To look at the education system from the sole point of view of the libido, positive or negative, love or hate, live or die, of the teachers is an amazing starting point but so justified. We always think teachers are dedicated to their work, when they are only attached with greedy chains mind you to their jobs and particularly the regular though not heavy pay and the long vacation periods, something like there months a year. We even often think they are moral, ethical, pure, when they only think of having any kind of emotional imbroglio with their colleagues, edging onto and even ending in bed. And luckily we don't know, nor want to know, the details because too often that frolicking is always or nearly always ridiculous, silly, unsatisfying, frustrating, even in a way incestuous, I mean felt like sleeping with your brother or sister, some kind of dummy in some kind of show window if not even showcase for everyone to know, see and appreciate. This British series is showing that level of the behind-the-wings scene marvelously but also sickeningly. But it goes far beyond that. It shows how this carnal obsession becomes comprehensive, the only word that fits the situation and the institution in Britain where nearly all secondary schools are comprehensive from 12 to 18, and then it obnubilates all other aspects or levels. They become lazy, out of incompetence, they try to do as little as possible, to keep some energy for their kinky nocturnal activities that can take place in the stationery cabinet that has the tendency to become perambulating instead of stationary, or the photocopying closet, they spend their nights in pubs and are drunk every evening and hung-over all next day long. They are insensitive to the students and their problems, or at times only sensitive to the appeal of boys and girls, crisscross and cattycorner. They would pretend to be gender-friendly, but they are fundamental g***-bashers, not with a baseball or cricket bat but in their minds that are entirely p***-boasting all the time, and in their language that contains so many four letter words, F words like fun and fair and uck words like duck and muck, that you just wonder if they are not all of them the Tourette-syndrome patients of the central mental hospital of New York City, or Bristol if you prefer, all released at the same time from their cuckoo's nest for a trip in the city. They become p***-boasters, c***-measurers, d***-brandishers , even if and when they are women who have the sad tendency to imitate their men colleagues. They are unable to conceive what a g*** relation may be or mean, and the teachers who are g*** are always secretive about it, if not even more than that, short-lived in the institution and confronted to such a suspicion from everyone that they have to jump off the cliff and escape that Dracula's castle. The series is on such points so realistic, so strong that we just wonder if we are not dealing with some reality show gone berserk. But it goes even beyond that. It shows the constant struggle, fight, battle, war going on around power, from the power a teacher has in his small little tiny territorial ghetto called his or her classroom, to the tyrannical and it is always tyrannical no matter what power of the higher-ups from school secretaries to heads of departments to principals and inspectors and even ministers if not prime ministers who have the tendency to consider the school system as their favorite campaigning and canvassing ground. But the series turns that into a force with each episode or smaller group of episodes dealing with one particular problem showing the absolute hypocrisy of this teaching profession, from race relations to religious diversity or gender orientation or whatever, like citizenship or violence. The last topic of the last season is admirable with the principal delegating one younger man teacher to seduce and do what he can you can imagine what when you see him coming back rearranging his tie with the woman inspector who found out about what was in the wings, had a glimpse at the reality if not truth of the divinely sadistic torturing chamber in which the "mental" as they call them students are both dealt with and given a free hand at dealing with themselves or rather one another on a rotating basis. And the "mental" Bob, an English teacher who had been head of the English department for three seasons, is buying himself a wife in Thailand via the Internet, and is not even able to see, accept and go along with the fact that it is only for a visa. Worse than me you die, in tremendously satanic suffering. The only criticism I will level at the film is that there is No Future in it, that it is Absolutely Punk. Academia it's a fascist regime just like Rule Britannia was thirty years ago. But instead of the S*** Pistols and their B**** we get Channel 4, its international satellite broadcasting and "Belle and Sebastian". There is No Hope either, no seed for any possible improvement and when there appears a beam of sunshine it is short-lived and it comes from the fact one day one teacher goes dry on alcohol and then her or his sudden positive motivation is as if the institution were going cold turkey. Enjoy that series of only twelve DVDs. But go at it little dose by little dose, small installment by small installment, tiny take by tiny take, slowly and spread out in time if not on the floor vomiting at this sedating purge, that is "mental" with the standard meaning. A brain hernia is guaranteed if you get an overdose of that.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
