Well, here we are, living in home ed la-la land, then I have to go and spoil it all, making reference to the outside world, the one that starts at the line where my front door protects us (even though the door handle always falls off); the door stands there still, door to my home, gate to my castle, place where Mr Gove and all the little Ofsted pixies will never tread, unless I am ambushing them with boiled oil and a dead goat, if they dare.
Anyhow, PISA.
What a ridiculous thing to do. Rank your country via tests for children, and then judge yourselves as failing this and failing that, we must make the children work harder. They are slackers, loafers, and they are causing our country TO FAIL.
Are you all turned mad?
Say, I have a great idea! Why don't we create an international ranking of creativity, then issue all four-year olds with an orange, command DRAW THAT, and rank England better or worse than China, based on the International Creative Orange Quotidian Indicator Assessment Framework Initiative. I could listen to John Humphrys shake his surly locks and sternly ask how could we English, nearly Jerusalem, be quite so bad at the ICOQIAFI. What has gone wrong, so very wrong?
Pay attention to PISA then, if you must, if you want to construct little Chinese-copy-scholars whose days start at 6am, and whose homework ends at 10pm, for this will save you the playgrounds maintenance.
Be aware, be very aware, playgrounds for children over the age of five are virtually non-existent in your PISA-loving world. You will find a youth training camp, sure, but the PLA do not approve of play with a y: all that free-ranging, free-thinking, free-shifting, imagination-mixing, possibility-enhancing, multi-perspective-making, childhood play.
But when you've had enough of being told Tinkertop, aged 6, is never going to be good at PISA - she's a failure at representing her country, she's not making the grade, she's not taking the weight of our national expectations, her performance is too poor, and all is lost, lost, lost, you damned parent, this is all the fault of your low ambitions - when all she wants to do is dig a frikkin' hole in the ground, then remember, home education is still, as yet, an option.
Showing posts with label I hated Labour but I hate the Tories too. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I hated Labour but I hate the Tories too. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
Monday, 8 July 2013
All touched by the same pain
Rejoice, schoolchildren (who are not in academy schools) of England! Your new Gove Curriculum is fresh minted, ready for your enjoyment!
Oh happy six-year old! You are sure to find your new Govian study interesting and engaging. Soon, you will be able to spell synonym, calculate four-fifths plus two-thirds, and know why England has an empire. (But no learning about the Opium Wars, not unless you want a thrashing.)
Yes, the new Govian national curriculum will be inspiring and triumphant! It reflects generous consultation and wide-ranging committee discussion, as befits our lives in egalitarian times. Over the coming days, the joyous populace will continue to contribute to the great discussion, via the internet forums of slanging matches, gratuitous insults and trolling, to engage with our great educational, social, and cultural debates. Not Gove himself, obviously. He decided these matters in 1953 and is presently not for budging.
Yet the new curriculum now stands as the marque of Britain Worldwide. From this date - to be celebrated henceforth as Day Zero of the International Gove Day of the New Curriculum - we can expect each and every six year old to do their duty: contribute to the Hong Kong league championships.
If Britain fails? It is not the fault of Govian aspiration! Let us lay the blame now at those recalcitrant parents who fail to achieve the best for Tinkertop in her 12xtables. They probably do not care, are scrounging all your benefits, have no scruples or morals, and insist on only wearing branded trainers.
You might think I have no right to even discuss the Gove Curriculum, educating as we are on the wrong side of the river, but I can say that we home educating types stand alongside you; we need your support as you need ours. The home education world is deeply tribal, yet the dark Govian shadow embraces us all, touching us in his special way.
Yes, we have the autonomous Lord of the Flies brigade lost in the woods, setting about each other with the weaponry of autonomy and anarchy, but just wait until the magic age of 15 is reached, then watch an almighty scramble to find out what kids at school have done for the past 10 years in order to catch up and steal those GCSE passes A* to C.
We have the far-out religious too - seen only when they emerge from the Jumble for Jesus war zone to threaten us with the apocalypse - but see them wave Tinkertop's triple A* grades in Religious Studies.
We have the home ed business too! They'll be swotting up, selling educational services (trip to field, add to cart, $40), useful if you can't be arsed to organise the trip yourself for free, but full of the lingo of the key stage attainment targets.
And we have the structured school-at-home, preferring the CRB-checked tutors to provide regular homework for their 8-year olds, ready to slip Tinkertop back into school at any moment. Keep up with the curriculum they must.
You can see, can you not, how each of us, although we crash wildly on this side of the fence, is affected in some way by what happens on your side of the fence.
If Gove introduces a new regime - a bright shiny International glow of promise - you can bet we'll be just as you - forced to find out about it, read up on bits of it, search for interpretations and definitions, before slyly sitting Tinkertop down with an approved worksheet while covertly lecturing her on how great are our gun boats.
It is better, therefore, to think of us too facing the Govian thumb, one way or another. He affects the culture of all. Then for maybe the first time, pity your fellow parents - we home educating ones - destined to suffer, alongside yourselves, as we try, like you, to remember our pre-decimal 7x12.
Oh happy six-year old! You are sure to find your new Govian study interesting and engaging. Soon, you will be able to spell synonym, calculate four-fifths plus two-thirds, and know why England has an empire. (But no learning about the Opium Wars, not unless you want a thrashing.)
Yes, the new Govian national curriculum will be inspiring and triumphant! It reflects generous consultation and wide-ranging committee discussion, as befits our lives in egalitarian times. Over the coming days, the joyous populace will continue to contribute to the great discussion, via the internet forums of slanging matches, gratuitous insults and trolling, to engage with our great educational, social, and cultural debates. Not Gove himself, obviously. He decided these matters in 1953 and is presently not for budging.
Yet the new curriculum now stands as the marque of Britain Worldwide. From this date - to be celebrated henceforth as Day Zero of the International Gove Day of the New Curriculum - we can expect each and every six year old to do their duty: contribute to the Hong Kong league championships.
If Britain fails? It is not the fault of Govian aspiration! Let us lay the blame now at those recalcitrant parents who fail to achieve the best for Tinkertop in her 12xtables. They probably do not care, are scrounging all your benefits, have no scruples or morals, and insist on only wearing branded trainers.
You might think I have no right to even discuss the Gove Curriculum, educating as we are on the wrong side of the river, but I can say that we home educating types stand alongside you; we need your support as you need ours. The home education world is deeply tribal, yet the dark Govian shadow embraces us all, touching us in his special way.
Yes, we have the autonomous Lord of the Flies brigade lost in the woods, setting about each other with the weaponry of autonomy and anarchy, but just wait until the magic age of 15 is reached, then watch an almighty scramble to find out what kids at school have done for the past 10 years in order to catch up and steal those GCSE passes A* to C.
We have the far-out religious too - seen only when they emerge from the Jumble for Jesus war zone to threaten us with the apocalypse - but see them wave Tinkertop's triple A* grades in Religious Studies.
We have the home ed business too! They'll be swotting up, selling educational services (trip to field, add to cart, $40), useful if you can't be arsed to organise the trip yourself for free, but full of the lingo of the key stage attainment targets.
And we have the structured school-at-home, preferring the CRB-checked tutors to provide regular homework for their 8-year olds, ready to slip Tinkertop back into school at any moment. Keep up with the curriculum they must.
You can see, can you not, how each of us, although we crash wildly on this side of the fence, is affected in some way by what happens on your side of the fence.
If Gove introduces a new regime - a bright shiny International glow of promise - you can bet we'll be just as you - forced to find out about it, read up on bits of it, search for interpretations and definitions, before slyly sitting Tinkertop down with an approved worksheet while covertly lecturing her on how great are our gun boats.
It is better, therefore, to think of us too facing the Govian thumb, one way or another. He affects the culture of all. Then for maybe the first time, pity your fellow parents - we home educating ones - destined to suffer, alongside yourselves, as we try, like you, to remember our pre-decimal 7x12.
Monday, 22 April 2013
Dogma and Tradition: An England for the future!
I see Minister Gove, our renowned educationalist, has pronounced again.
Remember he toured China a couple of years ago? How he was starstruck? Especially how those hard-working Chinese come toppety-top in international measuring sticks for maths, science, more maths, and more science.
The might of Chinese education! How seductive it is. How powerful the man who brings it about! But to achieve it, Minister Gove must first Reeducate the People of England and Wales using the Chinese Characteristics witnessed at first hand.
Then what can we expect? We stubby-fingered, stumpy legged Anglo Saxon types? Clinging doggedly to our romantic Swallows and Amazons myths of agrarian childhoods while we look no further than the pig's mud we are grubbing for hedgehogs to roast.
1. Tinkertop, never too young.
Parents, in the Reeducation of the People With Chinese Characteristics, this will become your first Govian duty!
Brush up Tinkertop's interviewing technique. Even though she's aged two. If she is to succeed in our glorious national enterprise, Tinkertop must offer herself up to scrutiny, identify her failings, and make self-criticism as necessary. Then she may learn properly how to lay out the train set according to true Govian principles.
Welcome to Gove's model of early Asian education. Nurseries in Hong Kong run interviews. This is serious busine$$. The nursery Tinkertop attends can affect her final university place, so she must provide the correct interview answers! (It's bread.)
Not only good for Tinkertop, but good for business! Price competitive pre-school education sessions, crammer courses, and intensive toddler coaching!
You think I'm joking, no?
2. The 12-hour school day.
Tinkertop can never relax now she won that nursery place! She must maintain the intellectual pace of the intellectual elite. A twelve-hour day for school kids, including after-school-school, weekend camps, plus a punishing amount of homework.
3. No play.
In the Govian future, of course it will not be possible to send your ten-year old out to play.
Let's adopt the Chinese approach to playground provision. Playgrounds for anyone over the age of five? Forget it. Remember, hedgehog grubbers, kid playing is A WASTE OF TIME. Outdoor activities prevent desk study. Sitting on a wobbly duck will not help you memorise Govian-certified facts. The energy expended by legs is proved to drain the brain. Climbing a monkey bar will never improve a maths score.
