Comments on: "I went into teaching full of belief and idealism... After five years I realised that there was no place for idealism in teaching"

"I went into teaching full of belief and idealism... After five years I realised that there was no place for idealism in teaching"

fearfulsymmetry — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:11:40 -0800

George Plemper's extensive photographic record of south London working-class life from the 70s and early 80s, in particular children at Riverside school Thamesmead, was left hidden away in carrier bags for three decades. Now he's put it on Flicker

By: ornate insect

ornate insect — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:14:49 -0800

Is this The Jam?

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:25:10 -0800

I guess I don't find any of the pictures I saw very remarkable. Maybe in 100 years, they'll be fascinating genre pictures, but only 25 years out, they're still too recent to be anything but bland to me.

By: sgt.serenity

sgt.serenity — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:52:10 -0800

good work, lets hope the guardian didnt steal the copyright on his photos.

By: elfgirl

elfgirl — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:57:25 -0800

The pictures are lovely. The best part, though, are comments on his Flickr from some of the former students, talking about the people in the pictures and their lives.

By: marxchivist

marxchivist — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:10:16 -0800

Is this The Jam? posted by ornate insect at 10:14 AM Heh, heh. Good one. Interesting pictures and comments on the flickr site. Thanks for posting this.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:20:41 -0800

Saw this linked elsewhere. I though they were great, particularly the ease the subjects have due to knowing the photographer.. The clothes were nostalgia central for me, as the kids are not much older than I am. It's the wee fat lass and her younger brother at the Jubilee (in the Guardian slide show) do that really made me smile. The lad's out in just his trunks it looks like.

By: ethnomethodologist

ethnomethodologist — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:18:52 -0800

A record of 1970s "working class life" might be a photo essay about the White Hen Pantry at the corner of 169th Street and Calumet Avenue in Hammond, Indiana. Unfortunately none of my teachers was prescient or brave enough to do it. This collection is a record of "pavement." It's not ugly, but it doesn't do what the photog or OP thinks it does. As a living, breathing product of the actual working class (in the US rust belt, but still), I'm often annoyed by what's fed back to me as my "life." You can't just take abstract shots of pavement.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:21:15 -0800

Why not, ethnomethodologist? I'm a product of the actual working class too (though further north in England and more rural) and thought this spoke to parts of who I am, though of course it's just those parts. Do you mean he's making claims about it representing some totality? I may have missed that.

By: workinggringa

workinggringa — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:46:07 -0800

i don't know... i thought they were fascinating. even the repetitive photos of his walk to work (mostly alone) were meditative. i loved them, thank you!

By: saturnine

saturnine — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:31:29 -0800

Wow, this is great. I'm going through the Flickr set, and it's lovely seeing people pop in with names of the kids and memories of the teachers. For what it is (school photos!), the quality of photography is brilliant too.