An educational horror story, delightfully told as though by a 12 year old boy.

In Canada a scheme emerged to test all the children over a wide area with the assessment instruments of the day. They were shortlisted, shortlisted again, filtered and whittled from every child down to only forty. The children then were placed together into a class where they remained for four years. They were taught by PhDs in educational psychology. They were taken to art galleries, archives, laboratories and parliaments. They had their own bus. They researched historic events and visited sites. Radical pedagogical methods were used exclusively. They had regular speeches and presentations to make. They had committee work. There were constant research assignments. Extreme experiments were conducted such as intense mathematics classes, three weeks straight, math only, in a darkened basement from fractions to logarithms. How much could they learn? How fast?

The kids were all 10 when the class began and approaching 13 when it was closed. Tim & Dorothy takes place in this time and in this class.

About the auhor

Richard Rathwell was born in Ottawa in 1947. He attended High School in Oakville, Ontario where he won awards for public speaking, where his usual theme was political and literary utopias. His teachers found him oppositional.

Rathwell attended Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia for his honours degree where he was twice arrested protesting the nature of the university.

Following Canada, Richard lived in Ireland and was part of the Blue Apple rural writing collective. He won national awards in Ireland for short story writing and poetry. He worked as a journalist for the Kilkenny Phoenix and as a castle warden. He soon left Ireland for Nigeria.

Rathwell has taught literature in schools in Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Lesotho as well as in Ireland. He was a tutor at Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria. He has won awards for children’s drama productions and writing in Nigeria and Zimbabwe. He was later invited to advise the World Bank. He has also worked as an expert adviser to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Rathwell’s career before he became a writer was, for an extended period of time, as a country director or executive for Aid organisations. This service took place initially in Nigeria, Lesotho and Egypt.There is a street in Gulu which may still bear his name, and a tree in India. During a period of absolute monarchy in Lesotho Rathwell was director of King Moshoeshoe II's social organisation.

Richard’s aid work is the basis of two of his novels. His experiences as an ‘exile’ serve as the basis of some of his other works. He presently resides in London, UK.