language process in one.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">22/ But this whole language process method needs supporting all the way through and the best way to do that is through staffing, resourcing, training in what even Gibb concedes is necessary: Reading for Pleasure! (I'm glad he uses the research I gave him as evidence: Evans et al)</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">THREAD THREE</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">1/ Then there is the issue of 'talk' (or 'oracy'). We have to remember that talk is the primary act of language for small children. It's how they express what they know and need, their desires, fears, hates, anger, love etc.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">2/ Writing is not separate from talk. It was invented as a way of preserving what we say (or count) and then developed into certain specialised forms of expression not often or usually expressed exactly that way in speech and conversation.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">3/ For children, <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>(as with us) most saying/speaking/conversing is to make meaning - to express these things. We are showing them that writing can 'catch' some of this stuff and put it in front of them as writing on paper, screens, signs, anywhere.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">4/ Why not keep this connection going as we teach them to read? Put what's said and sayable on to paper (screen etc),put what they actually say on to paper etc, so they can see the value of doing it. Make sure that the texts we give them are very sayable and memorable and...</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">5/ ......and so they are 'bridges' between the oral world they live in and the written world we are inducting them into. They can be full of the phrases and sequences that they do say, or could say or might want to say, that they can repeat, want to repeat.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">6/ That way we show that writing is this brilliant invention that can seemingly magically 'catch' the stuff that we/they just walk about saying/doing. And vice versa, if the stuff they read is worth saying (fun saying) then you read it, know it, learn it, repeat it! Magic!</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">7/ Again, there is a theory behind this. It is saying that the reading language is not mechanical, it's dynamic and total. It's about reading, listening, speaking, writing...all in one. And it's so so simple. It's Humpty Dumpty and the Gruffalo and having a laugh.</div></div></div></div></div></div>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-63005138965162828752023-05-19T13:41:00.003+01:002023-05-19T13:41:25.099+01:00How to massage the media to send out a message to make people believe that 'Literacy' standards in England are improving:<p><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Guardian:</span></span></p><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">'Despite the improvement in ranking, England’s score remained virtually unchanged since the last round of assessments in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls), which took place in 2016, with its average actually dropping marginally...'</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">People reading headlines on how England is doing in 'Literacy' might have got the impression that it's going great. In fact, the scores have stayed the same but England's rank in the international table has gone <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>up. Like a football team that can play the same but go up the table.</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">So there's been a huge bit of highly successful media massage in order to claim that England's kids are doing better at literacy than ever before. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">In a word, this is rubbish. And amazingly, apart from this little para halfway through a Guardian article, no one's noticed.</span></div></div>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-92019003880599144462023-04-03T12:56:00.001+01:002023-04-03T12:56:26.686+01:00Focussing on the feeling in the flow: how to avoid critiquing 'Highway 61 Revisited'. <p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">I go on and on being amazed by 'Highway 61 Revisited'. How could someone that young have produced such images, feelings, sounds, cadences, ideas...? It's also taught me to swerve away from trying to analyse each word-use, each image, each sequence in terms of meaning but instead to focus on the feeling in the flow. This is very hard to describe in language but in a way it's a response on the edge of language anyway. So if Dylan sings, 'When you're lost in the rain in Juarez </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">and it's Easter Time too'...you (me) don't have to work out whether Dylan is really lost or why it's Easter and where is Juarez. That's too specific and 'referential'. Instead you can just 'sit in' the emotion of the line...After all he hands it to 'you' if 'you' want to take it. `it doesn't matter if you (me) hasn't ever been lost in the rain in Juarez. He's just saying imagine if you are, be in a daydream where you could be and think about that feels like.</span></span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">This runs totally counter to all that literary criticism that I (we) have been taught how to do, and indeed what I teach. That's why it's hard to describe this kind of response. I am over-tutored to do the other thing. I'm not saying all literature is like this - far from it, but it seems to me that there are various people who have tried to write poems, songs and fiction (or passages in fiction) like this, where what's uppermost is a feeling rather than what I'm calling 'referential' writing. I suspect that other writers like this are some of TS Eliot's early stuff, or Dylan Thomas. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Interestingly, I've heard Joan Baez describe how Dylan was at this time, manically reading and writing, writing and reading, just getting stuff down on the page. But of course, it's not all random. Far from it. Dylan was lucky to have in his head a vast bank of songs from the blues, Woody Guthrie, country music, as well as the literary stuff he was reading. So he could combine the 'feeling writing' of the modernists with the musical phrasing of these people. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Anyway, I'm listening over and over again to the tracks, not in order to extract more meaning from them but in order to not extract more meaning from them! But to try and sit in the lines (and it's a very 'line' oriented way of writing), letting one long line after another roll on. It's a fascinating thing to do and totally against the way I have listened or read most of the time. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">After all, he asks us 'how does it feel to be on your own?'. He doesn't say, work out what that means. He asks us to think about how we feel.</span></div></div>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-88024901230290871662023-01-03T11:44:00.006+00:002023-01-03T11:53:06.396+00:00Fronted adverbials? What about fronted adjectivals? <p><span style="font-size: large;"> <span>Anyone who teaches KS2 children (10 and 11 year olds) knows that they have to learn about fronted adverbials. In spite of the complicated name, they are not that difficult to 'get'. When we speak and write, we use 'main clauses'. The simplest forms of these are statements, questions, commands and exclamations - with no frills - as with 'I'm going out.' Or 'Do you want a biscuit?' Or 'Don't throw that!' Or 'What a great day!' We also add stuff to these main clauses which we do using words like 'when' or 'which' or 'and' or 'because'. And we can use phrases that begin with 'prepositions' like 'in', 'with' or 'through'. You can try making up some sentences doing all this, eg, 'When I'm fed up, I go for a walk'. Or, 'Do you want a biscuit, or would you rather have something else?' And so on. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One name for one kind of word is 'adverb'. It's a strange category of word because some examples are obvious because they appear to be doing what that word 'adverb' sounds like: they add something to a verb. Here we go: 'I'm eating quickly'. So 'quickly' adds something to the verb 'I'm eating'. It tells us more about how I'm eating. Conveniently, for word-spotters, it has an -ly ending which many adverbs have. Note: not all -ly words are called adverbs though! 'I hope you have a lovely time.' ('lovely' is called an 'adjective' because it tells us more about a 'noun' - in this case 'time'.) </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Adverbs: grammarians say that adverb is also the name for words that tell us more about adjectives, more about other adverbs, and more about whole sentences. Examples: 'You're really cross'. ('really' intensifies 'cross'. 'I'm running very fast.' You can think of many more of these and we keep coming up with new intensifiers like 'terrifically', 'amazingly' and so on.. We can also use adverbs that seem to be telling us more about whole sentences. We have a wide range of these doing quite different things. Try beginning sentences with these words, 'however', 'lately', 'furthermore', 'gradually', 'eventually'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I said there, 'try beginning a sentence'. Aha! In other words, that adverb will come in front of the main clause. It's fronted! It's a fronted adverbial. 'Gradually, I eased open the cupboard...' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, we can do this with more than one word. We can do it with phrases: 'Ever so gradually, I eased open the cupboard...' Or 'In a while, I'll do something else...' So, these are 'adverbial phrases' rather than single word 'adverbs'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Now go back to when I said that we can use words like 'when' and 'where'. We make sentences using these all the time and when we do, we can put them in front of the main clause or after them. 'When I dance, I waggle my eyebrows.' or 'I waggle my eyebrows, when I dance'. 'When I dance' is what some call an 'adverbial clause of time'. It's adverbial because it tells us more about 'waggle'. It's a clause because it includes a whole or 'finite' verb ('I dance') and it's about 'time' because it has the word 'when'. There are other kinds of adverbial clauses - try making up clauses beginning with eg 'if' or 'although'. You will have got it by now that if you can put an adverbial clause in front of the main clause then it's a 'fronted adverbial'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Put all that together: adverbs, adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses can be fronted. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So far so good. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Take a look at a passage of writing and you can see writers putting all sorts of things in front of the main clause. You can experiment. How about these - imagine some of them in poems, where we quite often like to 'front' or 'invert' the usual sentence order. Are they all 'fronted adverbials'? As a result of KS2 Grammar teaching, we might think they all are!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">How about these?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'Well-known for being a good speaker, Mary stood up and began.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'As a speaker of French, I knew what to say.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'Wearier than he had ever been before, old Jack sat in the corner.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">To my mind, these fronted phrases tell us more about Mary, 'I' and 'Jack'. In other words, they 'modify' (in these cases, proper noun and pronouns. Words that modify nouns, pronouns and proper nouns, get to be called 'adjectives'. So are these 'fronted adjectivals'? Well, according to the grammar being taught, no such thing exists. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Why not?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One reason I've been given is that grammarians have a secret definition of adverbs(!). Adverbs are words that modify - yes - but they are the kind of word that you can move about very flexibly in a sentence outside of noun phrases. Let's try it with the word 'apparently'. 'Apparently, Gareth liked peaches.' 'Gareth - apparently - liked peaches.' 'Gareth liked - apparently - peaches.' 'Gareth liked peaches, apparently'. Hmmm, some of those are easier to say than others but you can, with intonation, make them all work. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Does this make my phrases (I'm saying they are adjectival) become adverbial because they've been fronted? That doesn't seem right.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Now for a bit of logic. Let me introduce you to dangling or hanging modifiers. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Here's a sentence I spotted in the Guardian:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'As a former Bank of England economist, it must have struck Rachel Reeves that her old employer...etc etc.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Very strictly speaking, according to the old rules derived from Latin, different parts of sentences have to 'refer' to each other. Ask yourself what does the 'it' refer to? The 'it' seems to refer to 'As a former Bank of England economist' because the 'rule' says that a modifying clause or phrase has to modify the subject of the main clause - unless you slot in a phrase straight after the noun being referred to. The subject is 'it' but clearly the phrase refers to Rachel Reeves. (Incidentally, I'm not bothered one bit by this, I'm simply citing the kind of 'rule' that people like me were taught.) One way out of this supposed 'error' is to write, 'It must have struck Rachel Reeves, as a former Bank of England economist, that her employer etc etc...' Slotting the phrase in straight after Rachel Reeves, prevents the modifying phrase from dangling, we might say.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Why am I saying all this? Because that sentence is an example of fronting. AND, if it's an example of a dangling modifier, in this case, it must be adjectival - either modifying 'it' (no) or Rachel Reeves (yes). So it's a fronted adjectival.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But no, say the grammarians, fronted adjectivals don't exist. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Why do I think any of this matters?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">1. Making a great big fuss about fronted adverbials is nothing to do with 'grammar' and everything to do with 'style' or 'stylistics'. I resent the fact that grammarians have nosed their way into the matter of style in writing, demanding and claiming that their version of how we describe language is right. I resent the fact that they are imposing this particular stylistic trick on to primary school children as if it's in some way or another more important than 100s of other stylistic tricks we can go in for. This field could have been left to people who are great at talking about stylistics. This would have been much more useful for children and their writing. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2. I think I have shown that there's something faulty or inconsistent in the way the language is being described here. Logically, there is clearly a way in which we can front adjectives and adjectival phrases. They must therefore be as equally interesting or uninteresting as fronted adverbials. I suspect that something arbitrary has taken place. The grammar curriculum was put together in a rush by a group of grammarians hired by Michael Gove to do a job that had nothing to do with grammar or language. Grammar was chosen as a topic for assessing teachers. This was done by the Bew Report (2011). It was decided that Grammar could be tested because, it was said, it had 'right and wrong' answers. This is nonsense, as has been shown by many people including Professor David Crystal (see the famous 'The sun shone bright' example). In the rush to find what the grammarians thought were suitable topics for testing children, they arrived at 'fronted adverbials'. One account of what happened suggests that one grammarian just came up with it on the spur of the moment and it was quickly shoe-horned into the curriculum. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">3. Clearly, fronting takes place in English. People do it all the time when speaking or writing. The most common one is using the word 'hopefully' at the beginning of a sentence! But as I've said, it's just a matter of style. Singling it out as super-important, or as a feature we should be concentrating on because it's good, is illogical and absurd. There is no virtue in fronting or not fronting. Some fronting is good. Some fronting is naff. And as to whether it's adverbial or adjectival has just complicated matters for everyone concerned. I've highlighted it simply in order to point out the feebleness of the terminology that they insist is accurate and necessary. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Elsewhere on this blog, I've pointed out that there are plenty of other examples of dodgy terminology, disputed terms that they demand children learn as if they are the final and sole ways of describing language. I've leave you with one of them: 'I'm going out tomorrow'. The 'tense of the verb in that sentence is described as 'present progressive' though we used to call it 'present continuous'. The names of these parts of speech keep changing and no one ever explains why they change! Another absurdity! So that's a 'present' tense but clearly the sentence is talking about something happening in the future - ie 'tomorrow'. In other words, a particular verb form is not automatically referring to a particular time-frame. The word 'tense' is not always useful or relevant when talking about English. Much better, would be to have a concept of sentences being able to indicate time through a variety of words. In this case, 'tomorrow' is part of how that sentence indicates time. Conceptually, thinking of time as fixed by verbs and verbs alone is faulty. The daft thing is that once you accept that language is varied, full of variants, and ever-changing, you can rid yourself of these prescriptive ways of describing language and come up with much better, flexible ways of doing it. But then you can't come up with the false concept that grammar is right or wrong, can you? (Bew Report). And then force teachers to teach it, so that teachers can be assessed...</span></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-40131307805053533072022-11-17T08:51:00.002+00:002022-11-17T08:54:30.037+00:00Caroline Benn Lecture: Socialist Education Association talk on 'What have the arts ever done for us?'<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s an honour and a delight to be giving this talk in the name of Caroline Benn. I didn’t know Caroline personally but I was lucky enough to see and hear her speak on one occasion - at a meeting on comprehensive education, I think, and I read a few of her writings. I’m very glad that her name is attached to the idea that groups of us can meet and talk about education as we’re doing tonight. This involves a principle: that talking about education matters. That may seem obvious but let’s do a bit of a walk-around of what I’ve just said - before we get on with the subject of tonight’s talk. It’s very relevant, as you’ll see, because it’s about <b>how things happen and get done (or not done) in education. The ‘realpolitik’ of education, if you like.</b></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I confess, I’ve come to a rather cynical conclusion about education and ‘ideas in education’ - the very thing we’re doing today. I believe that w<b>hat actually happens in schools and in classrooms</b> has become less and less to do with what classroom teachers believe in and more and more to do with the <b>decisions that ministers of education make.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I come from a tradition - in my family actually, (both my parents) - who believed that <b>education for all</b> improved through an <b>exchange of ideas</b> between practising teachers and former teachers who had become teacher-trainers, inspectors and advisers. This exchange took place through talks, books, papers, reports and conferences. The shelves in our house when I was growing up, bowed under the weight of this mass of words.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As many of you know, something changed in 1988 and for whichever political party or parties who have been in power, education has been something to be planned, <b>run and ordered from the top,</b> from government. This has been implemented through acts which have restructured schools, inspection, assessment, examinations, created league tables, made statutory demands on the curriculum, along with non-statutory requirements which become de facto demands through inspection and assessment. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As an aside, I seem to remember that the journalist, Simon Jenkins, once called this the ‘nationalisation’ of education, which poses a challenge to those of here who call ourselves socialists.