It is some time now since celebrity chef Jamie Oliver started a campaign to improve the nutritional value of the meals served in schools. This led to the Government setting nutritional standards for school meals .... and, quite predictably, to fewer pupils taking school meals because the outcome was meals that they didn't want to eat. Some schools have also adopted short lunch breaks to help reduce the incidence of pupil misbehaviour, my own school, for example, having moved to a 40 minute lunch break. The two combine to discourage pupils from eating at lunch time. Instead, they wait until the end of the school day (which is of course earlier because of the shorter lunch break) and, on their way home, call in at the chip shop.
Now, today, three of my colleagues (who had better remain anonymous) dashed out at lunchtime to drive up to the nearby shops and return with assorted chicken and chips etc for their lunch. I felt very virtuous eating my bacon sandwiches (white bread) .... well, relatively speaking, anyway.
But my mischievous thought is: how long until "unhealthy eating" by teachers at school becomes a disciplinary offence?
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
Extending force/cross sectional area
Engineers or physicists might recognise the title of this blog as "stress"!
My last few days have included: leaving my car in the car park at the Teacher's Centre for my local authority after the Centre closed on Friday evening (which meant I could not get at it again until Monday morning on my way in to school); teaching my Year 12 and Year 13 classes as they approach their examinations (Monday morning); having to drive home before setting off for Birmingham because I had not been able to take everything in on the bus - see above(Monday afternoon); Monday evening at 4.30 pm a pre-meeting for ....; meeting with an OFSTED RE inspector at Maryvale as part of the inspection of the initial teacher training programme at Maryvale (Tuesday 9 am - this was actually a very interesting experience); jump in the car to head back down the M6/A14/M11 to arrive at school in time for the end of the school day, this in order to help set up the apparatus for an A-level physics practical examination (Monday afternoon - not my job, particularly as I am part-time, but I was helping to rescue a stressful situation in the department); arrive home to 6 telephone messages, three of them relating to different pieces of casework on behalf of members of my union branch (Tuesday night - managed to solve one of them pretty much straight away); teach my Year 12 and Year 13 (Wednesday morning); invigilating A-level practical examination (Wednesday afternoon - grrr). Yet to come: Thursday-Saturday: Extended Days of Eucharistic Adoration ....
By e-mail I also learnt that one of our parishioners had been taken into hospital, and is currently in a High Dependency Unit. Some 9 years ago, two of the "mums" of families in the parish had a conversation with me after Mass on Sunday which led to me beginning my work with Eucharistic Adoration for children, and so on to my leading on Eucharistic Adoration when the new parish priest arrived. One of these ladies died of cancer about two years ago; the lady taken into hospital this week is the other lady of the two. If you could spare a moment's prayer for her ...
My last few days have included: leaving my car in the car park at the Teacher's Centre for my local authority after the Centre closed on Friday evening (which meant I could not get at it again until Monday morning on my way in to school); teaching my Year 12 and Year 13 classes as they approach their examinations (Monday morning); having to drive home before setting off for Birmingham because I had not been able to take everything in on the bus - see above(Monday afternoon); Monday evening at 4.30 pm a pre-meeting for ....; meeting with an OFSTED RE inspector at Maryvale as part of the inspection of the initial teacher training programme at Maryvale (Tuesday 9 am - this was actually a very interesting experience); jump in the car to head back down the M6/A14/M11 to arrive at school in time for the end of the school day, this in order to help set up the apparatus for an A-level physics practical examination (Monday afternoon - not my job, particularly as I am part-time, but I was helping to rescue a stressful situation in the department); arrive home to 6 telephone messages, three of them relating to different pieces of casework on behalf of members of my union branch (Tuesday night - managed to solve one of them pretty much straight away); teach my Year 12 and Year 13 (Wednesday morning); invigilating A-level practical examination (Wednesday afternoon - grrr). Yet to come: Thursday-Saturday: Extended Days of Eucharistic Adoration ....
