Screens of disorder: English cinema’s representation of teachers’ responses to challenges to their authority in the 1960s

Abstract

Change across wider English society in the 1960s was characterised by a managed and relatively consensual social liberalism. There was a discernible cultural shift toward greater personal and sexual freedom. Within education in England, a revisionist approach sought to extend traditional education to a wider constituency, in particular incorporating the sometimes disaffected and unskilled working class. This context presented new challenges for 1960s teachers in their relationships with pupils. Through the 1950s and 1960s, English cinema portrayed England’s changing teacher–pupil relations. This article examines the nature of change in teacher–pupil relations, with particular regard to its impact upon teachers’ authority. English cinema’s representation is located within English societal change in the 1960s in relation to youth culture, education and attitudes to authority.

Several themes are identified. Teacher status appeared to contribute rather less to 1960s teachers’ authority and teachers’ personalities rather more. 1960s teacher–pupil relations were somewhat volatile. Relationships began to take place beyond the school gates. Films depicted greater diversity in teachers’ strategies to maintain their authority, with some teachers making concessions to pupils to preserve harmonious relations. A more prominent approach was teachers’ still more firm imposition of traditional discipline, attempting to hold back the tide of increased pupil hostility in classrooms, which more frequently featured the particular challenges posed by girls.

The analysis has relevance beyond England and beyond the 1960s. It explores the variety and fragility of teacher authority, highlights the pressure that maintaining discipline places upon individual teachers and recognises the appeal of classroom conservatism.

Keywords:

• teacher
• authority
• English
• cinema
• 1960s

Notes

¹Susan Ellsmore, Carry on Teachers: Representations of the Teaching Profession in Screen Culture (Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books, 2005), 103.

²Sol Cohen, “Postmodernism, the New Cultural History and Film: Resisting Images of Education,” Paedagogica Historica, XXX11, no. 2 (1996): 395–420.

³Ibid., 398.

⁴Ken Jones, Education in Britain: 1944 to the Present (Cambridge: Polity, 2003), 45.

⁵Arthur Marwick, British Society Since 1945 (London: Penguin, 1982), 120.

⁶John Hill, Sex, Class and Realism: British Cinema 1956–63 (London: BFI Publishing, 1986), 5.

⁷Stuart Laing, Representations of Working Class Life: 1957–64 (London: Macmillan, 1986), 27.

⁸Christine Geraghty, “Women and 60s British Cinema: The Development of the ‘Darling’ Girl”, in The British Cinema Book, ed. Robert Murphy (London: BFI Publishing, 2001), 101.

⁹Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1972), 150.

¹⁰Hill, Sex, Class and Realism, 10–11.

¹¹Andrew Marr, A History of Modern Britain (London: Macmillan, 2007), 278.

¹²Ibid., 267.

¹³Hill, Sex, Class and Realism, 13.

¹⁴Ibid., 13–14.

¹⁵Brian Simon, Education and the Social Order 1940-1990 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1991), 380.

¹⁶Alexander Walker, Hollywood England: The British Film Industry in the Sixties (London: Michael Joseph, 1974), 206.

¹⁷Ellsmore, Carry on Teachers, 16. Ellsmore draws heavily upon Andy Hargreaves, “Four Ages of Professionalism and Professional Learning,” Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 6, no.2 (2000): 151–178.

¹⁸Arthur Marwick, “Introduction”, in Windows on the Sixties; Exploring Key Texts of Media and Culture, ed. Anthony Aldgate, James Chapman and Arthur Marwick (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), xviii.

¹⁹Simon, Education and the Social Order, 392.

²⁰Marwick, British Society Since 1945, 113.

²¹Marr, A History of Modern Britain, 283.

²²Marwick, British Society Since 1945, 113.

²³Marr, A History of Modern Britain, 264.

²⁴Ibid., 187.

²⁵Jones, Education in Britain, 50.

²⁶Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), Unpopular Education: Schooling and Democracy in England Since 1944 (London: Hutchinson, 1981), 77–9.

²⁷Jones, Education in Britain, 46.

²⁸Ibid., 52.

²⁹CCCS, Unpopular Education, 114.

³⁰Philip Gardner, “Teachers,” in A Century of Education, ed. Richard Aldrich (London: Routledge Falmer), 125.

³¹CM Johnson, “Freedom in Junior Schools,” in The Black Papers on Education, ed. CB Cox and AE Dyson (London: Davis-Poynter Ltd, 1971), 100.

³²CCCS, Unpopular Education, 134.

³³CB Cox and AE Dyson, “Introduction,” in The Black Papers in Education, ed. CB Cox and AE Dyson (London: Davis-Poynter Ltd, 1971), 18.

