Emma Williams – Emma Williams: Latin tutor

Paralysed by Empathy

One of the overriding memories I have of INSET training in schools is how disempowered it made me feel. Much time was spent making us deeply aware of the unpromising and unsupportive backgrounds that some of our students hailed from. I remember being profoundly affected by being told that – for some children – their form tutor may be the first adult who has spoken to them that morning: their parent(s) may be out, or may not have surfaced from their bed. I never forgot that, but I also felt totally ill-equipped in how I should therefore handle such an interaction. Besides from bearing the depressing truth in mind, what was the best way for me to do my job? I was never entirely sure.

Safeguarding training is a cornerstone of educational practice. It is essential that all adults working with children are alert to the kinds of circumstances in which vulnerable young people may find themselves. Training should pull no punches about the nature, likelihood and shocking frequency of abuse and neglect. It is also crucial, however, that such training is empowering: that it makes the adults involved feel like they understand what they can and cannot do, and equips them with the skills and knowledge to take action when warranted. Otherwise, the training is nothing more than useless hand-wringing and serves no purpose for those at risk, who are the ones that matter. When it came to intervention or raising the alarm, I felt very well-prepared: I knew what the right channels were, I knew how to follow up and I felt able to act. What I did not feel so equipped to deal with was the daily reality of interacting with so many young people, whose background worked against them, whose circumstances were less than ideal. How was I supposed to handle them in the classroom? What strategies were most appropriate to provide the right environment for them? What could I actually do?

All teachers are painfully aware that a significant number of their students face undeniable challenges in their personal lives. These challenges are ongoing and cannot be magically resolved – certainly not by their classroom teachers. It is in the handling of such troubled and often challenging students that so many teachers find themselves bereft of the tools that they need to do their job. The training they are given – in my experience – does nothing to mitigate against this, indeed, in many cases, it makes the situation worse. If all training consists of is a relentless diatribe, detailing the awful circumstances in which some of our students are living, teachers can find themselves quite literally paralysed by empathy.

Empathy is one of the cornerstones of emotional intelligence. The ability to comprehend the feelings and experiences of others helps us to envisage what it’s like to walk in their shoes and pretty much defines humanity: theory of mind – the cognitive ability to understand that others have thoughts, feelings, and intentions that are different from our own – is one of the things that defines us as a species. Empathy allows us to understand and share the feelings of others, and it forms the bedrock of human interaction. But in the relationship between a teacher and student, unmitigated empathy can completely derail us. When adults find themselves overwhelmed by the thought of a child’s situation at home, it can hinder their ability to establish necessary boundaries and provide the education that such students desperately need and deserve.

When empathy becomes overwhelming, adults may find themselves hesitant to enforce rules, set limits, or assert appropriate authority. This phenomenon, when an adult is paralysed by empathy, arises from a deep and genuine concern about causing emotional distress or perceived harm to the child. While well-intentioned, such an over-empathetic approach deprives children of the boundaries they need. Authority does not have to imply dominance or control: authority is not authoritarianism, but rather the caring, conscious exercise of our responsibility to nurture and protect those in our care. Establishing clear boundaries in schools helps children to understand expectations, learn self-discipline, and develop resilience when managing their challenges. Children thrive in environments where there is a balance between empathy and appropriate boundaries, and those boundaries are even more important when they are lacking at home. In our bid to empathise with the most vulnerable students in our care, we unwittingly compound their neglect.

Empathy is crucial in understanding children’s emotions. It enables adults to respond sensitively and to offer support during times of distress. But our role as educators is to equip children with the skills and confidence to navigate the world autonomously, within safe parameters. Such empowerment begins with adults who confidently assert their authority when necessary, guiding children towards responsible decision-making, and fostering resilience in the face of challenges. Boundaries provide a framework, within which children can explore their world safely and confidently. They offer a sense of security and predictability, essential for emotional stability and growth. When adults prioritise empathy to the extent that boundaries become blurred or non-existent, children may struggle with understanding limits, managing impulses, or respecting others’ needs. The results of such a failure are there for everyone to see.

Why is translation so difficult?

I recall being puzzled a few years ago, when the languages department I was attached to invited me to present to them on how I go about teaching the skill of translation. I had assumed that the process of translation was almost synonymous with language work, and would be embedded into the teaching of all languages. It was news to me that a change in syllabus meant that translation from the target language into English was a new and hitherto under-explored field for modern linguists, and this belies my background as someone who has specialised in Latin.

When it comes to ancient languages, translation is what we do. Without delving into the thorny issue of justifying the value of studying Latin per se (!), it is a simple truth that the ultimate goal of this kind of study remains to be able to read and decipher a text that was written down in Latin and to translate it into English. Despite this obvious truth, a huge number of children who study the subject struggle with the process of translation, and it is worth reflecting upon why that might be.

