When the Reverend C Hesketh sought to diversify the nature of his ministry by taking up appointment as R.E. Teacher in a Secondary Modern School for Boys, he might well have at times wondered whether he might have inadvertently strayed into some undocumented level of Hell. He entered the workaday world of Education at a time when Vicars of the Established Church were encouraged to be of the Community on the principle that if the Mountain won’t come to Mohamet, what is Mohamet to do. The Christian Message contained in the movement was being presented in a relaxed social conviviality in the face of other more uncompromising and implacable Creeds. In the spirit of the times Vicars took to wearing baggy sweaters and strumming …show more content…
In the absence of those qualities to any marked degree, the would-be disseminator would be well-advised to have recourse to the use of time-tested devices for dealing with the groups of individuals in the present context.Principally, there needs to be an awareness, though not necessarily an understanding, that in general terms when a group of individuals reaches critical size, it ceases to be the sum of its parts, becoming instead, a collective entity. Sometimes, though not often, the pattern of behaviour in the entity can work towards the Good. More often than not there is a tendency towards a disturbing, even pernicious, behaviour which goes beyond individual norm and in some cases, conscience. There are examples to be seen in Football terraces, militaristic parading of Right Wing allegiance and American Presidential electioneering …show more content…
Nonetheless the same pressures of group behaviour applied. Driving the entities was the identifying of a common enemy together with a natural programming towards subversion and disruption at the slightest hint of weakness in the enemy. Gnarled educators, inured to the buffetings of the classroom, know and appreciate the desirability of presenting a severe aspect on first encounter with the entities, for it is easier, less stressful as well as less time-consuming to, with time, relax a firm grip than it is to tighten a slack one. On his appointment as Headteacher, Mr Knight, displayed an admirable grasp of the maxim. He walked in the Hall followed by the Staff to take his first morning assembly. He wore the flowing black gown of his graduation. That served to confuse the entity, composed of four hundred and fifty units whose only point of reference vis-à-vis the black gown was Batman’s cape. Mr Knight mounted the stage and instead of the expected request for the entity to be seated followed by an apt homily, the newly-appointed Headmaster spoke thus in curt