As consumers of education, our children aren't very well served, are they?
Yes, we see that children are beaten up at school, and the assault is shown on mobile phones with a jeering crowd encouraging the attacker.
We see that education is a spent powerless little serpent with decayed teeth still trying to 'inject' knowledge into our young. A useless hopeless and victim filled vacuum that sucks in a load of skittish rot about qualifications and GCSEs and support and robustness. Buzz words to fill your head with fog. Fog to blind you to the truth. That as consumers of education our children are not served well by purveyors of the almighty boring National Cur-sickulum. That home educated children having often been outraged by the dreadful blight that is state schooling are visited again by the purveyors of the state system and assessed and monitored and planned to death. No way, Jose.
I say that it will be the way it was. My way. Or the highway. And you'll be doing the highland fling down the highway soon, Mr. and Mrs. LA.
Oh, and when you're on the dole, old soul, don't forget the hours you spent harassing, vilifying and bleeding away the time of the home educators who have put in the equivalent of Mount Olympus of their lives beating back your power-hungry-grabbing-muck-sucking-stupidity. Who have sunk all the richness of their massive, gigantic hearts nursing the last blue gasps of the last remaining true education in this country? Home educators - that's who. Hours and days and weeks of deep feeling, wise words, patient argument, logical inductions...
Listen to me, LAs. At THIS MINUTE, you have the power to intervene if children are abused. ANY children. ANY CHILD. You have it. You really have. Go read the laws. Go get someone to explain them if you don't understand. Ask home educators. Any child. Of any age, colour, creed, educational status, or moon sign. You have the power to intervene if, in your honest opinion, an education is not being provided by people who have decided to exercise their legal right to extend an education to their children in the home-based manner. You may be wrong about your assessment. But then we'll find that out in court.
Dear God, educate yourselves. EDUCATE YOURSELVES about your powers.
SO, because of the whining of brain-dead officials who haven't got an ounce of sense, the government dictates that home educators have to be monitored to do what we know is best for our children by an all-benign, all-loving Big brother government. Our fearless Balls going before us, banner in hand, shouting "I want equality for every child who matters. I want all children to be as dumb as each other. As bullied as each other. As degraded as each other. As coerced into holding their bladders and ignoring the signals from their rectums as each other. I want no parent unpunished. I want no poverty-stricken person who has problems not of their own making or of their own making having the audacity to raise children".
"We can raise your children much better than you can. We'll tell them what we want them to... er, what they should know. What's best for them to know. We have their best interests at heart. Every Child Matters".
And so the angel of death of the Labour Party goes rattling on his way. He'll be kissing the corpse of Britain for his bid at the top job when the Election frenzy grips.
Every Child Matters, oh, dear, yes. If it were true, then we wouldn't have to say it, would we? I mean, you don't go around reassuring other societal members that Every Breath Keeps You Alive. IT JUST DOES.
If you need to say something over and over ad nauseum, maybe there's something wrong with the something you are saying.
Every cog in the machine matters. Every kid has the right to have an opinion as long as it's the right opinion. Every child should be consulted, then ignored. Say anything, mean nothing and be as mean as you can to people you don't understand because your greed would never, ever let you put your children first.
Every Child matters. Well, my children's freedom matters to me. My grandchildren's right to have the choice of a decent proper home education matters to me. And they aren't even born yet.
It matters. It MATTERS. IT MATTERS.
Friday, 9 October 2009
Sunday, 4 October 2009
The DCSF's Diversity Delivery Plan
The DCSF, headed by Secretary of State from 29th June 2007 (that blessed day), and for which he received a salary of £79,150 (2008-2009) has objectives.
These are:
1. Secure the well-being and health of children and young people.
Short of being the sort of saint who can cure those unfortunate souls who are born with various problems or the other sort of saint who can transport him or herself into a building at double quick notice, I fail to understand how the department can secure the health of our youngsters. Interesting thought. If your child happens to fall ill during the course of a day, does the DCSF miss its objective and get punished?
It would be delightful to think that one department could miraculous be the arbiter of well-being (and what is that exactly? Is there a definition?) and health. I would guarantee them veneration and rather large gifts from every segment of the population.
So, objective 1. Untenable and unreachable.
2. Safeguard the young and vulnerable.
I have two young people in my house, and I would love to stop them getting broken hearts and making mistakes that end up in tears, but then I would have to stop them from living and that wouldn't do for the fifth objective. No one, but no one (to use a Canadian expression) can guarantee that another person never encounters something that you would far rather they never encounter. Occasionally, your soul has to drag itself through a mini-hell to emerge a better soul after the bad times. It's just the way the cookie crumbles.
2. Impossible. Into each life a little rain falls.
3. Achieve world-class standards in education.
Erm. "47.6 per cent of teenagers scored five crucial A*-C grades including in maths and English. One in seven pupils failed to achieve a single C grade in any GCSE subject". (ThisisLondon article)
To throw a little positive light on that I will say that I don't think that not being able to pass a GCSE is evidence of a lack of education. It may mean that the GCSE subject didn't appeal to you; it could mean that you panic at the sight of an exam paper or that you were too stressed to recall anything.
What are world-class standards anyway? In comparison with some countries who don't bother with education as we see it, we must be superlative. In comparison... but there's that word. How can you compare one person's performance with another person. It just don't cut it. You can only compare what you were with what you are now or become later. As I get older I find the idea of statistical comparisons of people rather odd really. The only one I can improve on is me.
