Georgie Fame and The Blue Flames: Yeh Yeh (whatever?)

It was 1965 and 18-year-old Georgie Fame was at the top of the hit parade with his smash hit ‘Yeh Yeh’. Meanwhile eight-year-old Michael Jones was in a trance watching Georgie grooving away on Ready Steady Go! Three thoughts were uppermost in my mind at the time: how groovy it must be to have parents called Mr and Mrs Fame, who in turn were groovy and swinging enough to call their son Georgie. But how come they allowed him to say, ‘Yeh Yeh’? Because whenever I said ‘yeah’ within my parents’ hearing I would be roundly told off and threatened with elocution lessons. (It was only recently that I discovered that Georgie Fame was actually born Clive Powell, in Leigh Lancashire, and had his name changed under duress by his manager.)

Even in those days I was a highly rebellious character, kicking against the straightjacket of middle class repression. So I’d hang out in the park with my gang of friends and say ‘Yeah!’ and ‘Okay!’ loudly whenever an adult walked by. I couldn’t quite catch all the words to Georgie’s song, but got snatches of verses like

My baby loves me, she gets me feeling so fine
And when she loves me, she lets me know that she’s mine
And when she kisses, I feel the fire get hot
She never misses, she gives me all that she’s got

I say yeh yeh

That sounded a bit soppy (and why, when you kiss a girl, should the fire in the room suddenly get hotter?) But hey, I was an aspiring cool cat, so I’d go around the playground singing that verse at the top of my lungs. A dinner lady once asked me if I had any idea what I was singing, to which I naturally shouted at her, ‘Yeah, yeah, Okay?!!’ before running off.

Ten years later I was working in a residential centre for young people with learning difficulties near Rhyl, North Wales. My day job was to lead a group of young men, doing various jobs throughout the centre’s enormous grounds. This could be anything from clearing ditches, planting trees or even shovelling tons of coal into the cellar for the boiler. My crew had a range of additional learning needs, and I spent a lot of my time keeping them on-task, showing them how to use shovels and stressing the importance of working together to ‘get the job done’. There was always a lot of friendly ‘banter’ between us, but one of the lads, Maurice, never got involved in the jokes and messing around with wordplay. He was a good worker, though didn’t like to get his hands dirty. He liked jobs like weeding (as long as he could wear gloves) and if you told him to weed a large flowerbed you could guarantee that it would be totally weedless (and flowerless if you didn’t keep a close eye on him) by the end of the day. Maurice didn’t have much to say for himself, unless you got him onto his favourite subjects: public transport timetables in the Watford area and the chart positions and lyrics of hit singles, from 1964 to the present day. Asperger’s syndrome was not really recognised as an entity until around 1981, but looking back on it I’d say that that was probably Maurice’s problem.

But Maurice didn’t have any problems when he was around me. I have an abiding interest in 1970s pop and rock, and enjoy gardening, so Maurice and I had a lot in common and therefore plenty to talk about. I’m not big on rail and bus timetables, but was willing to listen to Maurice expounding the virtues of the route from Watford to Bushy if it meant that he could sing for us (with pretty much perfect pitch) those great songs where you couldn’t quite make out their lyrics. His favourites were Virginia Plain by Roxy Music and, to my great pleasure, Yeh Yeh, by my one-time hero and role model Georgie Fame.

Roxy Music: You’re so sheer; you’re so chic-teenage rebel of the week

At the time I was still a social rebel and therefore said ‘yeah’ instead of ‘yes’ whenever I could. I used to add ‘OK?’ to the end of instructions; e.g. ‘It’s time for us to get back to work now. OK? Yeah?’ I could never understand why the lads would look confused and stay where they were, until I cajoled them with mildly threatening language like, ‘I’ve just told everyone to get going. OK? Yeah?’ or ‘Would you mind getting a move on? OK? Yeah?’ or, ‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t just sit there. OK? Yeah?’ or even, ‘Let’s get a move on, shall we? OK?’

One of my colleagues, who at the time was studying psychology and linguistics, pointed out how well Maurice and I were communicating together. So much so that Maurice, who had what I would have described as an ‘upper crust’ accent and advanced vocabulary, was beginning to sound like me. I wasn’t aware of it, but his accent had become more like mine (‘Home Counties’) and was now saying ‘yeah?’ and ‘OK?’ at the end of practically every sentence. He had even adopted some of my mannerisms, like the way I pushed my glasses up my nose with my forefinger and scratched my beard when I was thinking about something: even though Maurice didn’t wear glasses or have a beard himself.

I mention all of this because I’m interested in how to improve the way I communicate with young children. I was lucky that my team of youngsters weren’t more confused by the way I talked. Looking back on it, I can see that the reason they seemed never to do as they were told straight away was because they didn’t understand what I wanted them to do. By adding, ‘OK?’ and ‘Yeah?’ to the end of an instruction, I was turning it into a question. So if I said, ‘It’s time for you to stop weeding now Maurice. OK?’ I was effectively asking him if he thought it was a good idea to stop. Because he loved weeding so much, he would just carry on, until I got annoyed with him.

