When stone roses frontman Ian Brown (below) was dominating the Manchester “Baggy” scene at the end of the 1980s, the children of All Soul’s Catholic Primary in Salford were not even a twinkle in the milkman’s eye.
But their teacher, Maddy Barnes, 31, was presumably dancing around her bedroom listening to “I am the Resurrection”.
Her passion for King Monkey, as Ian Brown is nicknamed, has inspired her to teach poetry lessons around some of his more inventive lyrics. “F.E.A.R”, his solo hit from 2001, is apparently a fantastic example of an “acrostic poem”, where the first letter of each word in each line spells out the word “fear”.
“For everyman a religion, find everybody and rule, for everything and rumble,” he intones.
Quite what he meant by this last line is unclear but Ms Barnes is enthusiastic, and the pupils are also studying the music videos and writing lyrics of their own.
She told her local newspaper: “Normally, poems about the seasons are used, but I thought the class would respond to something they thought was cool.
“I chose Ian Brown as he is part of Manchester’s music history. Children love it when they tell parents what they are doing and they can get involved.”
But Ms Barnes may have underestimated how deeply uncool it is to share your parents’ music taste.
