Themes - EDUCATION Flashcards
“and now, proudly jingling your A levels……
Hector
…….those longed-for emblems of your conformity…”
“Nothing that happens here (in General Studies) has anything to do with getting on, but remember……
Hector
……‘All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use’”
“You give them an education……
Hector to Mrs Lintott
…….I give them the wherewithal to resist it”
“I count examinations, even for Oxbridge and Cambridge…….
Hector
…….as the enemy of education”
“Gobbets? Is that what you think they are, Gobbets?…….
Hector to Irwin
……Handy little quotes that can be trotted out to make a point?…..Except they’re learned by the heart, and that is where they belong”
“(When looking at exam papers)……
Hector
……Ah. Pornography”
“SHUT UP, you mindless fools……..
Hector
……..What made me piss my life away in this God-forsaken place. There’s nothing of me left”
“Are they smiling (at Auschwitz?) Do they hold hands?……….
Hector
……..Nothing is appropriate. Just as questions on an examination paper are inappropriate”
“Why not simply condemn the camps outright……..
Hector
……..as an unprecedented horror?”
“Do you know what the worst thing is?…….
Hector
………I wanted them to show off, to come up with the short answer, the handy quote. It’s time I went”
“Magnificently unprepared for the……….
Hector
……..long littleness of life”
“Pass the parcel. That sometimes all you can do. Take it, feel it, and pass it on……..
Hector
………Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day. Pass it on - that’s the game I wanted you to learn”
“Poetry is good……..
Irwin
…….up to a point. Adds flavour”
“Put head to head with them and, on the evidence of these essays…….
Irwin
………none of you have got a hope”
“But they need polish…….
Headmaster to Irwin
……..Edge. Your job”
“I sympathise with your feeling about examinations……..
Irwin to Hector
………but they are a fact of life”
“Education isn’t something for when they’re old………
Irwin
……..and grey and sitting by the fire. It’s for now”
“Remember, our puny efforts notwithstanding……..
Irwin
……..you will be up against boys and girls taught much better than you”
“(go back To Oxford? Not clever enough……….
Irwin
………Not…anything enough really”
“He was a good man……
Irwin
…….but I do not think there is time for his kind of teaching anymore”
“But I am thinking………..
Headmaster
“……..league tables”
“Plain stated and properly organised facts need no presentation surely” …………..
Mrs Lintott
…………….. “Oh, Dorothy. I think they do. The facts: serving suggestion”
Headmaster
“How are our young men doing?………….
Headmaster
………Are they ‘on stream’?”
“I do not want to sack you. It’s so untidy………….
Headmaster
………..It would be easier for all concerned if you retired early”
