providing the children with the sort of intellectual challenge to which they would respond, but the suggested methods somehow did

not meet my particular need, and just did not work. It was as if I were trying to reach the children through a thick pane of glass, so

remote and uninterested they seemed.

Looking back, I realize that in fact I passed through three phases in my relationship with them. The first was the silent treatment,

and during that time, for my first few weeks, they would do any task I set them without question or protest, but equally without

interest or enthusiasm; and if their interest was not required for the task in front of them would sit and stare at me with the same

careful patient attention a birdwatcher devotes to the rare feathered visitor...

I took great pains with the planning of my lessons, using illustrations from the familiar things of their own background... I created

various problems within the domestic framework, and tried to encourage their participation, but it was as though there were a

conspiracy of indifference, and my attempts at informality fell pitifully flat.

Gradually they moved on to the second and more annoying phase of their campaign, the "noisy" treatment. It is true to say that all

of them did not actively join in this but those who did not were obviously in some sympathy with those who did. During a lesson,

especially one in which it was necessary for me to read or speak to them, someone would lift the lid of a desk and then let it fall with

a loud bang; the culprit would merely sit and look at me with wide innocent eyes as if it were an accident.

They knew as well as I did that there was nothing I could do about it, and I bore it with as much show of aplomb as I could man -

age. One or two such interruptions during a lesson were usually enough to destroy its planned continuity... So I felt angry and frus-

trated when they rudely interrupted that which was being done purely for their own benefit.

One morning I was reading to them some simple poetry. Just when I thought I had inveigled them into active interest one of the

girls, Monica Page, let the top of the desk fall; the noise seemed to reverberate in every part of my being and I felt a sudden burning

anger. I looked at her for some moments before daring to open my mouth; she returned my gaze, then casually remarked to the class

at large: "The bleeding 3 thing won't stay up." It was all rather deliberate, the noisy interruption and the crude remark, and it heralded

the third stage of their conduct. From then on the words "bloody" or "bleeding" were hardly ever absent from any remark they made

to one another especially in the classroom. They would call out to each other on any silly pretext and refer to the "bleed ing" this or

that, and always in a voice loud enough for my ears. One day during an arithmetic period I played right into their hands. I was so

overcome by anger and disgust that I completely lost my temper ... I went upstairs and sat in the library, the only

place where I could be alone for a little while. I felt sick at heart, because it seemed that this latest act, above all others, was