Confidential Assignment Quotes

Next I tested my pupils for ingenuity. I handed out random materials and instructed them to improvise potentially lifesaving objects. ‘This ancient skill is known as MacGyvering,’ I told them. Sadly, none of my inaugural group of students was a child of Hephaestus, so no one did very well with this assignment. When I hinted to Perseus that he could hammer and polish his Celestial bronze to make a mirrored shield, he rolled his eyes and scoffed, ‘What would I ever use that for?’ Likewise, most failed miserably with musical composition. Only Jason came up with something memorable: a mesmerizing stomp-stomp CLAP rhythm that so stirred the blood we adopted it as our prebattle beat. (You can still hear that stomp-stomp CLAP rhythm pounded out at athletic competitions today, along with the chant ‘We will, we will … ROCK YOU!’) It was clear that the demigods had a lot to learn.

But nothing in my previous work had prepared me for the experience of reinvestigating Cleveland. It is worth — given the passage of time — recalling the basic architecture of the Crisis: 121 children from many different and largely unrelated families had been taken into the care of Cleveland County Council in the three short months of the summer of 1987. (p18) The key to resolving the puzzle of Cleveland was the children. What had actually happened to them? Had they been abused - or had the paediatricians and social workers (as public opinion held) been over-zealous and plain wrong? Curiously — particularly given its high profile, year-long sittings and £5 million cost — this was the one central issue never addressed by the Butler-Sloss judicial testimony and sifting of internal evidence, the inquiry's remit did not require it to answer the main question. Ten years after the crisis, my colleagues and I set about reconstructing the records of the 121 children at its heart to determine exactly what had happened to them... (p19) Eventually, though, we did assemble the data given to the Butler-Sloss Inquiry. This divided into two categories: the confidential material, presented in camera, and the transcripts of public sessions of the hearings. Putting the two together we assembled our own database on the children each identified only by the code-letters assigned to them by Butler-Sloss. When it was finished, this database told a startlingly different story from the public myth. In every case there was some prima fade evidence to suggest the possibility of abuse. Far from the media fiction of parents taking their children to Middlesbrough General Hospital for a tummy ache or a sore thumb and suddenly being presented with a diagnosis of child sexual abuse, the true story was of families known to social services for months or years, histories of physical and sexual abuse of siblings and of prior discussions with parents about these concerns. In several of the cases the children themselves had made detailed disclosures of abuse; many of the pre-verbal children displayed severe emotional or behavioural symptoms consistent with sexual abuse. There were even some families in which a convicted sex offender had moved in with mother and children. (p20)

The ordeal is too trying to be taken with equanimity, and a sensitive writer can be thrown out of his stride deplorably by it, whether or not the criticism is favorable. It is seldom that the criticism is favorable, when a beginner is judged by the jury of his peers. They seem to need to demonstrate that, although they are not yet writing quite perfectly themselves, they are able to see all the flaws in a story which is read to them, and they fall upon it tooth and fang. Until self-confidence arises naturally, and the pupil asks for group criticism, his work should be treated as utterly confidential by the teacher. Each will have his own rate of growth and it can be treated as utterly confidential by the teacher. Each will have his own rate of growth and it can only go on steadily if not endangered by the setbacks that come from embarrassment and self-consciousness. I recommend an almost inhuman taciturnity to my students, at least about work that is being done at the moment. There have been weeks when I have had nothing at all from the best workers in the class, only to have three or four full-length manuscripts from a single pupil at the end of the silent period. Beyond stipulating that each pupil must follow the exercises as they are given out, whether or not I see the material which is written from day to day, I assigned no tasks.

Andy and I also had private meetings with Dr. Henderson. In this setting we could confidentially divulge personal issues. The day of my individual meeting with the Professor, he made sure I was satisfied with my Valet's performance. He asked about Andy’s handling of different situations throughout our assignment. He wanted to know whether or not Andy performed his Valet duties to the best of his abilities. Of course I provided an excellent account of Andy's conduct and mentioned that he handled every situation with excellent skill, understanding and positivity. My comments were a report card on his performance which would be presented, officially, to the Bahriji and E.R.O.S. Board of Directors.