Broadly speaking, the clients who get in touch with me asking for help for their child fall into two camps, and those camps tend to be based on age-group. Most of the people who want help for a younger child (say in Years 7-8) will say that their child is “okay with translating” but “struggles with the grammar”. This is always a massive red flag for impending disaster, for it means that their child’s translations are based entirely on instinct and guesswork; the child may have appeared to manage okay so far, but as things get harder they will fall apart and the child will soon find that they can comprehend very little of what’s in front of them. It is a drastic misconception, in my opinion, that “grammar” is something separate from “translation”. This really gets to the heart of Latin as a subject and belies why so many children need help with it. Grammar is not an optional luxury for those most deeply versed in the language: it is the beating heart of how the language works.

Parents of older children (broadly speaking in Years 9-11) tend to be the ones who are already experiencing the fall-out of translation without the systematic application of grammar rules. Students by this time find that their previously-successful methodologies of translating on instinct have all but collapsed. Parents of students who have reached this stage will usually tell me that their child struggles with absolutely everything and is on the verge of giving up. A few will say that their child is “okay with the grammar” (which means they have rote-learned their endings) but cannot make it work in the context of a translation. This less common scenario is what tends to happen with a highly-motivated student, generally successful in their studies, who has been told to “learn their endings” and has dutifully done so, but has not had the opportunity to sit down with somebody in one-to-one sessions and have the process of translation – actually making use of those endings – modelled and unpicked for them. This is not to say that their classroom teacher has not used the method of modelling, nor that they have not tried to dedicate some one-to-one attention to such a child. But the reality remains that such processes are remarkably difficult to embed and often require repeated, intensive one-to-one work to make a tangible difference to outcomes. This is especially true for a child that has developed the habit of translating on instinct and has not been drilled from the beginning to analyse Latin sentences rigorously. I’m afraid to say that the most popular text books used in secondary schools (the Cambridge Latin Course and Suburani) tend to encourage and compound such an approach. These courses are nicknamed “reading courses” and aim to encourage fluid and instinctive reading from the outset, eschewing the process of analysis. My personal experience with such an approach is that it is disastrous for a child’s long-term grasp of the subject and results in an inability to translate when things get even remotely complicated. Lots of people disagree with me on this, and if you’d like to hear me interview one or two of them, then listen to my podcast; in Season 2 Episode 1, I interview Caroline Bristow (Director of the Cambridge Schools Classics Project) and in Episode 6 I talk to David Carter, who is an advocate for a methodology called comprehensible input. If you’d like to hear me interview someone who shares my views, listen to Season 2 Episode 2 with Ed Clarke.

Much of my time in one-to-one sessions is spent asking students to justify their translation. When they tell me that rex deorum means “the king of the gods” … was that an easy guess based on the fact that they know the vocabulary? Or can they identify the fact that deorum is genitive plural, which is why it translates as “of the gods”? If they can’t unpick their reasoning behind very simple sentences, then in my experience they will never be able to translate more complex ones. My focus is therefore to present students with a variety of sentences, using vocabulary that is familiar to them, then challenge them to identify and articulate the morphology and syntax which justifies and explains their translation.

It is also important from the very beginning to present students with sentences which cannot be translated successfully without some kind of analysis. Even at the most rudimentary level, this is easy to do. While reading courses such as Suburani tend to encourage students to follow their natural instinct to read from left to right by using pronouns at the start of a sentences like English does, I prefer to present students with sentences that lack a noun or a pronoun as the subject, so they are forced to look at the verb ending in order to find out who is doing the action. During lockdown, I basically re-wrote the Cambridge Latin Course for my students and one of the main things I did was to remove all those subject pronouns. This change made an immediate and tangible difference to outcomes with the beginners in my classroom. From very early on, students were forced to cope with sentences such as ad tabernas festinas (you are hurrying to the shops) when previously they had been shown tu ad tabernas festinas, which means exactly the same thing but provides them with the subject (you) as vocabulary at the front of the sentence and hence removes the need to look at the verb ending; take away the subject pronoun, and the learner is forced to develop the correct habit of parsing the verb ending (festina-s, as opposed to festin-o or festina-t). Initially, of course, this slows the learner down, but the ultimate gain is the right kind of rigour, which will pay dividends in the long-term. While it will initially appear to take students longer to be able to translate basic sentences with fluidity and skill, their translations when they come will be based upon real understanding, not the false appearance of success. It is this false early success – in my opinion – that makes the reading courses so popular; students feel brilliantly successful in the early stages, but they are living in a house of cards.

