Attention Deficit
by Nigel Pickard
(published by Weathervane Press, £7.99, ISBN 978-0-9562193-5-0)
This novel is intriguing – perhaps more so for those who have not experienced teaching in a tough British secondary school. The story is told in alternating chapters by two narrators: Harry Monk, Head of English, and Lewis Tuckwood, a disaffected 15-year-old previously excluded from another school. The narrators are on a collision course, but Harry is the main focus of the story and his chapters are more detailed and articulate than Lewis’s contributions. The plot centres on whether Mr Monk will break and, if so, how long this will take. Lewis gives his version of events and, in a sense, becomes a commentator on Harry’s life – and vice versa. I found the story gripping from the outset because of the tensions at work here: between the adult world and that of the pupils; home versus school; the gulf between Harry’s fraught family life (coping with mounting debt, infirm parents and a mentally ill wife) and his sexual escapades with female colleagues.
As a central character, Harry is a flawed anti-hero who sometimes behaves like a man approaching retirement age, eg complaining of creaky joints when bending to talk to a pupil in the classroom; but, if my maths is correct, Harry is feeling all washed-up in his mid-thirties. It is possible that during Harry’s dozen-or-so years of teaching, the combination of tough kids, a post of responsibility and the burden of his personal life could conceivably have taken its toll; unlike in Australia and elsewhere, there is no offer of a desk-job every ten years to try and prevent burn-out. In any event, there is no doubt that the reader is witnessing a compelling first-hand account of a well-intentioned teacher’s life being eroded and that it is only a short step from there to the recent court case of the tormented science teacher who stopped just short of manslaughter.
Apart from under-representing the hours of unremitting grind spent marking (no doubt for artistic reasons), the book gives a very realistic picture of the unique challenges faced by members of the teaching profession. It highlights very clearly the fact that no-one enters the profession to be an agent of social control, but this is nonetheless expected in Britain where, in addition to teaching your subject, it is expected that you will also function as an unpaid/untrained counsellor, administrator, librarian, janitor, chaperone, paramedic, prison warder, police officer and bare-knuckle fight referee. This novel brought it all back: returning home from work with blood on my clothing; separating adult-sized teenagers intent on kicking each other in the head; wiping saliva from my face; cajoling pupils into handing over a knife. Perhaps some readers will think Nigel Pickard has exaggerated the non-stop stream of abuse and violence faced by the staff, but unfortunately I found his depiction all too familiar – both from time spent on the chalk-face and recollections of my own school days as a pupil.
So why, you might ask, would anyone do the job? Answer: for the vast majority of pupils and their parents who are supportive, appreciative people and who also suffer at the hands of an abusive minority – and to improve the life-chances of those who cannot afford an expensive private education in our divided society. This book accurately reflects the warmth and humour to be found in any school community, alongside the violence. In fact, the writing is most alive when Harry Monk tells us about his profession, a job he once loved but which has changed out of all recognition, owing to misjudged government targets and countless knee-jerk national initiatives. Having stood in Harry’s shoes, I recognised the struggle to teach a range of pupils – with wildly varying levels of intellect and hygiene – in overcrowded, poorly heated classrooms; the growing threat of litigation attaching to all aspects of school life; the police helicopter permanently hovering over the playing field; the increasing numbers of pupils and their parents who regard education as wholly irrelevant and see future life-chances as hingeing on participation in televised talent shows. And of course there are those students who just don’t want to do anything; the author’s portrait of Lewis – who didn’t play football but thought he might become a professional footballer when he left school the following year – is absolutely classic.
In addition to the situations being realistic, the writing is spare but poetic, with brief, evocative descriptions; the dialogue sparkles. The author’s handling of the sex scenes, between Harry and the Deputy Head who is his mistress, are understated and convincing, even their rather over-heated encounter on the floor of her office. Knowing what can lurk on school door-handles, I just hoped they had both given their hands a jolly good wash first. And could this happen in real life? Again, yes – definitely!
The chapters purporting to be written by Lewis are perhaps less convincing in terms of why he is consenting to write about himself. The use of writing by teenagers (eg to explore trans-cultural conflict) is more convincing in the 2008 French film The Class, possibly because they read their work aloud. Lewis’s thoughts are rendered in believably misspelled English – but he somehow manages to spell correctly the name of his favourite teacher ‘Roseanna’although he says he had only heard her name spoken. By and large, though, Lewis is a credible character and the author is rarely visible as creator, but somehow I feared seeing the strings tweaked by the puppeteer.
Although Mr Monk’s escapades out of the classroom make for enjoyable reading, I still wished the focus of the novel had been more directed at the life of the school (as in the French film) and less on his private life which, with its increasing desperation, resembled a plot by David Mamet. In fact, the only slightly hollow note in the book was the sub-plot involving ‘Colin the cock’– Harry’s old school chum, now supposedly a financial whizz, who had persuaded him to invest in a rotten land-for-development deal; this was instantly redolent of Glengarry, Glen Ross. But as it says in the back-cover blurb, this story ‘is about far more than education’. Perhaps to secure publication in a competitive market, it is necessary to somehow sex-up a story about education, or any subject which might otherwise be considered a bit tame. Or is it? You decide…
…reviewed by Beverly Ellis