The Children's Commissioner - frankly a terrifying combination of words and what would it mean to a child? - for Scotland is a chap called Tam Baillie. He was chosen by children.
"Since the Commissioner works for young people, he was chosen by them through a series of interviews. The interviews included questions about what he was going to do to help. There is also a website set up that enables young people to contact SCCYP."
(From Wikipedia)
Good idea since he was going to represent their views. Let the children choose.
Who chose Maggie Atkinson, the Children's Commissioner for England?
The ever-lovable Ed Balls.
"England's Children's Commissioner says she has had official confirmation that her £135,000-plus-a-year post will survive the Government-commissioned review into its value for money.
Maggie Atkinson is "extremely optimistic" about the way the independent inquiry is being carried out and says the Prime Minister's office "has already confirmed" that her post will not be abolished."
This is from http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6050874
So Maggie Atkinson believes that her role will continue.
What does this mean?
Well, I analyse it this way. Either Maggie is a fantasist who thinks that telling people her job isn't going in the abolition of overt quangos is the route to securing her cushy number for a few more years.
If she is mentally disturbed I think she is not eligible for such a role.
If she is telling the truth; however, we have proof that this government is promising reviews, carrying them out and then doing what they wanted to do in the first place. Just like the last government.
In either case, it is bad news.
In the first instance, we have a possibly delusional woman confronting children.
In the second case, this government is behaving exactly like the last government with promises to engage people and listen to what they say but, in the end, lying.
Tech does a wonderful job revisiting the charming Maggie Atkinson here:
http://freedomineducationunderthreat.blogspot.com/2010/07/maggie-maggie-maggie-out-out-out.html
Can't we do better than these dreadful people?
Anyone could do better. Anyone with moral standards that is.
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Monday, 26 July 2010
Friday, 2 July 2010
Maiden voyage
Today is going to be a blog full of pain.
Today is a blog of screaming anguish.
Today is a blog of anger. Real gut-churning rage.
Today, H met an old friend from council days.
O is a man who has conducted himself always with dignity and extended friendship and kindness to everyone. He is a good man, an ordinary man.
He was made redundant today.
He wasn't given much for so many years of service. He wasn't given anything actually. He was told to leave after a meeting, all of his work is in places he knows, but nobody has asked him where his files are.
We know from this that his projects - seeming so important at the time - are to be abandoned. So he cannot even congratulate himself that he left with a loincloth of dignity, that he left with the thought that something he had given to others will help them. He cannot think that what he ever did there mattered to anyone.
His manager has gone too, having been promised a new job in the new stream-lined council - a more monied post - in the poor new council. The hit squad of bullies who were managers of people who had worked for that council are chortling today because they are accomplishing their most cherished dreams. They are getting rid of the folk who had grafted there for years. Getting rid of the 'old'. The 'old' who worked, who knew the value of a day's work for a day's wage, who cared about the people in the borough that they served.
No golden handshakes for O. No ugly clock to stand on his mantel. No fond farewells from colleagues. Nothing but emptiness for him. Shock in his kind eyes. Bewilderment. Hurt. A deep, deep pain that won't be soothed any time soon.
The ex-manager has been trying to rid the department of the 'underlings' and now he's done it. Thanks to the Coalition government.
Thanks to them, the bullies have got their way; they are happy tonight, secure in the knowledge that they have hurt a decent man, decent men and ordinary women. Families. Folk.
In the days of work, the manager-bully would never have a meeting with his underlings. He'd email them. Even though he sat five yards away. He'd use technology to distance himself from the people he was supposed to guide. Why was he a manager? Someone so useless at managing.
Why was he a manager?
Why has he been promised a job after the re-structuring?
Why are the senior staff with the big salaries staying? Why are they allowed to stay on? Haven't they done enough? Isn't it time to let them go with shock in their eyes? With no handshake, no provision for the future, no hope of another job when you're half way through your fifties because there are millions of young ones to do what needs doing and you're scrappage.
