Part 1 Chapter 5: Paul

From my book 'School Portrait' (McPhee Gribble/Penguin, 1987)

Autumn in Canberra is my favourite season. The nights and early mornings are cool and crisp, and the days gently warm and still.

And so, after a reading session with Dan one day in April 1982, I decided to sit outside at lunchtime. I'd made a particularly delicious lunch that day - sandwiches from bread I'd baked the night before, some tomatoes and cucumber picked from the garden that morning, some cheese and olives, and an apple. I unpacked it and spread it out carefully in front of me, then settled back to enjoy the food and the sun.

I noticed a group of younger kids playing soldiers quite close to where I was sitting. About a dozen were marching up and down, and Paul, a very striking boy with olive skin and jet black hair, was walking at the rear of the squad, calling out orders.

I'd known Paul for a year or more. And though he'd never been in my class, he and I had crossed swords once or twice.

There was the day, for example, when he had come to the chess club that I organised. We had a dozen boards out, and a group of about twenty players ranging in age from about seven to eleven.

Chris (a good chess player) and Dan were both there, and Anna (who very rarely played chess) had come along on this particular day to see what it was like. Typically, she began every game convincing herself loudly that she was going to lose quickly. 'God, I'm so embarrassed!' she would say.

After we'd been going for ten or fifteen minutes, Paul swaggered in. He hadn't been at the AME for long, and had already been involved in some argument with Katherine, his teacher. But he was a very sharp little kid, with an obvious facility with maths, and it was quite possible, I thought as I saw him come in, that he'd be good at chess.

But he wasn't in the mood for playing. For a while he watched, then he stood behind Chris and Ra, who were lost in their game.

'Don't do that!' he said, as Ra moved his bishop.

'Hey, no helping,' said Chris, and I moved over to back Chris up.

‘Come on, Paul,' I said. 'If you want to just watch, that's OK, but don't interfere with other kids' games.'

Suddenly his mood changed. It was as if I had slapped him in the face with a glove and challenged him to a fight. And it wasn't going to be one that he lost, not mentally, anyway.

'I'm not hurting anyone,' he said loudly. The focus of attention in the rest of the room shifted to the two of us standing facing each other. And I found myself locked into the conflict.

'Come on, Paul,' I said. 'If you're not wanting to be a part of this club, then go and find something else to do.'

‘Why should I? I'm not doing anything wrong!'

'Look, Paul, I'm not interested in standing here arguing. If you don't want to play, then please leave.'

‘I'm not leaving.' He folded his arms, and looked hard at my face.

"You're going to leave, Paul, by yourself or with me carrying you. You can choose.'

'Don't you lay a finger on me.'

'Off we go,' I said, as I put my hands on his arms to stop him lashing out, and then picked him up.

'Get off me, you fucking shitface,' he yelled, as we struggled towards the door.

I put him down outside, and then went back into the room.

I could hear him still shouting and swearing as I shut the door and tried to calm my racing heart.

Then there was the time when Katherine came into my classroom to ask for help. 'Paul has got a knife,' she said, 'and he's brandishing it around the room. He won't give it up. Can you give me a hand?'

Katherine went back to the room, and I went in quietly through the back door. Paul was standing with his back to me, but I could tell that he was smiling and enjoying himself. There was more than a hint of Hollywood in the performance. He had the knife in his right hand, and, like a lion trainer in a circus, he was holding a chair off the ground with his left.

‘Don't come near me, any of you,' he was saying to the few kids standing around watching him. Apparently he'd had some kind of argument with one of the other boys in the class, and that's when he'd pulled out the knife. It didn't look dangerous or out of control - just Paul being very 'tough' for the audience - but you never knew.

I walked up behind him, grabbed him and pulled the knife out of his hand. Again he swore and kicked at me. I took him outside, and Katherine came out. She went with him up to the staffroom, to find a quiet place where they could talk more calmly, but, as they walked away, he sunk his teeth into her arm. She had the mark for days afterwards.

I remember feeling angry at the time that a boy like Paul was allowed to stay at the school, abusing the freedoms and the goodwill of people like Katherine. But she would defend Paul, saying that I didn't see his warm and charming and talented side.