By far the most common scenario presented to me as a tutor who specialises in supporting struggling students is a child who has enjoyed and appeared to thrive in Latin in Years 7-8, who then experienced an enormous crisis in Year 9 or at the start of their GCSE studies. These students feel cheated and let down, and understandably so. A lot of them come to me saying that they regret selecting the subject for GCSE and are convinced that they cannot do it. Happily, I am usually able to convince them that they can do it, but this involves unpicking the habits they have formed in the early years and retraining them from scratch. While reading courses such as Suburani and the CLC continue to dominate the market in secondary schools, I don’t see this situation changing in a hurry.

Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash

Adolescent ramblings

“As a father, watching Adolescence with my teenage son and daughter hit home hard. We all need to be having these conversations more. I’ve backed Netflix’s plan to show the series for free in schools across the country, so as many young people as possible can see it.”

Keir Starmer, on X, March 31^st

There is so much that infuriates me about this tweet that I struggle to know where to start. But before I launch into my take from the standpoint of an ex-schoolteacher, let me speak simply as a voter. Where have all the statesmen gone? How do we find our country led by someone so easily swayed by the public response to a work of fiction, aired on a popular streaming channel? I suppose in the same way as we ended up with a leader who is currently overseeing the most significant change in UK human rights law for decades, simply because – and I quote – he “made a promise to Esther Rantzen.” The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is governing according to what celebrities want him to do and according to the public hand-wringing about a Netflix drama. We truly are through the looking glass.

I have always had my frustrations with our robotic PM, merely the latest in a long line of identikit ministers, who appear to have no idea what they believe in or what they stand for, but my frustration with Starmer’s comments this week stem from the consistent way in which schools are now held accountable for every ill in society. Rising knife crime? Get schools to deal with it. Burgeoning antisemitism? Get schools to address it. Just this morning, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson called for “more male teachers, so British boys have role models.” This call comes, despite the fact that we have zero evidence that increasing the number of men working in a school has any net positive effect on the boys in their care. Anecdotally, I am happy to report the blindingly obvious observation that for every boy inspired and managed by the 6ft 7 PE teacher with the booming voice (and believe me, I have gone to such men for help when managing a certain kind of boy), there are likewise just as many boys who will relate to and be inspired by me, by their flamboyant male drama teacher, or their zany female art teacher. I wouldn’t have thought, in 2025, that one needs to point out that there is more than one type of boy.

“Schools can’t solve these problems alone, and responsibility starts at home with parents. But only one in four of the teachers in our schools are men. Just one in seven in nursery and primary. One in 33 in early years,” says our illustrious Ed Sec. See just how much heavy lifting the “but” is doing in that quote? Schools can’t do everything, BUT … let’s focus on them anyway. This is how education gets treated by the government – we are the punching bag for society’s frustrations and we must solve all its ills. The drama Adolescence raised questions about parenting, as well as the potential role played by the influences of social media in young people’s lives, but governments don’t want to talk about these things. It is an obvious fact that more of their voters are parents than teachers, so it’s much easier to blame the latter than the former for society’s problems. As for social media and the internet in general, the government has absolutely no idea what to do and they certainly don’t want to do the most obvious thing, which is to challenge individuals to take more responsibility for what their own children find themselves exposed to. What they may do, which is take the opportunity to bring in more laws to curb free speech online, I can’t even bear to think about.

No, let’s say the schools have to tackle it all. Let’s argue about whether or not phones should be banned in schools, rather than discuss the fact that it is the children’s parents who fund the very existence of these devices in the first place. Schools are not responsible for the fact that many – perhaps even most – children have unfettered access to the internet. That responsibility lies with the adults that purchase the device, hand it to their kids and pay the bill for its extensive usage. Schools have had this problem dumped upon them and trust me, they feel the fall-out. You wouldn’t believe how much time is wasted in schools while pastoral leaders investigate cases of bullying, harassment, sexting, indecent images and incitement to violence that take place through these children’s mobile devices on a daily basis. One of my earliest shows for Teachers’ Talk Radio explored the relationship that teenagers have with their smart phones: I interviewed Matt Crowley, lead DSL (Designated Safeguarding Lead) in the school in which I was working at the time. He talked about the serious safeguarding risks and the systemic damage to a child’s mental health, self-esteem and personal safety which can arise from the use of these devices – in school and beyond. None of this is news to teachers; we’ve been saying it for years.

To return to Starmer’s tweet, let’s focus on the absolutely ridiculous proposal that Adolescence, a Netflix drama, should be “shown in schools”. Unsurprisingly, the writers and producers of the show are delighted by all the fuss. I bet they can’t believe their luck. There are influential talk-show hosts out there, not only recommending the show, but berating politicians who have not watched it as “ignorant”, “uncaring” and “out of touch”. Apparently, it’s compulsory viewing and if you haven’t viewed it, you’re an officially Bad Person. But let’s actually think about the idea that this drama should be “shown in schools”, shall we? Firstly, shown to whom? The drama is rated 15, so schools would not be able to show it to any year group below Year 11, since some students in Year 10 will not turn 15 until after the end of the academic year. If Starmer thinks the drama is so significant and truly reflective of reality (he has twice accidentally referred to it as “a documentary”, which is actually terrifying), I would point out that the perpetrator of the crime in the drama is thirteen years old. Showing the drama to 16–18-year-olds would thus seem to be missing the point.

