Primary School Confidential (23 page)

And then we were on to the class awards. This was when the principal himself, a man in long shorts, long socks and slip-on shoes in a pale hue, would make an appearance. Scratching his
moustache, he would ask us to please wait until the end of the ceremony to show our admiration for the chosen ones.

‘Class KM, Jenny Bolton, for having a wonderful smile . . .'

And the crowd would go WILD!

The principal would remind us to please save our applause until the end.

‘Class 1S, Brett Dalrymple, for going a week without crying . . .'

Hysterical cheering, thunderous applause.

Sighing, the principal gave up, and rattled through the rest of the list as quickly as he could.

When at last he was done, he would ask us to stand for the school prayer.

And we would singsong away, without a clue as to what it actually meant.

22

LET US PRAY (OR NOT)

Whether you were religious or not, scripture classes were an inevitable part of primary school when I was growing up. Sure, there were the odd outliers, like the kids from the Jehovah's Witness family who got to go outside when we recited the school prayer in assembly. These same kids would also avoid any religious-based festivities. I remember being aghast to learn that they didn't get birthday gifts or Christmas presents. I mean, where was their incentive to keep living?

For the rest of us, though, scripture classes were just another part of the curriculum, like art or sport. Your parents had the choice to send you to either Catholic or Church of England, and that was it. The Jehovah's Witness kids went to the library. Welcome to your first experience of segregation based on religion!

The scripture teachers were all elderly members of the local churches, and try as they might, they were unable to maintain control over any of the classes I attended.

It is safe to say we Woogs are not religious. (Although I probably should be thankful I am here at all. You see my dad was training to be a priest when my mum stole him from Jesus. Boom, chickie-bow-wow indeed.)

When it was time for my eldest to start primary school, we had to decide which scripture he should do. Mr Woog has an extreme aversion to organised religion and was insistent that he did ‘non-scripture', whereas I was of the opinion that if there were lessons in anything on offer, then we should put our hands up.

So we decided that our kids would study a year of every faith, starting with Judaism. My kids are across that now, as well as Baha'i, Catholicism and Church of England (well, their basic principles at the very least).

Me? I worship weekly at the Church of Chatswood Chase, our local shopping centre, where the congregation are expected to wear tight jeans, long black boots, a white long-sleeved t-shirt under a puffer vest, and finish it off with a Bugaboo Pram. There may also be a Pandora bracelet involved.

Our local public school has been trialling ethics classes in the upper years, which I think is terrific. The aims of the ethics classes are as follows:

• To introduce the language of ethics and, in doing so, to provide the tools to survey the values and principles we live by.

• To encourage openness towards important personal and public issues.

• To introduce dialogue as a means of resolving ethical issues.

• In short, to deepen the ethical sense of future generations.

These ethics lessons are designed to teach you to be a more thoughtful person. And, in my opinion, everyone could do with a dose of that.

But then enter a dinosaur: a fella by the name of Fred Nile.

Fred Nile is (or was, depending when you are reading my book) the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, a political group that promotes Christian values in Parliament and evaluates all legislation on Biblical principles.

He also HATES the thought that our kids can learn ethics at school. HATES.

The truth is that ethics has nothing to do with religion, but Fred insists that it will affect the ‘bums on seats' movement. Ethics is a strand of philosophy, and heaven forbid our kids might make meaningful and empathetic decisions on their own.

Considering a lot of our politicians are morally bankrupt themselves, is it any wonder that this is not a mandatory part of the Australian curriculum?

23

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

At my primary school, the most feared punishment was detention—though detention's bark was worse than its bite. There were a lot of myths circulating about what happened when you were on detention. One was that a teacher would draw a dot of chalk on the blackboard and you had to spend the entire lunchtime standing with your nose pressed to that dot. Another was that you would be forced to stand against a wall in the blazing sun for an hour with your hands on your head as your peers played in front of you.

The reality was not as physically arduous, although it was indeed degrading: you had to spend the lunch hour in a supervised classroom writing out your crime with the words ‘I must not' in front of it.

At the end of lunch, you took your lines up to the teacher/warden at the front and showed her.

She would ask the question: ‘What must you not do?'

‘I must not throw a duster at Morris's head.'

And back to class you would go, to look at the back of Morris's head, which still had a faint chalk mark on the back of it. And it was all you could do not to empty the contents of your sharpener down the back of his shirt . . . Or so I am told.

Back in my day, a bit of physical and emotional abuse was an accepted part of the school day.

Take my Year 5 teacher, Mr Golloway. A tall, thin man whose face was stamped with a permanent sneer, you could describe him as ‘old school', which is another way of saying he hated children.

Mr Golloway's favourite pastime was humiliating his students. He would quite often throw a chalk-laden duster at me with alarmingly good aim, and yell: ‘Sit down, you drongo!'

The reason I was standing in the first place was because each morning we had to recite our times tables. I was completely stuck on the sevens. Mr Golloway would draw a circle on the backboard and write the numbers 1 to 12 around it. First he would choose a number, and then he would choose his victim.

If your name was called you would stand and wait while Mr Golloway readied his stopwatch. His eyes would narrow, his lizard-like tongue would dart out to wet his thin mean lips, and then he would yell: ‘GO!'

And if it was me who was standing, I would simultaneously freeze and wet my pants a little. Then, panicking, I would stammer and stutter out random numbers, hoping that some of them might even be right. Eventually Mr Golloway would crack the shits and peg the duster at me.

‘Sit down, you drongo!'

Although sometimes he would mix it up a bit and call me a dunderhead. Just for shits and giggles. When he got completely fed up, he would order us all to do silent reading, while he went out to the car park to have a smoke.

Now imagine the repercussions today if a primary school teacher, or any teacher for that matter, threw an object at a student (other than a ball during PE) and belittled said student with unflattering names? There would be an international outcry.

As recently as 2014, it was suggested that Australian students might actually benefit if we were to bring back corporal punishment. A so-called expert by the name of Kevin Donnelly actually argued that bringing back the cane would stem the rising tide of suspensions that are handed out each year.