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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/19/if-smoking-cannabis-at-school-gates-makes-headlines-probably-good
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| If smoking cannabis at the school gates is making headlines, that’s probably good | If smoking cannabis at the school gates is making headlines, that’s probably good |
| (7 months later) | |
| Britain’s primary school gates appear to have become some kind of twice-a-day free festival. First there was pyjamagate, which featured a plea from a headteacher for parents to stop turning up at the school in their night attire. Then there was weegate, in which the head of a Somerset primary regretted that “a small number of pupils are allowed by their parents to urinate in the school playground”. Now, we have dopegate, with a Manchester primary suggesting that maybe parents shouldn’t be smoking cannabis as they wait to pick up their kids. The police, unsurprisingly, have been informed. | Britain’s primary school gates appear to have become some kind of twice-a-day free festival. First there was pyjamagate, which featured a plea from a headteacher for parents to stop turning up at the school in their night attire. Then there was weegate, in which the head of a Somerset primary regretted that “a small number of pupils are allowed by their parents to urinate in the school playground”. Now, we have dopegate, with a Manchester primary suggesting that maybe parents shouldn’t be smoking cannabis as they wait to pick up their kids. The police, unsurprisingly, have been informed. |
| It wasn’t like this in my day. The area outside the school gates was only good for one thing: fights. They were banned within the school itself, so if honour had been besmirched, a challenge would be issued. News of the chance to spectate at such a gladiatorial contest would be spread by whispered word-of-mouth. “Davie X. Stuart Y. Outside the school gates at four.” Or maybe “Alison A and Lynn B.” Girls’ fights were considered particularly thrilling, as the favoured technique was for opponents to pull each other’s heads down by the hair, until clear access was gained for kicking in the face. | It wasn’t like this in my day. The area outside the school gates was only good for one thing: fights. They were banned within the school itself, so if honour had been besmirched, a challenge would be issued. News of the chance to spectate at such a gladiatorial contest would be spread by whispered word-of-mouth. “Davie X. Stuart Y. Outside the school gates at four.” Or maybe “Alison A and Lynn B.” Girls’ fights were considered particularly thrilling, as the favoured technique was for opponents to pull each other’s heads down by the hair, until clear access was gained for kicking in the face. |
| Actually, outside the school gates was good for two things, the other being birthday greetings. This isn’t as nice as it sounds. Birthdays were marked by one of two procedures. One was “the dumps”, which consisted of four chums grabbing a limb each, hoisting the celebrant in the air and whacking them on to the ground on their backs as many times as the years they had lived. The other was “the piano”, reserved only for the boys, in which the celebrant would be seen curled in a ball on the ground, as pals gave them an affectionate booting while singing “Pia-pia-piano. Pi-a-no. Pi-a-no”. This refrain was repeated until either the victim escaped or everyone got fed up. | Actually, outside the school gates was good for two things, the other being birthday greetings. This isn’t as nice as it sounds. Birthdays were marked by one of two procedures. One was “the dumps”, which consisted of four chums grabbing a limb each, hoisting the celebrant in the air and whacking them on to the ground on their backs as many times as the years they had lived. The other was “the piano”, reserved only for the boys, in which the celebrant would be seen curled in a ball on the ground, as pals gave them an affectionate booting while singing “Pia-pia-piano. Pi-a-no. Pi-a-no”. This refrain was repeated until either the victim escaped or everyone got fed up. |
| No, I tell a lie – outside the school gates was good for three things, the last being giving the end-of-year leavers a jolly good send-off to secondary school. Pelting with eggs and flour was the least of it. The great sport was trying to tear the blazers off the leavers’ backs. I have a strong memory of seeing one of the Big Girls, on a quite nippy last day, crossing her arms to pull the neat bolero that was all that was left of her jacket around her for warmth. Best days of your life? I lived in fear. | No, I tell a lie – outside the school gates was good for three things, the last being giving the end-of-year leavers a jolly good send-off to secondary school. Pelting with eggs and flour was the least of it. The great sport was trying to tear the blazers off the leavers’ backs. I have a strong memory of seeing one of the Big Girls, on a quite nippy last day, crossing her arms to pull the neat bolero that was all that was left of her jacket around her for warmth. Best days of your life? I lived in fear. |
| Back then, you were a total laughing stock if your parents either dropped you off or picked you up from school after the first few weeks of reception class. Absolutely nobody did it. Teachers were also expected to respect the fact that their authority ended at the perimeter fence. And they did, with some gladness. Looking back, I can see that none of this was tremendously healthy. At the time, it was just the way things were. | Back then, you were a total laughing stock if your parents either dropped you off or picked you up from school after the first few weeks of reception class. Absolutely nobody did it. Teachers were also expected to respect the fact that their authority ended at the perimeter fence. And they did, with some gladness. Looking back, I can see that none of this was tremendously healthy. At the time, it was just the way things were. |