Could it be that the DCSF means it desires to have its own employees achieve world-class standards in education? What is education anyway?
And THAT is a whole stratosphere-high can of worms.
4. Close the gap in educational achievement for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
On the face of it, that seems a reasonable and kindly thing to want. When you start to think about it, however, what gap do they mean? Is there a gap? I'm not convinced - I'd have to see lots and lots of studies about gaps. Then, I would have to have lots and lots of people I trusted to care about the statistical analysis and be honest during the analysis of the studies. You'd have to scrutinise the premises, the way the questions were asked... etc. etc.
Again, there's the educational achievement and, again, what do you mean by educational achievement? If you mean school, it's a major victory for some kids to attend for a week and others to stay awake during class. How do you measure educational achievement? What does it mean to the person who is 'achieving'? Perhaps their interests lie in other directions. I knew one girl in my street when I was a kid who was determined to become a ballerina with a major dance company. Her every waking moment was spent on dancing, preparing to dance, cooling down from dancing, watching other people dance, practicing the dance moves in her head and talking about dance. I took ballet too, but failed to be impressed with the thousands of hours I needed to devote to it to develop the expertise so I didn't. I was vociferous about it. I spent many playtimes informing my friends about how little ballet engaged me as a hobby. And still I got books on ballet from my best friend for my birthday!
My friend grew too tall for the ballet but became a dancer. But she was never an academic type of lass. It didn't interest her. It wasn't her thing.
Disadvantaged backgrounds. What constitutes a disadvantaged background? Now the Universities are accepting foreign students and cutting down on British students so that people who haven't truck-loads of money cannot travel to the University of their choice perhaps?
Disadvantages come in many shapes and sizes.
It's my belief that people will do what they want to do. If they want to do it enough. That is the way we are made.
'Disadvantaged backgrounds' sounds to me like a little bit of prejudice talking. Does it to you? The you and we thing again. We're OK. Our parents have silos full of money and we went to Eton, Harrow, Roedean... wherever. Anyone who doesn't come from our background is disadvantaged, what.
We all disadvantaged in that case, bud.
5. Ensure young people are participating and achieving their potential to 18 and beyond.
How can you ensure another person is doing anything? Ever? Ensure young people are participating...? In what? Eating ham sandwiches? Volunteering with Victim Support? Street gangs? Mowing their neighbours' lawns? Enjoying reruns of the X-Factor?
What?
Ensure young people are achieving their potential. In schools? How can you ensure they're even listening to what you're teaching in a lesson? What is a person's potential? Who has achieved his potential? Gandhi? He was reviled by many as a troublemaker. John F. Kennedy? He was a US President who was shot. Maybe that's a sign he wasn't too popular with someone (or a group of people) and therefore maybe he didn't reach his potential.
What is potential? If you don't define it, you cannot measure it which then makes a mockery of your performance managing targets and turns it all into 'wedding speeches'. (Thanks for the analogy to my husband's friend) Pretty words, but do they get put into action? Most brides and grooms would be doubtful about that.
And isn't a human being's potential his OWN BUSINESS? In my opinion, I would say that I have yet to reach my potential. I only know this because I realise that I am capable of doing more in certain areas than I do. In one area, though, I know I have reached all I am gonna reach. I will never be a better ice-skater than I am now (I can stand upright and skate a bit, but not much)because my right ankle turns over if I walk down a street sometimes. It goes over, off the edge of a flagstone. The joint hurts, and it goes on hurting for a few weeks. I know I couldn't progress as an ice dancer however much I avidly watch programmes about skating and remember most of the performances of the greats I saw on t.v.
Young people achieving their potential to 18 and beyond. You're an adult at 18. What you do after that, other than the outrages a small minority of individuals commit against other individuals, is up to you. Your potential and whether or not you choose to achieve it is entirely a private matter, Jim.
The state has no place dictating our dreams; it has no place telling us what we should be doing except in limited circumstances. It is not our master. We, each of us, are our own masters.
We are the arbiters of our fate.
We are the captains of our ship.
6. Keep children and young people on the path to success.
Again, WHAT? What does this mean? What is success? I live frugally (which I like to do to spare the earth the depradations I might otherwise make on it). Very people know my name (still waiting for fate to knock on my door). I don't steal, tell lies (well, the spare 'Your hat looks lovely, Mother' type now and then), cheat, borrow other people's ideas, claim insurance falsely, lie about my age, throw tomatoes at politicians (sometimes I'm tempted) or abuse anyone's trust in me (at least, I try). I live the best life I can live. I'm quite successful at it. Do you think that will count? I haven't got a line of sports clothes, a set of perfumiers pouring out stinky stuff with my name branded across the bottles or a handy-dandy aeroplane in which I whirl over from my chateau outside Paris to visit Crown Prince Humhah from the Creightonn Republic. So am I a success? Probably not.
Do your children want to be successful? Do they want to go to the shops in a wig and hat and large shades, looking a bit of a prat in order to get some privacy? Do they wish to wake up every morning terrified that the stock market has dropped and pig's trotters have plateaued?
Any and all of that stuff would kill part of my spirit, I'm sure. That doesn't count as 'success' to me.