Parents, the school will expect you to do your duty. Schedule, schedule, schedule. All the way to graduation.
4. Continuous testing.
Monitoring, testing, surveillance. All here to benefit Tinkertop and her ilk who would backslide into hedgehog roasting the moment the pressure is off. International scores must be maintained and their acceptance reinforced.
(And if Tinkertop stubbornly refuses to perform well in her exams, this is probably due to her moral failure, her spineless parents, and her gutless agrarian-noddled teachers.)
5. Teacher beware.
Under the Gove regime, Tinkertop must achieve A grades. Otherwise your pay will dip. Under Minister Gove, all teachers will compete and be paid by results where the results are grades. You will be made to comply via classroom inspections; at every opportunity these will weed out any who maintain wrong thinking - that schools are performing some sort of fluffy community goal.
In the Reeducated future, name-and-shame techniques will be used to identify bad teachers who fail to deliver the prescribed curriculum. Then let Chairman Gove come to save us!
6. Keep Tinkertop's brain busy.
Now Tinkertop reaches secondary level. Preferably in a crowd, where expressions of individuality invite social humiliation, where rote learning and chanting are good, where demonstrations of independent thinking are bad.
Keep Tinkertop occupied with mindless repetitive tasks; this is the perfect training for work.
(What do you mean, sounds like preparation for a life spent making steel in a backyard furnace? It's keeping people employed without the use of any critical faculties at all!)
7. Create an elite.
Power cares not about left or right, capitalism or communism. Power is. Chairman Mao cared not about 'levelling the playing field'. Gove can learn from this. Talk equality but via the educational system put into place an elite; where family dynasties reign supreme, and where business covertly stitches up deals with government in areas of common interest.
8. Bring in the enforcers.
Obviously the Annoying People won't give in quietly to the programme of Govian Reeducation. Better steamroller the lot of them, throwing up smokescreens of politics and criticising them all as anti-patriotic fifth columnists. Meanwhile, effect all changes quick and dirty; avoid challenging statute law; use pressure on reluctants via the special advisers. (Trans for the awkward squads: Gove is coming to get you.)
9. Effect a culture change.
Unfortunately, England does not share the knee-jerk cultural reaction when you mention the gaokao. In China, the gaokao exam is everything. It is access to your future life. Everything stops for the gaokao. Planes are re-routed, traffic ceases, neighbourhoods are monitored for noise. Shame that the wild and wilful Anglo Saxon hoards with their annoying finger-jabby anti-authoritarian leanings are not so deferential. But they can be persuaded, no? We can start with single exam boards; they will be far easier to manipulate directly from government.
10. Create a national fantasy.
Under the influence of Mao, whole villages strived to out-do each other with evidence of high crop yields, the marvellous record on steel production, the wonders of increased productivity! Chairman Gove needs to similarly encourage the information-propaganda machine: tell us how his changes have reaped wonderful rewards. Expect tales of international success and excellence. A new utopia is at hand. Out with the olds. In with Chairman Gove!
Soon, Chairman Gove will have his name by every white board in the land. The photograph will follow. See then! The Reeducation of the People With Chinese Characteristics is complete! Our Great Leader Chairman Gove!
We love Chairman Gove! We love Chairman Gove!
Remember he toured China a couple of years ago? How he was starstruck? Especially how those hard-working Chinese come toppety-top in international measuring sticks for maths, science, more maths, and more science.
The might of Chinese education! How seductive it is. How powerful the man who brings it about! But to achieve it, Minister Gove must first Reeducate the People of England and Wales using the Chinese Characteristics witnessed at first hand.
Then what can we expect? We stubby-fingered, stumpy legged Anglo Saxon types? Clinging doggedly to our romantic Swallows and Amazons myths of agrarian childhoods while we look no further than the pig's mud we are grubbing for hedgehogs to roast.
1. Tinkertop, never too young.
Parents, in the Reeducation of the People With Chinese Characteristics, this will become your first Govian duty!
Brush up Tinkertop's interviewing technique. Even though she's aged two. If she is to succeed in our glorious national enterprise, Tinkertop must offer herself up to scrutiny, identify her failings, and make self-criticism as necessary. Then she may learn properly how to lay out the train set according to true Govian principles.
Welcome to Gove's model of early Asian education. Nurseries in Hong Kong run interviews. This is serious busine$$. The nursery Tinkertop attends can affect her final university place, so she must provide the correct interview answers! (It's bread.)
Not only good for Tinkertop, but good for business! Price competitive pre-school education sessions, crammer courses, and intensive toddler coaching!
You think I'm joking, no?
2. The 12-hour school day.
Tinkertop can never relax now she won that nursery place! She must maintain the intellectual pace of the intellectual elite. A twelve-hour day for school kids, including after-school-school, weekend camps, plus a punishing amount of homework.
3. No play.
In the Govian future, of course it will not be possible to send your ten-year old out to play.
Let's adopt the Chinese approach to playground provision. Playgrounds for anyone over the age of five? Forget it. Remember, hedgehog grubbers, kid playing is A WASTE OF TIME. Outdoor activities prevent desk study. Sitting on a wobbly duck will not help you memorise Govian-certified facts. The energy expended by legs is proved to drain the brain. Climbing a monkey bar will never improve a maths score.
Parents, the school will expect you to do your duty. Schedule, schedule, schedule. All the way to graduation.
4. Continuous testing.
Monitoring, testing, surveillance. All here to benefit Tinkertop and her ilk who would backslide into hedgehog roasting the moment the pressure is off. International scores must be maintained and their acceptance reinforced.
(And if Tinkertop stubbornly refuses to perform well in her exams, this is probably due to her moral failure, her spineless parents, and her gutless agrarian-noddled teachers.)
5. Teacher beware.
Under the Gove regime, Tinkertop must achieve A grades. Otherwise your pay will dip. Under Minister Gove, all teachers will compete and be paid by results where the results are grades. You will be made to comply via classroom inspections; at every opportunity these will weed out any who maintain wrong thinking - that schools are performing some sort of fluffy community goal.
In the Reeducated future, name-and-shame techniques will be used to identify bad teachers who fail to deliver the prescribed curriculum. Then let Chairman Gove come to save us!
6. Keep Tinkertop's brain busy.
Now Tinkertop reaches secondary level. Preferably in a crowd, where expressions of individuality invite social humiliation, where rote learning and chanting are good, where demonstrations of independent thinking are bad.
Keep Tinkertop occupied with mindless repetitive tasks; this is the perfect training for work.
(What do you mean, sounds like preparation for a life spent making steel in a backyard furnace? It's keeping people employed without the use of any critical faculties at all!)
7. Create an elite.
Power cares not about left or right, capitalism or communism. Power is. Chairman Mao cared not about 'levelling the playing field'. Gove can learn from this. Talk equality but via the educational system put into place an elite; where family dynasties reign supreme, and where business covertly stitches up deals with government in areas of common interest.
8. Bring in the enforcers.
Obviously the Annoying People won't give in quietly to the programme of Govian Reeducation. Better steamroller the lot of them, throwing up smokescreens of politics and criticising them all as anti-patriotic fifth columnists. Meanwhile, effect all changes quick and dirty; avoid challenging statute law; use pressure on reluctants via the special advisers. (Trans for the awkward squads: Gove is coming to get you.)
9. Effect a culture change.
Unfortunately, England does not share the knee-jerk cultural reaction when you mention the gaokao. In China, the gaokao exam is everything. It is access to your future life. Everything stops for the gaokao. Planes are re-routed, traffic ceases, neighbourhoods are monitored for noise. Shame that the wild and wilful Anglo Saxon hoards with their annoying finger-jabby anti-authoritarian leanings are not so deferential. But they can be persuaded, no? We can start with single exam boards; they will be far easier to manipulate directly from government.
10. Create a national fantasy.
Under the influence of Mao, whole villages strived to out-do each other with evidence of high crop yields, the marvellous record on steel production, the wonders of increased productivity! Chairman Gove needs to similarly encourage the information-propaganda machine: tell us how his changes have reaped wonderful rewards. Expect tales of international success and excellence. A new utopia is at hand. Out with the olds. In with Chairman Gove!
Soon, Chairman Gove will have his name by every white board in the land. The photograph will follow. See then! The Reeducation of the People With Chinese Characteristics is complete! Our Great Leader Chairman Gove!
We love Chairman Gove! We love Chairman Gove!
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Michael Gove; infant with train set
Not surprising.
Since Global Gove left China his eyes have been all wide-eyed and starry; his brain ticking away like an infant planning playtime.
What knocked him out in China, apparently, was an ordinary book of homework. He was told it was merely research papers - look, nothing special! Simply written by ordinary students.
There was probably a moment of silence as the awe-struck Michael took this document in his trembling hand, the jealousy rising, for what the Asian education system produces, while his brain tells him these papers by 13-year olds are surely to be compared to the professional academic, peer-reviewed journal articles in the miserable, fallen-behind, lost-the-global-educational-race, failed UK.
So, like infant Joe, he's determined to change your education system. He's bringing it up to date for a twenty-first century world. He has a train set. You are the dinosaurs.
Now what steps could Michael plan, to turn your kids into proper world scholars, whipping the behinds of the Mini Changs? With his eyes starred from the successes of the east, but with his Tory heart beating, here's playtime.
1. Raise your parental anxiety level.
Essential to all ideologically-driven change, the parent-dinosaurs must first be softened up, and made to feel like shit.
We ask, What is wrong with your kid? Tinkertop is failing. She is falling behind! Look! She wants to stuff worms in her pockets and she's aged six! Why is she not reading like her Asian competitors? Do you stupid parents not know Mini Chang has already read the Asian classics and she is aged five.
Huh. Tinkertop is doomed. Unless you access the right nursery from age two and pump her brain with a standardised Phonics Reading Course from a reputable education supplier to be conducted at home on weekends.
