Mr. Briggs doesn’t really understand what kind of background the children come from, and what they have to go through at home everyday. But, Mrs. Kay understands these difficulties and tries to be sympathetic towards them.
When Carol asks Mrs. Kay if she would have a chance of living in a nice house in the future, Mrs. Kay replies, “Well, you could try love, couldn’t you eh?” Mrs. Kay realises that the chances of these children getting a good job when they leave school or living in a nice house when they grow up are slim to nothing.
Mr. Briggs doesn’t realise this at all. He thinks they have no problems after the 3.15 bell rings. Mr. Briggs reckons they have all the things a child should have, “With their five quid pocket money and telly till all hours, video games and that.”
Another point where he shows that he doesn’t have a clue is when he is on the cliff with Carol, “What’s to stop you working hard…getting a good job and then moving out here when you’re old enough?”
At the start of the play, when you are first introduced to Mr. Kay, you straight away realise that she is not much an expert at laying down the rules. She only set one rule for the day out, and that was, “That’s the only rule we’re going to have today, think of yourselves, but think of others as well.”
Mr. Briggs is the total opposite. He has so many rules, that he has a whole song devoted to them! Some of them are, “We sit upon our seats” “We do not use obscenities” “We talk politely, quietly nod and smile.” This is a major reason why the children hate him. He just doesn’t let them do what they want.
In the second part of the essay, I am going to find out both teacher’s ideas and opinions about discipline.
Mrs. Kay believes the children should have all the freedom they want. They should be allowed to do what they want, not just be locked behind a cage all their lives. When she is arguing with Mr. Briggs on the castle top she says, “Can’t we just give them a good day out?” This suggests that she doesn’t want to educate them on this trip; all she wants is for them to have a good time.
Mr. Briggs does not think that the children should be left alone. He doesn’t trust them to be on their own for even a minute. At the sweet shop, when Mrs. Kay wants to go and have a tea with Mr. Briggs, he is reluctant to go. He never wants to leave them alone because the fear of them giving the school a bad name looms up inside his head.
In a way, Mr. Briggs is right not to trust the children. I think that in some places he is right not to trust them, but in other places, he should be a bit easier going. The sweet shop incident was Mrs. Kay’s fault. She should have been watching the children, or at least should have told Colin or Susan to be there with them. Mr. Briggs was right that time.
The other time where something went wrong and Mrs. Kay was to blame was at the zoo. The children took animals from the pet’s corner and claimed to “borrow” them. Briggs is very reluctant to go and have a cup of tea with Mrs. Kay. “But can these people be trusted?” he says when Mrs. Kay says that the children will be all right on their own.
The sweet shop and zoo incidents were put in the play to add humour. They work pretty well together to emphasise the way the children think, for example, stealing is ok.
In the third part of this essay, I intend to explore Mrs. Kay and Mr. Briggs’s opinions about the point of school trips.
Mrs. Kay believes that the point of a school trip for progress class students is to have fun and to let them enjoy themselves. Just when Briggs is about ready to go home, Mrs. Kay says, “Come on everybody, we’re going to the beach.” This shows that Mrs. Kay wants the children to have fun. She doesn’t want to make the trip educational like Mr. Briggs. It is important she does this because she doesn’t want to wreck the last day of fun that they’re going to have in a long time.
Mr. Briggs believes that the point of a school trip is to learn and benefit from the knowledge that you see around you. When he is arguing with Mrs. Kay in the cliff, she says to him, “There’s no point pretending that a day out to Wales is going to be of some great education benefit.”
When they arrive in Wales, Mr. Briggs begins to bore the children with a lecture about Conway Castle, “Now, those large square holes…that’s where the archers would fire from if the castle was under attack.” This speech that he performs is probably the most pointless thing he will ever say.