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Anyway,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in my lifetime, one consequence of this centralisation is that it has involved changes in at least two different ways:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">1) a clampdown on initiatives that came from that school of thought and action that believed in the process that I’ve called the ‘exchange of ideas process’. (An example that I saw at close quarters, the rise and fall (at great expense) of the “Language in the National Curriculum Project” for reasons that seemed entirely to do with the fact that ideas were being shared outside of government control.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and 2) Adjustments made by people who work through NGOs, advisory bodies, charities, consultancies, not on the basis of what is argued for but on the basis of what <b>has to be done</b> because the government say it has to be done.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>To take one example of how this works</b>: what’s called ‘grammar’ in primary schools. This was introduced half way through a report on assessment and accountability - the Bew Report 2011. It seems as if the Secretary of State at the time decided that a good way to assess teachers would be to demand that children aged 10 and 11 should sit an exam in grammar. The justification for this was that grammar tests would give examiners fail-safe right and wrong answers. In other words, teachers would teach a form of grammar that certain terms (like ‘present perfect tense’ and certain forms of language-use (like ‘subject verb agreement’) are either <b>right or wrong.</b> If children failed to pass this exam, this would show that teachers were not doing their job.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>You may have noticed that this doesn’t have much to do with <b>what’s good for children</b>, and has a lot to do with <b>what’s good for data collectors</b>, in this case the government. It’s a system that gives them data which, they believe, proves whether teachers are any good or not.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">However, there is no linguistic justification for saying that all grammar of all language-use produces right and wrong answers. I’m learning a language right now, (2 hour classes every Sunday night) and every lesson is full of expressions from the teacher like: ‘you can say this, or<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>you can say that’<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and ‘some people say this and some people say that’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If you think I’ve been talking nonsense about language so far, I’ll ask you to have a think about a piece of language that some of us see nearly everyday: the words ‘no smoking’ written up on the walls of places we pass through. An excellent piece of writing, I think. I think all of us in the room know what it means and yet it doesn’t<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>make sense. Think about it: at face value (not its real meaning), it seems to be some kind of statement about how there’s no smoking going on! And yet we all know, in fact,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>it’s a demand or command. But school grammar tells us something else. It says that commands are structured differently: as in ‘Resign!’ or ‘Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.’ But as we know ‘no smoking’ i<b>n the context we find it,</b> means ‘don’t smoke’ this would suggest that language is indeed much more than grammar and it is not what the Bew Report said it was - namely that it’ll produce right and wrong answers.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Just to be clear, I’m talking about this, to remind ourselves that the place we’re in is that the Secretary of State can, could and did decide what would go on in every classroom he was statutorily in charge of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- not because it was justified in intellectual terms <b>but because it would be a good way to assess teachers</b>. The knock-on effect of this was that the curriculum subject we call ‘writing’ changed - <b>some of which is part of the arts</b>. Good writing, was now called meeting ‘the required level’ which meant that it had to incorporate features of this ‘grammar’. I was told at one parents’ meeting that our offspring was doing good writing because he was embedding his relative clauses.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Those of us who both write and who are interested in linguistics scratched our heads: our writing and the writing of millions of our predecessors is full of good writing which does NOT incorporate features of this particular form of grammar - the first pages of ‘Bleak House’ being a wonderful example.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">However, the secondary consequence is the flowering of advice, consultations, publications and conferences which implement something - in this case ‘grammar’ -<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>whose real justification as I say, was not linguistic, (not intellectual if you like), but <b>purely administrative</b>: how to assess teachers. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If you don’t believe me on the absurdity of this, I will share with you a bit of gossip: the Secretary of State in question looked over the materials that his team of linguists had assembled for the first grammar test. He was disappointed to see that there was no mention of the subjunctive. He asked them to put the subjunctive in the test. They wobbled. The subjunctive in English is a contested matter. There IS something different we do with verbs in certain structures but linguists who glance across at other languages - French, say,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- can see that our subjunctive isn’t as big as theirs…so perhaps we should call our ‘thingy’ something else? No, no, no, said the Secretary of State, I want the subjunctive to be in. So that’s why every year hundreds of thousands of children study the subjunctive, do a test in the subjunctive, and then 99% of them forget about it for the rest of their lives.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If you think this is trivial, then you might be interested to know that many of the other concepts, terms and processes described as right and wrong by this kind of grammar are contested too. (See me later for examples.) Indeed the very idea that language-use can be reduced to naming of parts and a pre-ordained structure of a written sentence is contested. (Again, see me later for examples.)</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Why am I talking about this in a talk billed as being about the arts?</b> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Because anything and everything we do in schools is about a choice between what to do and what not to do. <b>But this is not a free choice.</b> Parts of the school day have been pre-determined. A good deal of the school day is a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Choice Free Zone. Any discussion of the arts in education has to take this on board.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My argument so far, then is that whatever I say today about the arts takes place in the contexts I’ve just described - call it what you will - central control, government requirements or whatever. However, it’s not a central control <b>for all our children</b>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Again, in one of the weirdnesses of our education system, what is a diktat directed to one set of children, is not a diktat for another set. Someone like me who passes from school to school can hardly believe what I hear when teachers in one kind of school tell me that ‘we have to do such-and-such’ and a teacher in another kind of school says that ‘we don’t have to do’ that very same such-and such. I have to reassure myself that the reason for this is that, say,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I’ve passed from England to Wales, or from a local authority school to an academy or from one kind of academy to another kind of academy or for other reasons that I haven’t understood.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This too is part of the context in which we talk about arts in schools. In other words, a complex dance is going on across education in which some schools are doing more arts education than other schools and that the reasons for this are to be found deep in real or imagined demands from central government, or from other authorities who run education at a lower level - Multi-academy trusts, inspectors and the like. Because this IS such a complex dance, I am not going to ply you with statistics on how the arts are being squeezed out of schools - or as I should say SOME schools.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When I go into schools, I perform poems. I do quite a lot of that in a way that enables the children to learn some of the poems I perform. We perform the poems together, then and there.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">At that moment, we become a pop-up, instant <b>arts community</b>. We have something in our collective repertoire that only we have in this exact form. Yes, I’ll go away and do that with another school, but it won’t be the same. I won’t say the same words, they won’t say it in the same way. So there is a <b>uniqueness </b>about it. Please hang on to that idea.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’ll also suggest something else. That school can take that poem away and do what they want with it and I can’t control what they do with it because it’s in their minds.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There’s more. Quite often I might make some suggestions. They could do some drawings to go with it. They could video themselves performing it. They could change it in any way<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>they want - add lines, take away lines. They could take out some words and put in others - or they could just go off in whatever direction they wanted. Perhaps an idea from one word or phrase might grab them because it reminded them of something that happened in their lives or wish that that they could do.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So what’s that all about? <b>That’s about seeing art as generating art</b>. And I talked about several things there: like <b>one art form interpreting another </b>as with doing pictures to do with the poem, say; also, <b>how one piece of art offers up possibilities to a person to create something of their own </b>- maybe through its shape, sound, feel, tone, image and so on. A process that some like Pie Corbett, call ‘imitate and invent’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Now I said a few things there that need dwelling on. I’ll pick some of them out. Here’s one: <b>one art form interpreting another.</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Education is very much about the <b>status of particular kinds of knowledge </b>or one kind of process or one kind of subject being more important than other. This affects all of us for the whole of our lives about how we see ourselves, how we see culture and how we see society. You could do a little chart right now of what education taught you about how you put ‘important stuff’ at the top, not-so-important stuff in the middle and unimportant stuff at the bottom.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For me, education taught me that the important stuff at the top would be ‘writing essays’. I wrote essays non-stop every week from the age of 10 till the age of 23, I broke off for a few years, and then wrote some more when I did an MA. In fact, this talk is an essay too. It is one of the things I do, write essays. But then, when I look around me I can see lots of people not writing essays. Am I more important than them because I wrote loads of essays and am still writing them now? Are they less important because they go deep-sea diving or design bridges?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And what is in my ‘not-so-important stuff’ category as taught to me by my education? In other words, what was pushed to the edge or left out entirely? Well, talking of designing and building things, I don’t think I ever designed anything once I got past nursery school, when I did spend some time designing houses with building blocks. But as we’re talking about the arts today, <b>my education taught me that the arts are mostly what you do in your spare time </b>or you study them in terms of <b>knowledge about </b>them: - how to say things <b>about </b>bits of them which examiners say showed that I understood them, and appreciated some principles and techniques about them.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Of quite low or of no status at all was a sense that education should involve <b>reflecting on one’s own identity, or culture </b>and how that had a history, or how that fitted in with other people’s identities, culture and history. And you might guess where I’m going with that thought - that the arts are very good at helping people do just that: <b>the arts help us situate ourselves as individuals in groups, groups in society and history.</b> So, if you think that these kinds of reflection should be higher up the chart, then the arts are a good way for doing that.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But let me loop back to that matter of <b>‘interpretation’</b>. I described an example: making pictures to go with a poem. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think the Secretary of State for Education who I mentioned earlier ever said that this would be an important thing to do. Certainly not as important as the subjunctive.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But why not?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Let’s go on a tour: the Sistine Chapel. I’m guessing that most of you can hold in your mind at least one image from the Sistine Chapel…there’s a naked man lying on his back with his arm outstretched…and above him to one side is another man, not so naked, with a big beard, and this man is surrounded with people who look like they’re in his gang and they all seem to be flying along in what looks like a flying hut. This is regarded as one of the world’s greatest works of art.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">(As you know it’s by someone we English call Michelangelo as if he’s an Italian footballer who plays in England called Angelo, first name Michael. I only mention that because a big deal is always made out of the fact that when we ‘do’ my subject in schools - literature - it has to be<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>British but when we do other subjects, we let in foreigners but we often anglicise them to make them seem at least a bit English. So we get to be proud of Michelangelo.)</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He sculpted the statue of David too. These are right up at the top in status in society though the activity involved in producing such things are not ‘done’ very much in the curriculum. As Peter Kay would say, ‘what’s that all about?’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What it’s all about is that there is some kind of disjunct between some kinds of high status activity ‘out there’ (in society) and what we do in schools. What Michelangelo was doing was <b>interpreting</b> something: the Bible, not by writing an essay but through the arts. You know that. In fact, every stately home, art gallery, concert hall, cinema<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>we<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>go in,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>is jam- packed with <b>interpretations.</b> Look through the list of operas, ballets, movies, paintings, sculptures and ask yourself how many of them involve interpretations and adaptations?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Michelangelo called one of his statues David. That’s a giveaway. Not all art is so upfront about its interpretations. When Maurice Sendak produced ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ he didn’t write on the opening page, “Thanks to the Odyssey, I have created a story about a male figure who does something wrong, sails away, meets some monsters, overcomes them and comes home.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Clearly there are levels and degrees in this interpretation game.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My point though is that when we look at a Michelangelo, we<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>can (if we want to) think about the relation between what we see (like the statue)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and what it’s called: ‘David’; we know what he is interpreting. Now come to school. You’re doing GCSE literature. You’re doing ‘Macbeth’. What kind of status would a Michelangelo-type interpretation of Macbeth have in relation to the status of an essay like - and I’m quoting here):</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="color: #1f2122; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 19px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>“The fantastical and grotesque witches are among the most memorable figures in the play. How does Shakespeare characterize the witches? What is their thematic significance?”</b></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Alternatively, I’m guessing that quite a few of you in the room can quote at least a couple of lines that the witches say in ‘Macbeth’….Let me try you, ‘Double double,…’toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble’. How many of you at secondary school (not primary) got a chance to write your own song, inspired by the rhythms or images or themes of that song?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My point is that <b>we demote the value of doing artistic interpretations </b>and<b> promote the value of doing essays.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So my question now is why?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This raises another whole set of questions for us to do with, what are the arts actually for? what can they do for us? And why should we spend time doing it in school? and, if we have time, what might be the <b>best ways </b>to do the arts in schools?</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So, what follows is a kind of checklist of what do the arts do for us:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">1. At the core of the idea of arts is <b>creation</b>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We’ve already had one glimpse at creation today with me invoking Michelangelo. Creation is about making something <b>new</b>. That’s what God is doing in the picture. Adam is new. So as we make something - poem, film, dance - there is a sense that this is in its own way unique. It can’t and won’t be exactly the same as anything else.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Why might that be important in education?</b> How often do people in schools get that sense that they are the authors or originators of something unique and new? Not often. And yet we know that this is a crucial part of what we call ‘self-realisation’ but also of ‘group and community realisation’ as we see and admire so much, say when we watch Gareth Malone bringing choirs coming together on TV. If we are part of something like that we get a sense that <b>we matter.</b> The converse of that is that great motor for depression and mental illness: <b>that we don’t matter</b>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">2. But I’ve also talked today about what is in effect a kind of <b>borrowing</b>. When we create something new with any art form, we also borrow. If we want to be pejorative about this, we call it plagiarism, if we want to celebrate it we call it things like ‘influence’. The theorists’ word for it in literature is ‘intertextuality’, we write with what Roland Barthes called ‘the already’. If we want it to be, this can be exciting and hugely informative about the human condition. In effect, <b>we explore what others have done in order to find a voice or idea for ourselves.</b> If you make up a limerick, you borrow the limerick form. If you make a film in which it rains when someone is miserable, you’ve borrowed the ‘pathetic fallacy’ as it’s called. If you decide that the motive for someone to be violent towards someone is money or sexual rivalry, if you’re a young person, you may or may not know that one or two writers have done that before! You can, if you want, delve into the history of motives and that takes you to the human condition. Borrowing is good.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">3. Another key feature of the arts is that they are <b>experimental</b>. They involve trial and error. We have a go. We see if it works. If it doesn’t we try again. If it works, we carry on. In an ideal world this should be (I would say) without a fear of failure. The only sense of failure, (I would say) should come from inside, not from a fear of failing an exam or a fear of punishment. Again, thinking of education, this is a counter-weight to an enormous amount of education which is dominated by a fear of failure. Failure is built into the system, right from when we test children in phonics when they are infants through to A-levels and degrees. The other word or words for trial and error without fear of failure is ‘free play’. I think one way to view the arts is that they can be a centre for particular kinds of free play.