ABSTRACT
The majority of troubled adolescents, however, leave us in no doubt about their miseries, making their problems only too evident to all who cross their paths. Schools, trapped by the demands of an examination system that is ultimately aimed at sorting out that 6-7 per cent of the population that will have some pretensions to scholarship in later life, are under almost intolerable pressure in devising curricula for adolescents. The responsibility to help intelligent children to achieve results in examinations that reflect accurately their intellectual capacity is one which every teacher feels strongly. Alison’s disagreements with both her parents and her teachers covered a wide spectrum of typical adolescent conflicts, none of which was beyond the reach of some reasonable discussion. Meanwhile both teachers and parents confused the issues of custom and convention with the more serious ones of ethics and morality. This is easily done as the two aspects of life become almost inextricably entwined for everyone at times.