You might be different. That might spell 'success' to you.
And that would be your choice. Not some demand of the DCSF.
7. Lead and manage the system.
Here we come to the nit of the grit. The nub of the hub. The nose on the face. The plug of the bath. The claw of the cat. The closing sentence of the paragraph.
To have a system, you must have managers and leaders. Who would tell us what a towering mess we're making of our lives if the DCSF wasn't there? All these managers and leaders receiving their stipend for managing and leading a totally unnecessary system.
Who would encourage our success and cheer lead us to our potential, if the DCSF disappears?
Well, we would.
And we'd do it for nothing.
There, now, Mr. Brown. That's saved you some money.
These are:
1. Secure the well-being and health of children and young people.
Short of being the sort of saint who can cure those unfortunate souls who are born with various problems or the other sort of saint who can transport him or herself into a building at double quick notice, I fail to understand how the department can secure the health of our youngsters. Interesting thought. If your child happens to fall ill during the course of a day, does the DCSF miss its objective and get punished?
It would be delightful to think that one department could miraculous be the arbiter of well-being (and what is that exactly? Is there a definition?) and health. I would guarantee them veneration and rather large gifts from every segment of the population.
So, objective 1. Untenable and unreachable.
2. Safeguard the young and vulnerable.
I have two young people in my house, and I would love to stop them getting broken hearts and making mistakes that end up in tears, but then I would have to stop them from living and that wouldn't do for the fifth objective. No one, but no one (to use a Canadian expression) can guarantee that another person never encounters something that you would far rather they never encounter. Occasionally, your soul has to drag itself through a mini-hell to emerge a better soul after the bad times. It's just the way the cookie crumbles.
2. Impossible. Into each life a little rain falls.
3. Achieve world-class standards in education.
Erm. "47.6 per cent of teenagers scored five crucial A*-C grades including in maths and English. One in seven pupils failed to achieve a single C grade in any GCSE subject". (ThisisLondon article)
To throw a little positive light on that I will say that I don't think that not being able to pass a GCSE is evidence of a lack of education. It may mean that the GCSE subject didn't appeal to you; it could mean that you panic at the sight of an exam paper or that you were too stressed to recall anything.
What are world-class standards anyway? In comparison with some countries who don't bother with education as we see it, we must be superlative. In comparison... but there's that word. How can you compare one person's performance with another person. It just don't cut it. You can only compare what you were with what you are now or become later. As I get older I find the idea of statistical comparisons of people rather odd really. The only one I can improve on is me.
Could it be that the DCSF means it desires to have its own employees achieve world-class standards in education? What is education anyway?
And THAT is a whole stratosphere-high can of worms.
4. Close the gap in educational achievement for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
On the face of it, that seems a reasonable and kindly thing to want. When you start to think about it, however, what gap do they mean? Is there a gap? I'm not convinced - I'd have to see lots and lots of studies about gaps. Then, I would have to have lots and lots of people I trusted to care about the statistical analysis and be honest during the analysis of the studies. You'd have to scrutinise the premises, the way the questions were asked... etc. etc.
Again, there's the educational achievement and, again, what do you mean by educational achievement? If you mean school, it's a major victory for some kids to attend for a week and others to stay awake during class. How do you measure educational achievement? What does it mean to the person who is 'achieving'? Perhaps their interests lie in other directions. I knew one girl in my street when I was a kid who was determined to become a ballerina with a major dance company. Her every waking moment was spent on dancing, preparing to dance, cooling down from dancing, watching other people dance, practicing the dance moves in her head and talking about dance. I took ballet too, but failed to be impressed with the thousands of hours I needed to devote to it to develop the expertise so I didn't. I was vociferous about it. I spent many playtimes informing my friends about how little ballet engaged me as a hobby. And still I got books on ballet from my best friend for my birthday!
My friend grew too tall for the ballet but became a dancer. But she was never an academic type of lass. It didn't interest her. It wasn't her thing.
Disadvantaged backgrounds. What constitutes a disadvantaged background? Now the Universities are accepting foreign students and cutting down on British students so that people who haven't truck-loads of money cannot travel to the University of their choice perhaps?
Disadvantages come in many shapes and sizes.
It's my belief that people will do what they want to do. If they want to do it enough. That is the way we are made.
'Disadvantaged backgrounds' sounds to me like a little bit of prejudice talking. Does it to you? The you and we thing again. We're OK. Our parents have silos full of money and we went to Eton, Harrow, Roedean... wherever. Anyone who doesn't come from our background is disadvantaged, what.
We all disadvantaged in that case, bud.
5. Ensure young people are participating and achieving their potential to 18 and beyond.
How can you ensure another person is doing anything? Ever? Ensure young people are participating...? In what? Eating ham sandwiches? Volunteering with Victim Support? Street gangs? Mowing their neighbours' lawns? Enjoying reruns of the X-Factor?
What?
Ensure young people are achieving their potential. In schools? How can you ensure they're even listening to what you're teaching in a lesson? What is a person's potential? Who has achieved his potential? Gandhi? He was reviled by many as a troublemaker. John F. Kennedy? He was a US President who was shot. Maybe that's a sign he wasn't too popular with someone (or a group of people) and therefore maybe he didn't reach his potential.
