New Poem: Underground

It said, ‘Please use the stairs’, so everyone turned

right at the end of the platform. Someone with a

buggy hesitated and there was a blockage behind

it. Someone grabbed the front and the flow carried

on. At the bottom of the steps there was a tunnel.

It turned sharply. We followed it round. There

must have been hundreds of us. Someone was

whistling. A man near me was doing that sniff-cough

thing: sniffing hard, which made him cough. We

weren’t really walking. Shuffling, more like. Then

the tunnel turned again. More steps going

down. We glanced at each other. Just because the

escalators weren’t working, surely we didn’t need

to be going quite so far down? At the end of these

steps there was another tunnel. It seemed temporary:

no advertisements on the wall. And no tiles either.

Just raw cement. Then the lights flickered and

dimmed. That set off some shouting. A child up

ahead start to scream. A few people were talking,

asking each other if they knew this part of the

station. Someone near me said that it was the

‘Transit Route’ for the maintenance crew and we

would come out by the post office. Someone

way back shouted that they were sorry the lights

had failed, asked us to be patient and it would

be sorted as soon as possible. We carried on

shuffling, though much more slowly. The floor was

untiled too. More like gravel.After a spell of this, it

became less dark, and the tunnel opened out into

a chamber, a kind of hall. Now there were one or

two station staff, holding out their arms at full stretch

sideways, as if they were making a passageway. And

nodding. I thought, what’s with the nodding? One of

them was saying, ‘This way.’ There was no other way.

As people filed into the hall behind me, another

station person started making an announcement

on a megaphone:.. ‘...thanks very much for your

patience...not an emergency...precautions....security...

held here for a short while...’

Then she said that it would greatly help if we could

separate into two groups, those who travelled regularly

on the transport system and those who were new to it.

People started filtering right and left and I heard an

argument near me when someone said that a child

couldn’t be someone who had ‘travelled regularly on the

transport system’. The father - if that’s who it was - started

shouting, ‘What do you want me to do with him? He’s

five years old. Send him over there on his own?’ And

he got the reply, ‘Well that’s what they’re asking.’ One

or two people couldn’t understand what was going on

and were trying to find out more. So people were

pointing over to the side of the hall for people who

don’t travel regularly on the transport system. I had a

sense that those of us who do travel regularly on the

transport system were being let down another tunnel

and we shuffled off down it and there were more staff

with their arms out, nodding. The people who didn’t

travel regularly on the transport system stayed behind in

the hall. At the other end of our tunnel there were some

steps up to the street but it wasn’t by the post office. It

was nowhere near the post office.

New poem: Car Alarm

I wondered if car alarms go off in the night
because they feel unappreciated. When they
go off, they know that people have turned over
in their beds thinking about them. The other night,
an alarm was going off in bursts of eighteen.
Then a pause. Then another eighteen. After
about five bursts, I tried counting in between.
It came out as twelve. After the tenth burst the
alarm changed. A second beat came in, then a
guitar. It was a remix of that song they released
after Bob Marley died, ‘Blackman Redemption’. In
fact, I think the release was a remix...I went
downstairs and put on a pair of trousers. I went
into the street, walked down to the car and I was
right. I wondered whether there was any recording
of Bob Marley doing it without the remix. After that
bit where it goes, ‘Spread ou-ou-ou-out...’ , it went
back to doing the alarm. Bursts of eighteen. I
counted the twelve in between and went back indoors
to bed.

Who is the Enemy?

Who is the enemy?
The enemy are the people who do terrible things.
Do we do terrible things?
No.
Who is our friend?
Our friends are good.
Do they do terrible things?
No.
Thank you, I am happy now. Tra la…tra la.

New poem: Tattoos

I had a thought that I would be the last person

in London who didn’t have a tattoo. I was looking

in the window of a tattooing place and saw a sign

that said, ‘Tattoos: seen, foreseen and unseen’.

I went in and said to the man, ‘Excuse me but

your sign, ‘Tattoos: seen, foreseen, and unseen’

what’s that about?’

He said, ‘A tattoo that’s seen is one that you can

see. A tattoo that’s foreseen is one that you choose

which people you want to see it. A tattoo that’s

unseen is one you can’t see.’