At the end of the play, Mr. Briggs realises that these children have no future ahead of them, and that there is no point in trying to teach them anything about castles. He realises this when he has a conversation with Carol on top of the cliff. Briggs begins to realise that he should try to make the trip more enjoyable rather than educational. So, instead of carrying on about how the castle defended itself, he takes the children to the fair after the seaside, “You can’t come all the way to the seaside and not pay a visit to the fair.”
Briggs and the children have lots of fun at the fair. They ride the Waltzer and the Dodgems. They eat candy floss and hot dogs. But at the end of all this, there is dramatic tension created when we get back to school, because we realise that Mr. Briggs has not changed after all.
On the bus back to school, Mr. Briggs asks Mrs. Kay if he can develop the photo reel they shot today, “Have them done as soon as I can.”
But when they all get back to school, Mr. Briggs finds the reel in his pocket. “Suddenly deciding, he opens the film, exposing it to the light.” Briggs hasn’t changed after all.
Finally, I’m going to discuss the teachers’ teaching styles and methods.
Mr Briggs’ opinions of Mrs. Kay are very grim. He thinks she’s too soft on the children and should lay down more rules and boundaries. He doesn’t think she’s organised enough, “It’s a shambles, the whole ill-organised affair.” Mr. Briggs thinks that the teaching style of Mrs. Kay is inappropriate. Briggs says that it doesn’t matter if the children don’t like you, “You’ve got to risk being disliked if you’re going to do anything for kids like these.” He thinks that you’re not supposed to like the kids; you’re just supposed to do your job and teach them.
Colin: “She likes kids.”
Briggs: “What’s that got to do with it?”
This quote proves that Mr. Briggs thinks that you are not supposed to be the children’s friend, you are just supposed to teach them.
In the seventies, there was massive unemployment in Liverpool and other parts of Great Britain. This is one of the reasons why children born in that time would find it hard to find jobs.
Mrs. Kay says that it’s not worth teaching the progress class children because no matter how hard you try, it’s going to be impossible for them to get good jobs. She says that it’s too late for them, and that they were going to be failures as soon as they were born, “Most of these kids were rejects the day they came into this world.”
She says that nobody wants the children educated. Mrs. Kay says that there’s nothing you can do for them because, “Most of them were born for factory fodder, but the factories have closed down.”
Whereas Mr. Briggs believes that the children should be educated and that teachers should not be their friends. He thinks that you shouldn’t be loving towards your pupils, “It might look like love and kindness, but it doesn’t fool me.”
I agree with Mrs. Kay. However, Mr. Briggs has a point as well. You should try to educate your children, but at the same time make it fun and enjoyable. Not just give them long lectures. If Mrs. Kay and Mr. Briggs were combined, I think you would have the perfect teacher. Even though Mrs. Kay is giving up on teaching these children, she does do a good job because her former students Reilly and Digga moved out of the progress class and back into mainstream classes. It’s just that she realises that teaching them is now futile and a good day out is just as important.
All throughout the play there is a huge contrast between the two teachers. Mrs. Kay being the goodie and Mr. Briggs being the baddie. All the children usually hung around with Mrs. Kay rather than Mr. Briggs, for obvious reasons.
The teacher that I thought had the better teaching style was Mrs. Kay. I think she was an overall good teacher. She made learning “fun”.
I think that Mrs. Kay is better than Mr. Briggs for teaching Progress Class students. In class, she would teach them in an easy-to-understand way. Whereas Mr. Briggs would speak in a more formal way. Ways in which the progress class students are unfamiliar to.
In the end, the overall message that is given is that, if you absolutely know that these children are going to be failures from the day they leave school, and then what is the point of educating them when it is going to be of no use at all? Instead of boring them with useless knowledge that will be no good to them, why not let them enjoy themselves while they have a chance? They certainly won't have a chance in the future.
The juxtaposition of events in this play is placed there deliberately to create humour, and sometimes draw the audience’s attention away from the children’s awful lives.
This also displays the contrast between the two teachers and their ways of handling an awkward situation.
By,
Varinderjeet Singh Bimmut