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">4. I’ve mentioned already that a lot of it involves <b>interpretation</b>…some kind of statement about I the maker (or we the makers) think about another piece of art. I also think, as I’ve said, that this enables us to look from one piece of art in one medium across to a piece of art in another. This involves many kinds of analysis, pulling aspects of one and transferring it across to another. I’ve just seen the new Kazuo Ishiguro film. This is how it’s described:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><i>Living</i></b> is a 2022 British <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama_(film_and_television)"><span class="s1" style="color: #092f9d;">drama</span></a> film directed by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Hermanus"><span class="s1" style="color: #092f9d;">Oliver Hermanus</span></a> from a screenplay by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuo_Ishiguro"><span class="s1" style="color: #092f9d;">Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a>, adapted from the 1952 Japanese film <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikiru"><span class="s1" style="color: #092f9d;"><i>Ikiru</i></span></a> directed by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Kurosawa"><span class="s1" style="color: #092f9d;">Akira Kurosawa</span></a>, which in turn was inspired by the 1886 Russian novella <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Ivan_Ilyich"><span class="s1" style="color: #092f9d;"><i>The Death of Ivan Ilyich</i></span></a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy"><span class="s1" style="color: #092f9d;">Leo Tolstoy</span></a>. Set in 1953 London, it depicts a bureaucrat (played by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nighy"><span class="s1" style="color: #092f9d;">Bill Nighy</span></a>) facing a fatal illness.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So Kurosawa interpreted Tolstoy and Ishiguro has interpreted Kurosawa’s interpretation in order to show us something of how a man can’t or doesn’t change until death forces him to look on things in a different way.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Of course Shakespeare did this all the time, grabbing stories from wherever he could in order to bring out different ways in which people try to change their circumstances. You know those plastic hair brushes that you can bend back on themselves and they reveal the gunk at the base of the spines? I often think of writers and artists doing that, bending stories back on themselves to reveal what’s going on out of sight, in people’s minds.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">5. Most art-making involves <b>reflection</b>…some of it is thinking egotistically about what am I doing, how am I doing it, why am I doing it this way…but also reflecting on the subject that I’m creating - the person I’m painting, the object I’m looking at and so on. There is interaction then between <b>reflection on the self</b> and <b>reflection on the subject.</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Thinking educationally, this is very different from what a lot of education offers which is, in a sense, the subject. We spend a lot of time learning how to keep ourselves <b>out of the subject</b>. When you’re supposed to be learning a double page spread on the extraction of metal from rock, no one in school is interested in <b>what you feel</b> about metal being in rock, or whether you’re excited to see it coming out of the rock. In fact, the chances of you seeing a bit of rock, or actually getting any metal out of a bit of rock are pretty low anyway. (I speak from experience as a parent trying to help one of my children learn one such double page spreads in his text book.)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The arts have the potential of reversing this and, asking the opposite question: what do you think about this bit of rock? As the jargon we have it, it can be person-centred.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">6. As part of this, a lot of art-making involves <b>empathy</b>. It involves taking up the point of view of the ‘other’. Do we think empathy is important? If so, where do we get it from? It’s not an off-the-shelf commodity. It has to come from some kind of mind-work, in which we move from putting ourselves at the centre of the universe towards seeing ourselves as part of a group, locality, region, country or the human race as a whole. If we create anything that involves representing someone who is different from ourselves, we will have to be empathetic.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I might say that <b>society, civilisation and the human race depends on empathy</b>. I don’t think that the arts are the only way in which we reach this but I think it can and should be part of it. In fact, if we create art in groups - as in schools - there is a level of empathy that goes on through the act of creating a dance, a play, a film together. Why does so-and-so move like that, how does that person’s singing express emotion?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">7. Again, a lot of art-making, involves <b>conjuring up</b> things, exploring what we call our <b>imagination</b>. At a surface level these fantasies, images, scenes may not appear to be identical or similar to what we experience but we don’t have to be psychoanalysts to know that what we imagine starts out from personal experience and often curves back in some way or another to who we are and how we think and feel. We might say <b>we turn our feelings into phantoms.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Why might the imagination be important in education? One way of answering that is by saying that <b>we stand or fall by our ability to imagine</b>. The clearest example in recent times was the imagination of the scientists who invented the Covid vaccines. I’m no expert - at least not in the vaccine side of Covid - but there was one part of the process in the invention which involved rethinking the shape and way in which the vaccine operates in the blood.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Every day, the human race faces problems, many - perhaps all - of which will or do involve imagination in figuring out how to solve them. You might think that might put the subject or the theme or the practice of imagination in some kind of important place in education. Is it?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><b></b><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Well that depends on which kind of school.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’ve been in some schools where it is. I don’t often go into private schools. When I do, it’s as part of a deal that they have invited in the local state schools. I am usually staggered by the kind of facilities that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>have been created so that the students can indeed explore their imaginations through music, drama and art. Now why would that be? Why would schools which are designed to produce people at the top of society think that the arts have such an important role to play in their formation?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Or should we ask another question:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>do the people who’ve created such facilities think something along these lines - I’m imaging this (!):<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>“well, yes, there is the curriculum which if you succeed at it, will take you to the next level in education but actually, we can’t be 100% certain what life will be like for these students in ten, twenty, or thirty years time. They may have to be flexible, creative, imaginative human beings just as much as they have to be able to absorb and understand knowledge.’</b></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I’ve heard a schools minister say almost the opposite and talk instead of education serving the prime purpose of equipping the students who leave school with ‘marketability’. The job of education in other words i<b>n his terms</b> is to enhance the value of the students’ potential labour power in the jobs that exist right now. But who knows what’s coming down the line?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>(Mind you, even with that limited functionalist approach, it does overlook that in certain places in the country and the world there are a lot of jobs in the creative industries. )</b></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">8. Carrying on with what the arts offer: The arts also often involve <b>archaeology</b> - exploring stuff that has happened to us. We go digging, dredging, trawling in our minds. Or alternatively things seem to pop up out of the ‘ground’ of our minds and say to our conscious selves - explain that, describe that, talk about that! The sneer about this activity is that it’s navel-gazing. My own view is that <b>we can’t know why we do what we do, unless we look back at what we’ve done and what was done to us</b>. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Education itself is a big process which endures. One thing the arts in schools can do is give a space for students to reflect on where they are in this process . That is: arts in schools can help children and school students reflect along these lines:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b> ‘how did I respond when told to do this or that, or when I encountered this or that form of knowledge?’<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’m learning Yiddish. Every time I encounter a letter or word or expression I encounter my interactions with my parents, grandparents and relatives.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>They had spoken it when they were children but as they only spoke it in fragments I look back at their use of Yiddish as if I’m looking through misted glass but then each piece of Yiddish the teacher says, wipes the glass and gives me a glimpse of them as children and teenagers, talking, laughing and crying in Yiddish. That’s a reflection on my learning and it helps me to learn more. (You may have noticed I reflected on my learning just then <b>artistically</b> - using similes ‘as if through misted glass’!)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">9. In a seemingly mundane but important way, the arts for children can also involve <b>cognitive activities</b>. As we create something we have to figure out how it might work either in the real world<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>or in the world we have created. Could my character get from there to here in that amount of time? Do people really catch pneumonia and die if they get wet and cold? This function of the arts is particularly important for y young children.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">10. We’re interested in education in <b>abstract thought and categories or generalisations.</b> We often think of the arts as being almost the opposite to such interests. The arts we often think of as being specific. In fact, something often goes on in the arts - whether we’re making or witnessing (reading, watching etc), is that <b>we keep making analogies</b>. Analogies are the root of abstract thought. We say that one thing is like another and therefore come under an abstract heading, as it were. If I’m writing, say, about being ill, I think about other people being ill, other pieces of writing about people being ill, other things that other people have said about being ill. What I’m doing here is working to the category of ‘being ill’ and filling it up with illustrations and examples of different ways of being ill.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As I started writing in 2020 about being ill in hospital, I filled out my sense of how I was coping,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>with thinking about, say, my father and how he coped with being ill. The concrete examples from myself and who I was comparing myself to,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>informed the abstract or generalised notion of ‘illness’ and the subset notion, ‘how do we cope with illness’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We might do the same for emotions like ‘anger’ or ‘fear’. We might create a picture or a poem that expresses ‘anger’ or ‘fear’ that starts out from a very specific moment in which fear or anger is expressed but in so doing we make the analogies or comparisons with others.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>This is the basis for how and why we are each in our own ways philosophers…creating categories and abstracts full of illustrations and examples that fit or don’t fit. <b>The arts give us a space in which we can do this.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">11. I’ve already covered this in some ways, but the arts also involve a lot of <b>exploring and investigating</b>. On the one hand we explore and investigate ourselves - sometimes consciously, sometimes not…what kind of person am I doing this? But actually, a lot of the exploring and investigating is of <b>the material</b> we are using. We explore and investigate what it can do…the clay, paint, film, the human body, wood, or of course language…</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">12. The arts involve - as I’ve said - exploring <b>possibilities </b>and t<b>he possibilities of change</b> and the <b>possibilities for change.</b> Throughout the creation process things change, but also we often show people, or places changing. The whole world of literature and the narrative arts (film, plays, opera, ballet) involve people changing as they interact with other people or physical and scientific changes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And in all this, there is a principle: in changing stuff (the stuff we use in the art-making) we change ourselves. <b>In changing stuff, we change ourselves.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s worth dwelling on this for a moment.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’m not against knowledge. Far from it, I’ve worshipped at the altar of knowledge all my life. I also believe that getting knowledge is fulfilling and important and helpful. However, there is another kind of knowledge that I feel that I have from art-making, creating, writing. That is: in art-making I (or on occasions ‘we’) have some power in what we are doing. And as we exercise that power, there comes a sense that I change. <b>Perhaps that part of arts-making is what bothers people who control education.</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">13. Then finally, grouping some of all these categories and ideas together, there is a sense that as we engage in art-making, <b>we become part of something that is bigger than us and bigger that what we are making. </b>Call it tradition, or heritage or culture, if you like. It’s the slow realisation that the thing I am making is part of what humans have been doing for thousands of years. I gave the example of Where the Wild Things Are. I talked of it as a kind of borrowing. But it’s also <b>being part of history of what human beings do to understand the world.</b> The Odyssey, we might imagine, helped people in its time understand something of who they are, how they cope with danger, how they realise themselves through action. Thousands of years later, Maurice Sendak, we might imagine, helps people understand something to do with emotions that get out of control, or even, perhaps, looking for love. You’ll remember perhaps that Max, the hero wants to be somewhere where someone loves him best of all. Does he find that person? You decide.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">—————————</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So there were some 13 reasons why the arts are important and why we should have a place for them in all schools, so let’s finish with a thought about school.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">——————————-</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Schools are unique.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>They bring together people of many different backgrounds, personalities, attitudes and feelings. They may be the first and last places where the people in them can create things and share them with strangers and with people who care for them (parents and carers).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 23px;"><b></b><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>This means that: </b>Schools can be production houses, publishing houses, theatres, concert halls, art galleries. It may be that many if not for most of the people in a school this will be the first and last time they can be the artist in those venues or publishing their work.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This involves thinking of schools, then, being at least some of the time, having these kinds of functions. This then means that yes, there are lessons, but that some of the day is involved in arts production. Yes, I know this is what schools often do after school or in breaks but this in itself is a statement: it says that teachers should run such activities in their spare time, and that it’s not as important as the stuff that goes on in lessons for the curriculum and exams. The spare time model also denies that <b>the arts are a human right for all</b>. It says that they are a matter of preference only.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’m not sure that’s OK. In fact, I think looking at this matter through <b>the prism of human rights</b> is a good way of thinking of it. And with that in mind, I’ll finish with my 10 part guide to making arts education democratic.</p><p class="p5" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">In my ideal world pupils engaged in the arts should be able to:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">1) have a sense of ownership and control in the process of making and doing</p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">2) have a sense of possibility, transformation and change – that the process is not closed ended with predictable, pre-planned outcomes, but that unexpected outcomes or content are possible</p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">3) feel safe in the process, that no matter what they do, they will not be exposed to ridicule, relentless assessment and testing, fear of being wrong or making errors</p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">4) feel the process can be individual, co-operative or both, accompanied by supportive and co-operative commentary which is safeguarded and encouraged by teachers</p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">5) feel there is a flow between the arts, that they are not boxed off from each other according to old and fictitious boundaries and hierarchies</p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">6) feel they are working in an environment that welcomes their home cultures, backgrounds, heritages and languages into the process with no superimposed hierarchy</p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">7) feel that what they are making or doing matters – that the activity has status within the school and beyond</p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">8) be encouraged and enabled to find audiences for their work whether in the same school, other schools or in the communities beyond the school gate</p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">9) be exposed to the best practice and the best practitioners possible or available in order to see and feel other possibilities</p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">10) be encouraged to think of the arts as including or involving investigation, invention, discovery, play and co-operation and that these happen both within the actual making and doing but also in the talk, commentary and critical dialogue that goes on around the activity itself</p><p class="p7" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px; min-height: 26px;"><br /></p><p class="p7" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px; min-height: 26px;"><br /></p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">Across the many years I've been involved with arts education, I have seen countless projects, schemes, partnerships and programmes, on and off site, being developed, flowering and then getting phased out. Agencies have come and gone, reports have been written and re-written. To my mind, much of this seems too arbitrary, too inconsistent and too temporary.</p><p class="p6" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">The way to take the arts seriously is not to defend this or that art form for its own sake. Pursuing arts activities with humane and democratic principles in mind is where the benefit lies.</p><p class="p7" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px; min-height: 26px;"><br /></p><p class="p8" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 25px;"><br /></p><p class="p8" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 25px;"><br /></p><p class="p8" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 25px;"><br /></p><p class="p8" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 25px;"><br /></p><p class="p8" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 25px;"><br /></p><p class="p8" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 25px;"><br /></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-18028493397504923572022-09-20T11:22:00.007+01:002022-09-20T21:24:16.329+01:00Now we know what History is...<p><span style="font-size: large;"> <span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">For a week </span></span></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">we've had a lesson in </span></span></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">history.