| When I first moved to London and started hearing about “the school run”, I was mystified. Thinking it at first simply to be another soft southern way, I eventually came o dim awareness that things had changed in Motherwell, too. Great big 10-year-olds were being ferried to and from school by parents, morning and night, often in cars, even though hardly anyone lived more than 700 metres from their primary school. | When I first moved to London and started hearing about “the school run”, I was mystified. Thinking it at first simply to be another soft southern way, I eventually came o dim awareness that things had changed in Motherwell, too. Great big 10-year-olds were being ferried to and from school by parents, morning and night, often in cars, even though hardly anyone lived more than 700 metres from their primary school. |
| Or schools – two had been built, identical in structure, on opposite sides of the road, and next to their respective places of worship, Catholic and Protestant, the chapel and the church. We prods were told that our school was “multi-denominational”. But that was just one of the many little ways in which we reminded ourselves that we were more civilised and enlightened than those we called, in our own great sophistication, the “bog-hoppers”. | Or schools – two had been built, identical in structure, on opposite sides of the road, and next to their respective places of worship, Catholic and Protestant, the chapel and the church. We prods were told that our school was “multi-denominational”. But that was just one of the many little ways in which we reminded ourselves that we were more civilised and enlightened than those we called, in our own great sophistication, the “bog-hoppers”. |
| And this reminds me of another thing that the school gates were good for – taunting former playmates whose religious affiliation had proved to form an unbridgeable cultural gap, between “proddy dogs” who “eat the frogs, two for tuppence ha’penny” and “cathy cats” who “eat the rats, two for tuppence ha’penny”. An important, if apocryphal, distinction, I’m sure you’ll agree. | And this reminds me of another thing that the school gates were good for – taunting former playmates whose religious affiliation had proved to form an unbridgeable cultural gap, between “proddy dogs” who “eat the frogs, two for tuppence ha’penny” and “cathy cats” who “eat the rats, two for tuppence ha’penny”. An important, if apocryphal, distinction, I’m sure you’ll agree. |
| Anyway, there we have it. Contemporary parental transgressions seem few and far between compared to the entirely quotidian Lord of the Flies vibe that reigned when both parents and teachers were entirely absent from the school-gate equation. I’m quite tempted by arguments that suggest children are mollycoddled too much these days, and that escorting them to school because of fears about traffic and paedophiles is madness. Then I remember that savage no-adults-land between home and school, and remind myself that, as in so many matters, there are no perfect solutions. | Anyway, there we have it. Contemporary parental transgressions seem few and far between compared to the entirely quotidian Lord of the Flies vibe that reigned when both parents and teachers were entirely absent from the school-gate equation. I’m quite tempted by arguments that suggest children are mollycoddled too much these days, and that escorting them to school because of fears about traffic and paedophiles is madness. Then I remember that savage no-adults-land between home and school, and remind myself that, as in so many matters, there are no perfect solutions. |
| The important thing about all of these stories is to remember that they are exotic and atypical enough to make national news headlines. Whether it’s ethical to plaster primary schools all over the media because of local difficulties is quite another matter. I rather think it’s not. But social media makes it easy to transform small stories into big news, about which multiple opinions must then be offered. | The important thing about all of these stories is to remember that they are exotic and atypical enough to make national news headlines. Whether it’s ethical to plaster primary schools all over the media because of local difficulties is quite another matter. I rather think it’s not. But social media makes it easy to transform small stories into big news, about which multiple opinions must then be offered. |
| It’s tempting to paint up these school-gate skirmishes as drivers of “debate” about “class” and “standards”. But, really, all they communicate to us is that parents, too, can have ideas that are strikingly, even shockingly, at variance with the general consensus about what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Who knew? | It’s tempting to paint up these school-gate skirmishes as drivers of “debate” about “class” and “standards”. But, really, all they communicate to us is that parents, too, can have ideas that are strikingly, even shockingly, at variance with the general consensus about what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Who knew? |
| Turning up at a school, resplendent in jim-jams, clamping your joint in your mouth as you assist your boy in shaking off his wullie, is Not Good. If you’re doing one or all of these things, expect a letter from your child’s school. The time to start alerting the media is when one such missive doesn’t arrive. | Turning up at a school, resplendent in jim-jams, clamping your joint in your mouth as you assist your boy in shaking off his wullie, is Not Good. If you’re doing one or all of these things, expect a letter from your child’s school. The time to start alerting the media is when one such missive doesn’t arrive. |