Monday 8 June 2009

Mr Balls should gaffer tape my mouth SHUT

DUH! Here I was, misguided and foolish, doing that HOME EDUCATION stuff all wrong. Damn those kids and their rights to a free-thinking education.

Because from Mr Balls' view right now, that home ed stuff that I've been doing? All WRONG.

Mr Balls, my teaching performance is way down. If I continue to inflict on my children this sort of unfocused, unstructured activity, lacking rigour, direction and purpose, like VISITING THE CINEMA, just score my teaching performance on the home educating league table of deliverable performances a BIG FAT ZERO.

Make that a double big fat zero with extra zeroes for my failing to deliver the Labour government's perfectly reasonable performance standards with assessable attainment targeting and differential academic goals on a planned framework including identifiable edubabble for verification of learning outcomes to be assessed and authorised by the due departments and shared stakeholders in the assessment process.

Guilty as charged. Last week I took Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to see Night of the Museum II. Because they asked to go.

OK. The film is a load of crap, a vehicle for Ben Stiller, and is naked US cultural propaganda with barely any focus to link together the characters. And I still took them to see it and I called it EDUCATION.

And why? Shark, Squirrel and Tiger like Night at the Museum. It's one of their favourite films. So when the sequel came out, of course they want see that too. And there I was, promising to be at that cinema for numbers III, IV, V, VI and VII. Or until Ben Stiller selfcombusts, whichever comes first.

Mr Balls, you're probably aiming to re-educate me. Because this is a non-state approved activity. No matter that Night of the Museum II provides excellent material for Tiger to chatter about. Endlessly. Tiger's ambition is to be a film animator. But an education aiming to fulfil my child's potential is just not good enough, is it?

Neither is what we now do on Monday afternoons. The kids see Dale.

I know I said, Move over, God. Dale is mightier than God. Dale, the king of animation and the controller of the plasticine, is running a set of animation courses for the little home ed kids, and wow, aren't my kids lucky enough to go to that.

But screw the animation. Tiger needs to TOE THE PARTY LINE.

Because what did we home educators really achieve today? Go on. Put it in the newspapers like this. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger chatted about a film. And then this afternoon they mucked around with plasticine.

You see? LACKS RIGOUR. Clearly, I need to have done lesson structure 17, attainment target 3.5, assessment 4, key stage 3, time allotted 40 minutes, test assessment due date 12/10/09.

MR BALLS, I FAIL.

But you haven't got enough gaffer tape to go round my big fat mouth now.

16 comments:

kelly said...

I am so glad you are here. I am still relative new comer to H.E. Land, and I am finding this review outcome utterly terrifying.

sharon said...

But how can you get serious about any instructions from somebody with a name like that? I just fall about laughing every time I read his name, it's like something from a Monty Python sketch!

NB will be absent without comments until the end of next week which is June 26th on my calendar. Play nice while I'm gone ;-)

Tech said...

Ah but when HE children go to animation workshops, they end up producing things like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU0tXWraFi0

Two weeks work involved - but hey, these home educated children can't knuckle down and apply themselves..!

Irene said...

I prefer your education to any I ever got and I would have been the diverse person I'm finally turning into a hell of a lot sooner. I was put in a straight jacket for too long and it took me long enough to get out of it. I could have blossomed a lot sooner and it would have done me a lot of good.

Maire said...

Grit just love your blog, the razor sharp weapon of humour expertly wealded.

How about putting all that mucking about with plasticene to make a satirical animation to put on you tube.

Let go viral

Badman and Balls you couldn't ask for a better title.

Maire said...

Ooops should read to the end of the comments before posting, woah that ADHD.

I have another look at that Carlotta, I wonder does you tube count every view from the same person separately, if so I could be watching it many times.

Sorry about all the spelling dyslexia too, outing itself under stress.

Maire said...

You will be getting bored of me now, but I just want to point out that your clock on the blog is out. this post is labeled 6 June i think and so doesn't come to the top as it should in my blog list.

I quite often miss that you have posted because of this.

Angela said...

I want to know what your children will be like in ten years! Or twenty. Compared to Mr. Balls` children.
Dear Mr. Balls, we have enough grown-ups like you who live by the rules. We need CRATIVE, witty, intelligent, self-thinking people. Did you not KNOW that?

Lisa G said...

LMAO, I am also a big fat failure according to Mr Balls' performance standards , don't care though!

@untwining said...

What? You took your children to the cinema because they asked to go???

Sigh. You crazy home educator, you're making a rod for your own back. Next you'll be having fun making felt with them or something.

mamacrow said...

are you crazy?! Night at the Museum II is CLEARLY educational. It has 'museum' in the title for a start, and figures tons of historical figures in it.

tsk tsk do you fail on your research/PLAN making too?! ;-)

Grit said...

thank you, kelly, but we're ALL here, and in all our different ways we'll find ways to counter this.

i agree sharon, you couldn't make up a name like badmanballs.

thank you, cosmic seed! and in school i've met media gcse students who after two years had a folder of nothing.

irene, i would turn the clock back for you! take the opportunity now!

hi maire! my time keeping is lousy. but at the end of the year, it all makes sense. sort of. ok then, only to me.

thank you angela! we need to keep in good spirits over here right now!

lisa, i'll meet you in detention! us and 50,000 others, eh?

renegade, there is no helping us! soon we will be hitting the embroidery, and then we're done for.

plans mamacrow? 'we plan to be opportunistic for the year ahead' is about the best we can come up with!

Gill said...

Grit, I'm trying to quote you and your blog calendar is a week behind! You're living in last week, woman!

Still, it could tick the 'history' box.. (Are we still allowed to do history?)

Grit said...

gill, you are absolutely right. it is totally annoying and i wish i could get my act together. join the queue lining up to give me a good kicking over my timekeeping x

Gill said...

It's ok, I took the executive decision of correcting the date on my link. Panic over! Carry on xx

Raggy Rat said...

i liked your post
it made me laugh
will i fail my children too?
i have twins and a baby at home with me, we shall see !

badman and balls are made up names
we could gaffer tape some balls right enough ...

cat xxx