2. Undermine the professional authority of state-trained teachers.
Here's my next train coming! Toot toot!
PGCEs waste time, don't they? Dossy, scrounging students, loafing for a year? And look at the result! Failing schools. You dinosaurs are right not to value Tinkertop's poxy teacher!
What the UK train should do is make teachers better. Beat them. Make training courses shorter, 100% classroom-based, and no pedagogy nonsense.
Then howabout taking courses away from universities altogether? Encourage private business to take over training!
We could assign school functions to lower-class, state-trained ancillaries, on hire-em/fire-em contracts, and schools could buy in services of privately-trained, classroom-experienced Deliverers of Curriculum.
Schools could ignore the local authority, and buy services from agencies who supply specialist staff, for a fee. With only a small contribution from you - which you are sure to make to improve Tinkertop's chances of success - the government provides the service you want and saves money!
3. Set up UK Education on business franchise principles.
Put the dinosaur parents on the train! Then, even though I am in charge of the track, it looks like they are driving the train!
Tell the dinosaurs they have total control to buy Tinkertop's educational services. You want your school to be academies, don't you? Academies want to be run like businesses! What's more, they're an excellent means by which to cream off public money and put it in private hands.
Think of the possibilities, dinosaurs. You could buy in everything. Private companies could offer curriculum packages, school administration services, security, homework marking - anything!
You name it, everything educational could be outsourced! Tinkertop's entire educational career from birth could be supplied at competitive cost by private enterprise!
All led by Michael's mates, come round for playtime.
Nonsense. We are only playing.
Since Global Gove left China his eyes have been all wide-eyed and starry; his brain ticking away like an infant planning playtime.
What knocked him out in China, apparently, was an ordinary book of homework. He was told it was merely research papers - look, nothing special! Simply written by ordinary students.
There was probably a moment of silence as the awe-struck Michael took this document in his trembling hand, the jealousy rising, for what the Asian education system produces, while his brain tells him these papers by 13-year olds are surely to be compared to the professional academic, peer-reviewed journal articles in the miserable, fallen-behind, lost-the-global-educational-race, failed UK.
So, like infant Joe, he's determined to change your education system. He's bringing it up to date for a twenty-first century world. He has a train set. You are the dinosaurs.
Now what steps could Michael plan, to turn your kids into proper world scholars, whipping the behinds of the Mini Changs? With his eyes starred from the successes of the east, but with his Tory heart beating, here's playtime.
1. Raise your parental anxiety level.
Essential to all ideologically-driven change, the parent-dinosaurs must first be softened up, and made to feel like shit.
We ask, What is wrong with your kid? Tinkertop is failing. She is falling behind! Look! She wants to stuff worms in her pockets and she's aged six! Why is she not reading like her Asian competitors? Do you stupid parents not know Mini Chang has already read the Asian classics and she is aged five.
Huh. Tinkertop is doomed. Unless you access the right nursery from age two and pump her brain with a standardised Phonics Reading Course from a reputable education supplier to be conducted at home on weekends.
2. Undermine the professional authority of state-trained teachers.
Here's my next train coming! Toot toot!
PGCEs waste time, don't they? Dossy, scrounging students, loafing for a year? And look at the result! Failing schools. You dinosaurs are right not to value Tinkertop's poxy teacher!
What the UK train should do is make teachers better. Beat them. Make training courses shorter, 100% classroom-based, and no pedagogy nonsense.
Then howabout taking courses away from universities altogether? Encourage private business to take over training!
We could assign school functions to lower-class, state-trained ancillaries, on hire-em/fire-em contracts, and schools could buy in services of privately-trained, classroom-experienced Deliverers of Curriculum.
Schools could ignore the local authority, and buy services from agencies who supply specialist staff, for a fee. With only a small contribution from you - which you are sure to make to improve Tinkertop's chances of success - the government provides the service you want and saves money!
3. Set up UK Education on business franchise principles.
Put the dinosaur parents on the train! Then, even though I am in charge of the track, it looks like they are driving the train!
Tell the dinosaurs they have total control to buy Tinkertop's educational services. You want your school to be academies, don't you? Academies want to be run like businesses! What's more, they're an excellent means by which to cream off public money and put it in private hands.
Think of the possibilities, dinosaurs. You could buy in everything. Private companies could offer curriculum packages, school administration services, security, homework marking - anything!
You name it, everything educational could be outsourced! Tinkertop's entire educational career from birth could be supplied at competitive cost by private enterprise!
All led by Michael's mates, come round for playtime.
Nonsense. We are only playing.
Friday, 30 April 2010
Grit's guide to politics with kids. Rule 5.
Election fever has gripped this house. La Famille Grit is urgently discussing the key issues, morning, noon and night. Along with who stole the last chocolate hobnob, which is almost as big as the economy in the scale of things. When we find out who did that, and who's got the missing UK trillions, we're going to give them both a good hiding.
To help sort out one discussion from another and focus our minds on who says what, mama Grit has turned the front room into the Election Nerve Centre.
So this is Rule 5 in this house, and the final rule in Grit's fantastic quick-fix for kids, politics guide:
Rule 5. Grab the fever. Turn your house into a set worthy of Election Night Special.
So far we have created an array of up-to-the-minute interactive display boards, designed to bring superior political analysis and interpretation of live news results. Hark! I think the BBC is banging on the front door right now, hoping to take advantage of our state-of-the-art display system.
No, just the milkman threatening us with the Old Bill. Never mind, while we wait for the BBC, here is some of Grit's Election Night Display.
OK, I admit that the only flyer we have so far stuck up on the know-your-candidate board is the Green Party. We had to print that flyer off the website because the bastards won't deliver us one on the basis that we can't be trusted to recycle it.
David Cameron was up there but the slimy posh boy keeps dropping off. I don't have enough blutack to hold him up.
And don't ask me where the liberal democrats have gone. I did have a flyer to stick up but I possibly used it for a shopping list and wrote mackerel over King Clegg's face before stuffing it in my handbag.
But the minorities are very nearly up there. We have a BNP leaflet but my hand won't let me stick it to the wall.
No-one can find out anything about the independent candidate, although we've tried. He's done no canvassing at our door, he has no website, and I've seen no posters or leaflets. I may vote for him on the basis he will leave us alone and do nothing, and that is more or less what I'd like for a few years.
You'll notice the Labour Party is not up there yet. They will go up, oh yes they will, in the interests of fair minded and balanced politics, and Shark, Squirrel and Tiger are quite entitled to vote for them oh yes they are. I have not brain washed my children that far, just reminded them about the micromanaging culture that is destroying our community, and the way the Labour Party hounded and vilified home educators over the last year, then told all resident bodies in this house that if they do put Ed Balls back in power I'm going on strike so they will starve to death and have to eat the floorboards. I think that is fair.
So on balance, right now, at this moment, we are an undecided family, although the Election Display Board is helping allocate votes on a policy-for-policy basis.
I have to admit, there is one party the children like best, and especially their manifesto which promises to make wire coat hangers illegal.
Of course we are tempted by the multilingual Clegg, because he is not one or the other.
There again, we might revert to type, and go Green, because Squirrel says, having thought about it, that fairies really do need fighting for.
To help sort out one discussion from another and focus our minds on who says what, mama Grit has turned the front room into the Election Nerve Centre.
So this is Rule 5 in this house, and the final rule in Grit's fantastic quick-fix for kids, politics guide:
Rule 5. Grab the fever. Turn your house into a set worthy of Election Night Special.
So far we have created an array of up-to-the-minute interactive display boards, designed to bring superior political analysis and interpretation of live news results. Hark! I think the BBC is banging on the front door right now, hoping to take advantage of our state-of-the-art display system.
No, just the milkman threatening us with the Old Bill. Never mind, while we wait for the BBC, here is some of Grit's Election Night Display.
OK, I admit that the only flyer we have so far stuck up on the know-your-candidate board is the Green Party. We had to print that flyer off the website because the bastards won't deliver us one on the basis that we can't be trusted to recycle it.
David Cameron was up there but the slimy posh boy keeps dropping off. I don't have enough blutack to hold him up.
And don't ask me where the liberal democrats have gone. I did have a flyer to stick up but I possibly used it for a shopping list and wrote mackerel over King Clegg's face before stuffing it in my handbag.
But the minorities are very nearly up there. We have a BNP leaflet but my hand won't let me stick it to the wall.
No-one can find out anything about the independent candidate, although we've tried. He's done no canvassing at our door, he has no website, and I've seen no posters or leaflets. I may vote for him on the basis he will leave us alone and do nothing, and that is more or less what I'd like for a few years.
You'll notice the Labour Party is not up there yet. They will go up, oh yes they will, in the interests of fair minded and balanced politics, and Shark, Squirrel and Tiger are quite entitled to vote for them oh yes they are. I have not brain washed my children that far, just reminded them about the micromanaging culture that is destroying our community, and the way the Labour Party hounded and vilified home educators over the last year, then told all resident bodies in this house that if they do put Ed Balls back in power I'm going on strike so they will starve to death and have to eat the floorboards. I think that is fair.
So on balance, right now, at this moment, we are an undecided family, although the Election Display Board is helping allocate votes on a policy-for-policy basis.
I have to admit, there is one party the children like best, and especially their manifesto which promises to make wire coat hangers illegal.
Of course we are tempted by the multilingual Clegg, because he is not one or the other.
There again, we might revert to type, and go Green, because Squirrel says, having thought about it, that fairies really do need fighting for.
Thursday, 29 April 2010
Grit's guide to politics with kids. Rule 4.
In January 2009, the Labour government decided to advertise home education.
They did it quite well. Within four months of their campaign starting, the perfectly legal option of education outside state school was covered in every major newspaper and magazine. It was the subject of TV news programmes. Videos created by adults, researchers, community groups and children blew across YouTube. Twitter and hundreds of blogs blasted out the news.
Another few months saw hundreds of thousands of documents, posters, leaflets, gatherings, picnics, celebration events and letters to lords, ladies, and Members of Parliament.