Instead of coming to me in 1982 from Katherine's class (as Dan, Chris and Anna had done), Paul had gone to Vaughan and Penny, to give him a fresh start with a new group of younger kids, to break up some relationships between Paul and some others that we felt weren't doing anyone much good, and to give him a feeling of having more time to develop his fairly weak reading skills.

He had immediately established himself as a leader in the new group, and he was very clearly in charge of the group I was watching now.

The group had stopped marching, and were now being 'inspected' by Paul.

‘Your gun is dirty and your hair's too long, ' he shouted at one young boy.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Get the gun cleaned and your hair cut by tomorrow, soldier, or you’ll be sorry. Do you understand me?'

Paul moved slowly up the line, looking each soldier up and town as he passed. ‘Good … good,’ he murmured, and then to Ross (who was either acting very well or was genuinely frightened.

‘Terrible. Terrible, do you hear? Disgusting. You two, take his soldier under arrest. Tie him to that tree. You'll be sorry soldier.'

He still hadn't explained what Ross had done wrong, and no-one asked. Two boys stepped forward, and took Ross by the arms. They walked him over to the tree, and tied him up with imaginary ropes. Paul looked on contemptuously. When the two soldiers rejoined the line, Paul gave the order to quick march, and his army moved off, leaving Ross behind.

After ten minutes, they still hadn't returned, and Ross was still standing there. Occasionally he let his arms swing free by his sides, and once he squatted down, looking nervously in the direction the army had taken in case they came back and found him sitting down. I wondered, as I watched, what sort of hold Paul had over these kids.

The hooter went to signal the start of afternoon school, so I walked over to Ross. He hadn't been aware of my presence, and looked embarrassed when he saw me coming.

‘What are you doing?' I asked.

‘Oh, just playing,' he said nervously, defensively.

‘You didn't look as though you were having a lot of fun,' I said.

'Oh, it's just a game. I've got to go now, or else I'll be late.' And he hurried off.

I mentioned the incident to Penny when I saw her in the staffroom after school and she called Vaughan over.

'Paul's still got the army going,' she said to Vaughan as he joined us. Then she turned to me again. ‘This army's been going on for some time now. It actually started last year, but it's only been this year that we've heard about it. We've told Paul that it has to stop, but it keeps coming to life again.’

‘What sort of things have been going on?’ I asked.

‘We're hearing disturbing stories from some parents and from a few of the kids involved. Paul is ordering these kids around, threatening them with punishments or 'court-martials'. Apparently he’s been getting some of them to bring in money to pay for getting a higher rank in the army, and a parent told us the other day that her son had stolen something like ten dollars from her purse and had given it to Paul. About a month ago Vaughan discovered that they tied up one member of the army as a punishment, and had put a wet leather strap around his forehead, the idea being that it would shrink as it dried out. They let the kid go after he'd screamed for a bit.'

Several years later, I talked to one of the kids who had been in the army. ‘I hated it,’ he told me, 'and a couple of times I talked to some of the other kids about how we could escape from the army. But we never did. We were too scared of Paul, I don't know why. I hated it because we were always being pushed around. Like once when I was wearing shorts we were ordered to go round and round in circles in this spikey long grass. The winner of the race was going to get a higher ranking. Half way through I stopped and was crying because it hurt so much. At night I used to feel all full of hate for Paul, but during the daytime it was hard to say it, or even think it. I remember it was a really big thing to get a higher ranking. I'd feel very proud when I got one.'

Penny and Vaughan spoke again to the kids and insisted that the army be disbanded. We heard no more about it during 1982, though it was clear that Paul's influence with his peers was still strong.

When I knew that Paul was coming into my class in 1983, 1 talked to some parents and teachers who had known him during his two years at school. It was clear that Paul's powerful and compelling personality evoked strong emotions in others. Quieter and more uncertain kids were deeply attracted by Paul's apparent certainty and sense of single-minded purpose. Children with a need to rebel against authority figures were drawn by his fierce independence and seeming strength. And parents of these children, naturally uncomfortable about uncertainty or aggressiveness in their own children, tended to blame Paul for what was happening.

But I remembered Katherine saying to me earlier that there was a warm and charming side to him. So I had mixed feelings as 1983 began.