By e-mail I also learnt that one of our parishioners had been taken into hospital, and is currently in a High Dependency Unit. Some 9 years ago, two of the "mums" of families in the parish had a conversation with me after Mass on Sunday which led to me beginning my work with Eucharistic Adoration for children, and so on to my leading on Eucharistic Adoration when the new parish priest arrived. One of these ladies died of cancer about two years ago; the lady taken into hospital this week is the other lady of the two. If you could spare a moment's prayer for her ...
Sunday, 11 May 2008
SSPX, scholasticism and phenomenology
The Sensible Bond has posted about the position of the Society of St Pius X, the society attached to the Tridentine liturgy and previously led by Archbishop Lefebvre. As someone who has not followed events involving the Society closely, this seems to be a well informed and well considered post.
The dialogue in the "comments" is also of interest. One aspect of that dialogue refers to the place of Thomist or scholastic philosophy, and asks about the insights that can be gained from phenomenology and personalism. Since St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) is my favourite saint, I do think phenomenology has a lot to offer... but there is perhaps the need to "return to the sources" of that movement in philosophy, to the realist phenomenology of people like Edith Stein. It is interesting that Edith and her friends at the time saw in this realist phenomenology a "new Thomism"; that many of them were Christian believers prompted Edith's first recognition of religion as being a subject worthy of philosophical study. A significant subject of study was the human person, and the religious nature of the person featured in that.
I feel that a realist phenomenology, as a methodology, can provide the means for the dialogue with secularists and atheists that Cardinal Murphy O'Connor was seeking in his recent lecture. It involves a "stepping back" from any previously held positions (a temporary, methodological neutrality, not a rejection); and it expects human reason to be applied to the full range of human experience (not just the physical sciences!) to determine essentially what those experiences are made up of. Seen as a search for the truth of things - and this is how the early phenomenologists saw it - this then leads to adherence to the truth that has been achieved. Or, to use a religious term, "conversion". In the early twentieth century, the context for this was an anxiety to overcome the gulf between our knowing and the truth of things that was perceived in Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy; in the first years of the twenty first century, the challenge is that covered by the generic term "post-modernism" which gives a similar experience of an unbridgeable gap between our knowing and things themselves.
The dialogue in the "comments" is also of interest. One aspect of that dialogue refers to the place of Thomist or scholastic philosophy, and asks about the insights that can be gained from phenomenology and personalism. Since St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) is my favourite saint, I do think phenomenology has a lot to offer... but there is perhaps the need to "return to the sources" of that movement in philosophy, to the realist phenomenology of people like Edith Stein. It is interesting that Edith and her friends at the time saw in this realist phenomenology a "new Thomism"; that many of them were Christian believers prompted Edith's first recognition of religion as being a subject worthy of philosophical study. A significant subject of study was the human person, and the religious nature of the person featured in that.
I feel that a realist phenomenology, as a methodology, can provide the means for the dialogue with secularists and atheists that Cardinal Murphy O'Connor was seeking in his recent lecture. It involves a "stepping back" from any previously held positions (a temporary, methodological neutrality, not a rejection); and it expects human reason to be applied to the full range of human experience (not just the physical sciences!) to determine essentially what those experiences are made up of. Seen as a search for the truth of things - and this is how the early phenomenologists saw it - this then leads to adherence to the truth that has been achieved. Or, to use a religious term, "conversion". In the early twentieth century, the context for this was an anxiety to overcome the gulf between our knowing and the truth of things that was perceived in Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy; in the first years of the twenty first century, the challenge is that covered by the generic term "post-modernism" which gives a similar experience of an unbridgeable gap between our knowing and things themselves.
Saturday, 10 May 2008
Cardinal Murphy O'Connor: Faith in Britain today (2)
As previously indicated, here is the further post on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor's lecture. An interesting insight that Cardinal Murphy O'Connor's lecture suggests is that the key dialogue that is needed in our society is less a dialogue between the different religions but rather more a dialogue between religious belief and atheism.
In some ways it is a bit nit-picking to select short quotations from the lecture for comment - my apologies to the Cardinal for that; but the need to present a coherent and consistent understanding of what reason is, what faith is and, then, how the two relate to each other, appears to me vital to achieving a proper dialogue with atheism.
and
In some ways it is a bit nit-picking to select short quotations from the lecture for comment - my apologies to the Cardinal for that; but the need to present a coherent and consistent understanding of what reason is, what faith is and, then, how the two relate to each other, appears to me vital to achieving a proper dialogue with atheism.
