Remember Timothy Winters? Tiny Tim? We left him somewhere in a playground on his first day of Big School, contemplating his possible fate. His mother was blubbing, his trousers were flapping, his feet were quaking in his tiny, new boots, and his hair resembled a golf divot.
A small, introvert child in a big extrovert world.
What happens to these silent pupils? Where do they go? How’s he doing so far? Little Tim vs the Curriculum? Who’s winning? There he goes bouncing from subject to subject like a pinball. Ping! The Romans! Ping! Press ups! Ping! Photosynthesis! Ping! Quadratics! It’s called a curriculum.
Is he making progress? Who knows? His teachers must soon test him.
He sits silent in the Indian summer sun at the back of the room. What’s he doing with that pencil? Is he daydreaming, plotting mischief or just bored senseless? He seems to be surviving by adopting James Joyce’s famous tactics of “silence, exile and cunning”. They work. His head’s not been down a toilet, he’s not been beaten up by the bike sheds. His tie’s been nicked by a thug called Dave Mania, his hair mocked by some 10th year girls and his trousers eaten by a moving escalator, but otherwise he’s doing fine.
His tutor, Ms Coles, gets him. His English teacher, Ms Jupe, gets him and lets him read Silver Surfer comics and adores his genius story about ghosts on the Circle line – not, unfortunately, on the syllabus.
He has one problem – laughing. He can’t stop it. It gets him in trouble. School seems an absurd universe, a loony bin, which prompts helpless mirth. The head’s assembly banalities leave him creased. Daft rules lead to bone stupid interrogations which lead to helpless giggling – especially concerning lateness. Because he’s so tiny and his rucksack’s so big and, he’s often late for something or other.
“You’re late!” says Mrs Dragon.
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Tube. Signal failure.”
“Not good enough!” He must wait for a late slip. This makes him late for next lesson where he waits to get another late slip. This makes him late for next lesson. So it goes. Marvellous. Hilarious.
At the end of the day he’s got five late slips, two detentions, a letter home telling his parents he’s always late and always laughing and should perhaps see a shrink.
How can Little Tim endure this? Easy. He retreats into his imagination. That pencil? Cartoons. He draws quite splendid cartoons of his teachers, influenced by Mervyn Peake. He has a secret life. It’s where those silent children go. Their pale virtues too often pass unremarked and unrewarded. Let them be.
- Ian Whitwham is a former inner city London teacher.