grit's day: Gone, gone, all gone!

Sunday 13 February 2011

Gone, gone, all gone!

Over the last days I have wondered if there is any reason for a reader to linger over this blog. Maybe if you are an expat wandering through Hong Kong with a passing interest in pink dolphins.

It has become a very China/Hong Kong blog, hasn't it?

That, I tell myself sadly, is the impact of house visitors. They come here, force you to take them places, demand that you to explain a culture to them - one you are barely able to figure out for yourself - then they hold you hostage unless you show them a walled village.

But that is over. Amidst much child wailing, rending of clothes and gnashing of teeth, Travelling Aunty is travelled back to Blighty; her wheelie case crammed with all essentials, like a packet of Fuku instant noodles, two terracotta warriors, and a dead cockroach. (Only joking Aunty Dee! We didn't put Norman in after all!)

I am sad. But every cloud has a silver lining. Now I can turn my mind to the usual ill-informed, opinionated ranting about AOB. Or, matters childish, family and home educational. The sort that's never going to earn me a chocolate medal the size of a dustbin lid, even though I deserve one.

Tiger's animation here.
The art exhibition here.
Latin verbs illustrated

This blog is a record of a home education
writ for parents thinking about home ed
writ for the LA who need an education about home ed
writ for Grit's friends and relations who drop in once a year
and writ for Grit's sane and lovely mind.

But maybe you were right all along.

Your client wants good PR? Yes! I can help.

Eek. Let's learn how to kill imagination.

We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever. Philip Pullman.

Read the Right to Reply
'Home educators are renowned for their strong opinions and independent spirit. They come from all faiths and none. They have as many approaches to education as there are children. They rarely agree on anything. And yet they are remarkably united in their opposition to these proposals. There is great concern that their way of life will be legislated out of existence.'
--Response to the Badman Review of Elective Home Education in England and reaction to the Select Committee hearing.

The problem with home educators is that they are impossible to define. The only things that links them is respect for their children. And did the state just stagger foolishly across that line?
Are we sandal wearing tree huggers who let our kids run wild or control mad Jesus freaks who don't want them learning about sex and evolution? Are we hot housing or leaving them to watch TV and play computer games all day? -Firebird.
The UK government suggested that we home educate our children to cover up our abuse.
On that issue, would you like some statistics?

'The Department [for Children, Schools and Families] is aware that attempts are being made on the Internet to vilify and harass the author of the review. It is the Department's view that, whilst dealing with each request on its merits, this situation will have to be taken into account in dealing with any relevant FOI requests. ... we anticipate the need to consider whether it is in the public interest to release information likely to intensify any such campaign, or to lead to harassment or distress to individuals.'
Hello DCSF. Vilify: to make vicious and defamatory statements about.
Like putting it about that home educated children are abused by their parents? Isolated? Unsocialised? Denied an education?
And the latest one, that their mothers have Munchhausen's Syndrome by Proxy, and benefit from their child's suffering.

Go and visit Renegade Parent

... compulsory registration, entry to the home, inspection according to external standards, and power to see the child without the parent present.
By implication this applies to anyone who has their child at home with them: particularly parents with under 5s, but also those with school-aged children who are at home in the evenings, over the weekends, and throughout the summer holidays. Think on: the possibility of parental inspection, with or without your presence, based on the very human whim of a local authority officer.
Is that okay with you?
Renegade Parent on the implications for all parents from the Badman review of home education.

Keywords you may need for grit's day

tuttytuttut
old dog clinging to me
squirrel in floorboards
entombed bitter loss
paradise lost with grit
pictures of naked bali men
cricked neck and brain tumour
shut a mouth with tape
make my dog not hate me
things to say to people threatening you
english sexy housing estate
keep mouth away from clothes
naked assault course
great expectations by dickens personality disorder
graham badman bastard
too much dwelling on thought
chain and padlock for fridge
trapped in a nightmare
graham badman wanker
chicken pox for christmas
is using listerine on a horse dangerous
tesco tripelets
xymoglyphic museum