The Answer Told by Teachers

As the new American President takes office, I’ve been watching him to learn about leadership from the greatest exponent of modern times. During the campaign he sent out lots of emails, so I’ve replied asking for tips. Oddly there’s been no response so far.

Oratorical brilliance is much admired, so I’ve started there. I’m keen to improve my assembly delivery and I’m even thinking of getting his Doric Pillars painted on the Sports Hall walls.

His most famous device is the old Ciceronian technique, the ‘tricolon’ which is using a series of three for emphasis. Why not copy the master? Should I begin my next assembly with an adaptation of: ‘I came; I saw; I conquered’ as a way of silencing the masses? Much clearing of throat and Obama-style cool delivery for: ‘I’m waiting; I’m still waiting; right… I’m going off on one!’ Would it sound more dignified in Latin, I wonder?

Then there’s ‘periphrasis’, the use of a roundabout phrase, ‘a young preacher from Georgia’, rather than the name itself - Martin Luther King. But I use this all the time: ‘I want to know the name of the student who vandalised bus 17 last night,’ I declaim, hoping that someone will heed my message and dob the culprit in. ‘Yes, I’m talking to you,’ is also powerfully rhetorical, if half the school think you are looking at them. But Obama never has trouble keeping the attention of his audience.

I’ve also tried his use of ‘praeteritio’, where you draw attention to a subject by saying you’re not going to talk about it. But the groans, glazed eyes and knowing looks (did you spot the tricolon?) are a giveaway to an adolescent audience: ‘I’m not going to mention litter, sloppy uniform or poor attendance.’ The looks on their faces send the echoing response, ‘Oh yes you are!’

I’m still trying to match the lyrical, soaring flow of rhetoric that is Obama’s trademark: ‘I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas,’ but, ‘I am the son of an unemployed Irish wool sorter and a Bradford dinner lady,’ doesn’t have the same mystique.

Perhaps a bit of ‘anaphora’ is the answer, an Obama stock in trade, where a phrase is repeated at the start of successive sentences. There’s some inspiration - admit it - in this Obamaesque flight of fancy, as I muse on ways to improve examination performance, in preparation for the next staff meeting:

‘It’s the answer told by teachers in classrooms from school to shining school; it’s the answer spoken in staff rooms across the land from coast to gleaming coast; it’s the answer to the GCSE Maths problem that will get all students, from the backyards of Buckfastleigh to the front porches of Plymouth five high grade GCSEs.’ Lovely rhetoric! We may not have the solution, but it sounds as if we do. Even my Governors might fall for this one.

Or what about this, modelled on his 2004 Convention speech: ‘We’re entering a new post- SATs age in which there will be no Key Stage Three students or Key Stage Four students- only South Dartmoor students.’ That should wow them.

The new president has shown he can transform the attitudes of young people. My hope is that he will influence the young in this country and help us to encourage and lead in a new age of optimism. I’ll keep learning from the rhetoric, even though I know it can’t be matched. The best I can hope for is a well painted Doric column and an encouraging email from the United States.