Heartbreak TV

THERE was a time when parents and teachers were edgy about school dramas on television. In its early years, the BBC's Grange Hill drew the wrath of parents and teachers who didn't like its gritty portrait of school life. Here The Spike, a drama set in an inner city school from hell sparked a national uproar and was dropped after a scene involving nudity.

It seems like a different world now there are well over a dozen imported school based soaps and sitcoms appealing to audiences from seven to 17, dealing candidly with all the issues you can imagine - from drink, smoking, drugs, relationships, sex, AIDS, pregnancy, adoption, bullying, child abuse, family breakdown and, oh yes, life at school.

By and large, parents and teachers don't have any opinion at all about the shows, because most have never seen them.

The shows range from sitcoms like California Dreams (blonde, silly, funny, favoured by younger viewers) to Heartbreak High (good looking, Australian, overheated) to Grange Hill (pimply kids, London school, harassed teachers) to De Grass Junior High (earnest, Canadian and good on issues that bother young teens).

And most seem not to have heard about RTE's Finbar's Class, a drama with music about a group of no hope kids taught by novice teacher Finbar in a city school, although there were some complaints about the show setting a had example for teenagers when it was screened this time last year.

The show's creator and star, Michael Sheridan, dismisses the complaints as ridiculous", but it's true to say that Finbar's kids have the kind of in your face attitude that might tempt you to rip up your H. Dip.

Ironically, this year Finbar has lost his job because his rundown school has been amalgamated with a bigger school, so he gets involved in social work in a community centre. Meanwhile his class, now in sixth year, grapples with problems like drugs, adoption, money lending, and a gay ring preying on young boys. There's a dance sequence in each of the 12 episodes and a CD on the way.

Sheridan, 31, devised the show because he felt there should be a serious drama with humour dealing with universal teenage preoccupations in an Irish context. He believes the school in his show is a typical city school, although it's hardly like Sheridan's own old school, Blackrock College in Dublin.

His own favourite high school show was the one he grew up on, Happy Days. Now he says (quite reasonably) that he keeps a cage around his TV when Sweet Valley High is on to stop him from kicking the set in. (Sweet Valley High, the show of the series of girls' books, is glossy, vapid, and very popular with little girls.)

There are questions to be asked about teen TV. For one thing, do teen shows make Irish teenagers long to go to school somewhere else? More seriously, what are the implicit values in the shows?

Irish schools (happily) are mostly traditional, disciplined, orderly and uniformed and thus utterly unlike high schools on TV.

But Irish kids don't seem to be envious, although it's clear the students on TV in their North American high schools enjoy much more freedom than they do.

Anne Macken, the guidance counsellor in St Joseph's, Stan hope Street, Dublin, found that her class of 16 year old Transition Year students liked Australian drama Heartbreak High because it wasn't as shiny and happy as the North American teen soaps. On the other hand, they didn't like Grange Hill because it was too boringly like real life and real school. And they laughed and said "no" when asked if they'd like to go to schools like those on TV - even to glitzy Beverley Hills.

On the other hand Mary, a teenager with cousins in North America, really wishes she could go to a high school like the one in My So Called Life, a popular teen drama which ended last year.

"It had big hallways, lockers, thousands of kids walking up and down, people wearing all sorts of clothes, ethnic diversity," she says.

She believes that in the United States, high school students do have more freedom, that many do drive to school. On the other hand, she knows that there is heavy pressure on students in American schools to be athletic and sporty, to get up at 5.00 a.m. to train, and doesn't think this is reflected in the shows.

What about the values of the shows?

Sitcoms like California Dreams and Hang Time are generally a force for good, promoting unambiguously notions of fairness and kindness. Dramas aimed at young teens like Ready or Not and De Grassi Junior High are sensitive in touching on matters that really might vex youngsters (a boy who suddenly gets too pushy, a separated mom who starts dating).

DRAMAS aimed at older teens, like Heartbreak High, are quite sophisticated in dealing with matters like AIDS, and adoption but perhaps a tad over the top.

(Heartbreak High moved into new territory with its storyline about a young female teacher's torrid affair with a student. It also kills off its characters inventively: one died in a boxing match last year, another recently fell off a cliff. Perhaps all this is why Heartbreak High is so very popular with teenagers.) It's also on television on Saturday mornings on TCC.

Younger children often find the teen angst dramas simply boring, but you might want to steer them away anyway. Some parents might also object to the sexual values implicit in many of these shows: most assume that teenagers will have full sexual relationships, the only question being when, with whom, and how safely.

Senior clinical psychologist Marie Murray believes parents should consider questions like: What are the benefits of the positive message of a particular show? What is the meaning and impact of the implicit messages?

And she says: I'd suggest parents watch a random selection of the shows their children watch to have some idea of what they're about. And if they have questions about their suitability, they should come to a family decision about it."