Blake Morrison
You can’t touch me
You can’t touch me is a short story by Blake Morrison. It was posted in the magazine Prospect on March 19 2010. Ian Goade is a primary school teacher. There is a troubled boy named Campbell at the school his working at. One day he sees Campbell bully and push, a smaller boy in the schoolyard. Ian asks Campbell to come with him to the school head, Mrs Baynes, but Campbell refuses. Ian grabs Campbell’s ear and force him to the heads office. Mrs Baynes gets contacted by Campbell’s mother, who’s going to make an official complain about the incident. Ian tries explaining to Campbell’s mother, but she complains anyway. Ian hopes that him and Mrs Baynes can do something to stop the complain of reaching the governors, but Mrs Baynes says that there is nothing they can do. School ends for summer and the story ends one week before the hearing.

The narrator Ian Goade is a primary school teacher, but it seems that his a bit embarrassed to tell people l.1-2“I just say “teacher” so they assume I work in secondary school or college” and he feels uncomfortable talking about the subject l.4-5“I’m a little touchy on the subject, as you see”
The school policy is to build up the kids’ self-esteem; Ian thinks that Campbell should be handled by lowering his self-esteem. He believes he could have handled Campbell’s behavioural problems, if he had had him as a pupil. He believes that he could have been a positive male figure to Campbell l.15-16 “… I’m a man, and kids like Campbell lack positive male role models”. Campbell’s father is a pale, overweight, tattooed man. The father is probably not involved in Campbell’s school since this Ian doesn’t know off him l.133-134 “there’d been no mention of a Mr Foster.”, and it’ Campbell’s mother who file the complaint and not the parents as a couple. The father appears aggressive and violent l. 137-138