What is potential? If you don't define it, you cannot measure it which then makes a mockery of your performance managing targets and turns it all into 'wedding speeches'. (Thanks for the analogy to my husband's friend) Pretty words, but do they get put into action? Most brides and grooms would be doubtful about that.
And isn't a human being's potential his OWN BUSINESS? In my opinion, I would say that I have yet to reach my potential. I only know this because I realise that I am capable of doing more in certain areas than I do. In one area, though, I know I have reached all I am gonna reach. I will never be a better ice-skater than I am now (I can stand upright and skate a bit, but not much)because my right ankle turns over if I walk down a street sometimes. It goes over, off the edge of a flagstone. The joint hurts, and it goes on hurting for a few weeks. I know I couldn't progress as an ice dancer however much I avidly watch programmes about skating and remember most of the performances of the greats I saw on t.v.
Young people achieving their potential to 18 and beyond. You're an adult at 18. What you do after that, other than the outrages a small minority of individuals commit against other individuals, is up to you. Your potential and whether or not you choose to achieve it is entirely a private matter, Jim.
The state has no place dictating our dreams; it has no place telling us what we should be doing except in limited circumstances. It is not our master. We, each of us, are our own masters.
We are the arbiters of our fate.
We are the captains of our ship.
6. Keep children and young people on the path to success.
Again, WHAT? What does this mean? What is success? I live frugally (which I like to do to spare the earth the depradations I might otherwise make on it). Very people know my name (still waiting for fate to knock on my door). I don't steal, tell lies (well, the spare 'Your hat looks lovely, Mother' type now and then), cheat, borrow other people's ideas, claim insurance falsely, lie about my age, throw tomatoes at politicians (sometimes I'm tempted) or abuse anyone's trust in me (at least, I try). I live the best life I can live. I'm quite successful at it. Do you think that will count? I haven't got a line of sports clothes, a set of perfumiers pouring out stinky stuff with my name branded across the bottles or a handy-dandy aeroplane in which I whirl over from my chateau outside Paris to visit Crown Prince Humhah from the Creightonn Republic. So am I a success? Probably not.
Do your children want to be successful? Do they want to go to the shops in a wig and hat and large shades, looking a bit of a prat in order to get some privacy? Do they wish to wake up every morning terrified that the stock market has dropped and pig's trotters have plateaued?
Any and all of that stuff would kill part of my spirit, I'm sure. That doesn't count as 'success' to me.
You might be different. That might spell 'success' to you.
And that would be your choice. Not some demand of the DCSF.
7. Lead and manage the system.
Here we come to the nit of the grit. The nub of the hub. The nose on the face. The plug of the bath. The claw of the cat. The closing sentence of the paragraph.
To have a system, you must have managers and leaders. Who would tell us what a towering mess we're making of our lives if the DCSF wasn't there? All these managers and leaders receiving their stipend for managing and leading a totally unnecessary system.
Who would encourage our success and cheer lead us to our potential, if the DCSF disappears?
Well, we would.
And we'd do it for nothing.
There, now, Mr. Brown. That's saved you some money.
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Some mothers...
An excerpt from a newspaper article:
"...I'd agreed to do a (radio) interview from home. (My husband) was away, and it was just me and my eldest, who was two. I'd asked a friend to stay over to look after her while I was on air, but (I'd) had got the time of the interview slightly wrong, and I was still getting up when I heard the package before me begin. So I was frantically looking for the number of the studio, and I got through just in time. Then I heard a thump. It was my daughter, who had fallen out of bed, and was coming howling down the corridor. I had to leap up and slam the door in her face (yes, this would be my reaction too, NOT), and then put the duvet over my head so the listeners couldn't hear her (they might have called the police). I couldn't even say, this has happened, could you call me back, because I was coming off the back of a feature about children's hospices, and I would have sounded flippant (once again, that really matters compared with a child in pain). But I couldn't actually take in any of (the radio presenter's) questions. I knew she wasn't hurt (how did you know? You didn't even check to see if she was all right), but I just felt a terrible sense of guilt, about doing everything badly (You felt a sense of guilt about what? Not being perfect? You don't feel a sense of guilt about neglecting your toddler's needs?)"
What would you think about this parent?
a) She has her ideas right. The child comes second to a radio interview.
b) She should have postponed the interview because her child matters more than some stupid show.
c) I'd prosecute her for child neglect and take her kid away.
Questions I might ask myself on reading the piece in the newspaper:
Which priorities does she have?
Was her child neglected in this situation?
If the child's needs were neglected, wouldn't that be a sign that she 'could' be an unfit mother?
Would I think of calling Social Services to her family because of the child's accident?
Would I call someone in because I think children need comforting when they fall and a mother who doesn't provide that care has something missing in her?
If someone told you that the mother was Yvette Cooper, wife of the DCSF supremo Ed Balls, and a politician herself would that excuse this mother of neglecting her child (if you believe her child was neglected on this occasion)?
What does Danae think of a mother like this?
Not much.
Personally, I'd bury that incident under several tonnes of concrete and never mention it again, even to my spiritual confessor. Then I'd swear to put my child's health and welfare first forever after.