Is it all starting again? Those who are privileged ridding themselves of others who are not. Those who have much starting to kick to death - and they will cause death - those who have little.
Do we have to endure this kind of world?
Do we have to put up with it?
Do our children?
Today in Parliament, all those new people who were elected recently have been giving their maiden speeches. What they said is largely irrelevant. For what will they do to stem the pain? Will they speak for the ordinary people? The ones in shock from being scythed away from something they have known for so long, that gave them an importance of a small type? Will they change anything? In that most indifferent of chambers.
'"On reducing the deficit, Mr Dromey, a former deputy general secretary of the Unite Union, declared: "I will resist any notion of asking those who are least able to bear the burden to pay the price of the misdeeds of the bankers."
He also warned that cuts to university funding would deprive "young working-class kids" from his constituency "of the chance to become the first in their family to go to university". '
How strange it is that Harriet Harmon's husband has to be the one to say what we little people are thinking, to care what we ordinary folk are feeling, the dread we are experiencing, the bleak, black pain...
The quote is from http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/comment/newsid_8734000/8734105.stm
A website called democracy live. Ironic.
'I will resist any notion of asking those who are least able to bear the burden to pay the price of the misdeeds of the bankers.'
We have to band together - we have to commune - we have to protect not just our children, but each other - we have to stop punishing the innocents for the guilty - we have to open our sleeping eyes WIDE - we have to think of money as serving US not US serving money - we have to ask if men who are staggeringly rich SHOULD have the job of 'rescuing' this silly country - we have to think, and grow, and know, and change and wake up and never ever ever be fooled again.
Are we awake yet?
Today is a blog of screaming anguish.
Today is a blog of anger. Real gut-churning rage.
Today, H met an old friend from council days.
O is a man who has conducted himself always with dignity and extended friendship and kindness to everyone. He is a good man, an ordinary man.
He was made redundant today.
He wasn't given much for so many years of service. He wasn't given anything actually. He was told to leave after a meeting, all of his work is in places he knows, but nobody has asked him where his files are.
We know from this that his projects - seeming so important at the time - are to be abandoned. So he cannot even congratulate himself that he left with a loincloth of dignity, that he left with the thought that something he had given to others will help them. He cannot think that what he ever did there mattered to anyone.
His manager has gone too, having been promised a new job in the new stream-lined council - a more monied post - in the poor new council. The hit squad of bullies who were managers of people who had worked for that council are chortling today because they are accomplishing their most cherished dreams. They are getting rid of the folk who had grafted there for years. Getting rid of the 'old'. The 'old' who worked, who knew the value of a day's work for a day's wage, who cared about the people in the borough that they served.
No golden handshakes for O. No ugly clock to stand on his mantel. No fond farewells from colleagues. Nothing but emptiness for him. Shock in his kind eyes. Bewilderment. Hurt. A deep, deep pain that won't be soothed any time soon.
The ex-manager has been trying to rid the department of the 'underlings' and now he's done it. Thanks to the Coalition government.
Thanks to them, the bullies have got their way; they are happy tonight, secure in the knowledge that they have hurt a decent man, decent men and ordinary women. Families. Folk.
In the days of work, the manager-bully would never have a meeting with his underlings. He'd email them. Even though he sat five yards away. He'd use technology to distance himself from the people he was supposed to guide. Why was he a manager? Someone so useless at managing.
Why was he a manager?
Why has he been promised a job after the re-structuring?
Why are the senior staff with the big salaries staying? Why are they allowed to stay on? Haven't they done enough? Isn't it time to let them go with shock in their eyes? With no handshake, no provision for the future, no hope of another job when you're half way through your fifties because there are millions of young ones to do what needs doing and you're scrappage.
Is it all starting again? Those who are privileged ridding themselves of others who are not. Those who have much starting to kick to death - and they will cause death - those who have little.