I saw something of the two sides of Paul one day soon after the start of the year. A small group of us were sitting on the steps between our two classrooms, talking about what the kids wanted to do when they were adults. Paul came over to ask me if there was any masking tape anywhere.

‘What about you, Paul? Were talking about what the kids want to do when they're adults. What do you want to do?' He didn't hesitate. ‘I'm going to be a soldier,' he said, 'because soldiers kill people.'

I couldn't think of a lot to say to that. 'The masking tape is in the drawer over there.'

About ten minutes later, I walked over to where Paul and his friend Tom were building something. Probably some weapon system, I thought.

‘What is it, Paul?' I asked.

'Oh, hi, Steve. Have a look at this. Tom and me have just finished it! It's a lift for our teddies!'

Tom and Paul had their soft toys from home on the desk, and they'd rigged up a comfortable little home for them out of cardboard. The home had several stories, and they'd fashioned a rough lift from string and cardboard to give the teddies a gentle ride from one story to the next.

I watched as they put a teddy onto the lift, and then tucked him into his new spot on the second floor.

As I worked with Paul during those early months, I came to see that behind Paul's very confident public exterior there was an anxiety that he shared with both Anna and Dan, and to a lesser extent with Chris. For Paul too found learning to read a struggle, and he had times when he felt an acute sense of being less able than those around him. His way of coping with this was more erratic than Dan's. At times Paul would bury himself in his writing or his maths, to the exclusion of all distractions. At other times, particularly if the task were a ‘teacher-directed' one, he would use every trick in his repertoire to avoid the task, from creating a distraction to quietly slipping away unnoticed.

‘OK, who's next? Right, Paul, let's have a look?' I was sitting at a table in the classroom one Monday morning at the beginning of the year. Allen was not far away, also at a table, looking through the contract sheets of the kids in his homegroup.

Paul handed me his contract form, on which he'd written what he proposed to do for the week. It said:

Maths-4
Reading-5
Writing-3
Exercise-4
D&C-3
Painting-2
Spelling-4
Mucking round with David's piano-1

'OK, first of all the maths,' I said, after I'd read it. 'I marked your maths from last week - it's in that box at the end of the table. Most of it was fine, but there didn't seem to be all that much there.'

'I'm finding decimals pretty boring actually,' said Paul. 'Can I go onto something else?'

It was hard finding material that suited him. He picked up new concepts in maths very quickly, and intuitively was very good. But he didn't like anything mechanical, anything that involved repetition. Occasionally a topic would really grab him, but this was rare.

‘Well, have a look at the maths folders again if you want. But there's no point in dabbling in a whole lot of different topics if you don't get your teeth into any. That's just going to leave you with a vaguely unsatisfied feeling about your maths... What about your reading? I haven't listened to you read for a while.’

‘I hate reading out loud. Anyway, I have to read to Dad every night.’

‘What are you reading at the moment?'

"A good one. It's called David's Dreadful Medicines. It's really good.’

Often I asked kids to tell me about their book, but there were other kids waiting to show me their contracts.

"I see you're planning to write for three sessions. I read some more of your story during the weekend. It's very good, the best you've written by far I think.'

Paul had begun his story several weeks earlier. It began, ‘One morning, when the fog drifted over the water, a big bad man took my mother and chopped her head off.’ It went on to tell had all the women were murdered, and how the children were made into slaves. One boy escaped, grew up, and called himself Grim the Barbarian. Paul had got up to the part where Grim goes searching for the Sword of Death.

We talked briefly about the other items on his list. He was planning to go for a run every day except Wednesday for exercise. (Kids could choose their form of exercise, and Allen took a small group for stretching and I worked with another doing the ‘Health Hustle'.) He told me that he and Kate (not the Kate of chapter three, who had moved to another class at the beginning of 1983) were going to paint a scene of a moon over a hill at night, and that David had brought in his electronic piano for Paul to play.

He was also going to have his usual sessions of D&C in the quiet room. D&C was Paul's own adaptation of Dungeons and Dragons.

'OK, Paul,' I said. ‘That looks fine.'

‘D&C in the quiet room,' Paul said to his friends over at a table in the corner. 'Starting in about ten minutes.'