Furthermore, and this applies to the equally insane directive that schools are now somehow responsible for teaching children how to brush their teeth, what would Starmer like schools to remove from the curriculum in order to make time for this four-hour TV marathon? One assumes that he doesn’t want them taken out of maths, English and science, so perhaps he sees it as fitting within the PSHE programme. Does he know that most schools barely manage the advised one hour per week? That they seriously struggle to fit this in? What would he like us to remove from the curriculum in order to make way for a drama that at least half of the kids will already have seen at home? Sex education and consent? I would have thought that was pretty important to cover, given the content of the drama. Alcohol, smoking and illegal drugs? How about college applications and how to present yourself at interview? Financial literacy? Martin Lewis won’t be happy, and given Starmer’s terror of celebrities that will mean some more sleepless nights for him. What a dilemma, Keir! Isn’t leadership difficult?!

I struggle to respect a leader who is so beleaguered by the ebb and sway of public opinion and general feelz. This is a Prime Minister who has somehow found time in what one would have assumed is a busy week to meet with the writer and the producer of the Netflix drama to discuss it. I mean … what?! I would rather he got on with the business of government. If the man stands for anything then he needs to convince me that he cannot be pushed around by celebrities and current talking points. But it seems we have somehow grown so used to weak leadership that now we take it for granted.

Image by Reuters. Keir Starmer in Downing Street with Jack Thorne, writer of *Adolescence*

Let me count the ways

How do we let young people down in 2025? Let me count the ways. Beyond our inexplicable willingness to allow them unfettered 24-hour access to the dark world of the internet, beyond our discomfort with and unwillingness to take the responsibility that lies with adults, to be in charge and to be the grown-ups in the room, beyond this lurks yet another way in which we can let them down. We can teach them an inflated sense of their own importance; we can let them believe that the world revolves around them and let them imagine that, when they reach adulthood, their employer will bend to their every whim. How do we do that? Let me give you an example.

It is not often that I read a post on LinkedIn, as it’s never an enriching experience. But imagine my horror when I happen upon someone who claims to be a fellow educationalist openly celebrating the news that a child is missing their lessons for no good reason other than the fact that it is their birthday. “Let’s normalise taking your birthday off without any further explanation or drama required,” she exclaimed. “Life’s too short not to!” She also celebrated “the beauty of flexi/online schooling,” showing at least some awareness of the fact that the average UK school would take a pretty dim view of any student – or their parents – citing a birthday as a reason to take a day off.

To be clear, it was apparent from her post that this person was talking about the kind of tutoring that is there to replace traditional schooling, not supplement it. As someone who works with students who attend mainstream school, I have had several occasions on which parents have cancelled their evening appointment with me due to birthday celebrations, and that is just as it should be: the child has already done a day’s schooling and it seems more than reasonable to reserve their evening time for birthday celebrations with family and/or friends. But this tutor was celebrating the fact that their student was missing an entire day’s worth of schooling, and even seemed to be implying that – in an ideal world – schools would be willing to accommodate such a decision. The responses were mainly positive, with several people – all of them no doubt making money out of the increasing trend of parents taking their children out of the traditional education system – applauding the sentiment. “Brilliant! Joy, wellbeing and belonging first, then education will flow and be valued” asserted one, a remarkable claim which I would love to see the data on. “All my students take their birthdays off, and I encourage it,” said another. “Absolutely brilliant,” said a third: “I too encourage my students to take their birthdays off!”

There were one or two of us speaking up for sanity, so all is not lost. One or two people commented that allowing students to take random days off is disruptive to both the teacher and the learner. I commented that allowing students to take time off in this way is surely setting them up for future disappointment in life. There are not many people in this world who are so blessed that they can pick and choose whether or not they go into work on a particular day. If at least part of education’s purpose is to prepare students for working life, then what kind of precedent are we setting by normalising the expectation of a day off on their birthday, rather than explaining to them that school is still there – birthday or not – and reassuring them that celebrations will be had when it is finished for the day?

