Top exam board asks for boom to be destroyed

Indigo Jo · **Joined:** Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:06 pm **Posts:** 4427

Quote:

Top exam board asks schools to destroy book containing knife poem

Britain's biggest exam board has been accused of censorship after it removed a poem containing references to knife crime from the GCSE syllabus.

Officials at the AQA board said their request that schools destroy the anthology containing the Carol Ann Duffy poem Education for Leisure had been triggered by concerns in two schools about references to knives. A spokeswoman confirmed the decision had been made in the context of the current spate of knife-related murders.

But poets yesterday condemned the move, saying such "censorship" fundamentally missed the point of the poem, which they said could help children debate the causes of street violence.

The poem starts: "Today I am going to kill something. Anything./I have had enough of being ignored and today/I am going to play God." It describes a youth's yearning for attention and a journey to sign on for the dole, and makes references to the killing of a goldfish. It ends ominously with the youth walking the streets armed with a bread knife.

Duffy, widely considered a front-runner to be the next poet laureate, yesterday declined to comment. But her literary agent, Peter Strauss, said: "It's a pro-education, anti-violence poem written in the mid-1980s when Thatcher was in power and there were rising social problems and crime. It was written as a plea for education. How, 20 years later, it had been turned on itself and presented to mean the opposite I don't know. You can't say that it celebrates knife crime. What it does is the opposite."

Michael Rosen, the children's laureate, said: "By this same logic we would be banning Romeo and Juliet. That's about a group of sexually attractive males strutting round the streets, getting off with girls and stabbing each other.

"Carol Ann is an easy target because she's a modern poet." He added: "Of course we want children to be talking about knife crime and poems like these are a terrific way of helping that happen. Blanket condemnation and censorship of something never works."

A spokeswoman for AQA confirmed there had been three complaints, two referring to knife crime and a third about the description of a goldfish being flushed down the toilet. The first complaint about knives was made in 2004. The second, made in the summer by an exams officer, was then taken up by an MP.

The most recent complaint was made by Lutterworth grammar school's exams invigilator, Pat Schofield, who welcomed the board's decision and said: "I think it is absolutely horrendous - what sort of message is that to give to kids who are reading it as part of their GCSE syllabus?"

The AQA spokeswoman said: "The decision to withdraw the poem was not taken lightly and only after due consideration of the issues involved. We believe the decision underlines the often difficult balance that exists between encouraging and facilitating young people to think critically about difficult but important topics and the need to do this in a way which is sensitive to social issues and public concern."

Education for Leisure

Today I am going to kill something. Anything.

I have had enough of being ignored and today

I am going to play God. It is an ordinary day,

a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets

I squash a fly against the window with my thumb.

We did that at school. Shakespeare. It was in

another language and now the fly is in another language.

I breathe out talent on the glass to write my name.

I am a genius. I could be anything at all, with half

the chance. But today I am going to change the world.

Something's world. The cat avoids me. The cat

knows I am a genius, and has hidden itself.

I pour the goldfish down the bog. I pull the chain.

I see that it is good. The budgie is panicking.

Once a fortnight, I walk the two miles into town

For signing on. They don't appreciate my autograph.

There is nothing left to kill. I dial the radio

and tell the man he's talking to a superstar.

He cuts me off. I get our bread-knife and go out.

The pavements glitter suddenly. I touch your arm.

~ Carol Ann Duffy

http://snipurl.com/3o48r

Indigo Jo · **Joined:** Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:06 pm **Posts:** 4427

As a mom I can totally understand the childs point of view, also the board's.

There is so much pressure being placed on teaching the curriculum and at such speed that inevitably some children fail to keep up, struggle or suffer immense stress as a result.
In the past, teacher's taught well. They knew their pupils and knew all too well when someone was having problems.

If a child gets ignored at home for whatever reason, or is the kind of child who finds talking about their worries too hard to do, school was their release. They knew there was many people they could talk to who wouldn't judge them, make them feel fools if their problems were trivial and who cared - at a distance.
Even their school friends would share the same problems so they could be resolved or discussed amongst themselves.

Today, teachers just do not have time for their pupils anymore. Having time to blow their nose results in them having to make an appointment first or so it seems. This takes away a valuable release for the child who has no-one at home.
Sometime their peers give up too. when this happens you have a bunch of teenagers who feel lost, uncared for or about. This is when gangs start. It's generally nothing more than a child saying "Hey look at me! Don't ignore me and don't make me feel like I don't matter. That hurts"

Children will then result in doing all sorts to get themselves noticed. Knife crime being just one of them.

To me, what needs to happen is families need to be aware of the modern day world and how it can literally terrify a child. Their fears that they can never hope to meet what's expected of them by todays society is very real to them and it should be addressed and re-addressed. Parents need to take time to be there for their children no matter how little time they have. Make more time.

Schools need to re-assess what they teach and HOW they teach it. Teaching is not just about getting what's on the curriculum into a childs head it's about teaching them behaviour, respect, understanding and providing release subjects with the emphasis on fun only in a relaxed atmosphere.
I think teachers themselves have failed to realize their importance in their role and what impact they can and do have on the children in their care.

Having said all that, it is also the education board's responsibility to make sure that subjects have adequate time to be taught well. Rattling through a subject only ever serves to educate those who can keep up, only ensuring those who can't fail, drop behind, panic and worry. They too have to take their share of the responsibility for a child feeling it has no option but to try all means of getting the attention they need and for people to 'hear' them.

I don't see why this poem should not be covered. providing it's covered with time to go into it's depth, discussions and debates are healthy and many of it's problems resolved in a way where the emphasis is on WHY he felt that way, and what could have been done to help him/her before he got that far. Options for pupils to discuss any of their own fears and problems made available either in private or as a group at the end of it's discussions I don't see any problem with it.

Top exam board asks for boom to be destroyed

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