“There's nothing for them to do, any of them,
most of them were born for factory fodder, but the
factories have closed down.”
I believe if every teacher had that attitude, then society would fall in on itself. So despite her being portraying as a good person, her beliefs are very immature.
Mr. Briggs attitude on the other hand shows that he doesn't have time for the children and only for his job. He is very old fashioned and feels he always has to be in control and tells them what to do. He even goes as far as to tell the pupils how to have fun:
"We don't want you to think we don't want you to enjoy
yourself, because we do! But a lot of you haven't
been on a school visit before so you won't know how to
enjoy yourself. So I'm going to tell you".
I believe Russell is trying to portray Mr. Briggs as very selfish. He comes across as if he would be a lonely man, with nothing to do but pick on the children. His character is depicted as the type of teacher who wants to show the pupils whose boss.
Tension between the teachers is caused when Mrs. Kay tells the group that they will be visiting the zoo before they go to the Castle. Everybody is extremely happy, except Mr. Briggs who is entirely against the idea. The teachers’ attitudes towards the children cause many problems. The children are all very fond of Mrs. Kay as she gives them freedom to wander about on their own. In my opinion this is not entirely the best approach as I feel this would encourage the children to take advantage. At this point Mrs. Kay is portrayed as a very trustworthy person, whiles Briggs on the other hand is the complete opposite. This is what causes the tension between the two teachers.
When the group finally arrives at the castle the trouble continues. After many disputes the two teachers come into conflict. The two teachers stand and argue over who has the correct teaching method, which I feel sets a bad example to the children. They are meant to be the adults but they act as if they are kids. All Mrs. Kay wants is to ensure that the children have a wonderful day, but this seems impossible when Mr. Briggs is around:
“I’d suggest that of you want all this chaos to stop
then you stop seeing it as chaos, can you relax? Can’t
we just give them a good day out?”
At this point Russell uses words in a certain way to show the audience how angry the two teachers are.
When Carol goes missing we know deep down that Briggs cares as when he finds her on the cliff he says:
“Listen… if I didn’t care why am I here, now,
trying to stop you doing something stupid?”
I feel Mr. Briggs realizes that using school discipline will not work so he tries a nice approach. This makes Carol think he is not entirely bad and starts to move towards him, as she does this she slips. At this point Russell portrays Briggs to be very worried as he could be partly to blame for any accident. Briggs luckily manages to grab her and save her life. The minute he arrives back at the beach the audience can immediately see a change in his attitude. He kindly doesn’t tell the other teachers what happened so Carol doesn’t get into trouble. I feel this is partly because he feels guilty for the way he has acted during the day.
At the end to see him crush the film is an unusual twist. I feel he does this as he wants people to continue to see him as the strict teacher he usually is. If they see him as an easygoing fun loving kind of person then they will mess around during his lessons and believe that he will let them off with things. I feel by destroying the film, he is destroying the children’s memories of the day, of him having fun.
In conclusion I feel the conflict between the two teachers was resolved all through Carol threatening to jump off the cliff. I feel if Briggs was to have more respect for the children he would be more respected by them and they would listen to him more. To see him change back to his usual ways at the end was very much unexpected.
