It’s an issue that has begun to divide a nation more than anything else since Brexit: which one of these two great national institutions should we keep open in September, the school or the pub?
Professor Medley from the Sage group kicked it all off by arguing that we cannot sensibly serve both beer and education on tap, given the need to retain some limit to mass social interaction.
So, which of the two should stay? Down at my local Pig and Whistle, the arguments were - surprisingly enough - unswervingly (if not quite unswayingly) on the side of keeping the pub open.
“The professor’s gone and created a false dichotomy there: an invalid juxtaposition,” Joe unslurringly argued, despite being on his fourth pint of Old Cummings Peculiar. He went on: “Pubs are seats of learning in their own right: literally frothing with frontier-busting discussion and debate - some informed, some perhaps less so.”
Applied mathematics
Arthur noddingly agreed: “And what about the Monday-night pub quiz? I’ve learned more from doing that than I ever did from school. Kids should all do a GCSE in pub quizzing - everyone needs a skill.”
“And don’t forget darts,” piped up Clare, sipping her favoured McWilliamson malt. “My maths took off when I had to work out how best to finish. And don’t get me started on the dartboard paradox.”
And so it went on. The pub, they all argued, is at the centre of ongoing educational development. In their view, its clientele are not staggering at the other end of the great saloon bar of learning.
Some might assume that those of us working in a school might have a contrasting view to Joe and his friends, but this is far from the case in my experience. While keen to resume normality and to try to reach again all those pupils who vanished during lockdown, many of us are quite anxious about what we are going back to in September.
Scrawled on the back of a coaster
Ironically, the government’s plans for a return to normal schooling have every appearance of having been conceived in a pub and scrawled on the back of half a drinks coaster: “We are, hic, going to fully and safely open schools in September for all students and in every subject. How? Well, by saying so, saying something about separating the year groups and then leaving them to it.”
After which, the order no doubt went up for more doubles all round.
Given the logistical contradictions involved in that “plan” - the small matter of buses, science practicals, PE lessons, etc, etc - even the more abstemious of teachers might wish to look forward to the occasional welcoming pub in September. It would be somewhere to unfurl with a friend after another day of maskless teaching to the masses.
Erring on the side of schools
Meanwhile, if the pub-versus-school issue should go to a referendum, those unreservedly voting on the side of schools would include the many parents who dread the prospect of resuming the nightmare of constantly supervising and cajoling their children into working.
The phrase “at my wits’ end” was the most commonly used phrase uttered by parents throughout April to July (all right, I made that up in the pub, but it’s probably true), and those desperate people will happily see everything else in the world shut down first before they ever have to face that time again.
Other parents do, of course, hold valid personal, educational or work reasons for erring strongly on the side of schools. And, of course, if we are being serious about it, the priority should be to get schools full and fully functional again.
The question is whether September is really the best time for all of that to happen, or whether it just sounded like a popular thing to say at the time.
For, if we’re honest, many of us suspect that the people behind that bold call might have some difficulty in organising that well-known party of excess in a brewery.
