This is one of the more challenging poems as it is written in Jamaican Patios. However it isn’t too hard to get into and if it was written in Standard English I don’t think it would be anywhere near as good as it is.
Poem 2-“The best of School
The best of school is a traditional poem in content and style:
“As tendrils reach out yearningly.”
The cultural experience reflected is that where respect for the teacher and desire to learn exists:
“Thrill of his work” is implicit in the classroom.
It is a boy’s only school on a sunny summer morning: “the boys in their summer blouses”
The teacher is very committed to his pupils learning:
“Their thrills are mine.”
The point of view being expressed is a positive one of the education system:
“Having found what he wanted, having got what was to be had.”
The teacher believes that his students are committed to their studies.
“in a swift, bright flutter to work:”
The ideas conveyed are poetic in the traditional sense, with quite complex language and a frequent use of metaphors:
“Of underwater float: bright ripples run
Across the wall as the blinds are blown.”
Poem 3-“The lesson”
This is also a traditional poem, especially in style and content:
“brown tobacco jar” but not so much in the emotions expressed:
“I cried for shame”
We have less inform about the gender of the pupil’s gender but more about their age.
“I was a month past ten”. It might have been a traditional boy’s preparatory boarding school. I think this as the boy who tells the story, seems happy as the news of his father’s death would mean he might not be bullied for “a week or two;”. In a modern school, this extent of bullying would probably not take place.
This poem expresses a critical view, exposing a system in which insensitive treatment or an injustice is being perpetrated:
“I cried for knowledge which was bitterer
Than any grief.”
There is a large use of metaphors :
“Splintered at once into tears.” and encourages empathy with the experience of the young author:
“All the other eyes
Were turned towards me.”
I think that this poem tells a sad short story. The fact that the young boy was so upset by the torment of being bullied that he felt “relief” when his father died. It shows what a big effect being bullied can have on someone’s life.
Poem 4 –“I dreamt I took over my secondary school”
This is about a fairly modern school, where the author tries to show an extreme version of how he felt the teachers treated him when he was at school. He changes the roles around and makes a student feel what it might be like to be in change of their school.
This is not a boarding school
“I sent several home to change shirts or their ties”
It shows a critical viewpoint expressed by a student of a variety of aspects of school life, particularly relating to double standards and patronizing behaviour:
“Kept the teachers outside during break in the cold”
The poem is in a humorous but traditional style, in that the end of each sentence rhymes with the next e.g. “about” and “out”, “nits” and “wits”.
Poem 5-“I’m a reasonable man”
This is more modern in its concept, which of the teachers are frustrated by the pupils.
“I’ll treat you like babies, if you play the fool.”
It has a fairly threatening tone. It also tells the reader that the poem is about a secondary school.
“You’re fifteen and your time here is short.” Perhaps the school has no post-16 department.
It is suggested that the school is an LEA rather than an independent sector one.
“Your parents pay the rates,”
The expressed view is a serious and negative one but not particularly reflective. It is very matter of fact.
“Whatever happens I get paid anyway.”
The teacher gives the impression that it is just a job.
A plain speaking subject and style to match, it is as harsh and uncompromising as the view of the teacher
“So you can go to your Housemaster and
say what you’ve done.”
Like the previous poem the last words of the sentence rhyme with the next, e.g. “school” and “fool”, “cross” and “loss”
Poem 6-“Thug”
This is a modern poem looking at social aspects of school life and its impact on students.
“Ten years ruled
by violence left him
thoroughly schooled,”
We know little of the type of school other than the pupil was a boy,
“There he felt
the tongue’s salt lash” and that corporal punishment was condoned
“the blow of the
headmaster’s hand.”
The point of the view being expressed is that behavior in school has an impact on the outside world.
“What rules the classroom
rocks the world.”
It is a short poem with short sentence structure and like some of the previous poems the ends of the sentences rhyme with the alternate lines e.g. “school” & “fool”, “cross” & “loss”
Conclusion
Poem two is different from poem one, particularly in the sense of calm and order it portrays in relationship to the chaos of “Tables”. The relationship between the teacher and class is different with the teacher imitating the contact in “Tables” and in doing so verbally whilst the pupils are doing so non-verbally in “The Best of School”. The common ground is that poems explore the relationship between the teacher, pupil, and the learning process.
Poem three “The Lesson” is different from one and two in so much as that it writes of the experience of an individual pupil and is concerned about emotional and social learning, more than academic issues. It is altogether a more sombre poem. Its commonalities with poem two “The Best of School” include the use of metaphors, and stressing the importance of non-verbal communication.
Poem four “I Dreamt I Took Over my Secondary School”, like poem three, it is written from the pupils’ perspective but its style is more robust; it still a bit cynical. Poems one, three and four, express dissatisfaction so are negative compared with poem to “The Best of School”.
Poem five has yet another negative theme, and like poem three is rather sad and serious. It is different from poem three in that it isn’t reflective. As with poems one and two, it expresses the teachers viewpoint, but unlike “I’m a Reasonable Man”, the pupils are disliked by their teacher.
Poem six like poem two expresses ideas of cruelty and social learning. It is the shortest of the poems, delivering a clear message that it doesn’t want to water down. All in all, the poems do not express the view that school days are the best of are lives.
