“GOT YOUR REPORT?” Asks “Practitioner”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30482, 2 July 1964, Page 11

“GOT YOUR REPORT?” Asks “Practitioner”

About this time a large proportion of citizens, young and old, are concerned with school reports. Nowadays people are continuously haunted by these or similar documents from the time when faltering fingers pry open the corners of their first Sunday School reports to ascertain whether they have been given the works for chewing during a hymn until (far down the years) they choose to bury greying heads in well-thumbed reports whose authors range all the way from a church dignitary or drainage board chairman to such universal favourites as Kinsey or Denning. Now a short but comprehensive survey such as this ought really to be produced by educational research experts but I stitched this one up myself. First of all, a school report has three parties to it: The reporter, a teacher, who at the time of its production is usually harassed, absentminded and in the final stages of physical and mental fatigue; the Reportee, the anxious pupil; and the Reportee’s Parents. As the child’s male guardian is usually all tied up with such vital matters as a peculiar and increasing whine in his gearbox or a calculation of how much he’s going to be short when the time comes to pay the raised rates, the reportee’s parents are usually represented by the mother, referred to below as the R.M R.M’s differ quite a lot, and one thing a Reporter ought to try to do is to meet every R.M. before writing a report, as these ladles range all the way from the easy-going mother of a large family, who has been through the whole affair times iwthout number and who on reading something like: "General Result: Claude is well behind in all main subjects,’ his astounding inability to comprehend being equalled only by his colossal unconcern.” will merely smile,

say “Now do try hard for the rest of the year, Dear.” and forget all about it, to the hyper-anxious parent who will go over a first-class report with a magnifying glass until she detects some tiny flaw of the magnitude of "Times late; one.” or “Top in all subjects except tatting.” and who will then proceed to hound her luckless 145 I.Q. daughter about it until the latter shies her satchel, and a potential Ph. D., into corner and takes off out the window for a flat, the bright lights and a mindless repetition job. Report Construction Reports can be loud, sharp or muffled. Loud and sharp reports are usually produced in quantity only in TV gangster and western shows and in schools where the pernicious custom of total rod-sparing has not yet made serious inroads. A muffled report is one whose author has managed to blame while seeming to praise. Report muffling is a delicate art akin, on a literary plane, to the conceal-reveal game played by dress-

designers. It takes years to learn. In its highest form it consists in clothing a tirade of vitriolic abuse in such ornate circumlocution that neither the Reportee nor the R.M. can taste the cake for the icing. This satisfies the honour of both sides and harms no-one and enables even the most reprehensible pupil to be given a : useful life. For example:- “Conduct killed a guy last month." has a much harsher ring than, “Deserves full credit for almost keeping his homicidal tendencies under control," “Out-of-school Activities: Burnt the lab. down and Is now doing a stretch," will rouse much stronger antisocial feelings In both the lad and his mother than: “Thanks entirely to the initiative and energy of this boy we now have the newest laboratory block in the district.”

The same idea may be used in reverse to knock back a child who is so sickeningly virtuous as to be a menace by a comment such as: “Her allround excelle”ce has caused so much heart-burning and

burn, and bitter inter-pupil dissention that we shall have to expel your daughter unless she mends her ways.” There has been a lot of talk lately about wether the father should be present at the delivery, but suppose it mainly depends on the method. Some teachers deliver the reports in class, all concerned have a get-together decipher the writing, agree to forgive and forget, and then the children carry them home in their little hot hands or large hot-rods and skim them gaily on to their kitchen tables. Other teachers seal them and post them out, thus causing trembling children to haunt domestic letter-boxes while kettles steam in readiness for the rapid opening of envelopes and bottles of inkeradicator stand within easy reach.

A masterpiece of reportwriting that many of you will remember was Arthur Askey’s report from his music teacher. It contained that unbeatable comment: "Theory: He has his own."