"Our faith is not founded on the conclusions of reason, but it is grounded in the Logos, the expressive Word that comes from God, and it is compatible with reasoned thought"
One might want to add to this that "the conclusions of reason" might provide some grounding for our faith, since reason is going to be very much to the fore in a dialogue with atheism, but Cardinal Murphy O'Connor is correct in asserting a decisive grounding in the revelation of God in the Word.
"We should remember that the proper response to God is that of faith, not absolute certainty".
The opposing of faith and certainty in this sentence is, I think, unfortunate; and the following discussion of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine reflects the unfortunate nature of the sentence. First of all, we need to be clear that faith can give a confident and certain knowledge of the truth contained in revelation - but some will read this sentence as a denial of that. That there is something more to be learnt about God, both intellectually and in terms of our lived communion with him, may be the intention of the "not absolute certainty" and be what Aquinas calls "imperfect knowledge", but that is not the same as questioning the confidence that we can have in the knowledge achieved through faith.
In his interview on Radio 4's Today programme, Cardinal Murphy O'Connor said:
"..reason of itself cannot prove the existence of God .."
and
" .. reason is not enough .."
The defined teaching of the Church is that we can come to a confident knowledge of God through the use of reason in studying the world around us. What faith, that is, the knowledge achieved through God's self-revelation, provides is another, complementary way in which this knowledge of God's existence can be known. In their different circumstances, people may in practice rely on one way of knowing more than they do on the other for their knowledge of God's existence, or they may not get there at all. But I think, in dialogue with atheism, religious believers are going to want to insist on the ability of reason to come to knowledge of God's existence.
"If Christians really believed in the mystery of God, we would realise that proper talk about God is always difficult, always tentative ... A God who can be spoken about comfortably and clearly by human beings cannot be the true God."
But the reference to God as mystery does not mean that what we say about God should not be said, or that we cannot have confidence in what we say about Him. It recognises that the revealed mystery of God is something to be lived as well as spoken about and known. The difficulty and tentativeness can refer to the what-is-still-to-be-learnt in our intellectual lives, but we need to be careful that it does not make a statement that we cannot really know about God at all.
The last part of this post is slightly adapted from the comment I sent earlier today to the "Debate" forum for this lecture on the Westminster diocesan website.
Reason can come to know things about the physical world around us (the physical sciences), about the human person and his presence in the world (the social sciences) etc. It can address questions about things that are not material - human motivations and consciousness. And from this, it can also address questions about the meaning of life, the universe and everything - and, whilst there is always more to be learnt or discovered, there is a possibility for confidence in this knowledge. And one can equally apply this reason to the phenomena of religion - it being profoundly irrational to deny the existence of religion as a phenomenon. An honesty in this study will not, in my view, permit the characterisation of religious belief as simply personal imaginings, its OK if you need it, invention of the early Church, etc. It is also necessary to understand what the term faith means - and again this has not been fully developed in the Cardinal's lecture. Faith is a knowledge that can be confident of what it knows in the same way that reason can be confident of what it knows, though the source of that knowledge is different. Yes, we can grow into greater knowledge, both reasoned and faith-based knowledge, but that is not the same as denying the confidence that we can have in both.
And, here I would want to endorse Cardinal Murphy O'Connor's call for greater dialogue between believers and non-believers. Let's undertake that through the hard work of applying our reason in all its many different approaches (the physical and social sciences) to the questions of atheism and religious belief. Religious believers are of the view that what we believe and teach can stand up to this challenge of reason; can the atheist position stand up to the same challenge?
As they say these days ... "bring it on".
Cardinal Murphy O'Connor: Faith in Britain today
Cardinal Murphy O'Connor's lecture came to my attention when I listened to coverage on Radio 4's Today programme on Friday morning. Professor Richard Dawkins, militant atheist that he is, was interviewed, observing that he didn't think Cardinal O'Connor "had said anything". Cardinal O'Connor was interviewed later in the programme.