</span></span></p><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Correction:</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">we've had a lesson on </span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>'what is </span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">history'.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">For a week</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">there has been space</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">(quite a lot of space, actually)</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">for people to tell us that </span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">what we've been looking at is</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">history</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">or that it's</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">history</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">in the making</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">or that it's </span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">one of the most important events </span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">we'll ever see in</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">history.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">That's a lot of people </span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">for a long time</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">telling us,</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">what is</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">history.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">It seems that what's happened is</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">history</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">because a monarch</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">in a constitutional monarchy has died.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">For several centuries</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">people struggled to wrest power</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">from monarchs in this country</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">precisely so that they couldn't affect</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">history,</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">which they had been doing </span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">for hundreds of years before.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Once they had taken power</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">away from the monarchy</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">they said,</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Parliament is 'sovereign',</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">'it expresses the 'will of the people'.'</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I learned this at school.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">So the people have the power,</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">my teachers said</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">and somehow between the people</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">and parliament,</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">history</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">is made.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Others, later,</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">told me that history</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">is made in the great clash</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">between the forces of </span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">those who own nearly everything</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">and those who own hardly anything,</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">but other people said</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">that's a terrible thing to say about</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">history,</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">so I won't mention that again.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">To sum up:</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">this week it's all become much clearer:</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">one monarch has gone</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">another has arrived</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">and this is</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">history?</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Is it though? </span></div>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-13902093893738757812022-09-11T19:24:00.004+01:002022-09-11T21:58:26.774+01:00Reading for Pleasure: how and why does it enable children to do better at school? What can we do to foster it? What creative ways of responding and interpreting help in this too? <p><span style="font-size: large;">Increasingly, people in education are becoming interested in Reading for Pleasure (RfP). There are some great books and booklets about it. People like the National Literacy Trust, CLPE, UKLA, Booktrust, Reading Rocks and Teresa Cremin at the Open University have researched it and developed a variety of ways of encouraging it and fostering it. Over at gov.uk you can find several pages on Research Evidence for RfP. The NUT (one of the predecessors to the NEU) produced an excellent booklet on RfP written by the children's writer (and friend of mine) Alan Gibbons. I've written a booklet on it ('Reading for Pleasure'). And so on. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">On the other hand, I hear of things like this: school libraries closing down, local libraries closing, some school managements questioning why a teacher might be 'just' reading with children and school students. In effect, there are two pulls going on - the pull towards RfP and a pull against it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">With this in mind, I think the RfP side has to be clear not only that RfP does have a huge positive effect but also investigates how. How and why does browsing, choosing and having fun reading books have a knock-on effect of enabling children and young people to do well at school (and a lot of other things beside, but for the moment, this is about an argument to do with education)? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Language</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Clearly, one key matter is how reading widely and often (fiction, non-fiction and many different forms) is a form of induction or initiation or immersion into written standard English. We don't speak written standard English. It's a different 'code' or 'register' or even a kind of different dialect. When we speak to each other, we interrupt, hesitate, repeat ourselves, use many words like 'this', 'that', 'it' etc because it's clear from context. When we speak, we quite often don't finish a thought and tail off because others around you know what you're talking about. When we write, there are forms that we hardly ever use in daily talk. One of the most obvious is the idea that we write in 'complete' sentences using a 'finite' verb. Another is the way in writing, we 'front load' a lot of the time. Go back over what you've just read here and see how many times I've used a word of phrase before the 'main clause' - eg 'Increasingly, 'Over at gov.uk', 'On the other hand' etc. We do some of this when we speak but by no means as much as we do in formal or even semi-formal written standard English. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As an experiment, open any children's book, look at the sentences - the narrative rather than the dialogue of course, and try to say them as if they are part of a conversation. For most of it, it just doesn't work. You can't switch 'codes'. So if we ask ourselves, what does this mean for child-readers, it becomes very significant. It means that we ask of children and young people to make the leap from spoken English to written English. Can we take it as self-evident then, that the more that children and young people are exposed to this written spoken English, the easier they will find it when they come across unfamiliar, new and challenging texts in school - whether that's fiction or a science text book or whatever? I think so.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Strategies of Writing</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Writing is more than language! It's also the strategies we use when we write: paragraphs, chapters, plot lines, methods of narrating, ways of indicating speech, reported speech, inner thought, use of figurative language, how we indicate time, how we switch time with flashbacks and flashforwards, how we 'foreground' people or things, how we 'reveal-conceal' ie indicate that there is more to know than what is being told at that very moment, the way we use 'allusions' to anything outside of the text in hand, motifs, tropes, uses of archetypes and stereotypes, uses of symbols...and so on. Of course, over the years in school, some of this is taught but for children and young people who have been reading widely and often (RfP), the job of 'getting' all this stuff, is many, many times easier.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Strategies of Reading</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Part of this I've already covered in the sense that some of the strategies of reading are a matter of picking up on the things that I've mentioned in the previous paragraph. There are other aspects though: eg such things as learning what it feels like to care about a text ie how we are 'affected' by it, through such psychological processes as 'identifying' with a character, through the flow of emotions we have towards and against characters, flow of emotions we have in scenes or the 'events' or outcomes of a scene of a text. In my booklet 'Poetry and Stories for Primary and Lower Secondary Schools', I've created a 'grid' of these responses and these also partly explain how it is that reading widely and often (RfP) can enable children and young people to access education more easily. I'll summarise them briefly here: </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When we read we use our experience of life in order to understand what we read. This means that our memories and even latent or sub-conscious memories are brought into play. We might say that some reading validates or challenges our experience. However it does, it involves us in acts of comparison between our own lives and those in the writing. Anything that invites us to make comparisons about our own experience leads us towards being able to generalise about our own behaviour in relation to others. We might call that a form of intelligence.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When we read, we use our experience of other texts. Again, this involves many subtle forms of comparison at lots of different levels. We are in a sense 'reminded' all the time as we read of the texts in oru minds that precede the one we are reading. This can be at the level of 'form' (eg I recognise that what I am reading is, let's say, a sports report, or an invite to a party, a sonnet, an adventure story, a write-up of a court case etc etc.) Reading widely and often enables us to build up a repertoire in our heads so that we can recognise what it is we are reading as we read it. At another level, this kind of 'intertextual' knowledge enables us to pick up on how plots work, how genres work eg whodunnits, rom-coms, comedy, tragedy. At yet another level, it's how we recognise 'types' like the rags-to-riches character, or the dangerous stranger, or the road-movie companions etc etc. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A fundamental part of reading is a bit like solving puzzles. All texts have 'gaps'. No text says it all. This means that while we read what is in front of us, we are asking questions of it, trying to answer those questions, coming with alternative interpretations of what is happening, what might happen, why something happened that way. There are words, phrases, allusions, unfamiliar expressions, unexplained acts and phenomena, implied connections, possible causes for effects, possible motives that are not fully explained...and so on. I've often given the example of my 3 year old son, asking us to read him 'Where the Wild Things Are' over and over again. As we read, he hardly said a word until one day, when it got to the part where Max wants to be 'where somebody loved him best of all', he burst out with, 'Mummy!'. In that one word and one moment, he revealed the intellectual effort he had been making to figure out this mysterious story. The text and pictures are full of gaps and puzzles like, say, why is his room so empty, why did the room or how did the trees become 'the world all around' (what a strange and mysterious idea), how could he sail through 'weeks' or even a 'year' (what does that mean?), how come there's a boat with his name on it? Where did that come from? Who are the wild things? How does he know who to tame them? What do they sing when they have a 'wild rumpus'? What's the tune? And then this mysterious sentence about wanting to be 'where' 'somebody' loved him best of all. Who is this 'somebody' and 'where' is it? Our son decided it was 'Mummy' but note there is no 'Mummy' in the story. There's a 'mother' who we never see and her two acts towards Max are to send him to his room and possibly (though we are never told) it is her who leaves him some hot supper at the end. She may well 'love' Max but it's not exactly effusive, is it? I'll suggest that there is no definitive answer to these questions. It takes an intellectual effort to think about the connections and causes and motives going on.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My 'big' suggestion, though, is that this is at the core of why and how RfP does the work of enabling us to access education. We have to feel, think and reason in order to 'get' what's going on. We will also have to use our awareness and knowledge of clues and sequences in a story or in any narrative in order to make sense of the bit that we're reading. I'll suggest that our son used his many readings (hearings, actually) to enable to figure out that that mysterious phrase meant (for him) that Max wanted to be with his 'Mummy'. Note also that that leap by our son had to be done through 'identification'. He had to 'be' Max and think along the lines, 'If I was Max, or Max was me, I would in that situation with the Wild Things want to be with my Mummy who I believe loves me best of all.' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Analogising</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I've already talked about making comparisons. We make analogies between what we read in a text with events or feelings in our own lives but also analogies between texts. We say, 'Oh that's like...' as a way of explaining (or making ourselves familiar with) what's going on in a bit of writing. I'm going to suggest that the moment we 'analogise' we are on the first rung of a ladder that leads to 'abstract thought', 'abstract ideas', 'abstract words'. Whether we do science or humanities in education, we are constantly being asked to reach generalisations and abstract ideas. The route to these, more often than not, is through lists of two or more similar things. So, we might discuss 'erosion', say, and we're asked to make a list of different ways in which a cliff is eroded - wind, rain, frost, waves etc. Different ways are grouped under one heading, 'erosion'. We compare the effects of each of those ways and say that they do things differently but they still end up wearing the cliff away. This kind of thinking and way of thinking goes on again and again in education. My argument here is that if we read widely and often, we do something very similar every time we read. Back with our son and the Wild Things: the line says that Max felt 'lonely' and he wanted to be where somebody 'loved' him best of all. Our son created a list of two: he said (in effect) that he knew of another example like that: him and his mother. I'm going to say here then that is at the root or the heart of what we do over and over again in education but it happens all the time when we read for pleasure. Comparisons and analogies in our head again and again and again. And that's my argument about how it is that RfP does its work of making education accessible.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>How to Foster this Kind of Reading</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In 'Reading for Pleasure', I've grouped together different strategies to help teachers and schools put a Reading for Pleasure policy in place. I didn't do it out of my own head. It came from listening to people doing it. However, there is another aspect to this: how can we make reading itself enjoyable and at the same time 'listens' to the kinds of process that I've been talking about here.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In brief, these concern the kinds of questions we ask children and school students; the kinds of activities around books that we ask them to do; the kinds of exploration of texts that we invite them to do. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Questions: these can be open-ended. To release how are we 'affected' by a text, we can invite children to monitor their flows of emotion to or against characters or how they feel through a scene. Older children can have great fun making graphs of these! </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">To release how our experiences are brought to bear when we read, we can ask, is there anything that you've read here that makes you think of anything that has ever happened to you or someone you know? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">To release how our we use the texts we know when we read, we can ask, is there anything you've ever read, seen on TV, seen in a film, in a theatre, heard in a song, or anywhere else, that you're reminded of as you read something in this book/text? Any link that you notice? Or can think of?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">To release those 'gap' moments we can ask, were you 'puzzled' by anything, any moment, anything that someone said, or the way that something was written? And then we can follow that up with different ways to 'fill' those gaps ie different interpretations. Or another way to unlock this is to ask if children have any questions that they would like to ask anyone in the story or ask the author. We can collect up those questions and invite people to answer them. People can role-play characters and we can ask them to help answer the questions and puzzles. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">(Useful here is Aidan Chambers' book 'Tell Me and the Learning Environment'. In my booklet, 'Poetry and Stories for Primary and Lower Secondary Schools', there's a grid that I worked out with teacher James Durran of 'trigger questions' that will help release responses and reflections on these reading processes.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Creative Ways to Unlock Texts</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There are of course many creative ways to 'get into' texts which will release interpretations, and enable the young readers to explore emotion, meaning and relevance. There are many forms of re-telling that will do this: retelling as a piece of story-telling; using mime to tell some or all of the piece of writing; using art, video and audio to re-tell and interpret; using music, movement and dance; using pottery, ceramics and model-making. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We can use freeze-frames, hot-seating, and interviews of characters of even objects in a specific moment in a scene to unlock what is going on: what can you see? what can you hear? what are you thinking? what do you want? what do you not want? what are you afraid of? what do you hope for? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We can ask readers to come up with sequels and prequels to the story. To do this, the reader (writer now!) will have to gather up what they know of the story in order to make the prequel or sequel work. They will almost certainly have to use all the so-called skills that we try to get them to develop through 'comprehension' in order to write a prequel or sequel! </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>As an aside here, I'll make an educational point:</b> for hundreds of years, one of the most high status things that people could do was 'interpret' one piece of art with another. For example, every stately home or art gallery or classical music concert or opera anyone ever goes to is jam packed full of one art form interpreting another: paintings of scenes from Greek myths, operas and ballets based on Shakespeare plays, poems, sculptures of famous scenes from classical stories and so on. In education, the highest status of 'interpretation' is either a comprehension test or an 'essay' about a book. Why have we reduced 'interpretation' to something so narrow?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Even so, I'm going to suggest that if we use RfP methods of reading and interpreting along the lines I'm suggesting here, it will be all easier for children and school students to do the comprehensions and essays anyway! In fact, those pupils who read widely and often do just that, as the research keeps showing over and over again. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-85921908225459154212022-07-29T18:08:00.004+01:002022-07-29T18:08:48.970+01:00Poem: Perhaps...<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px;">Perhaps...</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">...during Lockdown</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">some Number 10 partygoers</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">stumble out of the door</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and throw drunken gags at each other</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and one says,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘Hey, for a laugh, let’s go find one of</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">these hospitals<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">where people are dying</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and cheer’em up…’</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and they stumble into cabs</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and get to where Dick Whittington</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">heard the bells of London<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">where the Whittington Hospital looks out over London</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and they manage to get the works lifts to work</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">they jam in</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">ride to the 5th floor</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to the intensive care ward</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">where visitors are strictly forbidden</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and they crash into the ward</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">cheering and laughing</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘No need to bring your own booze</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">we’ve brought it.’</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And they see us there</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">inert, plugged into tubes and lines</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">staring blindly<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">trying to live</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and they say to us</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘Hah! you think you’re in a bad way?</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What about us?</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We’re smashed.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’ll be hell in the morning</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">but what the fuck!</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You’re no bloody fun, are you?</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Let’s go, guys..’</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And out they stream</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">out of the hospital</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">into the night street</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and one of them finds</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Dick Whittington’s cat</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">in stone<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">a statue of a cat</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">on the pavement</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and it becomes the funniest thing</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">that any of them have ever seen</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s a cat</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">it’s a fucking cat</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s a statue of a fucking cat</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and they have this great idea:</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘Let’s piss on it,’ one of them says</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And that’s even funnier.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-81748011897292756202022-07-02T14:11:00.005+01:002022-07-02T14:11:57.407+01:00Dissolution Street (a new take on Dylan's Desolation Row)<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The King is in the counting house, eating bread and money,</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">He thinks if he talks like Julius Caesar, we’ll think that he is funny.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Plato has found a way to play chess, using tanks and guns</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Who cares?’ says Henry Ford, ‘we’ll make ten thousand suns.’</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">John and Yoko close the curtains and get beneath the sheets</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">They can hear the bombs outside, falling on Dissolution Street.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The banker says to the poor man, ‘You’re helping keep things great.’</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">An unborn baby arrives in hell and says ‘Sorry I am late.’</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Louis Braille’s lost his sight and says people keep giving him bad looks.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">They say they know how to handle him, they take away his books.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">King Midas tells the multitude there’s always plenty to eat</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The queue at the food bank stretches down Dissolution Street</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">They found that the judge was lying, so the judge changed all the rules</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">They found gold beneath the playgrounds, so they sold off all the schools</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Doctor Death went to hospital, where he met up with Dr Who</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Doctor Death said he was out of cash, so he sold the hospital too.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Sheriff of Nottingham was saying that it was honest to cheat</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">As he strung up Robin Hood on<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the gibbet<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>on Dissolution Street.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The doctor’s telling me the good news, my foot won’t be falling off</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The nurse is telling me I’ve got no lungs so I don’t need to to cough.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Another nurse is telling me, ‘Move!’, cos I often fall out of bed.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The doctor’s telling me more good news, he says I’m not brain dead.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The diary’s open on yesterday but I don’t know who I’ll meet</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">They say I’m deconditioned, now I’m on Dissolution Street.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Queen says that it’s awful how people resent her fur coats.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The real problem she says is people arriving in small boats</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">They will eat every one of you, she says to you and me</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The safest thing for all of us, is if we push’em into the sea</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">One or two can come ashore and as some kind of treat</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">They can be nurses or clean the floors in Dissolution Street</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">From the other end of the corridor, I hear a woman scream</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">I lean out of bed and ask the nurse, ‘Can I stay in my dream?’</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">He says, ‘You’re dead anyway, so you’re missing the bad weather.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is the last place on earth where we’re all working together.’</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">They bring in the last machine they have, I could see my heart beat</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">I might be dead now, I think,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>but we can leave Dissolution Street.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-29251925748560659332022-06-16T20:18:00.012+01:002022-06-16T22:03:47.523+01:00This year's Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling Test for Key Stage 2<p><span style="font-size: large;"> <span>In the past, I have made many criticisms of the way 'Grammar' is taught in primary schools. My main points are:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Question:</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Circle the two determiners in the sentence below.</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In an hour, we will be getting on our train.</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">My comment:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">———-</span></p><p class="p4" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Question:</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Insert a hyphen in the correct place in the sentence below.</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We were very busy in the run up to the school play.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">My comment:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">————</span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Question:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Circle the co-ordinating conjunction in the sentence below.</span></p><p class="p6" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I started drawing a car, but then I changed my mind because I had a better idea.</span></p><p class="p7" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p6" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">My comment:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p6" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">THIS IS AN EG OF ADULTS TRYING TO TRICK CHILDREN BY 'DISTRACTING' THEM WITH A 'WRONG' ANSWER. WHAT'S THE POINT?</span></p><p class="p8" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">————</span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">My comment on the fronted adverbial question:</span></p><p class="p9" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">T</span>he absurdity of terminology:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>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!</span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">———-</span></p><p class="p4" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Question:</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Insert a colon in the correct place in the sentence below.</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Many fossils are not as big as people think some are so small that you need a microscope to see them.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">My comment:</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">THAT’S OK THANKS, I'LL USE A FULL STOP. MORE MISLEADING RUBBISH.</span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">———-</span></p><p class="p10" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">My comment re ‘dashes’’:</span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p class="p4" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">———-</span></p><p class="p4" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Question:</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Insert a semi-colon in the correct place in the sentence below.</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The suitcase was heavy the box was lighter but more awkward to carry.</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">My comment:</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">[ACTUALLY I'D PREFER TO USE A FULL STOP. IT'S NOT MORE 'CORRECT' TO USE A SEMI-COLON THERE. MISLEADING NONSENSE.]</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">————</span></p><p class="p10" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p10" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Q12 requires you to make 'warm' and 'cool' antonyms! Absurd rubbish.</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">————-</span></p><p class="p10" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Question:</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Circle the correct verb form in each underlined pair to complete the</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">passage below.</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">William Shakespeare, the famous writer, is / was born in Stratford-</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>upon-Avon in 1564 and later will move / moved to London where he will become / became an actor. Even today, Shakespeare’s plays</span></p><p class="p6" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>are performed / performed around the world.</span></p><p class="p7" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p6" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">My comment:</span></p><p class="p6" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p class="p6" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">—————</span></p><p class="p10" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; color: #42515e; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">My comment on active-passive</span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">On the 2022 KS2 <b>GPS</b> 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?</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; color: #0d1013; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">—————————-</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-44895637698438193342022-04-24T01:42:00.007+01:002022-04-24T10:22:46.738+01:00Why trying to stay alive is political<p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> <span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">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. </span></span></p><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">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. </span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">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.</span></div></div>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-17846342132041874582022-04-23T12:56:00.001+01:002022-04-23T12:56:22.029+01:00Interview with me from Ant Group<p> https://drive.google.com/file/d/18qJGSf_e4vjfoh5VU4lSU3cZToOgZKYR/view</p><p><br /></p><p>Paste this into your browser.</p><p><br /></p><p>Enjoy!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-11570796239949151482022-04-08T10:43:00.002+01:002022-04-08T10:43:13.763+01:00Review of 'What is a Bong Tree?' <p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> By Chris Malone:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">"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.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">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.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">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.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">So why did I love this book so much?</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">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.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">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.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">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.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">Dive in, and this book might change you too …</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">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.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">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.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">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.’</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">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.’</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;">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!"</span></span>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-85000880573187449032022-03-01T15:15:00.007+00:002022-03-01T15:16:42.144+00:00As if in a dream I hear the radio playing Ukrainian patriotic songs<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">As if in a a dream</span></span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hear the radio playing Ukrainian patriotic songs</span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and lovingly produced discussions</span></span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">about the history of Ukraine</span></p><div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; margin: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and admiration pouring out of my radio and TV</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">for the brave people of Ukraine</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">daring to stand up to this terrible invasion</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and I felt warm and sad at the same time</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">wrapped in the care and kindness of it all</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and I was pouring out my admiration too, </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and images from the TV came to me from last night</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">of hundreds of people squashed into a station subway</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">trying to get out on a train to Poland</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and more sounds from the radio</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">of people on the border shivering and hungry and crying</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">not knowing if they could get out</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">while arcs of light flashed over apartment blocks</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and the morning showed the cold grey ruins of people's homes</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and I heard the words of sympathy</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">from our leaders </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">while they explained that Ukrainians </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">would need visas or relatives in Britain</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> if they want to come here</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and I wasn't sure that people crushed</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">into the subway would have visas </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">or relatives here, would they? </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">so if they don't have visas and relatives</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">what happens to them in the freezing cold</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">on the Polish border?</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and I thought about the care and kindness</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">coming out of my radio</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and I felt uneasy </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">that I remember other invasions</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">other bombings, </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and the same radio and TV stations</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">pouring out hours of words </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">on why similar bombings and invasions </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">were necessary and good bombings and invasions</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and why those resisting were crazy and bad</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and of course - as always -</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">why there wasn't room for people of those countries</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">to get out and come here</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and I was left looking for the principle being defended here.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">This principle can't be that it's wrong to invade</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">other countries.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The principle can't be that it's wrong </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">to bomb civilians.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The principle can't be that we must help </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">those who resist invasions.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The principle can't be that we must help</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">refugees.