There are innumerable jobs which do not allow for days off at your preferred time, including some quite noble careers. Teaching, for example, is well known as a profession in which you do get lots of time away from the chalkface, but the price you pay for the significant chunks of flexible free time undeniably allowed to you is that the times when you are tied to the chalkface are 100% dictated by your employer. It is quite remarkably difficult for classroom teachers to negotiate any time away from their classroom, for blindingly obvious reasons. I remember a wealthy friend once invited myself and my husband to Glyndebourne, in an ill-fated attempt to convert me to opera. “You’d have to take the afternoon off,” he said, airily. I snorted with mirth, for this was just one example of how someone in his wealth-bracket tends to presume that the world works for everybody else. It was almost worth me booking an appointment with the Headteacher, just to see the look on her face when I requested the afternoon off “to attend the opera.” Many of our young people will end up in jobs like mine, when time off at one’s own behest is simply not on the cards. Granted, many of them won’t. The point is: all jobs include “have-tos” (true even for my wealthy barrister friend), and young people need to learn this simple fact. Otherwise, we are letting them down.

Beyond the fact that school attendance teaches children about the “have-tos” in life, allowing time off at a child’s behest devalues education itself. Taking students out of school for random events should not be done lightly, for in doing so we are inevitably sending a message to a child that their schooling is not important to us. This then echoes down the line when it comes to their day-to-day studies, their preparation for examinations, their overall efforts to achieve academically. Why should it matter to them, if we are constantly undermining the message that it matters to us by taking them out of school?

My third and final objection to the idea of allowing and encouraging students to take time out of school for their birthday is perhaps a little controversial, so brace yourselves. Here goes. Quite simply, I think it is too self-indulgent. I am so depressed at how society seems to be shifting more and more towards an entirely individualistic mindset, one which prioritises the wants and needs of the individual over and above the needs of the community as a whole. While I would never object to the idea that one should be mindful of one’s own health and wellbeing, indeed I write often about my efforts to centre my own, the expectation of one’s right to do so has become so unquestionable that we are beginning to forget what binds us together as a community. In our relentless pursuit of independence and self-efficacy, I fear we may end up with a world full of egocentrics.

In the grand scheme of humanity, nobody’s birthday is actually that important, because nobody is the centre of the universe. We need to keep our special dates in perspective. They matter to us and – if we are lucky enough – to those who care about us. They do not – nor should they – impact upon the rest of the world. If that seems a little too nihilistic for your liking, then here’s another way of looking at it: if it’s their birthday, wouldn’t it be better for a child to go into school and celebrate by sharing the love with their classmates? Over the years, I have had several colleagues who liked to make a fuss on their birthday, so they brought in cakes and shared them with all of us. It was an absolutely lovely thing to do and everybody enjoyed it. And everyone wished them a happy birthday! So, if we believe that birthdays are so special and important, then why don’t we teach our children that their birthday is a chance to bring some joy to their usual routines and responsibilities, not an opportunity to evade them?

Celebrating failure

With exam season looming, most of my clients are concerned to achieve success and worried about failure. It is probably a sign of my aberrant nature, but this week my brain has gone on a loop of pondering the benefits of failure. While I would consider myself – broadly speaking – to be a successful person, I have experienced numerous failures in my life. Some of them, on reflection, have been the making of me. In this post, I plan to outline one of my failures in life and argue that it has turned out to be an outstandingly good thing in the long-run.

Before I begin, I wouldn’t want anyone to think that the failure I plan to discuss is my only failure, or even the biggest failure in my repertoire. I’ve had failures galore. I’ve also had successes galore. It is important, I believe, to be able to reflect upon and celebrate both. While celebrating failure might seem a strange thing to do, I believe that it is part of life’s rich and glorious tapestry. As Confucius famously said, our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. Getting things wrong and learning how to deal with that inevitability is an essential life-skill. None of this will come as a revelation to anyone with an iota of sense and maturity, but what I want to reflect upon today is how failure – while it can be painful at the time – may turn out to have surprising and unpredictable benefits for us as an individual. So, here goes.

At the age of 18, I failed my driving test. When I tried again, I failed again. I knew I’d failed the second test at the point when the examiner said – with notable tension in his voice – “you need to be careful at this point, as you’re actually on the wrong side of the road.” The whole experience was humiliating and dismal. I was – to be frank – an absolute liability on the road. After a great deal of reflection, I decided that driving was not for me and gave up on the idea of ever trying again. I never wavered from this decision and it has been a life-limiting decision in all sorts of ways that both the drivers and the non-drivers among you will immediately understand.

With maturity and hindsight, in recent years I have become confident and secure enough to admit that this was a deep and profound personal failure on my part. It was a failure of courage on every level. I failed to persist, failed to try again and worst of all I failed to face up to the fact that some of my physical disabilities (a spinal condition and my eyesight) were getting in the way of my learning. Had I been able and willing to face up to this simple fact, I could have explored opportunities for adaptations: lots of disabled people drive! At that age, however, I was not willing to face up to the fact that I was, in fact, disabled. I wasn’t comfortable with the word or the very idea that I belonged in that category. So, I let it get the better of me. I gave up. So, why on earth might this profound personal failure be something to celebrate? Well, as it turns out, I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that my inability to drive has quite literally saved my life.