Oh, and, by the way, Yvette – it's not an amusing incident that we can all laugh at. It doesn't show you in a clever, cutsey role. Not funny, not clever. At all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/apr/07/gender.women
(Thanks to Dare to Know - Carlotta - for linking to this newspaper article from her blog)
"...I'd agreed to do a (radio) interview from home. (My husband) was away, and it was just me and my eldest, who was two. I'd asked a friend to stay over to look after her while I was on air, but (I'd) had got the time of the interview slightly wrong, and I was still getting up when I heard the package before me begin. So I was frantically looking for the number of the studio, and I got through just in time. Then I heard a thump. It was my daughter, who had fallen out of bed, and was coming howling down the corridor. I had to leap up and slam the door in her face (yes, this would be my reaction too, NOT), and then put the duvet over my head so the listeners couldn't hear her (they might have called the police). I couldn't even say, this has happened, could you call me back, because I was coming off the back of a feature about children's hospices, and I would have sounded flippant (once again, that really matters compared with a child in pain). But I couldn't actually take in any of (the radio presenter's) questions. I knew she wasn't hurt (how did you know? You didn't even check to see if she was all right), but I just felt a terrible sense of guilt, about doing everything badly (You felt a sense of guilt about what? Not being perfect? You don't feel a sense of guilt about neglecting your toddler's needs?)"
What would you think about this parent?
a) She has her ideas right. The child comes second to a radio interview.
b) She should have postponed the interview because her child matters more than some stupid show.
c) I'd prosecute her for child neglect and take her kid away.
Questions I might ask myself on reading the piece in the newspaper:
Which priorities does she have?
Was her child neglected in this situation?
If the child's needs were neglected, wouldn't that be a sign that she 'could' be an unfit mother?
Would I think of calling Social Services to her family because of the child's accident?
Would I call someone in because I think children need comforting when they fall and a mother who doesn't provide that care has something missing in her?
If someone told you that the mother was Yvette Cooper, wife of the DCSF supremo Ed Balls, and a politician herself would that excuse this mother of neglecting her child (if you believe her child was neglected on this occasion)?
What does Danae think of a mother like this?
Not much.
Personally, I'd bury that incident under several tonnes of concrete and never mention it again, even to my spiritual confessor. Then I'd swear to put my child's health and welfare first forever after.
Oh, and, by the way, Yvette – it's not an amusing incident that we can all laugh at. It doesn't show you in a clever, cutsey role. Not funny, not clever. At all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/apr/07/gender.women
(Thanks to Dare to Know - Carlotta - for linking to this newspaper article from her blog)
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
The force of a dragon - a few words of encouragement
'Seven times down, eight times up'.
'In order to be walked on you have to be lying down'.
'Arouse a bee and it will come at you with the force of a dragon'.
'But the bigger they are, the harder your enemy will fall'.
'The mind, once freed, is more powerful than you can ever imagine'.
A few words from Young Samurai: The Way of the Warrior by Chris Bradford.
We can learn a lot from the East. We can learn to master ourselves, and then master our enemies. We can aim to trust in the power of our minds. We can adopt a practice, and practice and practice again over and over until something becomes part of us.
We can rise above anything with the power within us.
Anything is possible if we truly believe it.
We have all power within us, if we seek it ourselves and take control over it to direct it as we will.
From the film, Mortal Kombat:
"A handful of people on a leaky boat are gonna to save the world?" says Sonya Blade.
"Exactly", replies Lord Raiden.
The world is worth saving.
Our children's future is worth investing our time, effort and values in. Our young people deserve to have us by their sides fighting those enemies who would destroy their future, bind them up with words and take away their right to choose their own way.
It is not so much to ask - to be free.
But it is everything to have - freedom.
'In order to be walked on you have to be lying down'.
'Arouse a bee and it will come at you with the force of a dragon'.
'But the bigger they are, the harder your enemy will fall'.
'The mind, once freed, is more powerful than you can ever imagine'.
A few words from Young Samurai: The Way of the Warrior by Chris Bradford.
We can learn a lot from the East. We can learn to master ourselves, and then master our enemies. We can aim to trust in the power of our minds. We can adopt a practice, and practice and practice again over and over until something becomes part of us.
We can rise above anything with the power within us.
Anything is possible if we truly believe it.
We have all power within us, if we seek it ourselves and take control over it to direct it as we will.
From the film, Mortal Kombat:
"A handful of people on a leaky boat are gonna to save the world?" says Sonya Blade.
"Exactly", replies Lord Raiden.
The world is worth saving.
Our children's future is worth investing our time, effort and values in. Our young people deserve to have us by their sides fighting those enemies who would destroy their future, bind them up with words and take away their right to choose their own way.
It is not so much to ask - to be free.
But it is everything to have - freedom.
Friday, 18 September 2009
Spinning, bumping and grinding
So Mr. Badman has noted the serious interest taken in his pseudo-intellectual recommendations and the furious pace of home educators who have brilliantly and effectively dismantled the edifice on which they stand (or totter).
He has had to shout for his pals in the LAs to come and help him as he sinks further into the mire upon which he set out his stall.
If you take a report so poorly written that becomes a platform upon which a government builds changes in the (already perfectly good) law, and in the report you use dodgy statistics, irrational proposals, hopeless illogic, and seek reckless destruction of laws that serve us well by providing a balance between the power of the state (local authorities) and the power of the people (parents), then you can expect to be questioned, have your work eyed up like a stripper's g-string, and thoroughly and roundly criticised.
That we allow a man who is so blatantly and obviously prejudiced to write such damning and completely inane and dangerous drivel is a strike against the heart of this country.
