One of the most blood-curdling noises I hear in the classroom is the distinct, primordial howl of a student first discovering that part of their clothing has become enmeshed in someone else’s recently discarded chewing-gum.

In fairness, it is a fairly disturbing sight. Sometimes the gum is so vividly pink, fresh and flexible that it even looks alive.

The student has usually allowed a sleeve or whatever to stray too far down the underside of their desk. The dark side of the desk is a notorious no-go area in secondary schools: a lawless region completely lacking in any kind of gum control. 

Chewing-gum drama

You never know who might have been operating under there earlier in the day, nor what they might have left there. Pupils normally learn to stay clear. But, just occasionally, someone forgets where they are and things get ugly. 

The lesson will start to tank at this point. In line with a well-known law, the victim is nearly always one of the students least likely to take the incident in his or her stride. There’s rarely any hope of them shrugging it off as just a brief and unfortunate setback; it is nearly always going to be a multi-episode, box-set drama.

And, even if the victim is one of the more mature and self-controlled students, I rarely feel any better about it. The student’s philosophical response of, “Oh, it’s OK - though I don’t think Mum’s going to be too happy getting this off,” always leaves a chill within.

We just know how mum is going to respond when child gets home: “What was he doing, letting them chew gum in the first place? Isn’t it supposed to be banned?” - that repulsive gloop rapidly coming to represent me and my soft-centred classroom management.

Nothing can be done to alleviate the situation in that home. My well-intentioned suggestion to the child that the defiled item of clothing be placed overnight in the family deep freeze will either further confirm the view at home that I am some kind of classroom clown act, or suggest that I must be dealing with such disasters all the time to display such expertise. The possibility that I may not have been teaching in the room when the offending gum was left there is, of course, of no interest to anyone. 

What lies beneath

That said, summer holidays are a time for deeper reflection. I think we have got it wrong to regard desk undersides as the lowest life-form in school. We need to be less blinkered about that so-called dark side of the desk.

After all, those fresh gum attacks are quite rare - as evidenced by the magnificent display of full blobs invariably found when a desk is overturned. It happens once a year to me, at most. Most deposits dry quickly there and soon mature into something solid and harmless, no more of a threat than any other limpet or barnacle.

Let’s celebrate instead what that community symbolises. Think about the unique lives since lived by all who have chewed and secretly deposited over those years and decades. Those blobs of gum hold generation of alumni visibly together all in the one place. Each display presents its own unique depiction of a school’s life: a history and heritage going back decades in some cases.

All a bit fanciful? Take a look on the web and you’ll find art collectors even buying and selling such desks, “complete with graffiti and chewing gum”. This is real school life, not dressed-up school-website life. 

So let’s cease feeling shame and disgust about what lies beneath. As schools, let’s turn the tables and be proud to exhibit all that we find there. When is our first open evening of the year, I wonder? 

Stephen Petty is head of humanities at Lord Williams’s School in Thame, Oxfordshire