I watched him go. This was a much more subdued Paul than I'd expected. Despite the problems, he'd obviously had a good year with Penny and Vaughan. He'd got involved in all sorts of imaginative play outside of the army, and his self-esteem had shot up. He'd also got a fair bit of help from Penny with his reading. They'd encouraged his natural interest in music, too, and he'd started to play the flute.

I finished looking at the rest of the contracts, and then wandered into the quiet room and sat for ten minutes, watching the D&C.

About eight kids - seven boys and one girl - were sitting around a big table, with Paul at its head.

'OK, has everyone got their powers and equipment now?' asked Paul.

‘No,’ said a quiet voice right down the end of the table. It was Dan.

‘Right, Dan, roll the dice for your abilities. Strength... 12. OK, now for charisma... 15. Intelligence . ..18.'

‘What about my equipment,' said Dan. 'Do I have any hand grenades?'

'Yeah, you can have 5.'

'M60?'

"No, that's too powerful.'

'Well then, can I have some crampons?'

'Yeah sure, you got crampons then.'

‘Can I have some scuba gear and fifty metres of rope?’

‘Yeah sure, you might need it for this one!'

‘Some dumdums? Gas mask? About ten throwing knives?’

"Yeah, yeah yeah, you've got that. OK, that's enough. Let's get started.'

Paul stood up and passed around some maps that he'd drawn and photocopied. He talked as he walked around the table.

‘Right, today your mission is a very dangerous one. You're going to blow up the headquarters of the Germans in this town. On the map you'll see this secret passage that leads underground. There are rooms along the way, and you're going to meet with dangers for sure. Are you ready?'

Everyone nodded.

'OK, you're in the first room now. You're creeping very quietly through because you suspect there are German guards around somewhere. Then you hear a noise, and someone shines a torch. There in front of you is this great big Alsatian dog, and it's guarding the door. You can turn and run, or you can fight the dog, or you can try to trick it somehow. What are you doing to do, David?'

‘I’ll fight, I think.’

‘What weapons have you got?’

David looked at the piece of paper in front of him. 'A machine gun, four grenades and a bazooka. I'll use the machine gun.’

‘OK, roll the dice. Ten or more and you kill the dog, less than ten and it bites you and you're badly wounded... Twelve! … You kill the dog, but the noise of the firing brings guards coming running down the passage. Kate, your turn. What are you going to do?’

I left as Kate looked at her equipment and strength lists.

About an hour later, they came out of the quiet room. ‘We had a great game today,’ said Paul. ‘Everyone got captured or killed, except for Tom who escaped after blowing up the headquarters.'

It was morning-tea time, and Paul and his friends went outside to the sandpit. Some of them had brought in their Star War figures, and they sat around playing with them.

They didn't come in after morning tea, so I went to look for them. I found them under a tree, digging a hole with their hands in some soft dirt.

‘Come on, you lot,' I called, ‘It's time to come in again.'

'Oh can't we stay out here for a while? asked Paul. ‘We're just finishing off a game.'

I knew that Paul did a lot of his maths, reading and spelling at home. He'd recently been writing his Grim story at home too, so he often had plenty of time at school for his creative play. So I was thinking more of the others when I said, 'Just for ten minutes then. I want to see Kate's spelling soon, and David, you said that you wanted my help with some maths after morning tea.’

They went back to their playing in the dirt. Paul had a Star Wars figure in his hand, and he was kneeling by the hole. 'OK,' he said, 'we have to bury him now.' He started to talk to the figure, as if he were one of the dead warrior's comrades.

‘You have fought and you have died bravely. You were our friend. We honour you and we bury you.'

He placed the figure gently in the hole, while the others looked solemnly on. Then he smoothed dirt over the top of the figure, bowed his head for a second, then animatedly began making suggestions for a new phase of their fantasy war.

Later, while David worked on his maths with me and Kate started on her spelling, Paul went back into the quiet room with David's electronic piano. He was in there by himself for at least an hour, playing round with tunes that he knew, making up some of his own. The piano had a recording device, and when I looked in he was sitting on a chair with an upturned plastic rubbish bin in front of him and two paint brushes in his hands, and he was drumming an accompaniment to a tune he'd made up and recorded.

Paul was sitting at the Prime Minister's chair, his back straight, his chin thrust forward aggressively, and his black eyes twinkling.

