What We Don’t Teach

Photo by Seema Miah on Unsplash

“I’ll tell you what we don’t teach,” says Mr Pearson,
And we listen because, by his own account,
This “old lag” has been round the block a few times in his career.
When he started, there was no curriculum,
And if you wanted to fill your week with worksheets,
Or word searches, or naps, you pretty much could.
There was no-one to stop you.
“No-one to stop you being bloody good, either,” says Mr Pearson,
Enjoying the shocked looks of his younger colleagues,
Who can’t imagine a world without prescribed Teaching Objectives.
“Oh, yeah, built a coal mine, we did, in Year Six one time.
And then we put the head on trial for introducing school uniform.
And those French markets.
C’est magnifique.
But it’s all changed now.”
And it has. There’s Literacy and there’s Numeracy,
Taking up at least half the day between them
(Something some dumbarse politician bemoaned,
As if they couldn’t work out what would happen
If they insisted on both subjects being taught for an hour a day.
Every day.
And apparently they did fractions at Eton.
Who’d have thunk it?)
And there’s what’s left of music and drama,
Once a month if you’re lucky.
And not at all when it’s exam season.
And don’t even ask about religion or geography,
Or what’s left of religion and geography,
And the history that isn’t covered
Because someone in the Department for Education
Doesn’t think it’s worth knowing
When the kids are fit only for call centres and foodbanks.
“But I don’t mean the curriculum,” says Mr Pearson,
Dipping his choccie biccie into his tea,
“It’s not just about what they’ve left out,
What they’ve cut out,
What they’ve erased.
I’ve been doing this 25 years,” he says,
And we know. He has told us a few times.
“And when I look at our leaders and what’s happened to our world,
I know it’s not about the curriculum.
Any curriculum.”
And he pauses to wipe the chocolate from his ‘tache.
“No, I’ll tell you what I’ve realised after all these years,” he says.
“I’ll tell you what we don’t teach now,” he says.
And he leans forward in his comfy staffroom chair.
“We don’t teach well.”