Reports . . . I really 'hate' them

I hate reports. And I really do mean ‘hate’ like I hate greasy fatty mutton chops, dole bludgers and whiney babies in staff meetings.

At reports time the Maths people whinge on about numbers and grades while the English teachers get all pissy and knicker-twisted when you tell them they’ve used the wrong ‘practice’ or they’ve used a semi-colon instead of a colon. The tactless Biology teacher chimes in with as much warmth and love as an endoscope, saying the colon is where all reports should be stuffed. The PE people want 2 rite thr rprts in txt riting. Idts! The counsellor wants to add a lovey-white-dovey ‘Keep it up’ at the end of each of her reports but, and I don’t mean to be adolescent about it, that’s not something to say to a teenage boy.

We have the usual set of ‘Johnny has been absent for quite a few lessons lately’ or ‘Mary should try to make more contributions in class discussion’ for kids who left school ages ago. We have the Geography teacher insisting on using the word ‘utilise’ when he means ‘use’. A crusty grumpy old English teacher writes one-sentence comments. Less is more of course but…

There are all the usual platitudes and clichés. Johnny must: aim to develop his synthesis and analytical skills; concentrate at a deeper, more profound level; try to appreciate the special and unique intercultural gifts that his classmates bring to the learning environment…

And all the while what we really want to write is…

Johnny would be doing a lot better at school if his parents had inherited better genes from their parents and if his parents bought books instead of beer and lotto tickets. He would benefit from less television, thrash music, and internet, and more reading such as The Economist and Three Cups of Tea. If he smoked less marijuana and attended school more often, and remembered to bring his manners, he’d be doing even better.

I’d also like to write something like: If the school were able to teach Johnny according to his needs rather than the fluffy dreams of some office-bound, air-head curriculum ‘specialist’ then he may have a chance of becoming a fully-functioning, reasonable and employable person.

In the old days, at Central Southland College, they gave a percentage for achievement, a grade for attitude and behaviour, and wrote ‘Must try harder’. They hand-wrote the reports because it was quicker and because labour-saving computers hadn’t been invented (and they still haven’t). And if our parents saw D grades we weren’t allowed to watch television or eat.
As I said, I hate reports.

— Peter Giddens