Boy-friendly curriculum . . .

If we want school to be more boy-friendly we could do worse than adding Patrick O’Brian to the curriculum. He wrote the books that inspired the movie Master & Commander. They’re a rollicking adventure spanning 20 books and most of the globe. A boy reading these books will learn more than simple world geography – where the Baltic Sea and the Indian Ocean and Patagonia and the Oresund are.

The reader will learn about History – Napoleon and Nelson et al. But not just the dates and names; the ideas of perspective and bias and sources (reliable and otherwise). O’Brian’s stories will put world events into perspective and lead into discussions about current world events.

He’ll learn about values too, such as loyalty, honour, respect, manners, perseverance etc.
He’ll learn a lot about the natural sciences as well – physics (knots and sails and masts and how a sailing ship works), astronomy (Mars, Jupiter, the moon, the sun, orbits, eclipses etc), geology (the Andes and earthquakes and volcanoes and reefs and atolls and fossils), plant andanimal and marine biology, and he might even discuss Evolution. This might lead into discussions about Isaac Newton or Charles Darwin or Robert Fitzroy.

The reader can learn a little about Mozart and violins and cellos – and a little about poetry. But not too much – obviously.

And cuisine – fresh coffee at sunrise, toast and marmalade, anchovies, tuna steaks, oysters, roast pork, sweet potatoes, spotted dick, and plum duff (the single reason that pudding bowls were invented). And rum of course.

I’d show the DVD of Master & Commander first, on a data projector. This can be the token nod to technology required by the Ministry.

He, the reader I mean, will learn English language skills because Patrick O’Brian knows about sentences and capital letters and apostrophes. And the reader can have a taste of other languages too – Latin and Greek, French, German, Russian, and the languages of the South Pacific. And in doing so he’ll gain an appreciation for the benefits of knowing a foreign language or two.

It may, it probably will, lead on to bigger things – as inspirational things tend to do. The boy-reader might be inspired to take on his own adventures, a career in the Navy perhaps or in the diplomatic corps, a career in the natural sciences, or as a chef, or maybe as a travel-writer. It won’t inspire him to be a web-designer or a share-broker – but I think that won’t be bad.

And supplement the Patrick O’Brian books with a game of footy – the first half at lunchtime and the second half after school – and whammo, school’s boy-friendly again. No, you see, we don’t need think tanks or select committees or lesbian-led workshops.

— Peter Giddens