Do we have to endure this kind of world?
Do we have to put up with it?
Do our children?
Today in Parliament, all those new people who were elected recently have been giving their maiden speeches. What they said is largely irrelevant. For what will they do to stem the pain? Will they speak for the ordinary people? The ones in shock from being scythed away from something they have known for so long, that gave them an importance of a small type? Will they change anything? In that most indifferent of chambers.
'"On reducing the deficit, Mr Dromey, a former deputy general secretary of the Unite Union, declared: "I will resist any notion of asking those who are least able to bear the burden to pay the price of the misdeeds of the bankers."
He also warned that cuts to university funding would deprive "young working-class kids" from his constituency "of the chance to become the first in their family to go to university". '
How strange it is that Harriet Harmon's husband has to be the one to say what we little people are thinking, to care what we ordinary folk are feeling, the dread we are experiencing, the bleak, black pain...
The quote is from http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/comment/newsid_8734000/8734105.stm
A website called democracy live. Ironic.
'I will resist any notion of asking those who are least able to bear the burden to pay the price of the misdeeds of the bankers.'
We have to band together - we have to commune - we have to protect not just our children, but each other - we have to stop punishing the innocents for the guilty - we have to open our sleeping eyes WIDE - we have to think of money as serving US not US serving money - we have to ask if men who are staggeringly rich SHOULD have the job of 'rescuing' this silly country - we have to think, and grow, and know, and change and wake up and never ever ever be fooled again.
Are we awake yet?
Thursday, 11 June 2009
We have to protect your little ones - from you!
I'd like to ask the government: "Why didn't you just stop me having a baby?
You don't trust the way I educate. You don't trust the way I feed my family. You don't trust me not to hurt my babies. You don't trust me to look after my children. Younglings I cradled in my womb, that I protected from soft cheese and nasty chemicals, that I kept calm for, that I sang to, that my hands washed tiny little clothes for. Children I would gladly give my life for. That I would bleed my veins dry for. For whom I would tear my heart out to make their time on this earth worthwhile to them.
Well, let me tell you, and it may come as a shock, LAs and government, nobody trusts you. Nobody believes your vile calumnies. No one swallows the bile you vomit. NO ONE. Not one.
The putative author of the scurrilous review on Home Education called (fittingly) Badman is a liar. There are no abusing home educators. There are immense home educators who stand by themselves against your outrages, against your perfect educational system that makes children cry and makes them bleed and kills their spirit and sometimes - so sadly - their bodies. The powers that be can produce no proof of home educators' abuses. They can spew out only endless unholy spin and venomous lies, and the great British public is hep to it all. The great British public know. They are aware. They know that the vile creatures in Parliament have an agenda. To be the Pied Piper. To disappear our hearts' darlings, to lure away our babies. They have a sinful agenda. A miserable set of evil men who know nothing of all-giving love and spume hatred in every thought they think and every sentence they utter. They claim we are abusers. We, who would sacrifice every atom of our parent bodies to protect and cherish our children, are accused.
Even if there were abusing home educators, that's not enough to put other home educators in prison, you know.
There was a murderer called Peter Sutcliffe. All men called Sutcliffe haven't gone to goal to rot.
The great British public know you, you vile creatures. They see your tricks. They see through your transparent attempts to shift the blame from social workers who stood by while children were tortured to death, who ignored their screams for help, who turned their backs on children who held out their bloodied hands to have you pull them free. You can shift the blame, but the blame will wing straight back to you like a vulture to circle you again. To pinpoint the blame, to apportion the guilt. The guilt YOU bear.
