expected to know about prostitution in a GCSE exam?

[allinahuddle]

Just wondered if I am a prude or if this is inappropriate? Dd2 sat her English literature exam yesterday and the poetry section as expected had two poems to compare and contrast. The introduction to them said they were both about nature and how it affects the man made world. One poem was about prostitution and the other about mining. She said she found it confusing as the introduction made her think her instincts were wrong. She thought it was about drugs and maybe sex but didn't dare write it as she felt sure it wouldn't be that on an exam paper. I can see how perhaps prostitution could be studied as part of a social question in another subject I suppose but to include it as an unseen poetry question for 15 and 16 year olds seems inappropriate to me. To assume that this age group would feel confident to talk about this in an exam situation seems mad. It aldo seems to put the more anxious and less confident or less streetwise kids at a disadvantage as they felt embarrassed writing about it, especially after being told both poems were about nature. Only a couple of kids in the whole school actually wrote about prostitution or drugs even those on target for an A or an A*. AIBU?

MarianneSolong
We haven't mentioned Chaucer yet...

What, for unseen poetry? Sounds like a Gove style initiative.

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

My dd knew about prostitutes at 10. We went to Rome on a history field trip.
She read the literature at various places we visited.
I explained why there were semi clad ladies in the gardens waiting on the gentlemen, she saw the brothel where they were housed.
If you look at literature or history there is no getting away from it.
You can see it openly at Pompeii, they can't really erase the past, it's there in all its glory

Ah. It's the Wife of Bath's tale, then. 'Have it every deel'.

I think one of the problems with English teaching - my daughter's currently doing A-Level, is that a lot of teachers seem to be teaching in a way that says, 'This text says X.' 'This novel is about Y.' In this drama, the playwright is saying Z.

Not a problem with my teaching - just want to have that minuted for the record. If we'd discussed any more readings of The Turn of the Screw (with my AS set), our heads would have exploded. And we explored the word 'liminal' thoroughly.

I think there's a completely natural tendency towards a Chinese whispers effect, though, isn't there?

I remember a lot of us rolling our eyes about our teacher who we thought had a pet theory on Antony and Cleo, and looking back, she really didn't - we'd just got an idea in our heads about it.

I've just finished teaching revision classes with students my mate taught earlier, and I do enjoy the earnest 'well, so-and-so said [completely implausible thing I'm 99% no English teacher ever said]'. They know perfectly well I could go check, so it's not that they're trying to pull the wool - they just got the wrong end of the stick.

I doubt any A level teachers are teaching that 'the text means x' as one of the assessment objectives requires the candidates to explore different readings.

One of mine said in his geography GCSE he was asked to give a job in the informal sector and he gave prostitution so he's obviously well up to speed on it.....

Iheart but some people will take on more papers if it's quicker. Meaning far less expensive training and moderation. In the board I worked for it was a definite consideration and that year of the KS3 test scandals it was found to be happening within national testing too.
15 years ago examiners were asked to mark fewer scripts as a minimum by most boards. As the vast majority are teachers (with a good chunk at TLR2+ level) they tend to have a certain amount of time to devote to it which cannot be exceeded (due to other commitments). Therefore demanding more be marked as the set minimum does make examiners work faster, because the amount of time each examiner has is unlikely to increase.

Having worked on 'both sides' for many years it's a pretty universally recognised thing.

I managed a large, high performing English department before I had my dd. Before that I trained examiners.

I'm not wringing my hands in a speculative manner. I'm speaking cynically from the inside.

I believe what you're saying squiz and I don't doubt your credentials. But I've been to the examiners' conference TODAY. I am still being actively encouraged to reward reasonable interpretations and I still don't have a mark scheme that includes 'right answers' on the unseen poetry.

Yeah it was city lilacs and I don't have an issue with discussing prostitution in class or in texts but just thought it was a weird topic to put on an unseen paper, especially as they were told that the poems were about nature and its impact on the natural world. She did talk about the language and had an inkling of what it was about but didn't have the confidence to discuss it in case she had hold of the wrong end of the stick. Think I would have felt uncomfortable discussing prostitution out of the blue on an exam paper. It wasn't as if it was really something that had come up in the other texts studied. They studied To kill a mockingbird which revolves around a rape and Romeo and Juliet which discusses sexual love so I know that sex is a theme in literature. I think it was just the unexpected topic and the way it was introduced which seemed weird. Especially as the other poem was about mining apparently.