³⁴Gary McCloskey, “Conformity, Conflict and Curriculum: Film Images of Boys’ Preparatory Schools,” in Schooling in the Light of Popular Culture, ed. Paul Farber, Eugene F. Provenzo and Gunilla Holm (New York: University of New York State Press, 1994), 181.

³⁵Central Advisory Council for Education (England), Newsom Report, Half Our Future: A report (London: H.M.S.O, 1963), para.197, p.68.

³⁶Ibid., para.207, p.71.

³⁷Ibid., para.41, p.13.

³⁸CCCS, Unpopular Education, 116–17.

³⁹Jones, Education in Britain, 53.

⁴⁰Ibid., 64. Jones quotes Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel, The Popular Arts (London: Hutchinson, 1964), 21.

⁴¹Ellsmore, Carry on Teachers, 13.

⁴²Simon, Education and the Social Order 1940–90, 352–358.

⁴³Jones, Education in Britain, 53.

⁴⁴Ibid., 56.

⁴⁵Ellsmore, Carry on Teachers, 9.

⁴⁶Jones, Education in Britain, 67.

⁴⁷Gardner, “Teachers,” in A Century of Education, 134.

⁴⁸Jones, Education in Britain, 47.

⁴⁹Marr, A History of Modern Britain, 249.

⁵⁰Philip Brown, Schooling Ordinary Kids: Inequality, Unemployment and the New Vocationalism (London: Tavistock Books, 1987), 22.

⁵¹Ibid., 246.

⁵²Willard Waller, The Sociology of Teaching (London: Chapman & Hall, 1932), 193. This 1932 edition was reprinted in 1965, with a change only to the introduction.

⁵³Ibid., 213.

⁵⁴Martyn Denscombe, Classroom Control: A Sociological Perspective (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985),110–11.

⁵⁵John Partridge, Life in a Secondary Modern School (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968), 110.

⁵⁶Harry Davis, Culture and the Grammar School (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), 83.

⁵⁷Brian Jackson and Dennis Marsden, Education and the Working Class (London: Ark, 1962), 250.

⁵⁸David Hargreaves, Social Relations in a Secondary School (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), 85.

⁵⁹Michael Fielding, “Alex Bloom, Pioneer of Radical State Education,” Forum, no. 47, 2/3 (2005): 119–34.

⁶⁰E.R. Braithwaite, To Sir with Love (London: Bodley Head, 1959).

⁶¹Martin Shipman, The Sociology of the School, (Edinburgh: Longman, 1968), 110.

⁶² Half Our Future, para.86, p.64.

⁶³Colin Lacey, Hightown Grammar: The School as a Social System (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1970), 170.

⁶⁴ The Great St Trinian’s Train Robbery. Directed by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. UK: British Lion Corporation, 1966; If…. . Directed by Lindsay Anderson. UK: Memorial Enterprises, 1968; Kes. Directed by Ken Loach. UK: Woodfall Film Productions, 1969; Please Sir!. Directed by Mark Stuart. UK: Rank Organisation, 1971; The Pure Hell of St Trinian’s. Directed by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. UK: British Lion Corporation, 1960; Spare the Rod. Directed by Leslie Norman. UK: Weyland Films, 1961; Term of Trial. Directed by Peter Glenville. UK: Romulus Films, 1962, Weyland Films, 1961; To Sir with Love. Directed by James Clavell. UK: Columbia (British) Productions, 1967.

⁶⁵Marwick, “Introduction,” Windows on the Sixties, xiii.

⁶⁶ The Belles of St Trinian’s. Directed by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. UK: London Film Productions, 1954; Blue Murder at St Trinian’s. Directed by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. UK: John Harvel Productions, 1958; The Browning Version. Directed by Anthony Asquith. UK: Javelin Films, 1951; Carry on Teacher. Directed by Gerald Thomas. UK: Peter Rogers Productions, 1959; The Happiest Days of Your Life. Directed by Frank Launder. UK: Individual Pictures, 1950; It’s Great To Be Young. Directed by Cyril Frankel, UK: Marble Arch Productions, 1956.

⁶⁷Marr, A History of Modern Britain, 159.

⁶⁸Walker, A. Hollywood England, 401.

⁶⁹Paul Ryan, ed., Never Apologise: The Collected Writings of Lindsay Anderson (London: Plexus, 2004), 113–14.

⁷⁰Ibid., 113.

⁷¹Ibid., 123.

⁷²Shipman, The Sociology of the School, 85.

⁷³Marr, A History of Modern Britain, 247.

⁷⁴Paul Corrigan, Schooling the Smash Street Kids (London: Macmillan, 1979), 46.