The home education agenda made thousands and thousands of people aware. Education is compulsory. School isn't.
That activity was a fantastic response. It showed what leverage ordinary people apply in government. We received applause from lords, and we sent bats down the bosoms of baronesses. Our reach went far. We made history.
We'll do it again. And I would say this is the best education in politics I could have given Shark, Squirrel and Tiger.
Rule 4. Get active.
My children did things. They went places. They talked about the issues. They followed the progress of a bill in Parliament. They found out how to meet other people who had different and the same opinions. They found out how people make their voices heard through petitions, arguments, demonstration. They saw how visual and print media worked to support or undermine an issue. They learned about the role of an MP, and how MPs can pick and choose the cause they'll support. My children learned that they can make a difference.
So that's what I recommend. Look at the bills proposed by the government we get next week. Pick one to follow - one that matters - and follow it day by day, as it progresses to an Act. Watch it, read about it, go visit Parliament or your MP. It is by far the most active way you can teach your child about the political process.
More suggestions on how to involve kids actively in politics are over here.
For the moment though we're busy on important matters. Balancing chinchillas on Shark's head requires precision timing.
They did it quite well. Within four months of their campaign starting, the perfectly legal option of education outside state school was covered in every major newspaper and magazine. It was the subject of TV news programmes. Videos created by adults, researchers, community groups and children blew across YouTube. Twitter and hundreds of blogs blasted out the news.
Another few months saw hundreds of thousands of documents, posters, leaflets, gatherings, picnics, celebration events and letters to lords, ladies, and Members of Parliament.
The home education agenda made thousands and thousands of people aware. Education is compulsory. School isn't.
That activity was a fantastic response. It showed what leverage ordinary people apply in government. We received applause from lords, and we sent bats down the bosoms of baronesses. Our reach went far. We made history.
We'll do it again. And I would say this is the best education in politics I could have given Shark, Squirrel and Tiger.
Rule 4. Get active.
My children did things. They went places. They talked about the issues. They followed the progress of a bill in Parliament. They found out how to meet other people who had different and the same opinions. They found out how people make their voices heard through petitions, arguments, demonstration. They saw how visual and print media worked to support or undermine an issue. They learned about the role of an MP, and how MPs can pick and choose the cause they'll support. My children learned that they can make a difference.
So that's what I recommend. Look at the bills proposed by the government we get next week. Pick one to follow - one that matters - and follow it day by day, as it progresses to an Act. Watch it, read about it, go visit Parliament or your MP. It is by far the most active way you can teach your child about the political process.
More suggestions on how to involve kids actively in politics are over here.
For the moment though we're busy on important matters. Balancing chinchillas on Shark's head requires precision timing.
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Grit's guide to politics with kids. Rule 3.
No messing.
Rule 3: Follow the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Here's Grit, always first with the news, eh!
But this is the real stuff. OK, you haven't got time to do it before the actual election in the UK, which is like, um, days away. But the classics are an excellent educational route into politics and power.
Don't suggest children cannot follow this fantastic history or get to grips with some of the issues contained in this slice of time. That breaks rule 2.
Because from Rome we get to talk about life. We stop being nice to each other. People bash, stab, poison and thump their way to power. They announce themselves conquerors, jackboot their way into foreign lands, stitch up dodgy deals, and over in Egypt shove snakes down their bras.
I can tell you from first-hand experience that Shark, Squirrel and Tiger, all aged ten, are enjoying themselves hugely with this; with tales of Tarquin the BAD, Tarquin the EVEN WORSE, Octavius the Sneaky GIT, Caligula the BONKERS. They're thinking about the nature of power itself and the grip of the dynasty. They're thinking about checks and balances of talking chambers, advisers, group interests. They're learning how each of these characters ruled with or without consent, with or without fear, as tyrants, dictators, kings, nutcases. Which I think is communicating some pretty valuable and relevant lessons for 21st century global living.
But consider this: why is it in state schools that kids are not taught this stuff? They are taught that Romans mean central heating, sewers, nice baths, and olive oil.
But strangely, if you pay 20K in school fees, the Romans are about monarchy, republic, conspiracy, tyranny, dictatorship, the creation of a patriarchal society, the power of rhetoric, the role of the lawmaker and the merits of military rule. In other words, pay for it, and you get the stuff of politics.
It is not an accident then that the British Empire was furthered and built by men who went to posh schools and had a direct training in the classics. It is not a fluke that rich, privately educated blokes who today tumble out of Oxbridge Philosophy, Politics and Economics courses become heads of Tory parties.
Now Grit may be an old anarchist hippie but I believe this division between the know and knownot - the way that some people are allowed near the juicy stuff of the classics but lesser mortals are kept away - is all part of a long tradition of maintaining privileged knowledge; and some knowledge clearly is to be kept away from the clutches of the gutter classes. Which sort of answers that question, Why isn't politics taught in schools?
I wouldn't exactly call it a conspiracy, but I think we have a society where some kids are kept in ignorance and taught about sewers while other kids are taught about politics, and power.
Well stuff that. Today we have more books than we can count. We have information pouring out of our screens. We have access to all knowledge. We can find out how politics works, think about questions of power, consider approaches to democracy, empower ourselves as citizens.
So that's one of the angles of politics I'm passing on to Shark, Squirrel and Tiger. And I'll leave it to their growing wisdoms over the years to steadily draw out the parallels between 496BC and 2010AD.
Rule 3: Follow the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Here's Grit, always first with the news, eh!
But this is the real stuff. OK, you haven't got time to do it before the actual election in the UK, which is like, um, days away. But the classics are an excellent educational route into politics and power.
Don't suggest children cannot follow this fantastic history or get to grips with some of the issues contained in this slice of time. That breaks rule 2.
Because from Rome we get to talk about life. We stop being nice to each other. People bash, stab, poison and thump their way to power. They announce themselves conquerors, jackboot their way into foreign lands, stitch up dodgy deals, and over in Egypt shove snakes down their bras.
I can tell you from first-hand experience that Shark, Squirrel and Tiger, all aged ten, are enjoying themselves hugely with this; with tales of Tarquin the BAD, Tarquin the EVEN WORSE, Octavius the Sneaky GIT, Caligula the BONKERS. They're thinking about the nature of power itself and the grip of the dynasty. They're thinking about checks and balances of talking chambers, advisers, group interests. They're learning how each of these characters ruled with or without consent, with or without fear, as tyrants, dictators, kings, nutcases. Which I think is communicating some pretty valuable and relevant lessons for 21st century global living.
But consider this: why is it in state schools that kids are not taught this stuff? They are taught that Romans mean central heating, sewers, nice baths, and olive oil.
But strangely, if you pay 20K in school fees, the Romans are about monarchy, republic, conspiracy, tyranny, dictatorship, the creation of a patriarchal society, the power of rhetoric, the role of the lawmaker and the merits of military rule. In other words, pay for it, and you get the stuff of politics.
It is not an accident then that the British Empire was furthered and built by men who went to posh schools and had a direct training in the classics. It is not a fluke that rich, privately educated blokes who today tumble out of Oxbridge Philosophy, Politics and Economics courses become heads of Tory parties.
Now Grit may be an old anarchist hippie but I believe this division between the know and knownot - the way that some people are allowed near the juicy stuff of the classics but lesser mortals are kept away - is all part of a long tradition of maintaining privileged knowledge; and some knowledge clearly is to be kept away from the clutches of the gutter classes. Which sort of answers that question, Why isn't politics taught in schools?
I wouldn't exactly call it a conspiracy, but I think we have a society where some kids are kept in ignorance and taught about sewers while other kids are taught about politics, and power.
Well stuff that. Today we have more books than we can count. We have information pouring out of our screens. We have access to all knowledge. We can find out how politics works, think about questions of power, consider approaches to democracy, empower ourselves as citizens.
So that's one of the angles of politics I'm passing on to Shark, Squirrel and Tiger. And I'll leave it to their growing wisdoms over the years to steadily draw out the parallels between 496BC and 2010AD.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Grit's guide to politics with kids. Rule 2.
When you cannot figure out the menu functions on the new DVD and you pass that remote control to your six-year old, at that moment you acknowledge their expert status as supreme being of all household media.
Similarly, when I want to understand what Gordon Brown means when he talks about managing the economy, I turn to the experts. I ask, Squirrel, what would you say if Tiger borrowed your whole pocket money, blew it on chocolate Maltesers and then told you that you're going to be grounded for non-payment of her library fines?
Squirrel would deliver a strongly worded opinion about that financial management, and I would almost certainly this time remove the metal bar before we got started on that discussion.
But the point is, I assume my kids are experts already. In almost everything. From economy, education, welfare and society through to the environment, trade, defence and the benefits and hazards of the justice system.
For which read, politics.
Rule 2: Assume kids are already experts
This is obvious, if you think about it. By age two, Shark, Squirrel and Tiger had definite opinions on my parenting skills. They shared those opinions freely, loudly, and in Tesco, to a maximum capacity audience. So their ideas about social cohesion were formed.
By age three their opinions were expressed about power, and how much of it they could exert over any situation if they locked themselves in the bathroom and removed all their clothes. Maybe, with fine timing, they could explore the literal concept of naked power five minutes after I said let's go shopping.
By age four they had views on crime and punishment thanks to the incident with the rock and scissors and the soil down the toilet. The NHS came shortly after thanks to the head wound from the first day at nursery.
At age five, they had a worked out approach to solving the educational problems of this country. Mostly created while watching their peers frogmarched down Bash Street School dressed in grey and white, while they took a leisurely breakfast and decided today they'd like to build a den in the woods.
And so it has gone on. Now Shark, Squirrel and Tiger offer challenging opinions on all manner of political issues, from the notion of fairness to the practicalities of the economy, thanks to the pocket money regime monitored by the Bank of Grit.
So I'm saying that kids should be treated like the people they are when it comes to politics. Wise, knowledgeable, experienced. Anything less sounds patronising and, given their expertise with rock, scissors and metal bar, round here I wouldn't try anything other than rational debate.
