Zombie apocalypse proves that teachers are our heroes

The media too often focuses on the negatives in Scottish education – but one’s school’s ‘zombie night’ proves that there is a lot to be proud of, writes Henry Hepburn
13th December 2019, 12:04am
Call Our Teachers In The Zombie Apocalypse

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Zombie apocalypse proves that teachers are our heroes

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archived/zombie-apocalypse-proves-teachers-are-our-heroes

People often complain about a relentless torrent of negativity in the media; that the barrage of bad news grinds them down. And the general election campaign, which was distinctly lacking in a galvanising sense of hope, has served only to reinforce the gloom.

The media, of course, is duty-bound to hold the powerful to account and shine a light on where things are going wrong - two functions that, by definition, do not tend to show humanity’s best side.

But there should always be room for something more uplifting; for reports on what’s going right as well as what’s going wrong. That’s the approach we take at Tes Scotland: we cover the shortcomings, blunders and muddled thinking that blight education, but we’re aware that there’s an appetite to hear about the flip side.

We know from our readers that they like to read detailed, colourful articles about colleagues who are doing something innovative, outstanding, thought provoking or sometimes just downright quirky.

So, in the past year, we’ve written features on an eclectic array of topics, including animal cruelty, the menopause, encouraging play among older pupils, a school where parents take exams alongside their children, Scotland’s biggest-ever outdoor learning event, how teachers fought back against their school’s negative reputation, and the use of teddy bears to improve behaviour - to name just a few.

What unites these all articles? Every one should have an element of surprise: something counterintuitive, maybe something you’ve not heard of before.

We also strive to include, at the very least, a dash of fun in these features. Casual observers, fed a steady diet of stories in the media about how everything has gone to pot for education in Scotland, might imagine that schools right now are despondent, oppressive places. But we know that, for all the many pressures that teachers face, there’s another side to school that doesn’t prick the consciousness of the public nearly as often: we aim to reflect the liberating feeling of sheer enjoyment that lifts student and teacher alike when education is done well.

This week’s feature is no exception: there was plenty of fun to be found when I visited Denny High School recently. If, that is, eye-bulging terror can ever be said to constitute fun.

Night of the Living Denny has become an annual fixture at Denny High - it’s now as big a deal in the S6 calendar as the leavers’ prom. I saw the school turned into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where ravenous zombies lurked around every corner. Sixth-years must run this gauntlet, where the undead hordes - played by teachers and younger students - are convincingly determined to sate their appetite for human flesh.

The experience is, as a quick glance at the Twitter responses on the night will tell you, genuinely terrifying.

It’s all done with remarkable professionalism, and the staff involved have fielded calls from other schools asking if they can help them to put on something similar. Little do they realise, I was told, that Night of the Living Denny is six months in the planning each year.

That’s a huge amount of effort and dedication for an event that, had a group of teachers not suggested it themselves, no one would ever have expected them to take on. But when you see the camaraderie among students, the pride the actors take and the fact that it has become nothing less than a rite of passage for students, you can tell why all the hard work feels worthwhile.

What, then, connects all the amazing ideas, projects and innovations we’ve seen in schools this year? Simply this: the unstinting commitment of teachers, without which these things wouldn’t have happened - and we’d have had nothing to write about.

@Henry_Hepburn

This article originally appeared in the 13 December 2019 issue under the headline “In a zombie apocalypse, who you gonna call? Our teacher heroes”

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