The prospect of Dreem Masheen being crushed is worrying me. The cars that lost out to it in our Grand Prix have been preserved for all time. Vehicles that were less well designed and constructed now hold pride of place in family homes. Why then has this work of automotive art been abandoned? Why does it remain here, unloved and destined for the scrap yard?
When I say scrap yard, I mean bin bag. It is 3.30pm on the last day of term. The mass exodus of children is almost complete. One straggler waiting to be collected has been warned that he either assists me in purging the classroom of a year’s accumulated rubbish or face being locked in the stock cupboard until September. His aunt arrives in the nick of time and I am suddenly alone amid a scene of post-apocalyptic devastation. Torn display items, abandoned paintings, dog-eared books, discarded jumpers, festering PE kits, lost ties, unmatched gloves, dead spiders and a Wellington boot. The end of term looks like the day after Glastonbury. It needs sorting.
It’s a depressing task, but then six weeks of freedom has its price. And I don’t just mean Mrs Eddison’s Holiday Jobs list. The costs range from guilt (knowing that for some children freedom from school means freedom from regular meals, supportive adults and a safe environment) to hard labour. Before I can go home, I need to force several piles of surplus effort into too few economy bin bags.
Cheap bin bags will only absorb so much wasted potential and missed opportunity before they suffer an aneurysm. The sheer volume of used paper, dead glue sticks and dried out markers overwhelms them.
And now I must also squash Cody’s Dreem Masheen into one of them. It was the highlight of his academic year. Our Wheels and Axles project inspired him. Especially when he discovered that he wouldn’t have to write about it. And once he grasped how to make an axle out of two wooden discs, a piece of doweling and a plastic straw, there was no stopping him.
For weeks, Dreem Masheen (minus its balloon power unit) took pride of place on the display table, alongside photographic evidence of its victory in our Grand Prix. And Cody took pleasure in explaining, to anyone who showed interest, the finer points of its construction and the secrets of its success. That’s why I reminded him that he must take it home before the holiday or else it would have to be thrown away.
But he didn’t. I’m annoyed at his fickleness. And that we live in a throwaway society where it’s easier to discard stuff than to cherish it. And because something that took a lot of effort to make has been casually abandoned. And I’m especially annoyed by the fact that just when I’ve finished squashing it into a bin bag, he returns, out of breath and full of hope.
Steve Eddison teaches at Arbourthorne Community Primary School in Sheffield