That he has the nerve (I nearly said balls!) to flail about like a drowning weasel to ask for more evidence to back up his insanity is another strike against the living tissue of this land.
That he is allowed more time to receive this help, to regroup his forces of darkness to continue this disgusting and evil power-play against law-abiding, caring parents is a thrust of the dagger down into the very soul of Britain.
So let's see how deep the rabbit hole goes. How many consultations? How many ultra vires LAs? How many happy children who home educate? How many home educators on the review panel?
How much money has been drained out of the coffers for this utter vile travesty? How many children are better off for this DCSF and its spin meisters?
Consultations? Four or five. Others that concern home educators. Too damn many. We actually have lives, you know.
Ultra vires LAs? Dozens? I have been a member of a few lists for four years and can recall agonised parents shouting for help so many times. My own LA representative lied to me about having the right to come into my house (but, cunningly, I had checked with a member of a national home education group so I knew that she had no right). She lied to me. A public servant, whose rations I help to pay for, brass-faced and staring me in the eyes, LIED to me.
Happy home educating children? I don't know an unhappy one, and have never heard of a child who doesn't unfold like a pinched plant leaving the darkness and reviving in the sun as they grow into home education.
Home educators on the review panel? None. Eh? Yes, none. The true experts. The non-school, home educating as I live and breath experts. Representation in Badman's group of bad advisors? Not one.
Tax payers' money? Well, my 88 year old mother probably contributed her share. The bill will add to about £275,000. Of course, this is a guess; informed by Tanya Byron's equally stupid review of computer games. We, who pay for these things, don't know the true total because the DCSF won't tell us. Telling us how much we've coughed up is a form of harassing and vilifying Badman apparently.
How many children are better off? None. In fact, they are worse off. Quite a few concerned mothers have told me that their children are terrified to see officials alone, don't want to be showing their work, don't want to perform for schooly agents like performing fleas, and are scared of the Badman.
They've cried themselves to sleep.
Cried. Children. Shed tears.
Some of them are petrified that they will be forced - frog-marched - back to school from which safe and glorious hell hole they had previously been removed because they were in danger.
Safeguarding?
Yeah, right.
Pull the other one.
He has had to shout for his pals in the LAs to come and help him as he sinks further into the mire upon which he set out his stall.
If you take a report so poorly written that becomes a platform upon which a government builds changes in the (already perfectly good) law, and in the report you use dodgy statistics, irrational proposals, hopeless illogic, and seek reckless destruction of laws that serve us well by providing a balance between the power of the state (local authorities) and the power of the people (parents), then you can expect to be questioned, have your work eyed up like a stripper's g-string, and thoroughly and roundly criticised.
That we allow a man who is so blatantly and obviously prejudiced to write such damning and completely inane and dangerous drivel is a strike against the heart of this country.
That he has the nerve (I nearly said balls!) to flail about like a drowning weasel to ask for more evidence to back up his insanity is another strike against the living tissue of this land.
That he is allowed more time to receive this help, to regroup his forces of darkness to continue this disgusting and evil power-play against law-abiding, caring parents is a thrust of the dagger down into the very soul of Britain.
So let's see how deep the rabbit hole goes. How many consultations? How many ultra vires LAs? How many happy children who home educate? How many home educators on the review panel?
How much money has been drained out of the coffers for this utter vile travesty? How many children are better off for this DCSF and its spin meisters?
Consultations? Four or five. Others that concern home educators. Too damn many. We actually have lives, you know.
Ultra vires LAs? Dozens? I have been a member of a few lists for four years and can recall agonised parents shouting for help so many times. My own LA representative lied to me about having the right to come into my house (but, cunningly, I had checked with a member of a national home education group so I knew that she had no right). She lied to me. A public servant, whose rations I help to pay for, brass-faced and staring me in the eyes, LIED to me.
Happy home educating children? I don't know an unhappy one, and have never heard of a child who doesn't unfold like a pinched plant leaving the darkness and reviving in the sun as they grow into home education.
Home educators on the review panel? None. Eh? Yes, none. The true experts. The non-school, home educating as I live and breath experts. Representation in Badman's group of bad advisors? Not one.
Tax payers' money? Well, my 88 year old mother probably contributed her share. The bill will add to about £275,000. Of course, this is a guess; informed by Tanya Byron's equally stupid review of computer games. We, who pay for these things, don't know the true total because the DCSF won't tell us. Telling us how much we've coughed up is a form of harassing and vilifying Badman apparently.
How many children are better off? None. In fact, they are worse off. Quite a few concerned mothers have told me that their children are terrified to see officials alone, don't want to be showing their work, don't want to perform for schooly agents like performing fleas, and are scared of the Badman.
They've cried themselves to sleep.
Cried. Children. Shed tears.
Some of them are petrified that they will be forced - frog-marched - back to school from which safe and glorious hell hole they had previously been removed because they were in danger.
Safeguarding?
Yeah, right.
Pull the other one.
Saturday, 12 September 2009
The blaming nation
Part of the problem with Badman reports and issues with anything is
a) problematising and
b) blaming
I'd like to take b) first. When I was emigrated to Canada - I say it that way because I had no choice - one of the first things I did was ask my Dad if he would buy me a bike. I had given my bike from home to a friend who could make good use of it. After our move to Canada, we were living in a fairly rural area; a few dirt tracks and some houses, near my Dad's cousin.