We were in the middle of a session of our Parliament a week or so into second term, and someone was asking him why there hadn't been any tidy up the day before. He was both Prime Minister and joint Minister for the Tidy Up with David.

Paul hadn't taken to the Parliament straight away. But there was something about its drama and conflict that seemed to appeal, and it wasn't long before he joined the Opposition. He showed a particular talent for asking curly questions, and it was no surprise when he became the Leader of the Opposition. Soon afterwards, the current Prime Minister got sick of nagging her Ministers, and she resigned and Paul became Prime Minister.

‘Right,’ he said, getting slowly to his feet, and walking around the back of his chair as he spoke, for all the world like someone from the House of Representatives conscious of the public’s gaze upon him. ‘I'm very glad you asked that question. These rooms were a disgusting mess yesterday, and me and Dave had a talk about it and we reckoned that it wasn't fair for everyone to clean it up, because the mess was made by the kids who were painting and messing round with plaster and clay in the wet area. So we've been trying to find out this morning who it was that was working in the wet area. We're going to read out the list at the end of today.'

Allen was at the other side of the room, and we exchanged glances. If either of us had been so direct, there would have been protests. There was none today.

After the Parliamentary session, I came across David and Paul in front of a pinboard to which they'd attached the names of all the forty-five kids in our combined class. They were holding about fifty cardboard labels which they'd made, each with a different job written on it.

'OK,' Paul was saying, 'what's this one say? The maths shelfs. Who will we have for the maths shelfs?'

‘That's not how you spell "shelves", ‘said David, peering at the piece of paper in Paul's hand. ‘I don't think so anyway. Steve, how do you spell "shelves"?'

‘It doesn't matter,' said Paul. ‘We don't have to spell it right now, only when we write it up on the big board. How about we put John and Richie down for the maths shelves?'

‘No, that's not fair. They had an easy job yesterday, and the maths shelves are easy. Let's put them on the wet area, and give to Zoe … no, she did them last week …. to Maddy and Sarah.'

‘OK,’ said Paul, and he pinned 'maths shelfs' next to Maddy and Sarah's names on the board.

I watched them for five minutes, marvelling at their commitment and organising skills. And I wasn’t sure that I could have designed a class exercise that would have been as effective at promoting all sorts of language skills - reading and spelling obviously, but also communication - as they worked out what was fair and what was possible.

It seemed to me, too, that there were some powerful impulses in Paul that were finding a creative outlet in the stories, the fantasy games and the Parliament, impulses that might once have landed him in trouble of one sort or another.

Right then,' said Allen, as we sat down after school one day for another of our planning sessions, 'tell me what we're going to do, Steve!'

We'd worked together for a year and a half now, and we'd come some way since our first tentative meetings. We still tended to talk mostly on the run, but we'd learnt enough about each other to be able to use a kind of shorthand when we planned. And Allen's opening remark had become something of a ritual.

‘What do you think is the best way to approach this business about Paul's group and the film, do you think?' I asked.

We had been planning for some time to do a big group play. It had become something of a tradition with this group, an annual event, and for some of the kids this would be their third. Maddy, Zoe, John and Richie were amongst those who were especially impatient that we start, as this was to be their last year in the primary school.

But, earlier that day, Paul had announced that he and his group of film-makers didn't want to be in the play. They'd been working together off and on for almost a term now planning a film. They'd made up a rough story, and had begun to collect props and costumes. They didn't want to take time off now to be in a big play, Paul told us, when they could be finishing their film.

‘Is he really serious do you think?’ asked Allen. What are they really doing with this film?’

‘Well, it seems important to him, like his clubs and games and the D&C are important. He likes being in control, and maybe he sees this play idea as a threat. He's never been in a big group play before.'

"What a pain in the bum,' said Allen. We saw the play as an exercise in co-operation, something that brought kids together, taught them all sorts of social skills, helped them to listen and to compromise, helped them to be sensitive and articulate. They had been fun to perform, too. Neither of us wanted to see the group split by a break-away group.

‘I feel like simply announcing that everyone does the play, that it's compulsory,’ said Allen after a while, ‘but I know that wouldn’t work. I think we're just going to have to talk it out.'

