JOHN LENNON FOR SUNDAY TIMES

John Lennon and the National Curriculum
The Sunday Times
By John Kelleher

Former Beatle John Lennon has made it into Britain's national curriculum as part of history studies for primary school children – 21 years after his death.

His widow Yoko Ono says she is thrilled and that John would have loved the idea – but neither of his two former primary schools in Liverpool have any plans to put the old boy back in the classroom as a topic of study.

The head of Dovedale Junior School, which John attended for six years, says: "There are better role models from the sixties than John Lennon. He did go rather peculiar after The Beatles."

And the history co-ordinator at nearby Mosspits Junior School, which the ex-Beatle attended for six months says: " There are many other important things in Liverpool."

"The Life and Times of John Lennon" has been added to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority's teaching schemes for Britain's primary school teachers – an option for children aged between nine and eleven.

Yoko Ono told me: " John would have loved the idea. He was always very caring about the future of the human race. So, naturally, being part of the curriculum to inspire the young would have delighted him no end."

The QCA suggest Lennon's life could be a starting point for a discussion of popular culture, social and cultural change and single-issue political activism.

The teaching unit says youngsters can learn about "Aspects of recent history through the study of the life of John Lennon as an example of someone who made a significant impact on popular culture and entertainment and whose life portrays some of the social and cultural changes of the post-war period."

And they suggest classes listen to his song "Imagine" and discuss the lyrics.

Yoko Ono says: "The song 'Imagine', which was sometimes criticised by fellow musicians for being simplistic, was written for the young in mind".

But in another song, "Getting Better" John and Paul sang that: "The teachers who taught me weren't cool." And now it is the turn of Liverpool teachers to be lukewarm about the former Beatle.

Steve Flynn, the headmaster of Dovedale, says the Beatles are already taught as part of a wider look at history but he has no plans to focus on Lennon. "After Sergeant Pepper and all the involvement with drugs The Beatles went off. They tended to reject Liverpool after that and it's only recently that Paul McCartney has been helping here."

Paul was a prime moving force behind the establishment of the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts and thirty undergrads at Liverpool University get grants of £1,200 a year to aid studies, thanks to the John Lennon Memorial Scholarships sent up a decade ago.

At school Lennon was something of a troublemaker. Mr. Flynn says "There used to be a punishment book here and I'm afraid John Lennon appeared in it rather too often. The book has vanished now."

Old school friends confirm Lennon was a troublesome little boy who had a little gang and was always involved in fights, taunting girls and getting up to other misdemeanors such as shoplifting and riding tramcars without paying the fares.

Dovedale in the Liverpool suburb of Wavertree has a complicated relationship to The Beatles. The headmaster Steve Flynn says: "There is a special feeling here. Most of the pupils here know about The Beatles and can sing their songs." It is also a place of pilgrimage for fans because it numbers both Lennon and George Harrison among its old students. Some fans are even allowed to visit their old classrooms to take photographs - providing the headmaster is on hand to keep a wary eye on them.

Earlier this year's its' sister Infants school was boosted by a £30,000 gift from Lennon's widow Yoko Ono when she flew into John Lennon Airport in Liverpool to mark its name change in honour of her husband. The money has gone to create a new playground.

Before going to Dovedale, John was briefly enrolled at Mosspits Lane Junior School also in Wavertree. He was only there for six months – though claims that he was expelled for misbehavior are unconfirmed.

The history co-ordinator at Mosspits, Lesley Rutherford says: "We've not included him in our history curriculum yet because we have a choice between the 20th century and Victorian times –and we're concentrating on the Victorians. But he might well slot into our local history studies some time in the future."

"Children at the school are aware of him – because of parents, or I suppose grandparents by now… and it's hard to avoid him. But we don't want to get carried away."

Lennon is widely honoured at home and abroad - both as a former Beatle and in some cases as a campaigner for peace. Yards from the scene of his murder in New York, a grassy dell on the edge of Central Park, christened Strawberry Fields, has become a poignant place of pilgrimage for Beatle fans of every generation.

And even Serbia has found a place to honour him. A street in its second largest city Novi Sad was recently renamed after the pop star.

The outspoken Cambridge historian David Starkey, presently fronting a TV series on Henry VIII, says he is happy to see Lennon's life on the history curriculum – though with some caveats. "Pop music is very important and the impact of popular music on the 20th century has been very great. If this is a way to look at the broader issues then I welcome it, as long as it does not become merely hagiographic."

And already one teaching resource has been published - by the TES Primary magazine - to steer teachers on how to include the life and times of this rock'n'roller in the classroom alongside such more familiar fare as Shakespeare, Ancient Egypt and "what we know about Jesus."

Presumably Lennon's own thoughts on the Christian saviour – he once remarked that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus - and his more controversial escapades such as stripping naked for the Two Virgins album cover, recording songs in support of the IRA and his self confessed "hundreds of LSD trips" - won't be on the syllabus.

The QCA says that it is important to guide children towards appropriate aspects of his life. They say that drugs, moral issues and unsuitable vocabulary in his own writing might be risky topics.

When John Lennon was at school in the 1950s, history classes were very different. The Liverpool poet Roger McGough, who was a contemporary of John Lennon said: "I think it’s a good idea, though clearly he isn't a particularly good role model in himself, but that isn't the point. This is a way to look at modern history from a wider perspective.

"I think that the way history is taught today is better than when we were at school. There is more of an international context. Back then it was all kings, queens, battles and martyrs. "

But what would the former Beatle have thought of his own inclusion on the school curriculum and his own impact on history?

Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone magazine asked him about the impact of The Beatles in 1971, just after they broke-up. He replied: " I don't know about the history. The people who are in control and in power and the class system and the whole bullshit bourgeois scene is exactly the same except there is a lot of middle-class kids with long hair walking around London in trendy clothes and Kenneth Tynan's making a future out of the word: 'Fuck.' But apart from that, nothing happened except that we all dressed up. The same bastards are in control, the same people are running everything. It's exactly the same. They hyped the kids and the generation."