Survivor's Guide to School, A

There are several titles in the ‘Survivor’s Guide’ series covering Families, Friends and Love etc. This guide to surviving school attempts, in a slightly humorous style, to tackle thorny problems such as homework, exams and bullying and includes a ‘users guide’ to teachers. The book combines the author’s own suggestions on how to cope at high school with apparently genuine quotes from 11 to 15 year old pupils. The rather negative message is that ‘school’s a drag but you might as well make the best of it’. The fact that the author is a former journalist for Just Seventeen magazine and an editor of MIZZ may give you an idea of where the book is coming from. Baker appears to be trying to curry favour with those young adolescents who already have a less than favourable view of teachers and schools. Phrases such as ‘nobody loves a rule more than a teacher’ and a suggestion that most teachers will advise you that ‘life’s not fair so get on with the homework or it will be another detention for you, Junior’, do not exactly promote a partnership approach to progress being made in school. They serve merely to reinforce an ‘us versus them’ attitude towards teachers.

I found the book rather patronising and full of stereotyped teachers and pupils, but then, as a teacher, according to Baker, I will have lost my sense of humour and developed a mean streak the size of the Grand Canyon, so I am bound to be biased.