‘I guess so. But I’m worried that Paul is going to enjoy the occasion so much - the public argument, his leadership of a splinter group - that the opposing sides will become entrenched and we'll end up with a big split. Can't we handle it more quietly, say by getting some of the film people and some of the play's enthusiasts together in the quiet room, to try and come up with some compromise?'

‘We could,' said Allen. 'But I think it's important that everyone take part in this discussion. It'll be hard for some of the younger kids, but if we're going to work as a group, then we've got to make decisions as a group.'

‘You're right, I guess,' I said. 'But we're going to have to be pretty careful. If Paul senses that we adults are trying to push him into joining the big play, then he'll dig his heels in and be really hard to shift.'

There was a feeling of unease and tension amongst some of us as the group gathered the following afternoon. Paul sat in the middle of the group, looking very controlled, very serious, as though he was struggling to suppress any hint that he was enjoying this. His friends - Tom, David, Matthew, Kate, Damien, Shaun - sat close by. I looked at their faces, searching for clues to their real feelings. Were they happy to go along with Paul on this one? Had any of them been looking forward to a big play? Would any of them break away from Paul's apparent control? Some of them seemed ill at ease, and I guessed that there was an internal struggle going on for a few. But I had little doubt that they would side with Paul if it came to a public show of loyalty.

'Is everyone comfortable?' asked Allen. ‘If not, find a comfortable position now, because it's important that we all concentrate this afternoon.’ There Was some self-conscious shuffling, and then silence again.

"Paul, would you like to start?'

Paul was sitting on the carpet, an arm around one bent knee. He looked at the ground as he spoke.

'OK,' he said. There was a pause, and then, 'Well, when we were talking together in the big group yesterday about doing a big play, well, I was thinking that's going to wreck the film. We've been working on the film for quite a long time, and if we stop now, it'll all be wrecked. We'll have to start again. So we don't want to be in the big play.’

I was itching to ask whether they had discussed it as a group, whether Paul knew how each of his friends really felt. But I didn't want to put premature pressure on anyone who might be wavering in support for Paul.

David had his hand up, and Allen chose him to speak next.

‘It's not that we are against the big play or anything. We think that can go ahead. It's just that we don't want to be in it. We want to do the film while the rest of you are working on the big play.'

‘But that would wreck the big play …' said Maddy.

She was one of the older girls, and these big productions were very important to her. Year after year (this was her third) she had taken what seemed like a small part in our improvised plays and transformed it, through sheer force of personality, into a major part of each year's performance. She was speaking now with some emotion.

‘The whole point of the big play is that it's something we all do together. It's Steve and Allen's class play, and it happens every year, and if you people weren't in it ...’ She looked at Paul, who was still looking at the ground ‘… if you weren't in it, then it wouldn't be the same. I think either we've all got to be in it, or we don't have a big play at all.'

There was a silence after Maddy had finished.

'Couldn't we compromise in some way?' said Damien, someone who'd been on the edges of the film group. ‘Like maybe Paul's group could work on the film, the others could work on the big Play, and then we could show the two together to the parents one night?'

"Or maybe, said Kate, another from Paul's group, ‘we could make up a play all about a group of kids who are doing a film, so the film group could somehow be a part of the bigger play.’

“I don't think that would work, Kate,’ said Paul. ‘We’ve already made up our story for the film. Anyway, I just don't see it working trying to put the film and play together, It just wouldn't work?

'I don't like that idea either,' said Richie, another of the older kids who'd been a part of bigger plays before. ‘I think we have to make up the story for the whole play all together, like we always do. It wouldn't be as good if we just took over the story of the film and tried to make a play out of that.'

‘I want to make up a play all about a Japanese princess who gets kidnapped,’ said one of the younger girls, and several of her friends murmured their approval. 'And I want to be the princess!' We laughed, and some of the tension was relieved.

We continued our discussion for another three quarters of an hour. Some of the kids seemed to be in favour of trying a play even if the film group didn't take part, others felt it was all or nothing. Some tried to pursue the idea of somehow combining the play and the film, but there was strong opposition from both Paul and some of the more influential advocates of a big play.

The atmosphere started to get heavy again, and some of the younger kids were becoming restless.