There is ever-increasing and undeniable evidence that a sedentary lifestyle is rapidly becoming the biggest killer since the advent of cigarettes, and as someone who has eschewed all forms of sport and exercise for most of my life, I would have been at enormous risk of this silent killer. Yet, according to the data on my Smart watch, I am in the 95^th percentile for cardiovascular fitness. My V02 max, currently considered to be one of the best predictors of longevity that we have, is very high for my age group. My resting heart rate is excellent, as is my recovery time. And get this. I still don’t run and I still don’t play sport. Instead, I walk and I walk fast, a habit embedded because most of the time I have used the process of walking as my transport to get myself somewhere: to work, to meet someone, to get home and out of the cold. Walking fast is a habit, something I do daily, often multiple times a day. As I write this post, it is a lunchtime and I have already walked just over 5 kilometres, pushing my heart rate into the zone that counts for moderate to vigorous exercise. I plan to go out again before I start tutoring later today.

Because I cannot drive, walking is something that I will have to do for as long as I live – and that is a good thing. Walking is my superpower, and that superpower has arisen purely from the fact that I made the weak and potentially self-sabotaging decision to give up on the idea of driving.

So, there we have it. Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?

An ordinary child

This week, I met a friend whom I have not seen for a while. She’s been pretty busy, having her second child, who arrived in December, and looking after her first daughter, who is now two and a half. In addition, she has a highly responsible job in a challenging school and (as I know from having worked alongside her) she has sky-high standards for herself, for her department and for the children she teaches.

It’s been a while since I spent any time with a child under three. According to my friend, the older child was having a significantly bad day, and there was some low-level wriggling, some occasional whingeing and one bout of crying. My friend was visibly mortified, stating that her child was “not normally like this,” while for my part, I was stunned at how advanced the child appeared to be for such a young age. She was so articulate that I genuinely struggled to believe how young she was. She could speak in full sentences and appeared to understand a genuinely remarkable range of vocabulary. It was only her size – which was, in fact, very small for her age – that kept reminding me that she was not even three years old.

It would be easy to assume that this child is some kind of prodigy, or at least that she is highly intelligent, way beyond her peers in ability: but who knows? Only time will tell. Some children (myself included) acquire language skills very quickly but then level off in terms of their academic attainment in line with their peers; my own experience teaches me that being labelled “remarkably bright” can actually be just as much of a lodestone around your neck as being labelled pejoratively, so I would always proceed with caution. In terms of her skills right now, I suspect (as does her mother) that this is simply a child who has not been given an iPad or similar device.

The use of iPads and similar tablet devices with very young children is now so embedded as the norm that, in the space of barely more than a decade, we have grown used to how toddlers are when they have access to them. Because most toddlers have access to them. A YouGov survey states that 85% of six-year olds have access to an iPad or similar device, and nearly half of them have their own personal device. An OfCom study from 2023 states that “Our tracking studies collect data in relation to children aged 3 or above. However, many children start their media journey at a younger age, including using devices. Childwise interviews parents of children aged up to 2 years old, and reports that children of this age may already be able to undertake certain activities using a touch screen, for example, 26% were able to open apps that they wanted to use and 22% were able to take photos with the device.” Ugh. “Their media journey” ?! The fact that this is reported with apparent celebration by OfCom makes me feel genuinely sick.

Sometimes, I cannot even bear to think about the consequences of digital exposure for this very young age group. As a secondary school teacher, I was always aware of the dangers awaiting the older students who spent time unsupervised online. But the impact upon the actual brain development for the very young has not been something that I have spent much time thinking about until recently; now I have reflected upon it, I genuinely tremble for the next generations of children. I have written before about my fears for young people who are permanently wired up to their devices and have shared my agreement with Jonathan Haidt’s findings in his work, The Anxious Generation, in which he argues that children have undergone what he calls a “great rewiring”. He blames the apparent surge in anxiety disorders on the ever-increasing amount of time that children spend on their phones and/or iPads and makes the case for a societal shift away from the expectation that children should be in contact with these devices from a very young age. I had taken on board the impact upon children’s mental health before but it was not until this week that it really hit me the extent to which these devices must be holding back our children’s basic brain and language development.

There is nothing worse than feeling like a pearl-clutching old fusspot, who blames the colour television for the behaviour of local youths. Yet I cannot help but question the wisdom of allowing our children to access a device that is so hell-bent on drawing them into themselves, on cutting them off from normal, day-to-day interactions with other children and with adults. Stories were emerging more than 10 years ago about toddlers becoming so addicted to the use of an iPad that it impeded their development; now, it seems, we just accept it as normal. I truly fear that we are sleepwalking into a crisis, with more and more children displaying apparent signs of neurodivergence, many cases of which may simply be the result of the fact that they have not received the constant stream of ordinary face-to-face human interactions that are required in order to develop their ability to articulate themselves and to socialise with others.

