‘Britain’s strictest teacher’ roasted after attempt to make analogy in rant about discipline massively backfires

A conservative headteacher has been roasted on Twitter after confusing Lord of the Flies with Lord of the Rings.

Posting on Twitter, Katharine Birbalsingh waxed lyrical about the importance of school rules in providing order, and implied that if they were absent, schools would descend into a “Lord of the Rings” like scenario.

Lord of the Rings is fantasy novel by J.R.R. Tolkien about a quest to destroy a powerful ring that is sought by evil villains to exercise power over a fantasy land. In it, there are elves, talking trees, all sorts of other monsters and huge wars.

So, that a school without rules would cause students to turn into adventure seeking hobbits seems a bit bizarre, and it seems more likely that Birbalsingh was cack-handedly referencing Lord of the Flies, a William Golding novel in which a group of young boys become stranded on an island an try to govern themselves - with disastrous consequences.

People found her mix-up hilarious:

Birbalsingh, who has been dubbed ‘Britain’s strictest teacher’ by the Times, has raised eyebrows in the past due to her somewhat Victorian views on education. She has banned the use of mobile phones in her school and - in an interview with the i newspaper - she said the dangers of mobile phones for children were comparable to cigarettes and alcohol.

She has also criticised ‘woke culture’, and has claimed that black students use race to get out of disputes with teachers and in a recent appearance on Good Morning Britain, criticised teaching children about white privilege.

She said: “Talking about white privilege over time actually undermines black children because it tells them that the establishment is against them.

“We need to move away from these things as they are unhelpful and we’re talking about what matters which is, how do we make it so that all our schools are excellent and that all children whatever colour they are in the classroom can succeed.”

We shouldn’t mock her for not knowing about classic novels though. It’s not as if she’s a teacher or anything...