'This is hard work,' said Allen finally. 'It's great that so many kids are trying to work out something, that we're all trying to come up with a solution. But we seem to be stuck for the moment, and it looks as though we've got lots of hard work to do still. I think we should take a break for five or ten minutes.' He looked over at me, and I nodded my agreement. 'Have a run outside, get a bit of fresh air, and we'll meet back here in about ten minutes to see if we can get any further on.'

The group broke up slowly. Some of the older kids looked rather weighed down, a bit discouraged by the drift of our discussions. I overheard one group muttering about what saw as the selfishness of the film group, spoiling everyone else's fun. Paul went into the quiet room with most of his friends.

It took us some time to round the group up again after our break. Some clearly wanted to play outside for a while, to let off some steam after the tensions inside. But others were keen to start, to try to resolve the problem, and Allen and I both felt we should push ahead.

‘Can say something, Allen?’ said Paul once we'd reassembled. I hadn’t noticed him come out of the quiet room, but he was looking quite different, animated, impatient.

"Is everyone here? Everyone comfortable?... OK, Paul!

Eyes turned towards him expectantly. There was absolute silence. The group, I think, sensed that Paul was in a different space.

‘I’ve been thinking during the break, and I've talked to a couple of the film group, and maybe there's a solution. We were thinking that maybe we could put off the film for a month or so, as long as we could have some regular time then. Then we could all be in the play together.'

There was a moment's silence while this sunk in, and then the room erupted in shouts of 'Great!' and applause. It was an exciting and dramatic moment, and it was not lost on Paul. He smiled and nodded to the group, rather like the victorious leader at the National Tally Room on election night.

His solution was one that, no doubt, Allen and I could have imposed on the group at the beginning, and by doing so we could have avoided any suggestion that Paul was somehow holding the larger group to ransom. It was at the back of my mind that, in allowing the group to make the decision, we had in fact just placed all the power in Paul's hands. Then, when he came up with the solution - which he had previously insisted would ruin his film - he became a hero, giving him glory as well as power, and reinforcing with reward his previous intractability.

But there were, I felt, more important considerations. Had we made that decision ourselves, we would have denied the kids an opportunity to exercise their minds and judgment in solving a communal difficulty. Allen and I had both seen in the past - in the playground, the cubby area and in the classroom - the shy child become more confident, the clown become more serious, the day-dreamer more focused, and the self-centred kid more sensitive, through discussions such as this one. Not as a result of a single, isolated discussion, but from the atmosphere in the class that made such discussions the natural way to tackle our difficulties. This was their classroom, it was their community, and they had a responsibility to face up to its difficulties, just as they had a right to enjoy its freedoms and benefits. We were involved in developing both a moral sense and an understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizenships.

Furthermore, had Allen and I made the decision, then Paul and at least some of his friends would have withdrawn - in spirit if not in body - from the group play. Instead, as a result of the discussions, he had made a willing commitment to it. More significantly, I felt, he was ready to be a part of a group activity over which he had no direct control, something I couldn't remember him doing before. Even with the class Parliament, he hadn't allowed himself to be caught up in it until it was clear that he was destined for higher office.

He gave himself a quite minor part in our big play, but one to which he brought his quite exceptional talent as an actor, and he gave us all a great deal of pleasure during both rehearsals and performances as he planned a kidnap with some men of the forest, or revelled at a palace feast.

There was no doubt, it seemed to me, that Paul saw things differently from many of us around him. For Paul, the world was centred around his charisma, his creativity, his control, his music, his loyalty to friends, his suspicions of the adult world.

I felt uncomfortable about some of this, and sometimes felt like plucking him out of that world and putting him down in a world that seemed more real to me - where adults weren't necessarily threats, where others' rights were seen as important as Pauls, where his friends could be allowed a degree of independence which at the time Paul was reluctant to sanction.

But I knew that it was impossible to do something like that. His world was as real to him as mine was to me, and it was with his world that I had to work if I wanted to encourage the changes that had already so obviously taken place since he first came to the school. He would continue to become more open, accepting and constructive through expressing himself in the world he found around him, exploring it in a dynamic, creative and supportive way.

Some of his school behaviour in the past had been geared to excluding adults from his world, and I felt this was unhelpful in the long run. Perhaps, I thought as the 1983 year finished, if we go ahead with this idea of a village for the first term next year, it will give the two of us further chances to work and play together, new ways of keeping in touch.