One has to give Cardinal O'Connor credit for successfully putting the question of religious belief on the agenda (as I write this post, I have just heard a news item on the radio about today's Mass for 650 married couples at Westminster Cathedral). Whilst not all of the "Cardinal's Lectures" have been of equal value as examples of faith and culture in dialogue, I would perhaps recognise William Hague's and the Cardinal's own lecture as perhaps being the best. The surrounding media coverage, of course, represents part of the dialogue too.
There are some nice things in Cardinal O'Connor's lecture. The full text can be found at the website of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster. Whilst I suspect that contemporary atheism has other roots in addition to the historic background in 17th century Deism and a growing autonomy of science from religious belief described by Cardinal O'Connor, his observation that
One has to give Cardinal O'Connor credit for successfully putting the question of religious belief on the agenda (as I write this post, I have just heard a news item on the radio about today's Mass for 650 married couples at Westminster Cathedral). Whilst not all of the "Cardinal's Lectures" have been of equal value as examples of faith and culture in dialogue, I would perhaps recognise William Hague's and the Cardinal's own lecture as perhaps being the best. The surrounding media coverage, of course, represents part of the dialogue too.
There are some nice things in Cardinal O'Connor's lecture. The full text can be found at the website of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster. Whilst I suspect that contemporary atheism has other roots in addition to the historic background in 17th century Deism and a growing autonomy of science from religious belief described by Cardinal O'Connor, his observation that
"it became no longer necessary to think of God at all because the world can simply be treated as a self-sustaining system"
is very significant. I believe there is a much more substantial discussion to be had around this point, and that it could legitimately become a focal point for the kind of dialogue between Christian belief and atheism that the Cardinal called for. In the lecture, however, it remains undeveloped.
"This is one of the reasons why, for this lecture series, I wanted this Cathedral to be a place for people to listen to matters pertaining to religion in the secular society in which we live here in Britain."
I can understand what Cardinal O'Connor is trying to say here - that the Church should be seen as a place in which encounter with the things of wider society is welcomed and encouraged. However, it may be the case that the Church building as such, dedicated to the worship of God particularly but not exclusively in the Liturgy, should be preserved exactly for that. The rule of St Benedict for monasteries is explicit about the oratory being used only for the Liturgy and private prayer by the brothers. Would this not provide a witness to God's life among his people to which Cardinal O'Connor referred elsewhere in his lecture? I do not intend this to be a major criticism, by the way, more an observation.
Near the beginning of the lecture, there was a rather nice quotation from a Muslim scholar. It is very relevant to an aspect of my own professional work at the moment as my local authority begins the process of revising its Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education (the statutory syllabus that applies to non-denominational schools in the authority). My contriution to discussions so far has been to argue that pupils should have the opportunity to experience religions as precisely religious and not simply as at the service of current secular agendas. The Muslim scholar is reported to have expressed admiration for Pope Benedict XVI:
"Pope Benedict knows that religion is about truth and not social cohesion."
I am going to save some further observations - about the relationship between faith and reason, religion and atheism- that arise from the lecture for another post.
Friday, 9 May 2008
OTWTL
On the Way to Life: Contemporary Culture and Theological Development as a Framework for Catholic Education, Catechesis and Formation. This is the title of a study by the Heythrop Insititute for Religion, Ethics and Public Life. The May-June 2008 issue of FAITH Magazine contains articles which represent a serious critique of this study, which was commissioned by the Catholic Bishop's Conference of England and Wales in 2005.
My own memories of trying to read it soon after it was published. It was too long - I still haven't succeeded in reading it all. As far as the parts of it that I did succeed in reading were concerned, I never really succeeded in grasping anything that they were trying to say. I wasn't able to make a coherent connection between different parts of the document. The title of the document is perhaps indicative of this - can you read it, and pick out from the title, an exact meaning or statement of intent for the study as a whole?
I recall being rather amused by a quotation of Hans Urs von Balthasar on p.36 of OTWTL. This was taken from a book of his called, in English translation, The Moment of Christian Witness. The point to this book is that Christianity demands at a certain point a decisive moment of witness, even to the point of death should that be called for; this moment of testimony is explicitly Christian and does not permit of any "anonymity" in its Christian expression. Reading the quotation in the context of OTWTL, you do not get the impression that, in the immediately preceding paragraph, von Balthasar has referred to the legend of Cordula, who willingly gave herself up to death a day after her fellow virgins in witness to Christ. The defencelessness to which von Balthasar is referring is anything but a philosophical or ideological principle, as its citation suggests. The use of other citations by OTWTL is the subject of comment in one of the articles in FAITH Magazine.
