How are the characters of Mrs Kay and Mr Briggs presented in Willy Russell’s “our day out”? How are their teaching styles different?
The play “Our Day Out” is about a progress class in a school, in a very poor situated area of Liverpool. These children are deprived and come from very low income backgrounds. The teaching styles of the two teachers, Mrs Kay and Mr Briggs are different through their ways of discipline and attitude to their students.
Mrs Kay is friendly to the pupils; she treats them with respect, is intimate and gives them a lot of attention. She says things like, “I don’t know love”, unlike Mr Briggs, who shouts “Right, you, what’s your name?” This tells us that Mr Briggs is full of discipline whereas Mrs Kay is down to earth and comforts the pupils.
On the other hand, Mr Briggs has a very different way of teaching and disciplining the pupils compared to Mrs Kay. Mr Briggs uses older methods of disciplining for example Mr Briggs shouts more than Mrs Kay and intimidates the pupils. He says “don’t you ‘what’ me young lady” whereas Mrs Kay would be a little more relaxed, as she would say something along the lines of ‘pardon’ or ‘excuse me’. His attitude towards the pupils gives the impression that he would like to bring the cane back in to use at schools. All the shouting and bickering Mr Briggs does, shows the audience that he has a very high temper, and he can just have these sudden out bursts of shouting. It’s obvious to see that Mr Briggs can’t have personal conversations with pupils. He is talking to ‘Andrews’ about the school boy’s personal life, but then randomly Briggs cuts in saying “ listen, why don’t you promise yourself you will give up smoking?” This proves that Briggs can’t cope with personal relationships with other people. Also he doesn’t seem very sympathetic which is what ‘Andrews’ needs, some sympathy.