My colleague pointed out to me that by using what she called tag questions like ‘OK?’ and ‘yeah?’ all the time, I was effectively turning an instruction into a question, which gave my gang the impression that they had a choice. So when I said, ‘It’s time for us to go. OK?’ I was giving the message, ‘I think it’s time for us to go. What do you think?’ They didn’t think it was anywhere near time to finish their tea break, so stayed put. They probably thought I was a bit of a pushover as well, because I seemed to be always asking their opinion about things instead of giving them direct instructions, which led them to mess me around.

It’s just the same with young children. I was once asked to observe a little girl in a preschool with a suspected language difficulty and ‘oppositional behaviour’. Grace loved being outside in the sandpit and always got upset when it was time to go indoors. I’d been playing outside all afternoon, and had got to know Grace and the staff a little bit, so volunteered to help Grace to stop playing and go inside for storytime. Five minutes before tidy up time I said, ‘Grace. It will soon be time to tidy up. Then it will be time to go indoors.’ To everyone’s surprise (and, if I’m honest, to my relief) Grace tidied up and went indoors.

At story time Grace was all over the place: calling out, running around and being generally disruptive. Later, when we talked about why the little girl had cooperated with me, and not with the staff, I explained that I had given clear instructions, while I had noticed that my colleagues always stuck the tag question ‘OK?’ on the end of everything they said. When Grace’s mum eventually came to pick her up from preschool (she was always late), Grace ran to the end of the room and started throwing toys around. Mum’s response was something like, ‘Come on Gracie darling, be a good girl for Mummy, otherwise the grown-ups will tell mummy off for being late again….. OK?’ At which point Grace started throwing even more toys all over the place.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? It’s no wonder Grace behaved the way she did for her mother. She’s getting no end of mixed messages from mummy:

• Mummy doesn’t care much about you, because every day she is late picking you up from preschool

• Mummy is making out that the staff are nasty for telling Mummy (and Grace) off

• By saying ‘OK’, Grace has a choice about what she can do and how she should behave

Where to start? When mum and little Grace had gone, we discussed tag questions. I pointed out (in the most constructive way possible) that staff were giving Grace mixed messages and therefore reinforcing the negative behaviour she had developed at home. By adding ‘OK?’ to every instruction, they were triggering the habitual negative and attention -seeking behaviour that Grace had developed at home. So we all practiced using phrases that would give a clear message to all children about what was going to happen, as well as set Grace very clear boundaries.

So out of the window went all the accumulated bad habits of years of working with children: what I call Misplaced Good Manners, Confusers and Tag Questions e.g.

Misplaced Good Manners

Would you mind?
Please could you?
I’d rather you didn’t do that.
Would you mind not doing that?
I’ll thank you not to do that.
Do you think that is a good idea?
When what we mean is, ‘Stop doing that and do this instead.’

Confusers

Thank you! (When taking something off a child)
Sorry (When you don’t understand what a child is saying; meaning that a child shouldn’t do something; or apologising when you are telling children to stop doing something; e.g. ‘I’m sorry, but we have to go in and wash our hands. OK?’)
Excuse me! (When you don’t understand what has been said; when a child has done something wrong, like pushing another child; when you are taking something off them)
I don’t think so! (Used in a sarcastic way, to tell children to stop doing something that they shouldn’t be doing.)
I have heard all of these phrases being used frequently with babies and toddlers, with the assumption that it’s OK to talk to them like adults, as they can’t understand what you say to them anyway.

Tag Questions

Yeah?
Know what I mean?
Alright?
OK?

Got that? Now I am not sitting in judgement of the way that nursery staff, teachers, teaching assistants and parents talk to children. Goodness knows I get myself in knots all the time when talking with groups of children, individuals with additional learning needs and children with challenging behaviour. We all do. However, when children are not behaving in the way we expect after we have given an instruction, the first thing to do is to check whether they have actually understood what we meant. This involves listening to how we talk and making an effort to give clear messages. Know what I mean?

And how to help Grace’s mother? Here are a few suggestions:

• Introduce a policy that all parents agree to pay £1.00 for every minute that they are late collecting their children at the end of a session

• Model using clear instructions to Grace when mum comes to collect her

• When mum and dad ask advice about how to help Grace at home (and believe me, they will) describe how at preschool we give clear instructions, avoid tag questions and mean what we say.

Any more that you can think of?

Even sheep are saying ‘yeah’. No wonder they can’t control their kids. (And is that parrot really swearing with a Lancashire accent?)

