To think Miss Honey in Matilda is overly personal?

[JustAnInnocentQuestion]

I was watching Matilda recently (the better first one) and realised how overly personal Miss Honey is with Matilda. Firstly, she visits her parents at their home. Surely it would've been better to call them or invite them to see her at school? Later, she invites Matilda to her home. I know Matilda's parents don't care about her, but I wouldn't want a teacher to visit me at home without prior notice or take my child to their home.

headmonster. Brilliant @OrwellianTimes 😂

Takes a bow.

Maybe teachers did home visits in US back in the nineties? Or it just fitted the plot better. Could she safely call her parents into the school with Miss Trunchbull there? Even if she did try to call Matilda's parents into school, it's doubtful they would have bothered to school.

It's also unrealistic that there wasn't a regulatory body she could report Miss Trunchbull too for locking kids in cupboards and throwing them 100 yards.

It was set in 80s Britain where there was more engagement between families and school and in certain regions this wouldn’t have been seen as weird at all. I think it’s now that we have it wrong. Just as much terrible stuff happens now despite all the protections but we’ve lost the ability for people to do what’s best and instead they just follow the book and remain detached and “professional” when actually talking to parents directly might well be helpful. We now live in a bureaucracy, not a society.

I remember reading an account of Roald Dahl's experience of being beaten at school. Dahl was in his 70s when he wrote the story - I'm sure he was more influenced by his own schooldays than what school was actually like in the 80s!
Goodness knows what we could make of the teachers at Hogwarts!

In the 90s two teachers came to my house to discuss an exchange trip. And then 3 of us went to our teacher’s house for dinner during the trip. Nobody thought twice about it.

😂😂😂😂
It is based on a work of fiction, ffs.
If you object to the parameters you have outlined, why aren't you moaning about telekinesis, because that's even more fabntastical than the bits you object to

Please explain

Wtf?
It is a work of bloody fiction!

If everything had happened as it should, it wouldn't be much of a story, surely.

Miss Honey is the dreamworld teacher for an abused child who longs for a friendly adult who takes them out of their situation.

Books are full of things that if you look closely at would fail safeguarding or health and safety etc. It's often why they are so appealing, because it's taking the imagination of longing and making it seem possible.

It's a story. It's not real

Exactly this. And indeed many children who have not been abused have probably fleetingly wished their favourite teacher could take them home after being told off by their parents. I read it in the 80s when it came out (I was 9) and never thought my teacher could or should adopt me irl, any more than I believed I could spill water glasses using the power from my eyes.

I got the book when it came out (great big hardback unlike all the other Dahl books I have). Recall it being a similar fanfair to when the Harry Potter books were released. And yes she visits Matilda in the book with the story set in Buckinghamshire where Dahl lived.

Thought nothing of Miss Honey at the time, but Trunchbull?...my god.

It is a ✨story✨

Makes Miss Honey seem very benign!

It's been a while since I read them.

But yeah, surely the BFG should have been arrested for kidnapping a young girl.
James should have been taken into care rather than living with his horrible aunts and having to run away in a giant peach with big talking insects.
Danny's dad encouraging him into a life of crime by involving him in poaching.
Terrible.

Still love those stories. I remember being given Matilda for Christmas and finishing it in 3 days 😀

In the early 90s we’d go to a teacher’s house for a pizza and movie party - our parents signed permission slips. And my Dad remembers in the 60s it was normal for (usually youngish) teachers to marry students when they graduated.

Norms change. Fantasy stories are fantasy. It’s outrageous on purpose.

And on the theme of other literature:
Harry Potter's teachers should be reported to OFSTED for failing to notice an obvious safeguarding concern.

There is no way that they could look at him and compare how Dudley was treated and not raise a safeguarding concern. Because there was another child the same age it would have stood out completely.
Which is why I didn't feel it fitted well that they treated him so obviously badly, because the aunt and uncle were all about the image.

😂

YANBU. That school is full of safeguarding concerns. Who was their DSL?!

My friend & I went for tea at a female teacher's house in 1988. It was wasn't really for social reasons as I think we may have discussed some coursework but I remember she was really posh & got out her china teaset! When we look back on it now we can't believe it actually happened. I must have mentioned it to my mum but she obviously didn't question it at the time. I was older than Matilda though. I was 15

I think the same when watching friends & Ross broke the little girls leg & was let into her bedroom alone to visit her, also he brought her to Chandler & Joey's apartment. Or in Miracle on 34th street when the child was hanging out with the grown man in his apartment. I never thought these things were unusual back in the 90s 😅

Yes, you could use a drill to clock a milometer back in the day. Do a bit of googling

Mary poppins used an umbrella as transport. Is that going to send people bandy because she didn't have a travel card??

It’s a book written in the 80s - which also featured a school child swung by its plaits by the headteacher. It is simply a work of fiction - fictional portrayals can be inconsistent with plausible reality.