Similarly, when I want to understand what Gordon Brown means when he talks about managing the economy, I turn to the experts. I ask, Squirrel, what would you say if Tiger borrowed your whole pocket money, blew it on chocolate Maltesers and then told you that you're going to be grounded for non-payment of her library fines?
Squirrel would deliver a strongly worded opinion about that financial management, and I would almost certainly this time remove the metal bar before we got started on that discussion.
But the point is, I assume my kids are experts already. In almost everything. From economy, education, welfare and society through to the environment, trade, defence and the benefits and hazards of the justice system.
For which read, politics.
Rule 2: Assume kids are already experts
This is obvious, if you think about it. By age two, Shark, Squirrel and Tiger had definite opinions on my parenting skills. They shared those opinions freely, loudly, and in Tesco, to a maximum capacity audience. So their ideas about social cohesion were formed.
By age three their opinions were expressed about power, and how much of it they could exert over any situation if they locked themselves in the bathroom and removed all their clothes. Maybe, with fine timing, they could explore the literal concept of naked power five minutes after I said let's go shopping.
By age four they had views on crime and punishment thanks to the incident with the rock and scissors and the soil down the toilet. The NHS came shortly after thanks to the head wound from the first day at nursery.
At age five, they had a worked out approach to solving the educational problems of this country. Mostly created while watching their peers frogmarched down Bash Street School dressed in grey and white, while they took a leisurely breakfast and decided today they'd like to build a den in the woods.
And so it has gone on. Now Shark, Squirrel and Tiger offer challenging opinions on all manner of political issues, from the notion of fairness to the practicalities of the economy, thanks to the pocket money regime monitored by the Bank of Grit.
So I'm saying that kids should be treated like the people they are when it comes to politics. Wise, knowledgeable, experienced. Anything less sounds patronising and, given their expertise with rock, scissors and metal bar, round here I wouldn't try anything other than rational debate.
Sunday, 25 April 2010
Grit's guide to politics with kids. Rule 1.
It's no good, is it? I have to talk about it. The general election. Because Grit, like most smug home educating bastards, must seize this moment. I must grasp this stingingnettle opportunity.
Yes. I must now teach the little grits about politics.
I bet you'd like to think, given that we home educating types are brainwashing hothousing childabusing zealots*, that teaching my kids about politics means threatening them with rope and shouting Vote for the green-flavoured dope-smoking hippies or I tie you to the radiators again you little grits.
Unfortunately, the little grits run fast when they see the rope. They also, like most home ed kids, take no notice of a pointless parental unit like me, especially on matters which fall into the category called make up your own mind. Worse, these small opinionated people are by now thoroughly deinstitutionalised and completely individualised. Which means they roll out of bed with their own ideas on how they're going to run the planet.
Let's hope then you and me are in a spaceship heading for ZeltaMinor, that's all I'm saying, because some of those planet running ways include forced consumption of pasta and compulsory horse kissing.
Anyway, like most kids, my little grits combine a total certainty about the way to run a planet with their rights over who sits where at the breakfast table and who's not wearing mama's old cardigan again. They then mix this opinionated mishmash with a bunch of half-baked ideas sprinkled with half-arsed questions. Like Why can't conger eels rule the world? and What would happen if Gordon Brown ate only helium?
But this is where any Parent-Teacher comes in, and this is politics with kids Rule Number One that I can share with you, lovely thisfar-reader.
In fact, now I'm in full rhetorical mode, I'll don my best public service hat and tell you that these are my hard-earned wisdoms. Indeed I gladly pass them on to you, if you are looking to seize this election moment too, and educate your offspring in the ways of the world political.
Rule one. Answer all the questions about Gordon in a frock.
Yes, all the questions. Every one. You must answer them. No matter how pointless, stupid, and annoying.
In fact, this is how I teach anything, if you can call it teaching. Well OK, I don't. I listen to the questions asked by my little grits Tiger, Squirrel and Shark, and I answer them, as best I can. Sometimes my answer is, I do not know, I never thought about that, then I follow it up with Let's find out, and the consequent printing of fourmillionwikipediapages and the purchasing of 65 books on Amazon. After three weeks I can legitimately say It is all more complicated than I thought.
Now I know we don't have time for that, because there is an election to decide. But it is in this spirit that we approach the election with kids. They ask questions, we think up answers, and we all talk about it round the breakfast table, or at the side of the radiator if anyone's feeling uncooperative.
Fifteen minutes in and you may find that small offspring are filled with questions like Why is he doing that? What is he talking about? These are good questions and if we are going to join the great enterprise of educating the nation's youth in matters political, the answer must not be Shut up and eat your tea.** A bit more time and they are offering opinions like He would look stupid in a dress and He's not making me eat peas for anything. This is all good stuff, and round here we professionals call that engagement.
Now, that is Grit's fantastic Rule Number One.
I bet you can barely contain yourself for Rule Number Two.
*Balls, your crimes aren't forgiven.
**All you experienced home educators are rolling your eyes now, aren't you? Because of course you detect I have succumbed to that home ed crime of twisting everything the offspring say just to the subject I actually want to them to talk about. So Squirrel will casually say Gordon Brown would look better in a frock, and I will say Yes Squirrel, Gordon Brown would look better in a frock. And it is a jolly silly thing in our society that he cannot do that if he wants. Now let's talk about citizenship, autocracy and monarchy from the point of view that all men including Gordon Brown and the Duke of Edinburgh should be free to wear frocks, if they want.
Yes. I must now teach the little grits about politics.
I bet you'd like to think, given that we home educating types are brainwashing hothousing childabusing zealots*, that teaching my kids about politics means threatening them with rope and shouting Vote for the green-flavoured dope-smoking hippies or I tie you to the radiators again you little grits.
Unfortunately, the little grits run fast when they see the rope. They also, like most home ed kids, take no notice of a pointless parental unit like me, especially on matters which fall into the category called make up your own mind. Worse, these small opinionated people are by now thoroughly deinstitutionalised and completely individualised. Which means they roll out of bed with their own ideas on how they're going to run the planet.
Let's hope then you and me are in a spaceship heading for ZeltaMinor, that's all I'm saying, because some of those planet running ways include forced consumption of pasta and compulsory horse kissing.
Anyway, like most kids, my little grits combine a total certainty about the way to run a planet with their rights over who sits where at the breakfast table and who's not wearing mama's old cardigan again. They then mix this opinionated mishmash with a bunch of half-baked ideas sprinkled with half-arsed questions. Like Why can't conger eels rule the world? and What would happen if Gordon Brown ate only helium?
But this is where any Parent-Teacher comes in, and this is politics with kids Rule Number One that I can share with you, lovely thisfar-reader.
In fact, now I'm in full rhetorical mode, I'll don my best public service hat and tell you that these are my hard-earned wisdoms. Indeed I gladly pass them on to you, if you are looking to seize this election moment too, and educate your offspring in the ways of the world political.
Rule one. Answer all the questions about Gordon in a frock.
Yes, all the questions. Every one. You must answer them. No matter how pointless, stupid, and annoying.
In fact, this is how I teach anything, if you can call it teaching. Well OK, I don't. I listen to the questions asked by my little grits Tiger, Squirrel and Shark, and I answer them, as best I can. Sometimes my answer is, I do not know, I never thought about that, then I follow it up with Let's find out, and the consequent printing of fourmillionwikipediapages and the purchasing of 65 books on Amazon. After three weeks I can legitimately say It is all more complicated than I thought.
Now I know we don't have time for that, because there is an election to decide. But it is in this spirit that we approach the election with kids. They ask questions, we think up answers, and we all talk about it round the breakfast table, or at the side of the radiator if anyone's feeling uncooperative.
Fifteen minutes in and you may find that small offspring are filled with questions like Why is he doing that? What is he talking about? These are good questions and if we are going to join the great enterprise of educating the nation's youth in matters political, the answer must not be Shut up and eat your tea.** A bit more time and they are offering opinions like He would look stupid in a dress and He's not making me eat peas for anything. This is all good stuff, and round here we professionals call that engagement.
Now, that is Grit's fantastic Rule Number One.
I bet you can barely contain yourself for Rule Number Two.
*Balls, your crimes aren't forgiven.
**All you experienced home educators are rolling your eyes now, aren't you? Because of course you detect I have succumbed to that home ed crime of twisting everything the offspring say just to the subject I actually want to them to talk about. So Squirrel will casually say Gordon Brown would look better in a frock, and I will say Yes Squirrel, Gordon Brown would look better in a frock. And it is a jolly silly thing in our society that he cannot do that if he wants. Now let's talk about citizenship, autocracy and monarchy from the point of view that all men including Gordon Brown and the Duke of Edinburgh should be free to wear frocks, if they want.
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Teaching the kids about politics
Hey! Cute Squirrel! You've got a great line in argumentative backchat.
How about dumping the aspiration to be a poncey ballerina and becoming a proper knuckle-dusting politician instead?
Squirrel, politics is more fun than dancing. Politics is about noble ideas like honesty and integrity. Dancing is prancing about a stage foaming in pink.
Politics can be about more interesting stuff, too. Like screwing the system for everything you can get. Then, when you've made something of yourself, or you're thrashed on election night, you could forge a career as an after dinner speaker, publish your memoirs, take a cushtie job in Europe, or front up a BBC2 history show. Howabout that? Much better than starving yourself to fit into a tutu and hoping to open a suburban dance school on a minimum wage.
I can tell you're interested Squirrel. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Black is White, and White is Black.
Squirrel, you face tough times being a top politician. You must stand in the House of Commons and say the opposite to what you know to be true.
You are right. That is shocking. And lying. But it is called presentation.
You have to do it with a straight face. You may get away with it. If the opposition is weedy, drunk, misinformed, or couldn't be arsed to show up for the debate, that helps. If you do get away with your presentation, remember not to pump your fists in the air or high five the Speaker.