Take care out there

Michael

Dances with Wolves

Dances with Smartphone

Sheep have played a part in rural life for centuries, and have found their way into mythology, legends, literature and stories for children. Think Jason and the Golden Fleece, Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, The Boy Who Cried Wolf and even Shaun the Sheep. Transhumance, the seasonal migration of people with their flocks of sheep or herds of cattle in search of fresh pasture, is the stuff of legend, as well as being a big feature in American Westerns. Let’s take Dances With Wolves as an example. Kevin Costner took a huge risk when he bought the rights for this film, then produced, directed and starred in it. In 1990 there hadn’t been a hit movie based on life in the 19^th century American West for quite some time. It was his directorial debut, and much of the film’s dialogue was to be in the Sioux Lakota language, with English subtitles. Add 6,000 rampaging buffalo (including two tame ones belonging to Neil Young), vast outdoor locations with untrained wolves, and you have a potential turkey on your hands. Kevin pulled it off though, and the film was a massive success.

In Dances With Wolves Costner was determined to go for authenticity at all costs. He paid special attention to the Lakota dialogue. There was some debate among Native American scholars about whether he got it right or not, but the general feeling within the Lakota-speaking Sioux Nation was that Kevin had done a good job. I had a friend who had Lakota ancestry, who told me that this film was in sharp contrast to earlier Western movies featuring Native Americans. You could go to a drive-in to watch one of these films and hear Native Americans in the audience laughing their heads off every time Native American actors spoke. In one notorious scene, which went unnoticed by the film company for many years, John Wayne sees some smoke signals in the distance. He says to his Apache scout (who is really a Lakota Sioux dressed up), “What do those signals say?” The scout translates out loud to himself in Lakota and then says to John Wayne, “Many pale faces approaching.” There was uproar among audiences, because what the scout had really said in his own language was, ‘Tell the Pale Face next to you that his winky is even smaller than General Custer’s”!

Ghita Ciobanul; AKA Ghita the Shepherd

Let’s switch to present-day Romania and meet Ghita Ciobanul. Ghita is a shepherd who spends most of the year high up in the mountains with his huge flock of sheep. It’s a lonely life and sometimes he yearns for the company of other human beings (even the lads who have given him the wicked nickname Ghita the Shepherd). Ghita has become famous in Romania as the focus of a Vodaphone advertising campaign. Vodaphone has set out to transform the lives of countless Romanians living in isolated villages, by increasing their internet access. So now Ghita can do what all lonely men do when they are far away from home: check his emails, update his Facebook page and add photos of important things; like his dogs and his meal of traditional shepherd’s bread, mutton, sheep’s cheese and sheep’s yoghurt. Oh and don’t let me forget, Ghita also likes to film himself having fun with sheep. Hopefully Ghita’s woolly friends find it just as hilarious as he does when he dances with them, (“He’s got no rhythm. He daaances just like my daaad when he’s druuuunk at weddings” etc. etc.)

Ghita has become something of a media sensation in Romania, and quite rightly so. He has been filmed in discussion with Romania’s Commissioner on agricultural affairs at the EU, who is keen to promote Ghita’s use of digital technology as an example of how IT can transform the lives of people living in Romania’s vast rural heartland.

Ghita Ciobanul, AKA Dances with Sheep: in touch with the world (while wearing an incredible hat)

Ghita the Shepherd: a living legend celebrated in song

Two pieces of technology have revolutionised my working like: my Satnav and smartphone. The iPhone is brilliant for keeping me in touch while I’m on the road, so I can check my emails and reply to them while I am travelling up and down the UK and, increasingly, across the globe. However it can be a bit addictive. Sometimes I used to find myself behaving like Bilbo and Frodo when they are overcome by an urge to slip The Ring on their finger. I just couldn’t stop myself from constantly checking for mail, texts and whether anyone had left a reply to one of my blog posts. At one stage I would be doing a job round the house, like the washing up, and think to myself, ‘I haven’t checked my phone for a few minutes. Maybe I’ve had an email.’

I know I’m not alone in this habit. Sit in a café and you are likely to spot around 75% of the customers doing something with their phone while they are eating. I have to be very firm with delegates on my training courses: emphasising the need for all mobile phones to be switched to silent and put away. But the phones invariably get sneaked back onto the table throughout the day, and you can see people just itching to turn them on. Some parents are clearly addicted to using their smartphones. In all my workshops with parents and their children I check with the organisers about whether or not I can enforce my ‘no phone’ rule with the parents. The usual answer is, ‘We try, but it’s practically impossible to stop parents from looking at their phones.’ I’m not against IT, but we do need to control our behaviour towards it when we are around children, so that they benefit from our undivided attention.

Children use role play in order to explore aspects of everyday life that they have either seen or been involved in. Sometimes they use role play to help them make sense of adult behaviours that seem a bit senseless. Recently I was reading a four-year-old boy a story. It was gripping. I was using all my funny voices, dramatic pausing: the works. Suddenly the little boy fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a rectangular wooden block. He looked at it briefly and then put it back in his pocket.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Just checking my emails.”

I had to laugh, because all the little fellow was doing was copying the behaviour of his older role models.

Enough about dancing with sheep and wolves and virtual communication. Let’s watch some people having fun and dancing with each other!

Ray Charles and The Blues Brothers: Let me see you shake your tail feather baby.

Take care out there.

Michael