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From The Times Educational Supplement, Friday, February 24th 2006
Big School
By Craig W Thomas
Big school, small minds. The villain of Big School is one Michael Peniston, a new headmaster full of ideas for boosting his own career. For Peniston, that means Cats, Sats and lots of stats, plus a new regime of inspecting teaching files (“we doan't call ‘em ‘mark bewks' any more”, says one of the new young teachers, Jez from Bury) to put pressure on teachers he wants to dismiss.
His main target for dismissal is a charismatic 53-year-old English teacher, Sefton Demmler, who becomes a guru to the narrator Tim, a 28-year-old former career student trying to make himself grow up by getting a real job and sorting out his two-girlfriends-at-a-time problem. The head's Machiavellian plot to get rid of Demmler stems from the wickedly delightful way Demmler belittles him: “Why did you insist on addressing a room full of human beings as if they read computer manuals for pleasure?” Demmler's challenging of Peniston (except when his wit gives way to boorish obscenity) is one of the chief pleasures of an entertaining but unevenly written novel which could have done with more editing.
Thomas is a flamboyant writer who enjoys slinging around arresting metaphors but lets in a few clichés. Allowing his narrator no more eloquence than “the kids are great though” when explaining why he stays with the job, and using phrases such as “played the goat”, create dead spots in a lively novel. There is deft characterization – of Jez, with her phonetically rendered accent, and Demmler, with his enigmatic power – alongside dismal sexist banter which does not reflect the way young male teachers talk in any of the schools I've worked in.
It is also a pity that the “great kids” are largely absent from a novel about staffroom politics and the narrator's insecurities. The reader has to take it on trust that Demmler is a charismatic teacher, and thaht the old days of casual planning and hands-off management better served the pupils, if the author's satirical barbs are to hit home. Fortunately, there are enough nostalgic teachers such as myself around to accept it on trust.
Though I doubt if many non-teachers would understand why Cats and their associated bestiaries should make the blood boil, those still in the loop, or skidding out of it, should be entertained by a comedy aimed at seriously grumpy and disaffected teachers.
David Buckley
David Buckley teaches part-time in Sheffield
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From the author:
Ah, the first national review. Like all precious, artsie-fartsie luvvie people, I naturally want to kill any reviewer that doesn't say, ‘This is the best book ever written.' Actually, David B. has been fairly nice, here, although I can't help thinking, ‘you think I'm grumpy?' while I'm focusing on the silliness of some of his criticisms. Well, all of them, if I'm honest, and why wouldn't I be.
Firstly, he's wrong to think that Big School was written with the aim of attracting ‘grumpy and disaffected teachers.' It's aimed at a broad market of readers both in and outside the teaching profession. Also, his comment suggests a book with a narrow focus, as Michael Peniston might say, when readers know that it's themes and subject matter range widely from specific problems in schools to the universal itches and acute pains that affect all of us: how to get a girlfriend, how to deal with Mum, how to get through the working day, and so on. Or rather I should be more serious-minded here and say that the point of Big School is its exploration of the serious problem that is, ‘what the hell do I do with my working life?' This is a question I wish I'd thought a whole lot harder about a long time ago.
Back to David. His doubts that ‘non-teachers would understand why Cats and their associated bestiaries' – good, though obscure word – ‘should make the blood boil' are as mistaken as Andy Gray is about football. From this he presumes that potential readers haven't enough grey matter to work out how to wire a plug. Also, I think - hem, hem – I explain all that technical stuff pretty clearly in the book; bent my back a fair bit all in the cause of the non-teacher. And as for folk having to take Sefton Demmler's classroom wizardry on trust, he must have fallen asleep at the bit where he sweeps into Tim's classroom and…I won't say more in case you haven't got to that bit yet.
Next, a word about Tim's ‘clichés' like ‘the kids are great.' I worked in schools for 24 years and this is exactly the language we all use when we're talking about the nice ones we're responsible for. I don't know what kind of schools David's worked in, but we don't go around talking like Cambridge professors from the 1920s.
Which is what he wonders about me when commenting on the ‘sexist banter' that he's never heard in staff rooms. I knew that when I set down some of the Peggy Lane talk about the fair sex I was open to this charge. But obviously he hasn't worked with some of the PE teachers I have down the years. And History teachers, and Science teachers. For sure, some school staff rooms have a more rarefied air than others, and there have been places I've worked in where publicly I had to be extremely politically correct in all my sayings and doings, especially in the 80s when, some would say, Thatch was banging about the country doing bad impressions of some of the more balmy Dictators in history (not that I'd agree with that for a second). But the point missed by David is that this is a blinking novel. It's fiction. I'm writing to entertain myself and other people. True, I do like to create a realistic world, but to do that all the time would leave the writer much less room for comedy and so on. If David, when using the term. ‘sexist banter' is referring to the reaction of some of the lads to Fiona Twyford-Sounding when she came into the staff room that day to specifically entice a male member of staff, then I can tell him that he should have seen her for himself on that occasion. I was there and I can tell you, no man alive wouldn't have said something that resembled classic old-style, pre-post-modern sexism. And anyway, I thought it was okay these days for the female scribbler to talk about fellers having ‘gorgeous buns' and ‘huge members'? I was under the impression that this was generally applauded by the right-thinking Right On Bloke. If so, then, I'm afraid that what's sauce for the goose….And I should tell anyone who cares about any of this, that if my wife thought I was a chauvinistic b'stard, I'd have been out on my rear-end a couple of decades ago, and I can tell Mr B. that I'm still here! So there! If, on the other hand a critic wants to be offended by talk about attractive female bodies, then that's absolutely fine.
All this spouted, I should thank David for the nice things he said, and I do. He says I can produce one or two pretty nifty tricks as a writer, and I say thanks and well done for spotting it.
Craig Thomas 1.3.06
Big School – From February 28 th 2006
“A new voice with new things to say.” Amazon.co.uk