Let's look at Two-Tongues Ed. Ed is a master. Listen Squirrel, and learn.
Say you asked over 5,000 people whether they thought some strange geezer from the local authority should have the right to march into your house, say your learning isn't good enough, and whisk you off for a proper grilling.
You'd say no thanks, wouldn't you? Of course. Like 94 per cent of people did.
People like mummy Grit, who said No thanks. We're not inviting strangers into our home. He might be Mr Spooky from the corner. He might be a retired head teacher who thinks you all should sit down for 25 hours a week colouring in pictures of Anne Boleyn.
But when Ed hears that 94 per cent of people say no thanks, he replies, The vast majority of parents would be happy to let that happen. Didja hear that? Like 94 per cent turns into 9POINT4 per cent! Fantastic eh! Black is White, and White is Black!
But that's not all. You have to do more than two-tongue your way through a situation, Squirrel.
You have to mix up black/white with statements of fact and part-truths. Then add a sprinkling of prejudicial language and some crafty grammar.
Yes, I agree, that is difficult. Let's look to our master A-lister. Once more.
Ed spoke in the House of Commons on the 11 January this year. He said adding penalties would further inflame the minority of home educators who do not like the current provisions in the Bill.
There. It is true that home educators would face no financial penalty if they do not comply with the government. What Ed said is true. But he failed to mention that if parents do not comply, their kids automatically get a School Attendance Order! Off you all trot to the local primary! No argument!
Squirrel, don't cry. Potential politicians don't snivel.
At the moment, Squirrel, I have a legal right to argue that I am providing an education for you. But under Two-Tongues Ed, that right is removed. He is taking final control of my educational decision. But hey! While you're colouring in a picture of Anne Boleyn, we won't be fined a grand! So cheer up!
Anyway, here's a tissue, and I shall leave you to ponder political opportunity, dear daughter. But finally, I just want to tell you to be careful. Because every politician must deal - not only with the smelly hordes called voters - but with the tunnel-dwelling army that is the civil service.
These scurrying, studious workers can be on your side. Or they can be working to undermine you. Do not underestimate them Squirrel. They have agendas. Like the release of documents strangely at variance with the political timetable. Perhaps timed to maximise your embarrassment. That's right. They can make you look like a prat. We will think on. But for now, lesson over.
Thank you for the tutu. I can see you're the sort of feisty gal who won't need that. Now, here's your homework.
How about dumping the aspiration to be a poncey ballerina and becoming a proper knuckle-dusting politician instead?
Squirrel, politics is more fun than dancing. Politics is about noble ideas like honesty and integrity. Dancing is prancing about a stage foaming in pink.
Politics can be about more interesting stuff, too. Like screwing the system for everything you can get. Then, when you've made something of yourself, or you're thrashed on election night, you could forge a career as an after dinner speaker, publish your memoirs, take a cushtie job in Europe, or front up a BBC2 history show. Howabout that? Much better than starving yourself to fit into a tutu and hoping to open a suburban dance school on a minimum wage.
I can tell you're interested Squirrel. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Black is White, and White is Black.
Squirrel, you face tough times being a top politician. You must stand in the House of Commons and say the opposite to what you know to be true.
You are right. That is shocking. And lying. But it is called presentation.
You have to do it with a straight face. You may get away with it. If the opposition is weedy, drunk, misinformed, or couldn't be arsed to show up for the debate, that helps. If you do get away with your presentation, remember not to pump your fists in the air or high five the Speaker.
Let's look at Two-Tongues Ed. Ed is a master. Listen Squirrel, and learn.
Say you asked over 5,000 people whether they thought some strange geezer from the local authority should have the right to march into your house, say your learning isn't good enough, and whisk you off for a proper grilling.
You'd say no thanks, wouldn't you? Of course. Like 94 per cent of people did.
People like mummy Grit, who said No thanks. We're not inviting strangers into our home. He might be Mr Spooky from the corner. He might be a retired head teacher who thinks you all should sit down for 25 hours a week colouring in pictures of Anne Boleyn.
But when Ed hears that 94 per cent of people say no thanks, he replies, The vast majority of parents would be happy to let that happen. Didja hear that? Like 94 per cent turns into 9POINT4 per cent! Fantastic eh! Black is White, and White is Black!
But that's not all. You have to do more than two-tongue your way through a situation, Squirrel.
You have to mix up black/white with statements of fact and part-truths. Then add a sprinkling of prejudicial language and some crafty grammar.
Yes, I agree, that is difficult. Let's look to our master A-lister. Once more.
Ed spoke in the House of Commons on the 11 January this year. He said adding penalties would further inflame the minority of home educators who do not like the current provisions in the Bill.
There. It is true that home educators would face no financial penalty if they do not comply with the government. What Ed said is true. But he failed to mention that if parents do not comply, their kids automatically get a School Attendance Order! Off you all trot to the local primary! No argument!
Squirrel, don't cry. Potential politicians don't snivel.
At the moment, Squirrel, I have a legal right to argue that I am providing an education for you. But under Two-Tongues Ed, that right is removed. He is taking final control of my educational decision. But hey! While you're colouring in a picture of Anne Boleyn, we won't be fined a grand! So cheer up!
Anyway, here's a tissue, and I shall leave you to ponder political opportunity, dear daughter. But finally, I just want to tell you to be careful. Because every politician must deal - not only with the smelly hordes called voters - but with the tunnel-dwelling army that is the civil service.
These scurrying, studious workers can be on your side. Or they can be working to undermine you. Do not underestimate them Squirrel. They have agendas. Like the release of documents strangely at variance with the political timetable. Perhaps timed to maximise your embarrassment. That's right. They can make you look like a prat. We will think on. But for now, lesson over.
Thank you for the tutu. I can see you're the sort of feisty gal who won't need that. Now, here's your homework.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
And dress in purple, green, yellow and diamonds
I managed to watch the committee meeting late last night on Parliament TV. Standing in the tiny, cold upstairs kitchen without a working light bulb, I peered into a laptop.
I am grateful. It's not like I had to lean backwards from the skylight with a television aerial gripped between my teeth.
The home education people giving evidence to the committee were strong, mostly. Chloe is astonishing. How old is she? Seventeen? I hope Shark, Squirrel and Tiger are as confident, articulate, commanding. She is the type of wonderful creature that shows you what it is to have an open thinking education. Unafraid to express her rights, know her freedoms; she is confidence without arrogance, expression without fear.
Fiona made her point: she said that there are families who aren't sleeping, aren't eating. For a whole year! Can you imagine that? There are ghosts among us; they walk abroad at night, hollow eyed. It's dramatic, that.
But I know what she means.
Our family has lived with this political process for one year. It is draining, and it has changed us. Made me stronger. More determined. Grittier.
In this last year, home educators have argued against negative press reports, signed petitions, coordinated information requests, written documents, collated responses, researched statistics, made videos, written blogs, letters, scripts, passed around news, run behind the scenes, coordinated picnics, protests, other people.
Telling you all, telling you all, home education is not the end. It's not what they say it is. It's the beginning. It's filled with opportunity, it's a community, a lifestyle, outdoors, indoors; it's anything you want it to be for your children. And it's strong.
But I know what Fiona means.
The last year has affected us in oh so tiny ways. Ways you wouldn't see or know, unless you are the type of person who knows themselves so closely - habits, preferences, the way you might turn this way or that - that you can detect differences in yourself, at the moment why you made this choice, not that.
When I have twenty minutes from lunch to the moment I bundle the kids into the car, I might once have quickly checked the events of a museum, called up the website to West Stow, planned in my head a day trip, imagined family, grabbed a phone number. But now, I don't do those things, unless I make time. Now, in twenty minutes, I check the parliament site. I find the message about the Lords. I make a note about the government position statement. I jot a name from the local authority. That is a difference this year has made to me. It is tiny, and it is huge.
And there is another way that life has changed. Once, I would stride along the street midday Monday behind three dancing gritlets making noise enough to rouse ten skeletons. I would have considered this a duty. By our very being, telling everyone that school is not the only option. That childhood can be better sometimes in the open air.
But now I reflect on the experience of the police and the truancy patrol and the threats and the negative media reports, and I fear glances of people in the street who know that only people like me do these things, and terrible things; how we fail children, everybody knows, people say. It must be true, otherwise the government wouldn't want to know, would they, unless there was something to know.
Some days I have thought we will wait till late afternoon before we go out the house. Then I can minimise the fear that I will be stopped in the street, made to account for myself, forced to fill in forms, expose my children to the argument, feel humiliated, because I chose something other than a classroom. It's safer to stay inside.
These are ways this year has changed us.
Of course I could ignore all the politics. Stop it reaching down into my family, and our lives. I could do nothing. I could carry on checking museum dates, diaries, imagining our visit over there, to the sea. I could do that. But I know that would be dishonest to what I feel. So indifference is not a good idea. Flowers would wilt. Cats would die. The day would rain, hard. Guilty, I would blame me.
Which leaves only one option. Go out at ten in the morning. Run the High Street from top to bottom. Bash dustbin lids. Clap hands. Be obvious. Be wild women tall and small. Be noisy, dangerous, free spirited. Laugh, loudly.
I know it is still our best defence.
I am grateful. It's not like I had to lean backwards from the skylight with a television aerial gripped between my teeth.
The home education people giving evidence to the committee were strong, mostly. Chloe is astonishing. How old is she? Seventeen? I hope Shark, Squirrel and Tiger are as confident, articulate, commanding. She is the type of wonderful creature that shows you what it is to have an open thinking education. Unafraid to express her rights, know her freedoms; she is confidence without arrogance, expression without fear.
Fiona made her point: she said that there are families who aren't sleeping, aren't eating. For a whole year! Can you imagine that? There are ghosts among us; they walk abroad at night, hollow eyed. It's dramatic, that.
But I know what she means.
Our family has lived with this political process for one year. It is draining, and it has changed us. Made me stronger. More determined. Grittier.
