ABSTRACT
In order to understand the problems that teachers, headmasters and teenage schoolchildren have to face, it is necessary to examine the prevailing idea of our age, which is rebellion. Rebellion for its own sake became the orthodoxy, and the vague feeling arose that to rebel, fight and struggle for no definable purpose represented the highest virtue. Rebellion, felt deeply by some young people and crammed down the throats of others by rebels in authority, has become the starting point of most young people's adventures into adulthood. Most schoolboys, especially those who delight in laughing at mortar-boarded Teacher in 'The Bash Street kids', must imagine that teachers are opposed to rebellion. A possible answer is to have two subjects in future, English History and World History. English History acts as a counterbalance to the uneasy vacuum conjured up by rebellion. A product or the age or rebellion, comprehensive schools often have a swirling, turbulent and bewildering effect on well-behaved pupils.
