Before you become worried about the title, I’m referring to the act of boring boys, not suggesting that boys are boring. Well mostly not anyhow. I described several months ago how a headteacher shattered a boy’s enthusiasm by reacting with disgust to his wonderous description of a gruesome ogre (that his friends and I had loved) whilst declaring, ‘why can’t you write about something nice?’ and then flouncing off in an air of disapproval.
This attitude, of which this was such
a clear example but which I saw repeated in different manifestations in many
schools I visited inspired the piece below. Time and again I’ve come across
boys – and of course many girls – who even at a young age have been switched
off from reading and writing. ‘It’s boring.’ Certainly infinitely dissecting
seemingly randomly selected pieces of text (certainly from a child’s point of
view) in order to analyse the technicalities of construction doesn’t help.
Neither perhaps, in my view, is not aligning the interests of children with the
reading and writing we get – sometime force – them to do.
~~~~~
Now then Nathan, as I told you all we
want to display everyone’s stories for when the nice people from Ofsted come to
visit the school. Before we display your story, I think we need to make a few
changes. If you remember the title was “An exciting day”. I’m afraid I don’t
think the day you imagined was exciting at all to be honest Nathan. Now then,
let’s see how it started…
Septic-coloured lightning flashed
between the doom-grey clouds, explosively adding to the acidic, rancid
atmosphere in more than one way, on the conflict-battered planet. Oily rain
oozed out of the sickly polluted clouds and plummeted onto the mutilated
landscape. Although devastation covered the whole planet, in one spot the
decimation was at its most extreme. A thick slimy bog, that had once been a
lake, lapped sloppily against a ragged shoreline where the ruins of habitation
lay covered, like the surface of the bog, in a decimation of dust, masonry,
twisted metal and what looked like a mixture of body parts from many different
beings, which is in fact what it was…
Honestly Nathan, how unpleasant! Let’s
change it to…
It was a lovely sunny day and in the Green
Meadow outside the
That’s better, now I remember asking
for there to be two main characters in your story. I didn’t expect your first
character to be like this at all Nathan. Let’s see…
Aracno, the leader of the battle-orc
squadron came cautiously into view, his back pressed against the gnarled wall
that had once been the corner stone of a dwelling for a family of giant
blood-sucking puss-spiders. He was wearing battle armour formed from the hide
of kamikaze mammoths seeped for months in the corrosive dung of sabre-toothed
alligators until it was stronger and lighter than bio-steel. Despite its
strength there were many irregular shaped holes in the armour ringed with
shards of sharp hide, from some of which fluids of different consistencies
oozed from various of Aracno’s injuries.
Dear me Nathan, what an unpleasant
sounding character and goodness the idea of preparing hide in dung! We need a
much nicer character, let’s see…
Bouncy the Hare bounded into view. As
usual he was wearing a nice fawn suit with a green cravat and was singing a
cheerful song as he hopped along. Bouncy couldn’t help thinking what a nice day
it was and sang a special song for the cuddle birds and the fluffy-winged
butterflies.
There we are Nathan, now we need to
sort out the second character. I think I liked him even less than your first
character. How did it go again…?
As Aracno watched, a leviathan arose
from the slime of the bog before him, rancid muck dripping from the nightmare
silhouette taking shape before him. A cocktail of sludge, muck and gore dripped
from the metre-long fangs of the ghastly beast, which yowled horrifically as
saw the orc it most reviled and slightly feared standing before it, wielding
his deadly Intestine Impaler.
“Why have you dared to enter my
domain, you pile of mucus?” demanded the beast.
“Tremble insect-infested monstrosity,”
replied Aracno at the same time expelling a warning malodorous and radioactive
battle fart from three orifices. “For I will soon be frying your spleen and
liver in spit-beetle oil and feeding the slices to slime-worms!”
Goodness me Nathan, what makes you
think of such unpleasant ideas? What awful dialogue… fancy referring to someone
as mucus, tut tut Nathan. We definitely need a very different character here…
Just as Bouncy was finishing his
cheerful song, when who should come into view but Sheila Squirrel, swishing her
beautiful tail this way and that way without a care in the world!