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But then I thought,</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">what's the matter with me? </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">what is the matter with me?</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">why am I looking for a principle?</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Well, not a principle that lasts</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">or a principle that is valid in all places.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Our leaders' principles are things </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">they pick up, boast about</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and then drop</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">in the hope that we can't remember anything</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">from before last week. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Or that we don't notice what else they do</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">in other parts of the world.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">One moment they are friends with people</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">who are tyrants or backers of tyrants</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and the next they are explaining to us</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">that the tyrants are tyrants</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and friends of tyrants are the friends of tyrants</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">as if we didn't know that the tyrants are tyrants</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and that they themselves are friends </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">with the friends of tyrants</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">as if we hadn't noticed this</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">as if we had now forgotten this.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">And this is a cycle</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">that goes on and on turning,</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">it's turning in my mind</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">remembering my parents </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">talking of the leaders of their time</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">chumming up with Nazis</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">corporations selling oil to the Nazis</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">oil they would use to bomb us</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and my parents talking of uncles and aunts and cousins</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">who criss-crossed the very same land</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">that the refugees are crossing now, </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">one who escaped</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">the rest who didn't</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and it's a cycle </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">it's a cycle that grinds millions into the ground</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">burnt, dismembered, starved, maimed</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and I am listening to the radio.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">And I am listening to the radio.</span></div></div>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-43930913503159462182022-02-03T10:55:00.005+00:002022-02-03T10:55:31.021+00:00'The Responder' - tragedy, comedy and 'genre'<p> <span style="font-size: large;">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I'm left with questions and a sense of unease.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">(Great acting throughout, though! I was gripped.)</span></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-30796830832127976892022-01-30T12:04:00.002+00:002022-01-30T13:03:46.860+00:00My father's uncle Martin and the Holocaust<p> </p><p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p><p><i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px;">Here's a third piece that I have </i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: medium;"><i>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. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px;">At mealtimes</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">our father would say to us:</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘You know - I had two French uncles</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">they lived in France.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">They were there before the war</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">but they weren’t there at the end.’</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We sat there </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">not knowing what to think.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘What happened to them?’</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We’d say.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘I don’t know,’ he’d say</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘They probably died in the camps,’</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">he’d say.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Camps? </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What camps?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We didn’t know about camps</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">where people went </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and never came back..</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It was mysterious</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and awful.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It made us sad</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and afraid.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My brother said</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">it gave him nightmares…</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">l thought of the Tower of London</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">dark grey, </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">the prison</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">the torture chamber in there.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I didn’t know what they were really like.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As years went by</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I found out about these camps.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I started to research</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to find out what happened to my father’s uncles:</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I went to libraries</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I looked online</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I wrote emails.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I went to America</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to talk to relatives there.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">More libraries</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">more searching online</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">more emails.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Bit by bit</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I started to find things</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">about my father’s two uncles.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Martin and Jeschie.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s like I was tracking them down.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I found out that Martin and Jeschie </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">lived in eastern France</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">but when the war broke out</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">they - like millions of others</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">took to the roads.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">they fled to the villages and towns of western France</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">They called it The Exodus.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Let me tell you about what happened to Martin.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I found a trace of him</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">first in a little seaside place</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">with a group of others from the east.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Because they were Jewish</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">they had to wear a yellow star.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One document said that Martin</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">refused to use his clothing ration </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to make the yellow star.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Then he moved to a village inland.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I wondered:</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">did he run away?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Was he in trouble because he protested about the</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">yellow star?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">He was with his brother-in-law - who was not Jewish - </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and they were staying with a landlady.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I wondered</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">were they hiding?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It was 1943.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Everyone knew that Jews were being rounded up</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and deported.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">No one knew where they were being deported to</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">but they knew that no one was coming back.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">They called this place Pitchipoï.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One day,</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">the German Kommandant in the nearest city </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">issued a command.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘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’. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The command went to the Prefect.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Prefect gave the command to the Sub-Prefect.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Sub-Prefect gave the command to the French police:</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">the gendarmes.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">On that One Day</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">January 31, 1944</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">at 2.30 in the morning</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">four gendarmes called at the door of Martin’s landlady.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Martin opened the door, </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">the gendarmes arrested him</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and they took him to the nearby town</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">where other gendarmes gathered together</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">all the Jews of the region.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Then the gendarmes wrote up their report.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I wonder did they do this back at the police station</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">or in the village cafe, perhaps? </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">They wrote that Martin Rozen</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">was born on 18 August 1890</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">in Krosniewice in Poland.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">They wrote that he was naturalised French</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">they wrote that he was of the Jewish race.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">They wrote that he was 1m 62 tall.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">with dark brown hair,</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">brown eyes</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">he had a scar</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">he had an oval face.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">He was wearing yellow cotton trousers</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and a grey cotton jacket.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Were these his pyjamas, I wondered.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It was the middle of the night.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">He was wearing a Basque beret</p>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 21.6px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>had he put it on to be polite? </li>
</ul>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I wondered.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">He was wearing flat shoes on his feet.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Were they his bedroom slippers?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I wondered.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">All four gendarmes signed the report.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">That’s what they did on that One Day.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">That was their work. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Martin was taken to the Drancy Camp</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">from there he was taken to Paris Bobigny station</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">where he was put into a cattle truck</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">on a train that went straight from Paris</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to Auschwitz </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This was Convoy 68, </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">carrying 1500 Jewish men, women and children</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">on one day February 10 1944. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Out of the 1500, 42 came back.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Martin was not one of them.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I often look</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">at the gendarmes’ report.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s careful.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s neat.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">it has a lot of detail.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The details of what happened</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">on that One day </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">January 31 1944</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">That’s why my father said to us,</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘You know - I had two French uncles</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">they lived in France</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">They were there before the war</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">but they weren’t there at the end.’</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But my father didn’t live long enough</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">for me to tell him</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">what I had found out about </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">what happened to Martin. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">He never knew. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-55619771813049270502022-01-30T11:52:00.012+00:002022-01-30T11:53:43.304+00:00Family history and the holocaust <p><span style="font-size: large;"><i> <span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Further to the previous post about Professor </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl gpro0wi8 q66pz984 b1v8xokw" href="https://www.facebook.com/helen.weinstein.77985?__cft__[0]=AZWpUJEKSLMuVH_um1qj0vhwNfVkPAlvA-qClMI6flO27h7S8suYu9Wx1awV0u9ozTFfSjZ6m5XZ0neVcwO_iG3if4_qhPXIxrvXRJuB-fQ89JTicjEZ9RNYqKPon-bJl4I&__tn__=-]K-R" role="link" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--accent); cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span class="nc684nl6" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">Helen Weinstein</span></a></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"> asking me to write poems for school students to work on as part of Holocaust Memorial Day. This one is for a narrated mime-dance sequence performed by secondary students. I wrote it a few days ago.</span></i></span></p><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Helen will post up the links of me reading these pieces very soon. </i></span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>My Father’s Cousin Michael</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Family stories</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">come to us in bits and pieces.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">They are told and retold.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes they are the same.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes they change.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes I remember.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes I forget.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I try to hold on to these stories.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I write them down.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I gather together copies of documents</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">letters, photos. </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes the stories are in my head.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes they are in the bits of paper.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes they are in the things </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I’ve seen or imagined I’ve seen.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">It begins with a station</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">in Dąbrowa Gornicza. </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">There must have been a train ticket</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">or, some say, two.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is a woman</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">she is my father’s aunt Stella.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is a man, Stella’s husband Bernard.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is a teenager, their son, Michael.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Michael gets on the train.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Does his mother go with him? </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Michael is going to Lvov - some call it Lviv.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">They think it’ll be safer for him there. </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Why safer?</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Because the Nazis</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">have ideas about what they want to do with </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">the Jews.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Some people are saying</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">that the Nazis want to deport the Jews.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Some people are saying</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">that the Nazis want to make them slave labourers.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Some people are saying</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">that the Nazis want to send them to prison camps.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Some people are saying</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">that the Nazis want to shoot them.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Everyone has stories.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Everyone has an opinion.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Michael goes to Lvov. </span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">His mother and father </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">are in Dabrowa Gornicza</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He is a teenager</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">without his parents.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Is he with relatives or friends?</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">His mum and dad write to him:</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">are you alright?</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">we are desperately worried about you.