Just think how essential the smallest interactions are for tiny children if they are to develop their language skills, their social skills and their overall grasp of how to be a human. Now think about the fact that we are placing in their hands a device that is designed and built to distract and hold their attention, to divert their gaze and their conscious thought away from other humans and towards the screen. Now factor in the fact that some children find social interaction challenging anyway, that it takes a good deal of practice in their formative years to embed those essential skills. Is it little wonder that children are increasingly held back in these areas, to the extent that meeting one unimpeded by this new normal felt like meeting a savant?

The trouble with finding good reads on GoodReads

As an avid reader of fiction, I have a problem. It’s a wonderful problem to have, and illustrates the many and various ways in which the modern world can be truly wonderful. My problem is keeping track of what I’ve read.

Were I not to do so, I’d be in an infinite loop of doubt: “Have I read this?” The feeling can begin at any time: when I look at the cover of a book, read the blurb, hear the name of the author or – perhaps most discombobulating of all – when I’m part way through the book. You might think it shouldn’t matter, but there is a tiny part of me that is undeniably anxious about the number of books that there are in the world and the ever- diminishing time I have available to read them. Accidentally repeating the exercise with one of them sets off the same kind of first-world anxiety that lots of people experience when they realise that they’re not wearing their FitBit when they’re half way through their daily run. That voice in your head that says, this doesn’t count towards my target!

Before I discuss the thorny solution to my problem, I would just like to pause and celebrate the sheer joy that this “problem” exists. When I was a child, and perhaps even more of a booklover than I am now, I used to have a fantasy that I could close my eyes, open my palms and the perfect book for that moment would appear. Since the advent of digital technology exploded into the publishing world, this fantasy is now a concrete, daily reality. I can order a book and – milliseconds later – I can be reading it. The advent of the Kindle and similar devices, followed rapidly by the spectacular surge in the audiobook industry, has made books and their contents more accessible than ever. It enables reading on the go, reading while you’re working on mindless chores that would otherwise be soul-destroying and reading in an instant. It is not only accessible but increasingly affordable. As well as the remarkably affordable global phenomenon that is Amazon that shook the market to its core, there are millions of electronic books and audiobooks available through the library for free and I absolutely love it. I cannot stress enough how utterly glorious this literary digital revolution has been for me, especially as someone with ropey eyesight.

Right – back to whingeing.

To solve the problem I have, which – if you recall – is keeping track of what I’ve read, for many years I have turned to recording what I’ve read on a site called GoodReads. It is by far the biggest and most successful platform of its kind, and like all social media platforms it began as a wonderful idea. A community of booklovers, coming together online, on a platform that exploits all the modern benefits of social media but focuses entirely on books – recommendations, reviews, suggestions and comments. Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? What’s not to like? Well, like most social media platforms, there is unfortunately quite a lot not to like.

Since its launch in 2006, GoodReads has become increasingly dominated by a certain kind of reader. I hesitate to label them as belonging to a particular generation, as I’m not sure it’s that simple, but these readers are the ones who see everything that has ever been written as “problematic”. Ever in search of reasons to be offended, they trawl the corpus of modern and classic fiction, hunting for dissent from their tribal causes of righteousness and sniffing out any indication of a worldview that may jar with their own, even if that worldview is expressed by a fictional character.

It must be a truly exhausting existence, especially if you want to read anything written prior to the 21^st century, which can be a challenge for all of us who have been steeped in modern liberalism. A few years ago, I read Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell and found myself positively wincing at his choice of language. Similarly, it’s been an education to dip into some Agatha Christie and discover the casual classicism and a truly profound contempt for her own sex. This all jars with modern values and if you’re normally a reader of contemporary fiction it can come as quite a surprise. I would happily support a review of such books which said something like, “remember, this book was written around 80 years ago, so the attitudes and views expressed will not reflect 21^st century values”. That is all that needs to be said, a trigger warning for the ineluctably stupid who need it pointing out to them that people in the past didn’t necessarily think the same as we do. If you really want to blow their minds, try asking them what 22^nd century humans will think of their own prejudices; they won’t be able to think of any, because that’s how prejudice works: it’s only obvious when you look back at it.

You’re probably thinking I should give you a couple of examples of the GoodReads phenomenon. Okay. According to the good folk of GoodReads, a Young Adult novel that I enjoyed as a teenager is officially racist because it’s a fantasy novel about astral projection, which is the ability to remove your soul from your own body, and this is (apparently) cultural appropriation from the native Americans. Honest to God, there are people losing their minds over whether the supposed ability to teleport your soul around the world is racist. Some readers lay into the same novel being “sizeist” as well, and I have to say I have absolutely zero recollection of that in the novel. Similarly, there are hundreds of people claiming that Lionel Shriver (she of We Need to Talk About Kevin fame) can’t write, because her recent novel about tone-policing in society is just a little too close to the bone for them. “I feel like if you’re going to try and do Orwell in 2024, you have to try and write at least as well as Orwell” snipes one, whilst in the next beat admitting “I’m not much of a fan of Orwell.” That one genuinely made me hoot. Less so the one filled with expletives that describes Shriver as nothing more than “a well-off, educated white woman” – the ultimate modern-day insult.