I got my bike. I went out on it. Confession: my biking skills were not that great. We had lived in a terrible place for the care and exercising of bikes. Lots of killer cars and a wobbly me who hadn't biked for long. Anyway, it was the summer so I forged up and down on my new shiny bike.
Then I hit a stone and went over, down on one knee. That hurt, but the humiliation hurt more than the bloody long graze.
What happened then?
Did I sit there and condemn the bike? No. I was not a good cyclist, but that wasn't the bike's fault.
Did I pulverise the stone into a million pieces for causing my fall? No, it wasn't the fault of the stone; it was just doing what stones will do and have done for centuries.
I didn't blame anyone or anything.
It was an accident.
They happen. They happen a lot. They happen to everyone.
So why do we blame the LA personnel for educational problems? Why do we run to the legal system to squeeze out money after someone has done something to us? It's because we blame other people. There is a strong tradition of blaming people or groups in this society.
Often seen headlines: "Politicians slammed for failure to..." or "The government was criticised for..."
I don't think the blame game is healthy and, often, it doesn't help at all. Blaming parents for educating their children when the alternative is an inadequate education - even in an inadequate place to be (have you seen some school buildings?) - at the hands of a state-sponsored system is not a sensible response. If your youngster were suffering from asbestos poisoning in a room, wouldn't you take him out of the room? It's the same principle. After all, unless you are completely turned around mentally, you do actually want the best for your offspring.
a) Problematising.
Problematising is making something a problem when it hasn't been a problem and it isn't a problem. Home education is not a problem. Schooling is. Home education is natural and unproblematic, has been happening since the dawning of recorded time and before that or we wouldn't have survived as a species. Schooling isn't natural and unproblematic and hasn't been around since the dawn of time. Problematising happens when a group of people - like politicians - haven't got enough to do and cannot do much about what they are supposed to do something about so they create a problem, and then they create another problem when they problematise what wasn't a problem in the first place. A politician creates problems because he wants to have solutions that he can measure to say to people "Look how well I'm doing my job. The problem (that I created) has been solved so I'm clever and creative at solving problems.' That's a vote winner. Or has been.
And you know what they say "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." Definitely you'll be part of the problem if you generated the problem in the first place.
Home education? No problem!
a) problematising and
b) blaming
I'd like to take b) first. When I was emigrated to Canada - I say it that way because I had no choice - one of the first things I did was ask my Dad if he would buy me a bike. I had given my bike from home to a friend who could make good use of it. After our move to Canada, we were living in a fairly rural area; a few dirt tracks and some houses, near my Dad's cousin.
I got my bike. I went out on it. Confession: my biking skills were not that great. We had lived in a terrible place for the care and exercising of bikes. Lots of killer cars and a wobbly me who hadn't biked for long. Anyway, it was the summer so I forged up and down on my new shiny bike.
Then I hit a stone and went over, down on one knee. That hurt, but the humiliation hurt more than the bloody long graze.
What happened then?
Did I sit there and condemn the bike? No. I was not a good cyclist, but that wasn't the bike's fault.
Did I pulverise the stone into a million pieces for causing my fall? No, it wasn't the fault of the stone; it was just doing what stones will do and have done for centuries.
I didn't blame anyone or anything.
It was an accident.
They happen. They happen a lot. They happen to everyone.
So why do we blame the LA personnel for educational problems? Why do we run to the legal system to squeeze out money after someone has done something to us? It's because we blame other people. There is a strong tradition of blaming people or groups in this society.
Often seen headlines: "Politicians slammed for failure to..." or "The government was criticised for..."
I don't think the blame game is healthy and, often, it doesn't help at all. Blaming parents for educating their children when the alternative is an inadequate education - even in an inadequate place to be (have you seen some school buildings?) - at the hands of a state-sponsored system is not a sensible response. If your youngster were suffering from asbestos poisoning in a room, wouldn't you take him out of the room? It's the same principle. After all, unless you are completely turned around mentally, you do actually want the best for your offspring.
a) Problematising.
Problematising is making something a problem when it hasn't been a problem and it isn't a problem. Home education is not a problem. Schooling is. Home education is natural and unproblematic, has been happening since the dawning of recorded time and before that or we wouldn't have survived as a species. Schooling isn't natural and unproblematic and hasn't been around since the dawn of time. Problematising happens when a group of people - like politicians - haven't got enough to do and cannot do much about what they are supposed to do something about so they create a problem, and then they create another problem when they problematise what wasn't a problem in the first place. A politician creates problems because he wants to have solutions that he can measure to say to people "Look how well I'm doing my job. The problem (that I created) has been solved so I'm clever and creative at solving problems.' That's a vote winner. Or has been.
And you know what they say "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." Definitely you'll be part of the problem if you generated the problem in the first place.
Home education? No problem!
Saturday, 5 September 2009
Evolution, not a building
Where people mislead themselves about the process going on in someone - a magical, mystical process of learning - is that they think learning is akin to a building. With a building you make plans, obviously, or you'd forget the wiring in the basement or forget the basement altogether. You might place the front door too close to the garage or lay the garden path in the wrong area. You need plans to construct a building.
