Select Committee hears weird evidence

Sir Paul Ennals, chief executive of the National Children's Bureau, said a register needed to be a "proportionate response to the problem".
"The registration system should only be a light tool, not overly elaborate," he said.

That's from the BBC's unbiased report of the proceedings today at the Select Committee who are currently charged with determining whether or not to murder home education in the heretofore amazingly liberal and freedom-supporting country of England.

And what has the National Children's Bureau to do with my children, you may ask? Nothing, I answer. Do they pay for tuition? No. Do they accompany them on outings? No. Do they sit anxiously at my child's side when that child is unwell? No.

Do I know Paul Ennals? No. Does he know me? No. Is he competent to judge how my family relates, how I help my children, where I might fail and where I might succeed? No.

No.

A proportionate response to the problem, Paul? (I feel that I know you ever so slightly because you are engaged in a process that might smother all home education in England within months)

What problem would this be then?

Sorry, I've looked at it a few times. Can't see it at all.

If there is no problem, and I cannot see one and, believe me my dear readers, I am good at finding problems, why should there need to be a response? There shouldn't.

The only problem is you. You bloated enormous cats sucking down money and you other bloated Children's Services types, Peter Traves, who are trying to protect your ass in case, which has happened quite a few times in other cases in similar organisations, you're too busy having parties or sticking up Christmas wreaths to bother about little folk you might actually help.

The problem is you.

Not home educators. We take responsibility for our children. You do not.

At least now we've found a problem.

And it's you.

Mr Traves again: "I'm held to account for children's welfare, and I think not to know there are children living and being educated in my area is actually unreasonable if I'm being held to that account."

No, you are not held to account for children living and being educated in your area. You should be held to account for children who are in your remit which is school and you obviously don't give a flying damn for them. I'll prove it, Mr. Children's Services.

Look at these numbers carefully:

450,000 children are bullied EVERY WEEK in school. EVERY WEEK. Not every year. It is incomprehensible, isn't it? How many a week? 450,000 children.

What are you doing about that, Mr. Traves? Nothing. You're responsible for them, you say. But what are you doing about them? We know the answer.

360,000 children a year are injured in schools a year. Well? Did you hear me? That's a lot of pain.

Saddest of all, 16 of our dear young people feel so battered and bruised by bullying at school that they choose to kill themselves. No home educated child has been so deeply injured by life that he or she has felt compelled to leave it.

Are you sweating yet, Mr Ennals? A little uncomfortable in your cushy seat, Mr. Traves? Or still bothered about the public humiliation you might suffer if you fail in your cushy job?

Then, there are the Children's Services and the National Children's Bureau staff who sit by as 1 out of 6 children march out of school not knowing how to a) read, b) write and c) add up.

That's a lot of children to fail. A lot of young people to add up.

Want to do your jobs yet?

What about the 1 million - yes, 1 million - children who truant every year? Are they part of your job description? Do you want to register them and monitor them? Or are they just collateral damage on the job?

No, you just send their parents - usually mothers (funny how it is usually mothers) to gaol. That's the ticket. Kick the mothers in the teeth to show the children what's what.

What sterling work you are doing for the majority of our nation's children, Mr. Ennals and Mr. Traves. The ones you are responsible for, you don't give a flip chart about, and the ones you are not responsible for, you cannot wait to tag their little ears.

What have we got in this Britain?

People of rare ability and quality indeed. People who will demand to register my children then go back to protecting their money and their keisters while avoiding the avalanche of human misery in the schools that they are actually responsible for.

You're not responsible for my children. I owe them a hell of a lot more than that.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8306730.stm

Children's right to speak

We're all so big in society about letting children speak.

That probably starts in the family. Do you take your child's view of what your family does into account? Do you ask them what they think?

Then ignore them.

It's the same tactic that the government uses on everyone in society. We'll consult you - they say- then they ignore your opinion and employ tactics that put Hitler to shame to get what they want.

So, Mr. Badman, yes, my children are periodically asked whether they still would like to be home educated. I get various answers from 'Yes, of course' to 'What do you think?' accompanied by an is-she-serious roll of the eyes.

I do admit to a failing, of course. When I trotted them off to school every day, before I saw the home educating light, before I saw what I was reluctant to see, I didn't ask them if they wanted to go.

I didn't ask them if they wanted to go to school to be bullied and brutalised in the name of socialisation and conformity. They've had all that, thank you. But in the home-educating-Now they use knives and forks and fail to speak with their mouths full at the dinner table which is one up on many teens in our society, I guess.

My children do not aspire to be part of the local terrorist gang shouting abuse at old ladies fetching their pensions or carving up one of the few play spaces left for small fry in the area. They aren't among those parked outside the library entrance enjoying themselves hassling library visitors and being warned by the police about their anti-social behaviour. They don't cat about or seem keen to mix it with the stalwart youths to have babies and get flats of their own and a 'life' of that kind. They have aspirations - pretty interesting high aspirations - to be the best they can be in their chosen areas.

So home education has obviously failed them.

School meanwhile scythed them down to the lowest level because everyone who sticks up is hammered down but all pupils must do their best and get good exam marks because the school wants to stay open because all those people who receive their money from it would be out of a job if the school didn't look good.

And we're so effective at being a democracy in this state of chaos, aren't we?

A majority doesn't wish to be part of the Lisbon Treaty. There have been polls. Ignored.

An astonishing amount of people don't want Labour in power. We know that. Ignored.

I'm sure you can think of more examples.