⁷⁵John Seed, “Hegemony postponed: the unravelling of the culture of consensus in Britain in the 1960s,” in Cultural Revolution? The Challenge of the Arts in the 1960s, ed. Bart Moore-Gilbert and John Seed (London: Routledge, 1992), 19.

⁷⁶Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards, Best of British: Cinema and Society from 1930 to the Present (London: I.B. Tauris 1999), 116.

⁷⁷Ibid, 118.

⁷⁸Ellsmore, Carry on Teachers, 64.

⁷⁹E.R. Braithwaite, To Sir with Love.

⁸⁰CCCS, Unpopular Education, 134.

⁸¹Marr, A History of Modern Britain, 247.

⁸²Roger C. Shouse, “Taking Lulu seriously: what we can learn from To Sir with Love,” Journal of Educational Adminisrtation, 43, no.4 (2005): 359–63.

⁸³Corrigan, Schooling the Smash Street Kids, 46.

⁸⁴Waller, The Sociology of Teaching, 195.

⁸⁵Ibid., 200–2.

⁸⁶Davis, Culture and the Grammar School, 83.

⁸⁷Marwick, “Introduction,” Windows on the Sixties, xviii.

⁸⁸McCloskey, “Conformity, Conflict and Curriculum: Film Images of Boys’ Preparatory Schools,” 181.

⁸⁹Ryan, Never Apologise, 118.

⁹⁰Ibid., 37.

⁹¹Roy Armes, A Critical History of British Cinema (London: Secker & Warburg, 1978), 276.

⁹² Half Our Future, para.201, p.69.

⁹³Lacey, Hightown Grammar, 168.

⁹⁴Shouse, “Taking Lulu seriously,” 365.

⁹⁵Ibid., 365.

⁹⁶Ellsmore, Carry on Teachers, 19.

⁹⁷ Half Our Future, para.201, p.69.

⁹⁸Sue Harper and Vincent Porter, British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of Deference (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 240.

⁹⁹Waller, The Sociology of Teaching, 195.

¹⁰⁰Jo Keroes, Tales Out of School: Gender, Longing and the Teacher in Fiction and Film (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999), 33.

¹⁰¹Hill, Sex, Class and Realism, 27.

¹⁰²Robert Murphy, Sixties British Cinema (London: British Film Institute, 1992), 158.

¹⁰³Ryan, Never Apologise, 118.

¹⁰⁴Elizabeth Sussex, Lindsay Anderson (London: Studio Vista Ltd, 1969), 68.

¹⁰⁵Carlo Alberto Torres, “Schooling, Power and the Exile of the Soul,” in Ideology, Curriculum and the New Sociology of Education: Revisiting the Work of Michael Apple, ed. Lois Weis, Cameron Mccarthy and Gred Dimitriadis (London: Routledge, 2006), 58.

¹⁰⁶Walker, Hollywood England, 206.

¹⁰⁷Lacey, Hightown Grammar, 168–9.

¹⁰⁸ Half Our Future, para.197, p.68.

¹⁰⁹Ibid., para.41, p.13.

¹¹⁰Marr, A History of Modern Britain, 283.

¹¹¹Marwick, Windows on the Sixties, xviii.

¹¹²Fielding, “Alex Bloom, Pioneer of Radical State Education,” 128.

¹¹³Julia Eklund Koza, Stepping Across: Four Interdisciplinary Studies of Education and Cultural Politics (New York: Peter Lang, 2003), 8.

¹¹⁴The BBFC required Spare the Rod’s original presentation of teacher brutality to be softened.

¹¹⁵Jeffrey Richards, “New waves and old myths,” in Cultural Revolution? ed. Bart Moore-Gilbert and John Seed (London: Routledge, 1992), 219.

¹¹⁶C.B. Cox and A.E. Dyson, eds., The Black Papers on Education, 17.

¹¹⁷Ibid, 19.

¹¹⁸Ellsmore, Carry on Teachers, 11.

¹¹⁹Simon, Education and the Social Order 1940–90, 398.

¹²⁰Peter Cunningham, “Primary Education,” in A Century of Education, ed. Richard Aldrich (London: Routledge Falmer, 2002), 9–30; The Observational, Research and Classroom Learning Evaluation (ORACLE) project reported in 1980. See Cunningham, 21.

¹²¹Robin Alexander, Primary Teaching (London: HRW, 1984), 11.

¹²²David Hargreaves, Social Relations in a Secondary School, 85.

¹²³See Davis, The Culture of the Grammar School, 83; Lacey, Hightown Grammar, 168–9; Partridge, Life in a Secondary Modern School, 110 and Shipman, The Sociology of the School, 40.