“Hello Bouncy,” said Sheila. “What a
lovely song, I’m sorry I only heard the end of it!”
“Never mind,” said Bouncy. “Why don’t
we go for a picnic in the
See Nathan, so much more exciting and
not a single hint of a reference to farting. Goodness. So, what do we have to
change next? …
Seconds later blood of many different
colours, scales, teeth, hide, mucus and a kaleidoscope of many other body parts
were accelerating from the swirling vortex of the conflict between the two
bitter adversaries in a distorted swirl of insane concentric circles. One tonne
of stomach tissue battered into the wall Aracno had crept around and simultaneously
one of Aracno’s limbs, a now useless mass of muscle with a large bone poking
out of it landed in the slime.
Just to remind you Nathan your story
was supposed to be exciting. What can we do here?
Bouncy and Sheila wandered into the
friendly forest holding a wicker picnic basket between them.
“Shall we go and eat by The Bubbling Brook where the Skippy Fish play or shall we go to Dandelion Hill and play at
blowing the seeds off the dandelions?” Sheila asked Bouncy.
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Bouncy. “I
was wondering about visiting The Old Oak Tree and listening to Wise Old Owl
saying wise things!”
“What shall we do?” the two animals asked each other.
Can you see Nathan? How we’ve made
your story exciting? I wonder where they will decide to have their picnic. No
nasty limbs or internal organs flying about the place. How did your story end
before?
An instant after the deafening screams
of the conflict had reached a crescendo, an eerie silence slowly settled on the
battle scene like slushy glue. Those parts of Aracno that were still living as
part of one coherent being crawled out from under the distorted layers of the
still vibrating body parts of his enemy. While he dispassionately observed
thick gouts of his blood and blobs of tissue plopping to the ground, as he had
done many times before, Aracno mused that victory had come with a price… but it
had come. He spat two parallel globs of blue saliva at the remains of the beast
to symbolise his grudging respect for the ferocity of his finally defeated
nemesis.
What a way to show “respect” Nathan, I
don’t know. Let’s end the story properly shall we? How are we going to resolve
the problem of the picnic location? How about this…
In the end Bouncy and Sheila decided
to go to The Old Oak Tree and ask Wise Old Owl where they should have their
picnic. Wise Old Owl suggested that they leave their picnic hamper there and go
and visit The Bubbling Brook where the Skippy Fish play for a while and then
go to Dandelion Hill and play at blowing the seeds off the dandelions,
until they got hungry, when they could come and enjoy their picnic back at The Old
Oak Tree.
“Thank you, Wise Old Owl!” said Sheila
and Bouncy as they skipped off happily to The Bubbling Brook, where indeed the Skippy
Fish were playing in the glorious sunshine. They had a lovely afternoon and
enjoyed a delicious picnic, which
even included some cold ginger beer and creamy chocolate cake!
The end! Isn’t that better Nathan?
Nathan? Why have you fallen asleep? Honestly, I just can’t understand why I
can’t interest you boys in writing, despite all the effort I make! Really!
4 comments:
That was very telling! And it happens far too often because the majority of primary teachers are women, and enforce feminine norms without realising it.
I hear ya! I also have an (unproven) theory that men tend to leave all the kids' book buying to women. They shouldn't. They should step up and help.
Hmmm. I'd like to suggest that that, while being undeniably amusing and extreme to press your point, Steve, I don't think this dichotomy reflects most modern primary teachers, male or female, nor the restrictions & structures they work within for the National Curriculum. (nb. Not saying the last is a Good Thing!)
I also feel that the language and context of the "Bunny" story feels cod "Infant/KS2" while the level of language development and vocabulary and world building in Aracno's story seems to me to be more like upper KS2.
I agree, though, with Moira about men showing an interest in children's books & book buying.
Thank you all for your comments. I think we all agree that it would be good if more men took an interest in children's reading etc. I've worked in primary schools for many years and loved it and think it's a shame that so few men are attracted to a career in primary teaching. At an infant school I did some training in they had to take the television out of the men's toilet before I could use it as they used it as a store cupboard, so few men went to the school!
Just to reiterate the piece was inspired by a fairly recent experience in a school.
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