I ask my children - "Do you still want to be home educated?" They say yes and I take notice.

I wonder how many people have asked their schooled children, "Do you still want to go to school?"

It's not a question that would even cross your mind, is it?

So to have Graham Badman banging on about asking home educating children anything is rather amusing. Why should home educating children have the pleasure of choosing their lives when schooled children do not?

Why are we listening to a pathetic group of toothless elders, and robotic youngers, who tell us they are listening to us when it is patently apparent that they listen in order to tick a box to say that they have listened.

It's all so silly, isn't it?

Whatever the Select Committee says, good or bad, I shall expose it to the government's own trick. I shall listen and ignore it.

The government does not hand me my rights like a bunch of sweeties at Hallowe'en. I have rights because I am a person over 18. My children have rights through me until they are old enough to choose their own lives in whatever way seems good to them.

I am hear to listen to them. I will give them the benefit of my opinions, if they wish to have me do that. Otherwise, it is their lives. They will do with them what they will.

I am here for my children. That was the unspoken bond we made before they emerged into the world, before they were conceived, before they were thought forms. I am here for you - with all my faults and all my good points - I am here for you. And I hear you.

Everytime you speak.

Independent review of Elective Home Education - DCSF page

The DCSF says:

"All children and young people are entitled to a good education. This doesn't necessarily mean children have to go to school: many parents choose to educate their child at home'.

I have to take issue with the first part of this. According to Protocol 1 Article 2 of the ECHR 'No person shall be denied an education'. OK, a person should not be denied an education and nothing is mentioned about a good education. The state provides an education but scarcely anyone agrees what a good education is and many voices would howl me down if I said the state provides a good education.

How do we actually know what a good education is? Other than some helpful judges with an almost impossible task, no one can define what a good education actually consists of. If I were like my father, I would say everyone should have an education in the classics and in Maths, and maybe have a run around a football field once a week for a bit of a diversion. If I were a P.E. teacher I would probably say that English is a natural thing for English people, and we should be doing more push-ups, football, rounders, cricket, cross country running, ski=ing...

I would hate both definitions of a good education because I am not good at Mathematics - oh, I can get along and I can excel myself if pushed, but I'm not a cleaving-to-numbers-natural mathematician. As to P.E., I was one of those children who dreaded the lesson, unless it involved dancing, and hated the idea of being at the mercy of several bullies who knew how to take advantage of the opportunities advanced by the myriad wonders of Physical Education, indoors or out.

So, for me, unless you're a budding Steve Cram or you loaf about doing Calculus in your fun time, don't ask me to vote for at least two members of the National Curriculum.

The convent school I attended had Sewing classes (don't laugh, it did). Oh, the humiliation. The pricked fingers. The continuing and absolute hatred I had for my kit, my uselessness and the horror of having to 'make a dress' for the 'fashion parade' at the end of term. It was a term already contaminated by the terror induced by the prospect of having to emigrate to unknown Canada at the end of it. I laboured: I did labour on that darned dress. I learned to detest the material I'd bought - the cheery bright yellow mocked me, the patterned yellow leaves and flowers irritated me. I heaved at the thought of more endless, boring tacking. In the final countdown, my dear aunt who was a dab hand with a needle took pity on me and finished the garment. I wore it on the catwalk. Everyone was underwhelmed. I was embarrassed. I was sick at heart, but relieved to get the ordeal over and relieved that I wouldn't be 'tested' on something so foreign to my nature again.

So what makes a good education? I think it comes from inside yourself. I think it's your motivation. I think it is what interests you, and what interested me was reading, reading, reading, other people, history, French, reading and writing, more reading and, gradually, even more writing. In my adult life, people now pay me for my writing. Putting pen or word processor to work was an 'out of school' habit. I didn't write at school. I did the minimum amount of writing I could do at school because my writing, my real writing (my love) was private. It did not belong to the school, it belonged to me. I didn't want my adoration of the written word to die prematurely because I was forced to write.

So it was a secret. All those years ago it wasn't ready to flower and grow and be stomped upon by the foot of criticism it would probably have received in school. You get very little encouragement in school, I found. It was all 'Well, you should have/could have done it this way' Or 'that's wrong'.

Or even, once, after one of my short stories was marked, I was asked, "Did you copy? Is this your own work?"

Mrs. English Teacher, no, as I told you at the time I didn't copy. I read everything like a pig enjoys truffles and I got good because I did what I enjoyed doing and enjoyed getting good at, and your severe, distrustful look and your swingeing insult could have blighted the little plant beneath the bushel but, thank the universe, it didn't.

It was mine and you didn't put your big feet all over it while it was growing - my talent was buried under a bushel until it was ripe and until I felt confident enough to let it try itself in the full glare of light.

Then it flourished. As all true real passions have the ability to flourish when they aren't trampled all over by strangers with gigantic damaging assessing criticising destructive unsympathetic plates of meat.

I gave myself the best education I could give myself. I gave me the education I would wish schools had given me. I did what I was good at and I wasn't put off what I loved until what I loved became what I was good at.

Most of what school gave me was heartache. Years of time wasting. Hours of droning boredom.

My life gave me my education.

How do you deliver an education? You are fooling yourself. You cannot deliver an education. You can help someone through their thoughts and emotions and finding out information, but never ever stomp on their little talents.

Those little talents might, one day, save the world.


http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/ete/independentreviewofhomeeducation/irhomeeducation/

Consumers of education

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.

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.

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)

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.