Alan Sturrock says he has always liked Staffordshire figures which show the simple life so many of the Victorians had, and how very different life at all stages was as compared to today. This figure shows just that. The good student holding a book sits on a chair whilst the dunce stands next to her standing on one leg on a chair, and wears the telltale dunce’s cap to humiliate him in front of the entire class.
 
As you will appreciate, education was in itself something only a few early Victorian children were lucky enough to experience and the teaching methods were so very different. The humiliation of a student in this way for not learning as quickly as his fellow pupils would have been commonplace in the village schoolroom. Of course these days such treatment is rightly not allowed and so this figure has a cruel charm of its own as being wonderfully politically incorrect.
 
However in Alan’s schooling days punishments still occurred. He was made to stand in the corner for misbehaving in class, and more serious misdemeanors almost always meant a beating with a cane by the headmaster.