Just before Easter in 1989 the police mounted a special
patrol in London’s Oxford Street and in four weeks eleven officers picked up
three hundred and thirty three children between the ages of seven and
sixteen. We must wonder where the children
came from and why they were there.
It is obvious that discipline with a school is important –
and must be crucial to the level of truanting. It must be difficult for some
parents to spot if their child is playing truant. A truant will often stay away
from home during the hours that he or she is supposed to be in at school.
Schools have to keep a register of all children in the classes. Some schools
have amazing systems to allow children to `clock in’ and parents can then notified
of absences by text messages and the like.
As a child I used to envy Tom Sawyer who was able to go
floating off down the Mississippi with his great friend Huckleberry Finn. When
I became a teacher my view of truancy had to change.
I was given a book called The Backward Child by my first
headmaster – Mr. W. W. Wilson. I had been given the top class of the year group
for my first three years of teaching and Mr. Wilson offered the fourth stream
for the fourth year – hence handing me on his copy of `The Backward Child’. My
edition is the 1957 edition (The book was first written in 1937.) Sir Cyril
updated the book to take into account some of the consequences of the 1944
Education Act. This was the act which tried to make provision for different
types of children. In part, the act lead to the development and extension of the
eleven plus examination.
Page 562 gives one of Sir. Cyril Burt’s interpretations of
truancy:
“At school the dull child feels a hopeless failure. His life
may be one humiliating round of rebuke, disgrace and punishment. He soon comes
to dread the daily journey. He is tempted to play truant. Truancy brings freedom
and opportunities for enjoyable mischief; and so little by little he drifts into
crime.”
It seems possible that some bright children may also come to
dread the daily journey. There could be some able children bored by school and
all that school offers. The challenge of the eleven plus may be welcome to some
children. These could be children who
love solving problems and feeling that they are being extended and enriched.
Parent could test this `theory’ themselves. They could offer
their child the choice of a new and innovative eleven plus exercise – or the ennui
of yet another eleven plus paper. Some children would find this an easy choice
to make.
Excuse me – but would the innovative and energetic Tom
Sawyer have passed the eleven plus – if he had had the opportunity?