Education, though, isn't a building. It isn't predicated on plans. Those poor souls who lay down thousands of plans, as if they were piloting aircraft, can get very frustrated because people do not actually learn that way. They twist and turn, and check and regress, and find out and digress and skip steps and intuit and leap forward and have a bad day or bad years, and then have gestalts where they 'get' it. People evolve in their learning.
Learning is an evolution. When I was a little girl my father thought he could help me with my Maths homework. I was always quite excited by this because Mathematics was pretty well incomprehensible to me. He showed me what to do on two or three problems from one night of homework. Then I had to go and try to puzzle out the rest.
I confided solemnly that I didn't like Maths, but ran to my French lessons. He explained that he had squirmed through French lessons but whizzed happily down the corridor to Maths. We laughed gently together.
My Dad had a plan. His plan was simple. To lay the foundations of my learning how to do the mathematical questions he explained the first one or two. He thoroughly informed me how to do those sums. Unfortunately, I scuppered his careful ideas by going back to say I couldn't fly solo. I had failed to solve number three, four, five and six and, by the way, could he show me one and two again because I just couldn't really remember how they went again.
My father yelled at me. For a while.
As a result of such humiliation I decided to take my fate in my own hands, stumble through each set of problems according to my level of comprehension and decided bravely to pass or fail by my own efforts.
I failed.
Often.
For years, Maths was my worst, and most heartily loathed, subject. It let me down and I let me down by being very poor in Maths.
A few years later, after the ignominy died away a little, and I only changed colour slightly at the mention of a fraction, I went back to the scene of my battle.
I tried a Mathematics course in University.
Oh, what a mad girl. What a silly chicklet. What a complete...
I called myself all sorts of names, stumbled to the Maths lab between classes, worked through various sets of lovely juicy problems.... and GOT them. Understood. Comprehended. Completed. Loved the course. Passed with an 'A'.
So, although I thought I was as good at Mathematics as a hamster is at chess, I was wrong. I had matured in my abilities. My father's natural mathematical bent had not jumped a generation and lurked waiting for my offspring to make him proud. I had some maths savvy buried somewhere just lingering until the right moment appeared. Waiting patiently to reveal itself when I had evolved to a point where I could host it properly.
Such a shock to find what you believe about yourself is not true. Never too late to learn, springs to my lips, when people tell me that they cannot do basket-weaving, Geometry or Haiku poetry.
Give it time, petal, I tell them, it will happen, you will evolve into someone you never gave yourself credit for being. You'll change and morph into that basket-weaver or look at an angle and know it immediately or produce poem after poem of hot Haiku.
I believe it will happen. Holy differentials, I've seen it up close and happening.
Funny thing, though, my Dad never did learn French.
Education, though, isn't a building. It isn't predicated on plans. Those poor souls who lay down thousands of plans, as if they were piloting aircraft, can get very frustrated because people do not actually learn that way. They twist and turn, and check and regress, and find out and digress and skip steps and intuit and leap forward and have a bad day or bad years, and then have gestalts where they 'get' it. People evolve in their learning.
Learning is an evolution. When I was a little girl my father thought he could help me with my Maths homework. I was always quite excited by this because Mathematics was pretty well incomprehensible to me. He showed me what to do on two or three problems from one night of homework. Then I had to go and try to puzzle out the rest.
I confided solemnly that I didn't like Maths, but ran to my French lessons. He explained that he had squirmed through French lessons but whizzed happily down the corridor to Maths. We laughed gently together.
My Dad had a plan. His plan was simple. To lay the foundations of my learning how to do the mathematical questions he explained the first one or two. He thoroughly informed me how to do those sums. Unfortunately, I scuppered his careful ideas by going back to say I couldn't fly solo. I had failed to solve number three, four, five and six and, by the way, could he show me one and two again because I just couldn't really remember how they went again.
My father yelled at me. For a while.
As a result of such humiliation I decided to take my fate in my own hands, stumble through each set of problems according to my level of comprehension and decided bravely to pass or fail by my own efforts.
I failed.
Often.
For years, Maths was my worst, and most heartily loathed, subject. It let me down and I let me down by being very poor in Maths.
A few years later, after the ignominy died away a little, and I only changed colour slightly at the mention of a fraction, I went back to the scene of my battle.
I tried a Mathematics course in University.
Oh, what a mad girl. What a silly chicklet. What a complete...
I called myself all sorts of names, stumbled to the Maths lab between classes, worked through various sets of lovely juicy problems.... and GOT them. Understood. Comprehended. Completed. Loved the course. Passed with an 'A'.
So, although I thought I was as good at Mathematics as a hamster is at chess, I was wrong. I had matured in my abilities. My father's natural mathematical bent had not jumped a generation and lurked waiting for my offspring to make him proud. I had some maths savvy buried somewhere just lingering until the right moment appeared. Waiting patiently to reveal itself when I had evolved to a point where I could host it properly.
Such a shock to find what you believe about yourself is not true. Never too late to learn, springs to my lips, when people tell me that they cannot do basket-weaving, Geometry or Haiku poetry.
Give it time, petal, I tell them, it will happen, you will evolve into someone you never gave yourself credit for being. You'll change and morph into that basket-weaver or look at an angle and know it immediately or produce poem after poem of hot Haiku.
I believe it will happen. Holy differentials, I've seen it up close and happening.
Funny thing, though, my Dad never did learn French.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