In this last year, home educators have argued against negative press reports, signed petitions, coordinated information requests, written documents, collated responses, researched statistics, made videos, written blogs, letters, scripts, passed around news, run behind the scenes, coordinated picnics, protests, other people.
Telling you all, telling you all, home education is not the end. It's not what they say it is. It's the beginning. It's filled with opportunity, it's a community, a lifestyle, outdoors, indoors; it's anything you want it to be for your children. And it's strong.
But I know what Fiona means.
The last year has affected us in oh so tiny ways. Ways you wouldn't see or know, unless you are the type of person who knows themselves so closely - habits, preferences, the way you might turn this way or that - that you can detect differences in yourself, at the moment why you made this choice, not that.
When I have twenty minutes from lunch to the moment I bundle the kids into the car, I might once have quickly checked the events of a museum, called up the website to West Stow, planned in my head a day trip, imagined family, grabbed a phone number. But now, I don't do those things, unless I make time. Now, in twenty minutes, I check the parliament site. I find the message about the Lords. I make a note about the government position statement. I jot a name from the local authority. That is a difference this year has made to me. It is tiny, and it is huge.
And there is another way that life has changed. Once, I would stride along the street midday Monday behind three dancing gritlets making noise enough to rouse ten skeletons. I would have considered this a duty. By our very being, telling everyone that school is not the only option. That childhood can be better sometimes in the open air.
But now I reflect on the experience of the police and the truancy patrol and the threats and the negative media reports, and I fear glances of people in the street who know that only people like me do these things, and terrible things; how we fail children, everybody knows, people say. It must be true, otherwise the government wouldn't want to know, would they, unless there was something to know.
Some days I have thought we will wait till late afternoon before we go out the house. Then I can minimise the fear that I will be stopped in the street, made to account for myself, forced to fill in forms, expose my children to the argument, feel humiliated, because I chose something other than a classroom. It's safer to stay inside.
These are ways this year has changed us.
Of course I could ignore all the politics. Stop it reaching down into my family, and our lives. I could do nothing. I could carry on checking museum dates, diaries, imagining our visit over there, to the sea. I could do that. But I know that would be dishonest to what I feel. So indifference is not a good idea. Flowers would wilt. Cats would die. The day would rain, hard. Guilty, I would blame me.
Which leaves only one option. Go out at ten in the morning. Run the High Street from top to bottom. Bash dustbin lids. Clap hands. Be obvious. Be wild women tall and small. Be noisy, dangerous, free spirited. Laugh, loudly.
I know it is still our best defence.
Sunday, 19 July 2009
Grit's top ten tips time! How to be irritating in Politics.
It is time to stop the silliness. Yes, Squirrel, that means you, threatening to poke cocktail sticks up Ed Balls' nose. No more of that. No threatening to kick Mr Badman on the shins either.
Right, let's think how we can all engage with the politics of the UK.
Or, how to be irritating until Judgement Day. That, for the Labour party, might be called Election Day.
Shark, I know you are aged only nine and cannot vote. But you, like Tiger and Squirrel, can be irritating if you try. You simply have to learn how to focus that ability to annoy more precisely. Aim it carefully at people in positions of power. And that is not mama, so put the puffin down.
Now, here are Grit's top ten tips, designed to propel our home education issues straight to the heart of government.
(Of course with these top ten tips you can make your voice heard with the people who run this country on all the important issues of the day, like molehills, jellyfish, and dog poo.)
1. See your MP.
In our case, waste of time. We have only annoyed ourselves. Go immediately to tip 2.
2. Connect and communicate.
Shark, Tiger and Squirrel, you have all the world at your disposal, or until the Ministry for Information shuts it down.
From here you can learn about the political processes of this country. Like Early day Motions. Or you can learn tactics about being annoying from masters of the art. But be warned! Satire might piss off people in power.
Don't repeat that phrase, Tiger. In the Co-op anyway. Say what? Yes. We can chant it at home. As much as we like. And nanananana PISS OFF PISS OFF CAN'T STOP US!
OK, stop being silly everyone. Back to the topic in hand.
Take part in UK politics by research. Look at Twitter, blogs, newsfeeds, email. Remember these connect you with people who both sympathise with, and criticise, your points of view. You have to become firmer and more robust in presenting your case. And these are skills of rhetoric, so we even get the Ancient Greeks in on the act today.
3. Write. And attend to the speling.
Write to them. Emails and letters are good. Postcards too. But have limited expectations. If you have a spineless toady MP squatting in a room in Parliament, they don't even bother answering.
Of course, ignoring the electorate is like asking to be baited.
Baiting politicians through the written word is quite satisfying. Until they figure out what you're up to. Then they start binning the letters and calling the police. Of course I was young then. These days I have to get the tea started so I don't have much time for this form of being irritating in UK political life.
4. Make your own forms for people to fill in.
This is very good. Play them at their own game. For every document sent to you, reply with your own form, called something like Permission to Request Information Form (Part One).
In the good old days when minor officials sent me pointless forms, I filled them in with several different coloured pens and some crayons. Then I supplied as much pointless information as possible, like how many stairs the neighbour is hiding in their house. If obliged to give anyone true information, I wrote tiny letters in 6 point and wrote it backwards at the end of a wavy arrow over the back of the page where they couldn't photocopy it. Oh, happy days!
5. Join lots of pressure groups or join no pressure groups.
Joining pressure groups can be quite annoying to people who know you, but to the people in power it gives them an opportunity to define you and therefore discount you. They can say Poohpooh who listens to home educating hippies anyway? By joining no pressure groups you are more difficult to pin down. Water is harder to catch if it's running off down the street in all directions.
6. Publicise your cause.
Most satisfying because your righteous indignation can be visited on lots of people all at once. Post office queues are good but, strangely, not cashpoint queues. I think the people in front assume you are trying to steal their money.
I prefer the one-to-one approach. Librarians are easy targets. They can be converted to many fringe issues by your evangelical zeal. And they are natural allies in the world of home education, possibly because they are traumatised, picking out chewing gum from bookshelves thanks to the term's school visit.
NB: One-to-one intensive chats on the state of the world do not work with bus drivers on board the number 45 at the city centre bus stop.
7. Engage in the democratic process
Sign a petition, take part in a survey, respond to yet another consultation, join the mass lobby of parliament. All these are worthy and they will go on.
In the home education world I have met a lot of people who've waged campaigns longer than a couple of months, so the government are underestimating the resilience of home educators out there. Some of them have fought schools for years to get a decent education before throwing their hands up in the air and doing it themselves with better results. So if the government thinks these parents will keep quiet come October, they've got some lessons to learn.
8. Know people, pull strings, and get the law changed that way.
Tricky. I fail at this one. But I know a man who knows people. He isn't invited to meet HRH PoW for nothing. Unfortunately people don't take the HRH PoW seriously much in politics, so I know this connection doesn't really help. Lord Lucus might be a better bet.
9. Direct action!
Of course I would not of course advocate illegal stuff, like cramming a teddy bear with icing sugar and BLOWING THINGS UP (Hello to the person crawling over this site looking for those words, along with GAFFER TAPE and ED BALLS).
Anyway, these days I am a middle aged, slow running, big arsed grit who has to get the dinner on. So my direct action now excludes running across fields engaged in acts of sabotage.
My definition of direct action thus has to include using CHARM. I know that's difficult to believe.
I would like to think charm means letting everyone know the successes, problems, frustrations and joys of educating children at home, with or without help from the authorities. This blog is one way of doing it. (As you can see, eagle eye junior spy, this blog isn't about BLOWING THINGS UP. It's about HOME EDUCATION.)
10. Continue doing what you're doing.
Shark, Squirrel and Tiger, my home educated children. You are wonderful to be with. You are funny, knowledgeable, sociable, relaxed, happy, safe, confident, energetic, ambitious, and full of inquisitive questions about everyone and everything. And there is no better way, in my opinion, to show the world, including those politicians, just how fabulous home education can be for children. And for their parents.
And that, for some people, must be really, really irritating.
Right, let's think how we can all engage with the politics of the UK.
Or, how to be irritating until Judgement Day. That, for the Labour party, might be called Election Day.
Shark, I know you are aged only nine and cannot vote. But you, like Tiger and Squirrel, can be irritating if you try. You simply have to learn how to focus that ability to annoy more precisely. Aim it carefully at people in positions of power. And that is not mama, so put the puffin down.
Now, here are Grit's top ten tips, designed to propel our home education issues straight to the heart of government.
(Of course with these top ten tips you can make your voice heard with the people who run this country on all the important issues of the day, like molehills, jellyfish, and dog poo.)
1. See your MP.
In our case, waste of time. We have only annoyed ourselves. Go immediately to tip 2.
2. Connect and communicate.
Shark, Tiger and Squirrel, you have all the world at your disposal, or until the Ministry for Information shuts it down.
From here you can learn about the political processes of this country. Like Early day Motions. Or you can learn tactics about being annoying from masters of the art. But be warned! Satire might piss off people in power.
Don't repeat that phrase, Tiger. In the Co-op anyway. Say what? Yes. We can chant it at home. As much as we like. And nanananana PISS OFF PISS OFF CAN'T STOP US!
OK, stop being silly everyone. Back to the topic in hand.
Take part in UK politics by research. Look at Twitter, blogs, newsfeeds, email. Remember these connect you with people who both sympathise with, and criticise, your points of view. You have to become firmer and more robust in presenting your case. And these are skills of rhetoric, so we even get the Ancient Greeks in on the act today.
3. Write. And attend to the speling.
Write to them. Emails and letters are good. Postcards too. But have limited expectations. If you have a spineless toady MP squatting in a room in Parliament, they don't even bother answering.
Of course, ignoring the electorate is like asking to be baited.
Baiting politicians through the written word is quite satisfying. Until they figure out what you're up to. Then they start binning the letters and calling the police. Of course I was young then. These days I have to get the tea started so I don't have much time for this form of being irritating in UK political life.