I also recall thinking that, in so far as I could make out any coherent thought running through OTWTL, it was this. It was an attempt to present a now critiqued experentially based approach to catechetics (I recall encountering ideas of "incarnational theology", rather akin to OTWTL's idea of "sacramental imagination" [which doesn't really have anything to do with the Sacraments themselves, though it sounds as if it does], many years ago) in the language of Christological specificness of a generation brought up on von Balthasar, John Paul II, etc. In the end, it rings a bit hollow, and I found myself not quite believing what it was saying.
I certainly do not think the quality of the work represented by OTWTL warrants its being taken as some sort of magisterial document that must be used as a basis for developing religious education or catechetics in the future. The detailed criticisms offered in the current issue of FAITH Magazine do, I feel, substantiate this view.
My own memories of trying to read it soon after it was published. It was too long - I still haven't succeeded in reading it all. As far as the parts of it that I did succeed in reading were concerned, I never really succeeded in grasping anything that they were trying to say. I wasn't able to make a coherent connection between different parts of the document. The title of the document is perhaps indicative of this - can you read it, and pick out from the title, an exact meaning or statement of intent for the study as a whole?
I recall being rather amused by a quotation of Hans Urs von Balthasar on p.36 of OTWTL. This was taken from a book of his called, in English translation, The Moment of Christian Witness. The point to this book is that Christianity demands at a certain point a decisive moment of witness, even to the point of death should that be called for; this moment of testimony is explicitly Christian and does not permit of any "anonymity" in its Christian expression. Reading the quotation in the context of OTWTL, you do not get the impression that, in the immediately preceding paragraph, von Balthasar has referred to the legend of Cordula, who willingly gave herself up to death a day after her fellow virgins in witness to Christ. The defencelessness to which von Balthasar is referring is anything but a philosophical or ideological principle, as its citation suggests. The use of other citations by OTWTL is the subject of comment in one of the articles in FAITH Magazine.
I also recall thinking that, in so far as I could make out any coherent thought running through OTWTL, it was this. It was an attempt to present a now critiqued experentially based approach to catechetics (I recall encountering ideas of "incarnational theology", rather akin to OTWTL's idea of "sacramental imagination" [which doesn't really have anything to do with the Sacraments themselves, though it sounds as if it does], many years ago) in the language of Christological specificness of a generation brought up on von Balthasar, John Paul II, etc. In the end, it rings a bit hollow, and I found myself not quite believing what it was saying.
I certainly do not think the quality of the work represented by OTWTL warrants its being taken as some sort of magisterial document that must be used as a basis for developing religious education or catechetics in the future. The detailed criticisms offered in the current issue of FAITH Magazine do, I feel, substantiate this view.
Thursday, 8 May 2008
Film Review: Happy-go-Lucky
A little while ago I posted on this film, making up most of my post with a quotation from a review on the Jesuit's Thinking Faith site. Following up the dialogue in the comments on that post, we went to see the film this evening. As we were the only two in the cinema to see it, this became almost a private screening (but it did mean we could pass comments to each other as we were watching).
The film turned out to have rather more substance to it than the reviews (including the Thinking Faith review) suggested. The "workshop" manner of its production is apparent in some of the scenes, which leave you wondering a bit what their "point" was or how they "fitted in" with the film as a whole. One example of this is the scene in the bookshop early in the film, where Poppy tries to engage a rather less than communicative shop assistant in conversation. For most people seeing the film, the dialogue probably comes across as quite funny. For me, it didn't communicate as particularly funny; rather it just came over as rather odd. In the context of the film, this could be seen as "Poppy's character"; in the context of the production of the film, one can see it more as the outcome of a "workshop" way of making a film. What the dialogue does do, though, and this is true of other points in the film as well, is to point the audience towards a question about the situation that has been encountered. What is the shop assistant really about? Does he, should he, can he communicate or relate in any way to Poppy as she has come into his shop? And, if the answer is "no, he can't communicate or relate", is that how things should be? Perhaps one can also ask: despite her apparent efforts at communicating with the uncomprehending shop assistant, has Poppy really been able to relate to him?