In the second world war, Britain stood alone against tyranny and oppression. She stood alone against the full fury of a demented Third Reich. She stood alone, undefiled, brave, and never ever defeated. Now, to her infinite shame, Britain IS tyranny itself. Britain stands mired in her filth, bowed down with treachery from within. Truth is readily smeared with lies when lies will blind the thoughtless and bind them to the will of the barbarians in Parliament and their dancing bears like Badman. Blameless, peaceable people whose children have often already suffered from the relentless torture of bullying are now to be bullied in their own homes. Are now to be sought out and questioned like criminals. Like very felons. Those innocents - when can they rest from this? When can they cease striving and crying, and know that they are safe from the heedless evil of an uncaring system? The Pied Piper who knows nothing of love but all of control.
Did you die for this, men in the French churned-up poppy fields during WWII? Did you drown for this you sailors mired in the muck at the bottom of the seven seas? You brave airmen who disintegrated into atoms after the furies struck your planes, did you die for this? Mothers and babies blown up by enemy bombs in their own little homes? Did you die for this savage betrayal of freedom? Did you perish giving birth to this unbearable mockery? This travesty called 'liberty'?
Did you die to salvage freedom for your heirs?
Did you die in vain?
Did you?
You don't trust the way I educate. You don't trust the way I feed my family. You don't trust me not to hurt my babies. You don't trust me to look after my children. Younglings I cradled in my womb, that I protected from soft cheese and nasty chemicals, that I kept calm for, that I sang to, that my hands washed tiny little clothes for. Children I would gladly give my life for. That I would bleed my veins dry for. For whom I would tear my heart out to make their time on this earth worthwhile to them.
Well, let me tell you, and it may come as a shock, LAs and government, nobody trusts you. Nobody believes your vile calumnies. No one swallows the bile you vomit. NO ONE. Not one.
The putative author of the scurrilous review on Home Education called (fittingly) Badman is a liar. There are no abusing home educators. There are immense home educators who stand by themselves against your outrages, against your perfect educational system that makes children cry and makes them bleed and kills their spirit and sometimes - so sadly - their bodies. The powers that be can produce no proof of home educators' abuses. They can spew out only endless unholy spin and venomous lies, and the great British public is hep to it all. The great British public know. They are aware. They know that the vile creatures in Parliament have an agenda. To be the Pied Piper. To disappear our hearts' darlings, to lure away our babies. They have a sinful agenda. A miserable set of evil men who know nothing of all-giving love and spume hatred in every thought they think and every sentence they utter. They claim we are abusers. We, who would sacrifice every atom of our parent bodies to protect and cherish our children, are accused.
Even if there were abusing home educators, that's not enough to put other home educators in prison, you know.
There was a murderer called Peter Sutcliffe. All men called Sutcliffe haven't gone to goal to rot.
The great British public know you, you vile creatures. They see your tricks. They see through your transparent attempts to shift the blame from social workers who stood by while children were tortured to death, who ignored their screams for help, who turned their backs on children who held out their bloodied hands to have you pull them free. You can shift the blame, but the blame will wing straight back to you like a vulture to circle you again. To pinpoint the blame, to apportion the guilt. The guilt YOU bear.
In the second world war, Britain stood alone against tyranny and oppression. She stood alone against the full fury of a demented Third Reich. She stood alone, undefiled, brave, and never ever defeated. Now, to her infinite shame, Britain IS tyranny itself. Britain stands mired in her filth, bowed down with treachery from within. Truth is readily smeared with lies when lies will blind the thoughtless and bind them to the will of the barbarians in Parliament and their dancing bears like Badman. Blameless, peaceable people whose children have often already suffered from the relentless torture of bullying are now to be bullied in their own homes. Are now to be sought out and questioned like criminals. Like very felons. Those innocents - when can they rest from this? When can they cease striving and crying, and know that they are safe from the heedless evil of an uncaring system? The Pied Piper who knows nothing of love but all of control.
Did you die for this, men in the French churned-up poppy fields during WWII? Did you drown for this you sailors mired in the muck at the bottom of the seven seas? You brave airmen who disintegrated into atoms after the furies struck your planes, did you die for this? Mothers and babies blown up by enemy bombs in their own little homes? Did you die for this savage betrayal of freedom? Did you perish giving birth to this unbearable mockery? This travesty called 'liberty'?
