“I’m so bad at lying,” moaned the Upper Sixth former, rocking back and forth with his head in his hands.
Where was he? In my office about to be expelled? Regretting his two timing ways with a longstanding girlfriend? No. He was sat behind me in an IB lesson on Oligopolies and had just lost an exercise on game theory in which the object was to make as much dosh as possible for your business. The game had been won by a baby faced assassin at the back of the class whom I had previously considered to be a young lady of unimpeachable standing. Everything my lovingly wrought School Mission statement stood for had been usurped in the fifty minute lesson I had just witnessed. Not since Luke Skywalker discovered Darth Vader was his dad had anybody been so taken aback. We will return to this sorry state of affairs in a minute.
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An hour before Evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral, I slipped quietly away (as in left the coffee shop rather than passed over the great divide), and wondered off to look at a couple of the City’s churches. On every corner of my walk I saw Old Bromsgrovians, many in their OB ties, strolling about the city waiting for the service to start. One was a girl – an international pupil - who had left last year, and another a gentleman who had last sung in Bromsgrove Chapel over sixty years ago. Later, inside the Cathedral and a few minutes before our Choir sounded the opening notes, I noticed these two OBs walking in together. They sat down next to one another. Soon the Choir had infused the cathedral with ethereal grace, and – looking at those two OBs – I could not help but be moved by how very, very far this great School has travelled.
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And then we all piled into the House of Lords. Well, not all of us. Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, had kindly provided a venue for the party animals in the congregation to raise awareness for Bromsgrove School Foundation. Actually, the reception almost never happened because Digby gave the coach driver some kamikaze instructions and his vehicle full of guests became wedged in the approach road to the Lords. Nonetheless, the battle weary revellers eventually escaped and found their way to a wonderful event that sought to impress on everybody why we need to widen access to our School. My sincere thanks to Digby, the governors and all who place inclusion and opportunity before arid social elitism. Thanks also to the kind lady serving the posh canapes who took my “I couldn’t eat another thing” to be the meaningless social nicety I intended.
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“But lying is bad,” I pleaded. “Come back to the light. Walk with me my child.”
I was told game theory wasn’t lying, so much as the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent, rational decision-makers.
“But you’ve all been telling porkers to one another. How can this be righteous?”
Tomorrow’s business leaders left the classroom oblivious, and I approached the teacher who was awaiting my assessment.
“That was the most morally reprehensible lesson I’ve ever witnessed,” I said.
“Thank you Headmaster.”
It was as if I’d given him an ASBO.