Another feature of the film is some very nice turns of phrase. So, as Poppy leaves the bookshop and finds that her bicycle has been stolen, she observes that she didn't even have the chance to say goodbye. Similar sharp turns of phrase occur throughout the film, and it is easy to miss them or undervalue them.
Perhaps these two scenes at the beginning of the film open up what is the subject of the film, in my view at least. And that is ... a reflection on happiness in 1990's London. In each of its episodes - and it is a succession of episodes, rather than a continuous plot - it places this question about happiness in a different situation. Four girls on a night out clubbing, and a Saturday morning still drunk back at home. A pupil involved in bullying at school, and the single parent/new boyfriend at home. Poppy taking up with the social worker who visits this pupil in school. Two teacher flat-mates who prefer to rent - they just don't want the hassle of a mortgage - and the contrast between them and younger sister who is married, expecting a baby and has a nice house with a garden at the seaside (and who then tries to tell Poppy that she should take life more seriously).
There are some points of explicit social comment. One example is a pub conversation about pupils who had just stayed in at home during a sunny weekend. The possible explanations come back thick and fast - single parents just too tired making ends meet to be able to take children out, no parks nearby, etc. The concluding dialogue includes an observation "that you can't make everyone happy" with the response "but there's no harm in trying". It also includes a comment by Zoe "I think I should try to give up smoking"
The encounter with the tramp - rather creepy as it is, and a bit "unsituated" in the flow of the film - can be seen, I think, in two ways. It can be seen as raising the question about poverty in present day society; or, and I think this is the better understanding, it asks the question about what constitutes happiness in that situation. Is the tramp really the most unhappy person in the encounter, or is it Poppy?
The driving instructor just appeared to me as a caricature, yes, of racial prejudice and of a certain self-centred neurosis. Poppy's attempts to psychoanalyse the instructors situation (was he bullied at school?) struck me as being equally caricature. Perhaps the character of the instructor and his scenes show evidence of the workshop manner of the film production.
The character of the Flamenco instructor is also interesting. Her explanation of Flamenco as a dance form originating in the wish of a people to have their own self-expression and a statement of their "space" in society - this was well expressed both in the dialogue and the assertive stamping of feet of the dance.
A couple of interesting things about the shooting of the film. The willingness to show street names gives the episodes of the film an embedding in a local situation, a "belonging". The school buildings shown, the skylines of London and a recognisable approach to the road systems around the Docklands area have a similar effect. In a number of the scenes, people's faces are filmed in a closer than usual close up. The full face can be seen as they talk, but the top of the head/hair is above the top of the screen and the shoulders are below the bottom of the screen. This has been particularly used in some shots of Poppy. It gives a sense of entering in to the thoughts of the person speaking, of the presenting of the words of their dialogue as a question being posed to the audience.
So, at the end of the film, is there an answer to what constitutes happiness in today's world? No. Instead, the audience have encountered a series of episodes raising the question of happiness. It would be very easy to see Poppy as a kind of heroine figure trying to spread happiness where ever she goes. But I think I agree with the Thinking Faith review in suggesting that, at the bottom line, she does not have anything of depth to offer, not even in her relationship with the social worker. The film does seem to just "stop" rather than come to an expected end - and you are left without any sense that happiness is better understood after watching the film than it was before seeing it.
But, sorry to strike a realist note, Poppy and Zoe simply would not survive in a primary classroom today. They were never shown doing a fraction of a fraction of the planning that primary teachers have to do and record nowadays!