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">please write back.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Write to your uncle in America</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Uncle Max.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe you can stay with him.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">In this part of Poland</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">there are no Nazis.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">There are Russians.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Russians say that this is Russia now</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">and Michael must become Russian.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He refuses.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">So they take him to a labour camp</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">in Russia, </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">where he must work all day </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">cutting trees and lugging timber.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Then the Nazis invade Poland</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">and then on into Russia.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Russians talk to the Poles</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">and they agree there can be a </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Polish Free Army</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">some call it Anders Army</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">because it is led by General Anders.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Michael joins the Polish Army.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">The letters from home stop coming. </span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now begins a long march</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">out of Russia, through Iran</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">through Palestine</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">sometimes fighting</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">sometimes just moving on and on.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Then on to boats</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">to Italy.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Up through Italy</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">to a place called Monte Cassino</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Here there is a very famous battle</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">lasting many days.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">The German troops are in a monastery </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">at the top of the mountain called </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Monte Cassino.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Polish army fights its way all the way</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">up the mountain to the monastery</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">and they win.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Many men die.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">But Michael lives.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">When the war ends</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Michael travels by boat</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">with the Polish Army to England.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">All the Poles are put into</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">special camps in England called </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Polish Resettlement Camps.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Michael lives here for two years.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He doesn’t hear from his mother or father.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He hears that</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">there were ‘ghettos’ where parts of towns</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">were turned into prisons.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">And there were camps</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">where people were put to death</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">or died of starvation, disease or overwork.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He hears that nearly all the Polish Jews</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">have been killed.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He can go back to Poland if he wants.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He decides to stay in England.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He has some addresses that he remembers:</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">his uncles in France</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">his uncle Max in America</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">his aunt in London.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He decides to go and see his aunt in London</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">and arrives at her house one day in 1948</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">8 years after that day</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">he said goodbye to his parents.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He stays for a while</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">he trains to be a London cabbie.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He marries.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He has two sons.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He lives for a long, long time.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">One day Uncle Max’s grandson</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">in America</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">finds some old photos in a box in a cupboard.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">One of them is of Michael</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">in Poland, as a teenager, walking down a street </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">with his mother and aunt.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">When Michael sees it </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">he is amazed.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Mesmerised,’ his son says.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">When he is very old</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">he begins to be forgetful.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">He goes to live in a Jewish Care Home in London.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">With him, he has a photo of his mother</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">he has the letters</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">in a little canvas bag with a flap</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">that tucks into a strip of canvas.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">The letters are faded</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">and some of them are worn.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe worn from his finger and thumbs</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">turning them over and over and over</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">again and again.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">At the end of his life</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">sometimes he speaks with all the languages he knew:</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Polish, Yiddish and English.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Michael died in 2021.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">This was a time when there were Covid restrictions.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">We couldn’t have the service inside.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">The service was outside.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Some of us were cold.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">We thought of Michael </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">and all that he’d been through.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I thought that even if I was cold</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I was not as cold as Michael was </span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">in the Russian labour camp in winter</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">wondering if he would ever see his parents again.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I wondered what it would be like</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">to live the whole of the rest of your life</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">only having those letters and the photo…</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">and not knowing exactly what happened</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">to your own mother and father</span></div></div>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-41356166785374908362022-01-30T11:08:00.013+00:002022-01-30T13:09:47.105+00:00Resistance and Hope amidst the catastrophe of the Holocaust<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="rq0escxv du4w35lb o387gat7 qbu88020 pad24vr5 rirtxc74 dp1hu0rb fer614ym ni8dbmo4 stjgntxs rek2kq2y lpgh02oy bx45vsiw be9z9djy" role="navigation" style="box-sizing: border-box; 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margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation; white-space: pre-wrap;" tabindex="0"><span style="font-size: large;">For the last four years, I've worked with Professor </span></a></h3></div></div><div class="j83agx80 btwxx1t3 taijpn5t" style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; font-family: inherit; justify-content: center;"><div class="d2edcug0 oh7imozk abvwweq7 ejjq64ki" style="font-family: inherit; max-width: 100%; width: 680px;"><div class="pedkr2u6 tn0ko95a pnx7fd3z" style="font-family: inherit; opacity: 1; transition-duration: var(--fds-slow); transition-property: opacity, transform;"><div role="feed" style="font-family: inherit;"><div data-pagelet="FeedUnit_0" style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="du4w35lb k4urcfbm l9j0dhe7 sjgh65i0" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 16px; position: relative; width: 680px; z-index: 0;"><div class="du4w35lb l9j0dhe7" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div aria-describedby="jsc_c_1ua jsc_c_1ub jsc_c_1uc jsc_c_1ue jsc_c_1ud" aria-labelledby="jsc_c_1u9" aria-posinset="1" class="lzcic4wl" role="article" style="font-family: inherit; outline: none;"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit;"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div class="j83agx80 l9j0dhe7 k4urcfbm" style="display: flex; font-family: inherit; position: relative; width: 680px;"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb hybvsw6c io0zqebd m5lcvass fbipl8qg nwvqtn77 k4urcfbm ni8dbmo4 stjgntxs sbcfpzgs" style="--t68779821: 0 1px 2px var(--shadow-2); -webkit-box-shadow: var(--T68779821); border-bottom-left-radius: max(0px, min(8px, 9999 * (-100% - 4px + 100vw))) 8px; border-bottom-right-radius: max(0px, min(8px, 9999 * (-100% - 4px + 100vw))) 8px; border-top-left-radius: max(0px, min(8px, 9999 * (-100% - 4px + 100vw))) 8px; border-top-right-radius: max(0px, min(8px, 9999 * (-100% - 4px + 100vw))) 8px; box-shadow: 0 1px 2px var(--shadow-2); box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 680px; z-index: 0;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="ll8tlv6m j83agx80 btwxx1t3 n851cfcs hv4rvrfc dati1w0a pybr56ya" style="align-items: flex-start; display: flex; flex-direction: row; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 16px; padding-right: 16px; padding-top: 12px;"><div class="buofh1pr" style="flex-grow: 1; font-family: inherit;"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl gpro0wi8 q66pz984 b1v8xokw" href="https://www.facebook.com/helen.weinstein.77985?__cft__[0]=AZUKgUglHa5lkmGTefpFmQmkejXDrH9vdSbpMiP_O4H25aMYKsNoHXCNM7I_TnZdrxRAVBNDEa8mHX13UqDhRfpntcAX3bpVnoQAlmlpQpVE3g&__tn__=-]K-R" role="link" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--accent); cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation; white-space: pre-wrap;" tabindex="0"><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span class="nc684nl6" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"><span><i>For the last four years, </i></span></span></span></a><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span class="nc684nl6" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"><span><i>I've worked with Professor Helen Weinstein </i></span></span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>of History Works TV </i></span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>on preparing 1000s of school students </i></span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>for Holocaust Memorial Day. </i></span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Each year HMD have a phrase </i></span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>that they give anyone making these preparations. </i></span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>It's a theme we can focus on </i></span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>and create ceremonies around. </i></span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>This year the phrase was 'One Day'. </i></span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Helen asked me to write a piece </i></span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>that the students could use </i></span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>for a physical theatre piece. </i></span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc dati1w0a e5nlhep0" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_1ub" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 4px 16px;"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px;"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="t5a262vz nc684nl6 ihxqhq3m l94mrbxd aenfhxwr l9j0dhe7 sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative;"><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>Apart from the Prologue </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>the narrator who is speaking is </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>Eugène Handschuh </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>who is telling a story that I have translated </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>from his own accounts </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>and 'heightened' into a dramatic monologue. </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>The stories he tells actually happened. </i></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>What I haven't written into the piece </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>is that my father's uncle and aunt </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>were in the Drancy Camp </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>at the same time as Eugène Handschuh </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>and were on the same train (Convoy 62) </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>going to Auschwitz.</i></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>Here then, </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>is a story of resistance and hope </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>in the midst of the catastrophe </i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><i>that was the Holocaust. </i></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">PROLOGUE </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">ONE DAY our lives changed. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We didn’t think about yesterday </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And tomorrow may not happen. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We had to cope with what was in front of us </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">on that one day. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Get through one day </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and then on to the next. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day at a time. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day after another. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"> [Eugène Hanschuh speaks]: </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">"We were Hungarian Jews, living in an area </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">called the Marais in Paris. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We were Communists in the Resistance. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">This meant we were in hiding </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We were fighting the Nazis </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And the Nazis were hunting down Jews. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Jews like us. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We had false papers, which were about to run out; </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">we had to pick up the new ones </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">from our old home in the Marais. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">But we were spotted, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We were followed </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and we got picked off. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">It was December 28, 1942, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">This One Day changed everything. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We were no longer free to fight the Nazis. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We were arrested by the French </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and handed over to the Nazis </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We were interrogated. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">That meant we were beaten. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We had hardly anything to eat - a little ball of bread a day. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Get through one day </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and then on to the next. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day at a time. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day after another. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"> We were in this camp for two months, breaking stones. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">I was just skin and bone. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Get through one day </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and then on to the next. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day at a time. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day after another. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Then we were transferred to the Camp at Drancy. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">This was a new housing estate </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">turned into a prison camp for Jews. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Jews were being deported day by day. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We didn’t know where. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">All that we knew was that people didn’t come back. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We called the place they were deporting us to: </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">‘Pitchipoï. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We said over and over, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">‘Nous n’irons pas à Pitchipoï' </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">It means: We’re not going to Pitchipoï' </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We came up with the idea of digging a tunnel- </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">to escape. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We started on September 15, 1943. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One Day that changed our lives. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Get through one day </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and then on to the next. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day at a time. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day after another. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">There was Maurice, René, Georges, Roger, Abraham, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Claude and myself in the core team. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Starting out in a cellar </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Under one of the blocks of flats. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Digging, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">lining the tunnel, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">packing the earth down in the cellars. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">In the end, there were more than 40 of us taking turns. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">The tunnel was 1.30m high, 0.8m wide. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Can you imagine that? </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We got lights down there </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and propped up the tunnel with wood. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">It was tough what with the heat and the lack of air... </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We had to come up on the ground above </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">to check we were going in the right direction. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Get through one day </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and then on to the next. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day at a time. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day after another. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Even my dad was in the team. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Some of us fainted on the job. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">It was hard. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">By November, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">the tunnel was over 35 metres long. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Not far to go - maybe 2 metres or 4. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We reckoned on being able to escape on the 9th or 10th of November. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Get through one day </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and then on to the next. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day at a time. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day after another. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">But then with hardly any more tunnel to dig, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One of our guys heard the Nazis talking about a tunnel. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Those of us down there </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">had to get out fast. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Get out! Get out! </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">When we came out of the tunnel </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Into the cellar we just dumped our clothes </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And ran. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We thought we had got away with it. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">But the Nazis found the entrance to the tunnel, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">in the cellar. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">They found the pile of dirty clothes </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and there was a pair of trousers </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">with wrapping paper in the pocket. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">On the paper, a name. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">This One Day changed everything. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We could no longer be in prison </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">to dig our way to freedom. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We knew that they would put us </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">on one of the trains to Pitchipoï. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">They arrested this guy whose name </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Was on the wrapping paper </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and they started to interrogate him. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">To start off with, he said nothing </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">but then they did their usual: </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">they said they would punish many innocent people </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">because of the one guilty man. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">That would mean women and children </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">being locked in cellars with no food. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">So this guy gave them thirteen names. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">He made sure it was men who had no family </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">in the camp. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">I was one of them. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And my father. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We were taken to a cellar and beaten. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">They asked us to face the wall </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and they set up a mock execution </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We admitted we were the ones who dug the tunnel. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">They thanked us </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">for having talked the about the tunnel. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">“You won’t be shot. We’ll deport you.” </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We talked about escaping again, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">but we couldn’t get out. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We said again, ‘Nous n’irons pas à Pitchipoï.' </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Next we were taken to a train at Paris Bobigny station. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">This was a train made up of cattle trucks. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">1200 Jews were put into these trucks. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">There was crying and screaming. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We found out later that this was Convoy 62. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">It left Paris Bobigny Station on November 20, 1943. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One Day, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">A day that would change everything for nearly everyone </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">on board that train. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We didn’t know then anything about the Holocaust. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">All we knew was that something bad was going on, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">something wrong. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We were going on a journey and not coming back </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">unless we did something about it. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One of the guys in the Resistance </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">had heard that the train would slow down </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">in a tunnel at a place called Bar-le-Duc. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We said, ‘Nous n’irons pas à Pitchipoï.’ </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We hid tools in our clothes. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">On the train people were packed </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">into the trucks </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">No food </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">No toilets </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Not knowing where they were going. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">There was crying and screaming. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And the smell was terrible. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We got to work on the bars in our truck. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">But they wouldn’t budge. Luckily, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">there were two strong rugby players with us, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Roger and Georges. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">They tore the bars off. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And then </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">On this One Day </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">When the train slowed down, </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">My dad jumped. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And then we jumped! </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We ran back to find my father but he wasn’t there. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">But we knew the rule of the Resistance: </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">whoever can get away, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">mustn’t worry about the others. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">So that’s what we did. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">This One Day.. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We got to Bar le Duc railway station </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">but there were Nazi guards along the platforms. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">But we also saw that there was a mixed bunch </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">standing about there, forced labourers, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">deportees </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and we mingled amongst them, unnoticed. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We had a 50 franc note on us, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and bought tickets back to Paris. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">What about dad? </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">When he jumped he hit the roof of the tunnel </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And passed out. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">When he woke up, he realised he had to run… </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">He got to a farmhouse </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and the couple living there took him in, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">bathed his wound and hid him. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">When the Nazis came looking for him, </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">the couple said they knew nothing. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Then in the morning they took him to Paris. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And I met up with him. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Can you imagine that? </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">I thought I had lost him </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">I thought that on that one day </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">he was gone </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And I’d never see him again. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And here he was. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We hugged each other like </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">we had never hugged each other before. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We asked each other </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Where was the train going? </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">We didn’t know. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And then we went back to join the Resistance </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">To fight the Nazis. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And that’s a true story. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">My name is Eugène Handschuh </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And my father – may his memory be a blessing - </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Was Oscar. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">You may ask where did the train go? </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">What happened to the 1200 people on that train? </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">There were 19 of us who jumped </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">on that One Day. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">The rest went to Auschwitz. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Only 29 came back. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And that’s a true story. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Remember: </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Get through one day </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">and then on to the next. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day at a time. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">One day after another. "</div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">---------</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">End.</div></div></span></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258728766135517265.post-62819882653723029012021-11-17T11:47:00.010+00:002021-11-18T15:12:19.805+00:00Writing in response to death - some suggestions<p><span style="font-size: large;">I was asked by St Christopher's Hospice in Penge, London to talk about responding creatively to death. This sent me to look at my own writing to see how I responded to hearing about the fact that I had a baby brother, born before me who died; how I responded to the fact that my father told me that he had uncles who were killed in the Holocaust; how I responded to the death of my mother; how I responded to thinking about the fact that I nearly died in 2020.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I'll leave out the areas to do with responding by trying to find out more about each of these - trawling for facts, if you like; and I'll leave out here the ways I thought or talked about these things. This blog is specifically about responding through writing. The request from St Christopher's sent me back to what I've written to look at the 'how' of the writing rather than the 'what'. In other words, what methods or styles did I find helpful or suitable? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Broadly speaking, I can talk of four main ways. I'll call them: 'transparent', 'phrasal', 'symbolic' and 'mythic'. Overarching all four on occasions is the influence of an old school of poetry known as 'imagism'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">1. Transparent: this is what I describe to myself as 'talking with the pen'. I write as I would talk. I adopt a spoken voice, with as little of what you might call poetic, figurative (metaphor/simile/personification) language or obvious literary techniques like alliteration, assonance. It's a style of writing that tries deliberately to not draw attention to itself. That's why I'm calling it 'transparent'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">More importantly, it's easy to write down events or moments as you saw them at the time and to mix that with reflections looking back. I talk of this as writing from a) being in the water swimming along and b) walking alongside yourself, looking at yourself swimming. D.H.Lawrence developed this with his poems eg 'Snake' and 'Man and Bat'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The example from my writing where I do this is 'Going through the Old Photos' in 'Quick Let's Get Out of Here'.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I find it helpful to arrange the words on the page according to what is called 'free verse'. This works according to the 'phrases' or words that feel complete before you pause or take a breath. The end of the line, indicates a pause. You don't need to punctuate it according to the 'rules' that I'm using right here in this blog that you're reading (capital letters and full stops for example). The end of the line is called a 'line break'. You can make these line breaks wherever you want in order to help the reader get the rhythm of what you're writing. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2. Phrasal: here you start with a word or several words (a 'phrase') that connect with a moment or a feeling. Maybe it's a word/phrase that you feel expresses something that has happened or how you felt. You write it down. You think on, daydreaming. Another phrase occurs to you. You write it down, underneath the other phrase. You think on, along comes another word or phrase, you write that down underneath the one before. You are 'unfolding' words or phrases on to the page and putting them down under each other. This may sound trivial but I promise you it isn't. Putting them down under each other gives them space for you to think about it. It may include a phrase that someone has said to you or that you said to them. Put it down. No need to explain it or give it 'context'. Just unfold these thoughts down on to the page one under the other. Don't worry if it's just a few words or phrases. Stop when you feel like stopping. Keep the bit of paper. Do it again the next day or the next. Keep the bits of paper. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">You can leave this writing as it is or you can change it by repeating one or more of the words or phrases. This will give it a rhythm. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Useful questions to ask yourself in order to 'find' the words or phrases are: </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'what did I see?' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'what did I hear?' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'what did I think' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'what did I say?' </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'what did someone say to me?'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">3. Symbolic: this involves thinking of something that you think 'represents' an event or feeling that you have. I felt that we couldn't hang on to my mother as she died. We reached out for her but we couldn't keep her. A scene came into my mind of a van pulling away with her on board and us running after trying to reach her. I wrote a piece that described this scene without saying who was in the van or who was trying to reach. I used the words 'she' and 'we' without saying who we were. I didn't say where the van was or when. It's called 'Gone' and it's in 'Mustard, Custard, Grumble Belly and Gravy'. </span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">4. . Mythic: this is where you use the words, phrases or the whole plot of another poem, song, proverb, book, film, TV programme - or any other 'text' you know. You can think of this as 'sampling', grabbing bits of what already exists to help you say what you want to say. Or you can 'inhabit' a story and re-write it to suit you. I did this with a poem where I imagined that I had travelled to the 'Land of the Dead' when I was in a coma in 2020. I was taking the plot of the 'Odyssey' where Odysseus travels into the Underworld and gets out again. I saw myself doing that too. In a way it's a 'parody'. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Note on Imagism: the 'rule' of imagism is you tell your poem, story or song using as few 'emotion' words as possible. You're going to indicate how you feel through what you 'see', through the 'images' of the poem. For hundreds of years, writers have been indicating things like sadness using the image of the weather: rain and mist, for example. Others have used things like a leaf falling off a tree into the water and floating away to indicate regret that time is passing. (I've done this as a poem-game with children, where I get them to write a few lines about something that they imagine they can see in order to convey an emotion. Then the other children have to guess what emotion it was eg anger, happiness etc. )</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The power of imagism is that it 'shows' rather than 'tells'. It leaves the reader (who is you at first) to 'fill' the poem with the emotion. This can sometimes be more powerful and more effective for you and your readers. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because you don't feel as if someone is trying to put words into your mouth, or that they are trying to tie up all the ends of what might be complicated, ambivalent feelings. Poems can suggest. Poems can leave questions unanswered. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">POSTSCRIPT:</span></p><p> <span style="font-size: large;">I'll add: writing about dreams.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I've often dreamt of disasters, near death experiences, remembering my mother, father or Eddie (my son who died). Sometimes I wrote about these, as with 'Nightmare' in 'Mustard, Custard, Grumble Belly and Gravy' or with 'Eddie Dream' in 'Michael Rosen's Big Book of Bad Things' or several dreams in 'Many Different Kinds of Love'.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I often use the same principles of 'Transparent' writing combined with 'Imagist' methods that I talked about in the previous blog. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes though I use the 'Phrasal' method too. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I often write the dream as if I'm actually in it now - in the 'present tense'. This helps me re-imagine it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Writing down dreams can be a way of 'freeing' you from the dream. You feel less trapped by it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>MichaelRosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16891052661059920680noreply@blogger.com