4. Make your own forms for people to fill in.
This is very good. Play them at their own game. For every document sent to you, reply with your own form, called something like Permission to Request Information Form (Part One).
In the good old days when minor officials sent me pointless forms, I filled them in with several different coloured pens and some crayons. Then I supplied as much pointless information as possible, like how many stairs the neighbour is hiding in their house. If obliged to give anyone true information, I wrote tiny letters in 6 point and wrote it backwards at the end of a wavy arrow over the back of the page where they couldn't photocopy it. Oh, happy days!
5. Join lots of pressure groups or join no pressure groups.
Joining pressure groups can be quite annoying to people who know you, but to the people in power it gives them an opportunity to define you and therefore discount you. They can say Poohpooh who listens to home educating hippies anyway? By joining no pressure groups you are more difficult to pin down. Water is harder to catch if it's running off down the street in all directions.
6. Publicise your cause.
Most satisfying because your righteous indignation can be visited on lots of people all at once. Post office queues are good but, strangely, not cashpoint queues. I think the people in front assume you are trying to steal their money.
I prefer the one-to-one approach. Librarians are easy targets. They can be converted to many fringe issues by your evangelical zeal. And they are natural allies in the world of home education, possibly because they are traumatised, picking out chewing gum from bookshelves thanks to the term's school visit.
NB: One-to-one intensive chats on the state of the world do not work with bus drivers on board the number 45 at the city centre bus stop.
7. Engage in the democratic process
Sign a petition, take part in a survey, respond to yet another consultation, join the mass lobby of parliament. All these are worthy and they will go on.
In the home education world I have met a lot of people who've waged campaigns longer than a couple of months, so the government are underestimating the resilience of home educators out there. Some of them have fought schools for years to get a decent education before throwing their hands up in the air and doing it themselves with better results. So if the government thinks these parents will keep quiet come October, they've got some lessons to learn.
8. Know people, pull strings, and get the law changed that way.
Tricky. I fail at this one. But I know a man who knows people. He isn't invited to meet HRH PoW for nothing. Unfortunately people don't take the HRH PoW seriously much in politics, so I know this connection doesn't really help. Lord Lucus might be a better bet.
9. Direct action!
Of course I would not of course advocate illegal stuff, like cramming a teddy bear with icing sugar and BLOWING THINGS UP (Hello to the person crawling over this site looking for those words, along with GAFFER TAPE and ED BALLS).
Anyway, these days I am a middle aged, slow running, big arsed grit who has to get the dinner on. So my direct action now excludes running across fields engaged in acts of sabotage.
My definition of direct action thus has to include using CHARM. I know that's difficult to believe.
I would like to think charm means letting everyone know the successes, problems, frustrations and joys of educating children at home, with or without help from the authorities. This blog is one way of doing it. (As you can see, eagle eye junior spy, this blog isn't about BLOWING THINGS UP. It's about HOME EDUCATION.)
10. Continue doing what you're doing.
Shark, Squirrel and Tiger, my home educated children. You are wonderful to be with. You are funny, knowledgeable, sociable, relaxed, happy, safe, confident, energetic, ambitious, and full of inquisitive questions about everyone and everything. And there is no better way, in my opinion, to show the world, including those politicians, just how fabulous home education can be for children. And for their parents.
And that, for some people, must be really, really irritating.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
See that man over there? He started it.
Grit has never been particularly active in local politics. Don't count that year I bought each person in my meat-eating, stand-for-the-queen, respect-the-land family an annual membership to the Vegan Society, Republic, and Hunt Saboteurs Association. No. That was called Youth and Look at the expression on my father's face.
But now things are different. Now, I have children. Here's one of them, pointing the finger at the guilty.
You see? Things are different. Now, I have to be serious when taking sides.
That's a tough call. My head is mangled already and some days works only with medication. But it has not made sense. Because here I am, thanks to Balls, considering voting Tory. My heart may stop, my brain close down, my disloyal hands drop from my arms inside that voting booth, but there is the fact.
The problem, the real, big, deep problem is the centralising, controlling, paranoid heart of the Labour party.
My God! I voted for them! Did I know I was asking to be eaten alive by some monster that wants to control, monitor and inspect us? It's the Labour party that wants to manage our family life through 40 pages of form-filling bureaucracy, then report back on us through the prying eyes of state officials.
Did I realise the Labour party will provide, thanks to Lackey Badman, penetrating powers to small-minded officials, and those powers stab right to the heart of my individual freedom, the integrity of my family and our civil liberties? Was I warned about that?
Well now Grit's gone all political. Partly through guilt at having brought this on her own head; partly because she is a bloody-minded old trout not going without a fight, but mostly because that little finger-pointing person up there is one of three most precious, loved people in my world. And Balls is not going to lay a hand on them.
But I'm at an age where I can no longer endorse slipping dead fish in privet hedges. Even though my heart says yes to that, my body can't run quick enough. So I have complained to the press, written a letter to my MP, and demanded Early Day Motions* are signed.
You could argue this is all a good thing. I'm learning a lot more about parliamentary process, and the kids are getting a fine education in how to become a thorn in the side to your MP; how to express your dangerous ideas, and how to use your vote.
Yes. That is a good thing. Unless you are in the Labour party.
If I make it out the polling station, I shall probably be struck dead by my mother's curses from beyond the grave. I may have only two options. Vote Green, again, or spoil my ballot paper.
Which some people say is pretty much one and the same thing.
* These are our rights, and I'm keeping them.
Early Day Motions here. MPs from here.
EDM 1785
HOME EDUCATION AND THE BADMAN REVIEW 01.07.2009
Mark Field
That this House acknowledges and celebrates the hard work of the many home educators in Britain who teach their children to an exceptionally high standard; recognises the excellent value they represent to the Government; notes with concern the conflation of welfare concerns with education issues in Government statements on home education; further notes with concern the recommendations of the Badman Review which suggest closer monitoring of home educators, including a compulsory annual registration scheme and right of access to people's homes for local authority officials; and calls on the Government to focus on its own ability to fulfil the Every Child Matters objectives rather than undermine the independence and integrity of home educators by enforcing the Badman recommendations.
EDM 1784
HOME EDUCATION 01.07.2009
Timothy Farron
That this House recognises that an estimated 45,000 to 150,000 children are educated at home; believes that parents should be allowed and supported to home educate; notes with concern the proposals put forward in the recent Badman Review; expresses particular concern at the lack of consultation involved in conducting the review; considers it unacceptable that local authorities are able to circumvent their responsibilities to pupils who are being home educated; accepts the need for a system of support to ensure that home educated children receive a good quality of education without creating an excessive and damaging degree of bureaucracy; and calls on the Government to strike the right balance between allowing parents the freedom to give their children the widest possible educational opportunities and ensuring that all children receive a well-rounded education.
But now things are different. Now, I have children. Here's one of them, pointing the finger at the guilty.
You see? Things are different. Now, I have to be serious when taking sides.
That's a tough call. My head is mangled already and some days works only with medication. But it has not made sense. Because here I am, thanks to Balls, considering voting Tory. My heart may stop, my brain close down, my disloyal hands drop from my arms inside that voting booth, but there is the fact.
The problem, the real, big, deep problem is the centralising, controlling, paranoid heart of the Labour party.
My God! I voted for them! Did I know I was asking to be eaten alive by some monster that wants to control, monitor and inspect us? It's the Labour party that wants to manage our family life through 40 pages of form-filling bureaucracy, then report back on us through the prying eyes of state officials.
Did I realise the Labour party will provide, thanks to Lackey Badman, penetrating powers to small-minded officials, and those powers stab right to the heart of my individual freedom, the integrity of my family and our civil liberties? Was I warned about that?
Well now Grit's gone all political. Partly through guilt at having brought this on her own head; partly because she is a bloody-minded old trout not going without a fight, but mostly because that little finger-pointing person up there is one of three most precious, loved people in my world. And Balls is not going to lay a hand on them.
But I'm at an age where I can no longer endorse slipping dead fish in privet hedges. Even though my heart says yes to that, my body can't run quick enough. So I have complained to the press, written a letter to my MP, and demanded Early Day Motions* are signed.
You could argue this is all a good thing. I'm learning a lot more about parliamentary process, and the kids are getting a fine education in how to become a thorn in the side to your MP; how to express your dangerous ideas, and how to use your vote.
Yes. That is a good thing. Unless you are in the Labour party.
If I make it out the polling station, I shall probably be struck dead by my mother's curses from beyond the grave. I may have only two options. Vote Green, again, or spoil my ballot paper.
Which some people say is pretty much one and the same thing.
* These are our rights, and I'm keeping them.
Early Day Motions here. MPs from here.
EDM 1785
HOME EDUCATION AND THE BADMAN REVIEW 01.07.2009
Mark Field
That this House acknowledges and celebrates the hard work of the many home educators in Britain who teach their children to an exceptionally high standard; recognises the excellent value they represent to the Government; notes with concern the conflation of welfare concerns with education issues in Government statements on home education; further notes with concern the recommendations of the Badman Review which suggest closer monitoring of home educators, including a compulsory annual registration scheme and right of access to people's homes for local authority officials; and calls on the Government to focus on its own ability to fulfil the Every Child Matters objectives rather than undermine the independence and integrity of home educators by enforcing the Badman recommendations.
EDM 1784
HOME EDUCATION 01.07.2009
Timothy Farron
That this House recognises that an estimated 45,000 to 150,000 children are educated at home; believes that parents should be allowed and supported to home educate; notes with concern the proposals put forward in the recent Badman Review; expresses particular concern at the lack of consultation involved in conducting the review; considers it unacceptable that local authorities are able to circumvent their responsibilities to pupils who are being home educated; accepts the need for a system of support to ensure that home educated children receive a good quality of education without creating an excessive and damaging degree of bureaucracy; and calls on the Government to strike the right balance between allowing parents the freedom to give their children the widest possible educational opportunities and ensuring that all children receive a well-rounded education.
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