The film turned out to have rather more substance to it than the reviews (including the Thinking Faith review) suggested. The "workshop" manner of its production is apparent in some of the scenes, which leave you wondering a bit what their "point" was or how they "fitted in" with the film as a whole. One example of this is the scene in the bookshop early in the film, where Poppy tries to engage a rather less than communicative shop assistant in conversation. For most people seeing the film, the dialogue probably comes across as quite funny. For me, it didn't communicate as particularly funny; rather it just came over as rather odd. In the context of the film, this could be seen as "Poppy's character"; in the context of the production of the film, one can see it more as the outcome of a "workshop" way of making a film. What the dialogue does do, though, and this is true of other points in the film as well, is to point the audience towards a question about the situation that has been encountered. What is the shop assistant really about? Does he, should he, can he communicate or relate in any way to Poppy as she has come into his shop? And, if the answer is "no, he can't communicate or relate", is that how things should be? Perhaps one can also ask: despite her apparent efforts at communicating with the uncomprehending shop assistant, has Poppy really been able to relate to him?
Another feature of the film is some very nice turns of phrase. So, as Poppy leaves the bookshop and finds that her bicycle has been stolen, she observes that she didn't even have the chance to say goodbye. Similar sharp turns of phrase occur throughout the film, and it is easy to miss them or undervalue them.
Perhaps these two scenes at the beginning of the film open up what is the subject of the film, in my view at least. And that is ... a reflection on happiness in 1990's London. In each of its episodes - and it is a succession of episodes, rather than a continuous plot - it places this question about happiness in a different situation. Four girls on a night out clubbing, and a Saturday morning still drunk back at home. A pupil involved in bullying at school, and the single parent/new boyfriend at home. Poppy taking up with the social worker who visits this pupil in school. Two teacher flat-mates who prefer to rent - they just don't want the hassle of a mortgage - and the contrast between them and younger sister who is married, expecting a baby and has a nice house with a garden at the seaside (and who then tries to tell Poppy that she should take life more seriously).
There are some points of explicit social comment. One example is a pub conversation about pupils who had just stayed in at home during a sunny weekend. The possible explanations come back thick and fast - single parents just too tired making ends meet to be able to take children out, no parks nearby, etc. The concluding dialogue includes an observation "that you can't make everyone happy" with the response "but there's no harm in trying". It also includes a comment by Zoe "I think I should try to give up smoking"
The encounter with the tramp - rather creepy as it is, and a bit "unsituated" in the flow of the film - can be seen, I think, in two ways. It can be seen as raising the question about poverty in present day society; or, and I think this is the better understanding, it asks the question about what constitutes happiness in that situation. Is the tramp really the most unhappy person in the encounter, or is it Poppy?
The driving instructor just appeared to me as a caricature, yes, of racial prejudice and of a certain self-centred neurosis. Poppy's attempts to psychoanalyse the instructors situation (was he bullied at school?) struck me as being equally caricature. Perhaps the character of the instructor and his scenes show evidence of the workshop manner of the film production.
The character of the Flamenco instructor is also interesting. Her explanation of Flamenco as a dance form originating in the wish of a people to have their own self-expression and a statement of their "space" in society - this was well expressed both in the dialogue and the assertive stamping of feet of the dance.
A couple of interesting things about the shooting of the film. The willingness to show street names gives the episodes of the film an embedding in a local situation, a "belonging". The school buildings shown, the skylines of London and a recognisable approach to the road systems around the Docklands area have a similar effect. In a number of the scenes, people's faces are filmed in a closer than usual close up. The full face can be seen as they talk, but the top of the head/hair is above the top of the screen and the shoulders are below the bottom of the screen. This has been particularly used in some shots of Poppy. It gives a sense of entering in to the thoughts of the person speaking, of the presenting of the words of their dialogue as a question being posed to the audience.
So, at the end of the film, is there an answer to what constitutes happiness in today's world? No. Instead, the audience have encountered a series of episodes raising the question of happiness. It would be very easy to see Poppy as a kind of heroine figure trying to spread happiness where ever she goes. But I think I agree with the Thinking Faith review in suggesting that, at the bottom line, she does not have anything of depth to offer, not even in her relationship with the social worker. The film does seem to just "stop" rather than come to an expected end - and you are left without any sense that happiness is better understood after watching the film than it was before seeing it.
But, sorry to strike a realist note, Poppy and Zoe simply would not survive in a primary classroom today. They were never shown doing a fraction of a fraction of the planning that primary teachers have to do and record nowadays!
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