School Culture

Haq Ismail: Lord of the Flies

Haq was born in 1970 in Pakistan. His family moved to Luton, England when Haq was eight months old. Haq attended his local primary school until he acquired a visual impairment at the age of eleven. He was then sent to a residential special school in Worcester and from there went on to university.

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Haq Ismail

Here Haq describes a ‘top dog’ culture at his school.

https://howwasschool.allfie.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Lord-of-the-flies.mp3

Transcript

But it was very kind of like, you know, Lord of the Flies, it’s very much of a top dog kind of – the ones who were the more influential, the stronger characters kind of ruled the roost and stuff and those were – you know, those of us who felt less empowered, who weren’t as strong, we kind of fitted in with the Ralphs of this world. I aligned myself more with Piggy really, Lord of the Flies, but I didn’t die at the end which is good, I made it through. So with me I was, you know, I found myself being a more of a placater so I’d kind of like placate those who were potential bullies and stuff and I would – you know, I’d just get on with everyone, yeah, you know, so I was just a mixer really. So I mean call it self preservation, call it survival, whatever you like, that’s the way that I got through those early years.

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