tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post3261446687255211037..comments2024-02-05T09:17:53.322-08:00Comments on Adrian Barlow's blog: In praise of David HolbrookAdrian Barlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04526714501872493961noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post-5394533985027239302011-12-06T09:31:17.102-08:002011-12-06T09:31:17.102-08:00I received my copy of English for Maturity today a...I received my copy of English for Maturity today and have just finishing reading Part I: English in the Secondary School. For someone like myself who attended a secondary modern school for boys in the sixties, this makes disturbing and enlightening reading. Disturbing because it reminds me that I failed the 11-plus and, instead of going to the newly-built High School which I could see behind the houses across the street from where we lived, I walked down the hill to attend a 1930s school where, presumably, they only got ‘the duds’. As Holbrook points out, ours was a ‘second best’ education which prepared us for a working life in anything our modern world could offer outside the professions. Enlightening in that, whatever its failings and however tough the boys, I realise now that I was given the kind of education in English that Holbrook advocates, one which developed my imagination and creative writing abilities, albeit on a modest scale. When I left school I struggled with my reading of literature, a then growing passion which is now part of my life, stumbling on at least one word in ten. I had spelling drilled into me from the age of eleven until I left to start my apprenticeship at the age of sixteen and have never had a problem with it since. But I also had a head full of English folksongs that we sang once a week with the deputy headmaster conducting and the headmaster accompanying us on the piano. So when the local youth wing at the High School began a folk club I and a school friend of mine were able to get up and sing, a cappella, one or two of those folk songs. Not that we weren’t indifferent to the Beatles or the Stones! The two kinds of music existed side by side for us. Yet I do have a preference for teaching French 11-year-olds good old English children’s songs rather than pop song lyrics. So I suppose second best was good enough for me.Garry Headlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07741556616880181278noreply@blogger.com