woolymonkey | Youth of Today

Spidermonkey came home with a note. He has to miss his GCSE Science and Maths this afternoon and cycle over to the other campus with his guitar so his long-split-up band, Late Start, can, wait for it...

....mime to an old recording of themselves so the Creative Arts and Music and Media (CRAMM) Diploma class can shoot a music video.

Then they do it again next week except they'll be missing English and French.

I wouldn't be that bothered but he's already screwed up an English assessment on Romeo and Juliet because he was on a Science trip while they were watching the movie (yes, I know) and couldn't remember what the Friar does.* So doing a speaking assessment on the Friar's character must have felt like being a LibDem defending coalition policy on the Today programme.

Is this what dumbing down looks like, or just excellent preparation for life in modern Britain?

The older monkey generation, on the other hand, benefits from a good old-fashioned regime of regular bollocksing from the head teacher. She's always haranguing us about the importance of regular attendance, not letting our children waste their time, turn up late, skive off homework, hang out on Parker's Piece at lunchtime... Apparently, every percentage point dropped from the perfect 100% attendance = -1GCSE grade.** Spider's friend M had 28% attendance last term due to his tonsils going zombie on him. He's predicted A*s across the board.
Optional bonus maths question. What grades would M be predicted if he'd had 87% attendance?)

More useful question. Can anyone recommend a good Romeo and Juliet --with the akshul words wot Shakespeare writ-- that I could buy/borrow/download for Monkey education purposes?

One last question. The Friar: what is he good for?

*To be honest, neither can I.
**Or something.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Last week a rep from the attendance unit at my uni told us they were tracking attendance against fail rates so they can demonstrate to students the way in which poor attendance leads to failure."

I asked: "But what will you do if you find it doesn't?"

There was a very *long* pause.

As far as my 22 years of teaching is anythign to go by, not handing in work (where the tutor is actually conscientious about feedback) leads to failure. Lack of attendance on the other hand effects the student only if they are a weak student. The strong students do just fine.

I agree. But then I work for a uni where attendance is optional but handing in work and giving proper feedback on it are not. Not that tutorials don't help, especially the weaker students, as you say. But it's the whole package of motivation, commitment,organisation... not just rounding people up to get bums on seats.

I've never seen anybody cut classes like

penknife did when she was in the university. I swear she was never there! And she graduated phi beta kappa, with highest honors....

(I, on the other hand, barely graduated....)

Sometimes cutting the class is the best way to get some work done! Or not.

Roger has the complete RSC Shakespeare boxed set.

The Friar is a sort of non playing character . In a play with memorable cameo roles such as the Nurse, Mercutio and Tybalt, he's curiously bland.

We're not really interested in him as a person but he's useful to reinforce the back story (when he reminds Romeo that last week he was moaning after Rosaline) or to heighten dramatic tension when he tries to calm Juliet when she finds that Romeo is dead -for all the audience knows first time, Romeo may have been fobbed off with a sleeping draught, the Friar may persuade Juliet not to kill herself and we might still get a happy ending. Lastly, he's put to use to explain to the authorities what has happened.

His motivations aren't completely consistent since after pointing out that Romeo was in love with a different girl recently, he agrees to marry him to Juliet.

Thank you! I think we've found a recording of the bbc one, so we'll start there. But if he's going to be working on this a lot then the more different ones he sees, the better.

What you say about the Friar really chimes with my vague memories of a dull but decent old bloke bumbling around assisting the tragedy by trying to prevent it. Working in education, I know how he feels. But talking with Spider the other day, both of us were a blur when it came to poisons and sleeping draughts and who suggests exactly what to whom and when. As for the Apothecary... It didn't help that all we had to go on was my decades-old memories of reading it at school and Spider's blurry recollections of watching Leonardo di Caprio shoot people last term. I presume they have read at least selected highlights, but they clearly haven't made much impression on Spider.
It should be fun watching the bbc version together at the weekend. Please, nobody tell us the ending!

Looks like you've got plenty of good advice and access to a saner version of R & J than the Leonardo di Caprio one, but if Spider wants a phone tutorial on the Friar I'd be happy to oblige.

Thanks! We just might take you up on that. I don't think he'll need to focus on the Friar again, but there will be more work on R&J. Looking forward to watching the bbc one with him over the weekend.

Can you tell grannymonkey how well he's doing in Art? He's been told to aim for A*, which he was chuffed about, and he's done what I think are some really great drawings. He just seems to dash them off. We are currently waiting for a flower he drew to die, so he can draw it again for homework. Unfortunately it seems to be immortal.

Great to hear about Spider's Art. Yes, his work's really good - I'm glad he's so into it. Maybe he could email us a sample of the latest work?
Could the flower go somewhere warm to speed up the decaying process?
lots of love
Grannymonkey
ps are there any concerts forthcoming?

There will certainly be concerts in December, but we don't have dates yet. I suggested putting the flower in the airing cupboard but I wasn't allowed. Funny. He's usually so eager to get on with his homework. It doesn't matter too much as he won't have time to do it before the weekend now.
I'll ask about emailing stuff, but I suspect our scanner isn't up to it.

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Friar L

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