I have searched for a better option and there does not appear to be one, so GoodReads is where I’m stuck. The algorithms are useful, in a way that they are not when it comes to other products available for purchase. If I’ve just bought a new dishwasher, then I’m not interested in suggestions for other dishwashers. However, if I’ve just enjoyed a rip-roaring thriller about zombies, I am more than open to suggestions for similar rip-roaring thrillers about zombies, so GoodReads has some value through its automated suggestions. As for the humans that populate the site, I shall endeavour to do my best to avoid their opinions and their tone-policing. I hate to say it, but for once I’d rather listen to the computer.

Hang in there, folks!

“Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.”

Peter Ustinov

This week, I have had a high volume of messages and phone calls from parents who are worried about their child’s progress. Witnessing your teenager navigate the pressures of impending exams can be a source of significant anxiety for parents and carers; balancing the desire to support them academically while managing your own concerns can be a delicate task, and never more so in this crucial period between Mock results and the final examinations, the proposed dates of which have just been announced. This year, both exam boards have elected to place all three of the Latin examinations prior to Half Term.

While all parents are anxious for their children to do well, the situation varies from client to client. Some have a child who is seemingly crippled by their own anxiety, struggling to study effectively because of the extreme pressure they put on themselves to succeed. Others report that their child is so laid back (or in denial) about the examination process that they’re doing little to nothing at all, blissfully convinced that the eleven weeks remaining between now and their first examination is an absolute eternity of time, during which they will – at some point – address what it is that they need to learn.

Parenting is like any relationship: it has a dynamic of its own and there are pressures from multiple angles. Every parent wants what’s best for their child and the anxiety stems from worrying whether we or they could be doing more. Yet parental anxiety can inadvertently influence a teenager’s stress levels and when parents exhibit high levels of concern, teens may internalise this stress, leading to increased pressure and potential performance issues. Recognising and managing our own anxiety is therefore crucial in fostering a calm and supportive atmosphere – but this is much easier said than done!

Children often mirror their parents’ emotional responses, so most psychologists advocate for modelling the kind of behaviour that you think your child would benefit from: demonstrating calmness and confidence can help your teen to adopt a similar mindset. This is not to say that you should not share your anxieties, indeed discussing your feelings openly, without projecting undue stress, can encourage your teen to share their concerns as well. Many parents I know find the car is a great place to encourage this kind of openness, because by necessity the discussion has to be had without eye contact; many people – especially teenagers – can find eye-contact really confronting when talking about difficult things, so opening up or encouraging your child to do so while your eyes are on the road can be useful. If you need to have a really difficult conversation, too difficult to be had while you’re driving, then doing so on a walk can have a similar effect: again, your gaze is facing forward and you’re walking side-by-side, which can dial down the intensity of what you’re saying and make it feel less threatening for both of you.

Many parents underestimate the amount of pressure that they are under while their child is preparing for exams, so it is important to focus on self-care when you can. Engaging in activities that reduce your own stress levels not only benefits you but also sets a positive example for your teen – remember, they learn from your role-modelling, so making time for yourself is not selfish: it is modelling for your child the best and healthiest way to handle their own stress, both now and in the future.

In terms of practical solutions when it comes to study, promoting efficient study techniques can reduce exam-related stress. Assist them in setting achievable goals for each study session to maintain motivation and a sense of accomplishment. Encourage evidence-informed methods such as summarising information, teaching you or someone else the material, or creating mind maps to enhance understanding and retention. Rather than reading and highlighting, encourage your child to read, set the book to one side and then try to summarise the information they have just read in their own words. This is by far the most effective aid to memory, as it forces the brain to reconstruct the information, which is essentially how memory works. Utilising past papers under timed conditions can build familiarity with exam formats and time management skills, so this is another essential tool in the process.

If you’re looking for detailed advice on how to go about studying effectively, I would highly recommend a book called The Psychology of Effective Studying by Dr. Paul Penn, who is a senior lecturer in Psychology at the University of East London. I interviewed him for Teachers Talk Radio a few years ago, and he is an absolute goldmine of evidence-based, practical advice. I would recommend the book for adults (it is aimed at undergraduates), but Paul also has a YouTube channel, which makes much of his advice really accessible for younger people. If you’re finding it difficult to persuade your teenager to try more effective methods of study, then Paul’s channel could be a great place to direct them towards.