Did you die to salvage freedom for your heirs?
Did you die in vain?
Did you?
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Problematising teenagers
Teenagers are a problem. We read it a lot in the newspapers so it must be right. However, I've never found it so myself and my own two teenagers are wonderful, delightful, morally sound, interesting, pleasant people to know. In fact, I'm privileged to be their mother. I'm thrilled by them, and enjoy learning from them and seeing them change and become more of what they will be and more of what they wish to be.
I bet your teenagers are lovely too.
My nearly seventeen year old, E, says: "There's no place for teenagers in society. I don't want to be treated as a kid because I am not a kid. I don't want to be treated as an adult because I'm not one."
She goes on: "You can't just ignore one perfectly reasonable, perfectly capable group in society. I'm not against old people, but we deserve to have good treatment as well because we're the future. "
E states: "It seems we're just a problem the government is trying to shove under the carpet. No wonder a lot of teens are screwed up; they know they get no respect so they try to find it in other ways, for example, in gangs. But we're not all hoodies taking drugs and grunting all the time. Part of the problem is that society doesn't view teenagers as proper people."
"The poor things are already messed up with the hormonal side of it, why does society have to screw them up too?"
She reflects for a minute then comments: "I can totally sympathise with people who don't like teens. A lot of my peers I wouldn't want to deal with, but it's half that they're a product of schools and a society that doesn't value them."
"Treating teenagers like they're not proper people doesn't help. Making them a problem doesn't help. Making them less than other people doesn't help. Everyone takes notice of little kids - they're so small, and they don't resist what bigger people do to them. They don't resist control. But society doesn't have as much control over teens. Teachers struggle to take control of their classes. You know, teenagers should be a special apprentice group. We're gonna inherit the world. Give us more respect, we're the ones who are going to be pushing you around in wheelchairs."
"The government just love doing things that they want to. Things that they don't want they ignore even if it's right in their faces. They love avoiding giving answers to questions. The dreadful things happening in schools they ignore, but home educators, who aren't trouble at all, they consult about and review to death. The government are in a room full of big elephants but they pick at the fluff on the carpet."
I bet your teenagers are lovely too.
My nearly seventeen year old, E, says: "There's no place for teenagers in society. I don't want to be treated as a kid because I am not a kid. I don't want to be treated as an adult because I'm not one."
She goes on: "You can't just ignore one perfectly reasonable, perfectly capable group in society. I'm not against old people, but we deserve to have good treatment as well because we're the future. "
E states: "It seems we're just a problem the government is trying to shove under the carpet. No wonder a lot of teens are screwed up; they know they get no respect so they try to find it in other ways, for example, in gangs. But we're not all hoodies taking drugs and grunting all the time. Part of the problem is that society doesn't view teenagers as proper people."
"The poor things are already messed up with the hormonal side of it, why does society have to screw them up too?"
She reflects for a minute then comments: "I can totally sympathise with people who don't like teens. A lot of my peers I wouldn't want to deal with, but it's half that they're a product of schools and a society that doesn't value them."
"Treating teenagers like they're not proper people doesn't help. Making them a problem doesn't help. Making them less than other people doesn't help. Everyone takes notice of little kids - they're so small, and they don't resist what bigger people do to them. They don't resist control. But society doesn't have as much control over teens. Teachers struggle to take control of their classes. You know, teenagers should be a special apprentice group. We're gonna inherit the world. Give us more respect, we're the ones who are going to be pushing you around in wheelchairs."
"The government just love doing things that they want to. Things that they don't want they ignore even if it's right in their faces. They love avoiding giving answers to questions. The dreadful things happening in schools they ignore, but home educators, who aren't trouble at all, they consult about and review to death. The government are in a room full of big elephants but they pick at the fluff on the carpet."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