‘I get the ‘seen’ tattoos,’ I said, ‘but what’s this

foreseen one, how does that work?’

‘They’re digitally pre-arranged tattoos, so they

can only be seen by the people you choose.’

Wow,’I said.

‘There’s an app on phones now,’ he said, ‘which we

hook up to. The app does it. You programme in

who you want to see your tattoo. I’ve got a tattoo

here,’ he said pointing to his arm, ‘now you can’t

see a tattoo there, but now look on this phone,

and there - see - a tattoo.’

‘Well, actually, I can’t.’

‘Oh, well, it’s just booting up...but you will,’ he said.

‘Great,’ I said, ‘I can think of a lot of uses for that.

Now, the other one, unseen tattoo, is that one that’s

hidden, like- under your clothes or something?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s one that no one can see.’

‘You mean, it’s somewhere private?’ I said

‘No, no, it’s an invisible tattoo,’ he said,’we do

the tattoo, anywhere on the client, but no one can

see it. I’ve got one here,’ he said and pointed to

his arm. ‘See that,’ he said, ‘you can’t see that

can you?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘that’s perfect. I can’t see a thing.’

New poem: Escalator

I got on a down escalator at a station

and I remember thinking it was

a bit strange that I was the only person

on it, I noticed an ad for kiwi fruit. I

was thinking that’s the first time I’ve

ever seen an ad for kiwi fruit on the

walls of the escalator and at that

moment I looked ahead to the part

of the escalator where you get off,

where there’s a big metal plate

that you walk on to, off the end of

the escalator.




But it wasn’t there. There was no

metal plate. There was just a gap.

A dark space.




I had my bag with me. In it was the

dish I had when I was a baby, the one

with a rim round it. And some papers with

stuff that I had written or was going to

write or had forgotten to write. Looking

ahead at the dark space felt like looking

down a corridor, as if I was at school,

the times I was sent out of class and sat

outside.




Towards the bottom, I remembered there

was the alarm. I thought for a moment

that I might press it. A bell would ring

very loudly and the escalator would

stop. By the time I had thought this I was

past it.




At the bottom I felt myself going over an edge.

I was in mid-air, floating with the bag.




I heard someone shouting.




Then I landed. I landed on someone.

No, I think it was two people.

New poem: Hair

I was in the barbers.

When the barber had finished cutting

my hair, he was about to flap my overall

and flick the offcuts on to the floor when

the bloke sitting next to me said,

‘Hang on there, can you save that?’

The barber stopped.

‘Mm?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘just hold it a moment

but can I have that hair?’

We all looked at each other

We looked at my hair sitting on the overall.

The man got up, took off his overall

and went over to his bag. He rummaged

about and took out a box. He

collected up my hair and put it in the box.




I found myself wondering whose hair

it was. Wasn’t it mine? Or did it now

belong to the barber? After all, it was

the barber who had cut it off and it

was the barber who was going to

sweep it up and put it in his bin.

I looked at the barber. Though I

remember I looked at the barber in

the mirror, which is not quite the same

as ‘looking at the barber’. The barber

said to me, ‘Is that OK with you?’ I said

to the barber in the mirror, ‘Is it OK with you?’

The man went on collecting up my hair.




‘What do you want it for?’ the barber

asked the man.

‘Tea,’ he said. ‘I make tea with it. This

is very good hair for tea,’ he said.

‘Most people’s hair is no good. This is

very nearly perfect.’




He collected up some more, closed

his box and sat down. I looked at the

barber - face to face this time. We

kind of shrugged with our eyes, didn’t

say anything. I paid him, said goodbye

to the man and walked out.




On the way home, I thought, what did

he mean ‘very nearly’ perfect? Why

wasn’t it ‘perfect’? I looked at the hair of

of the people on the bus. Is his hair

perfect for making tea? Or hers? Or his?

Or hers?

Once upon a time there was Bourdieu….

Once upon a time there was a man called Bourdieu who looked at what he called a 'habitus', the total psycho-socio-economic pictures - and variation between them - of homes according to class and education. He suggested that one of the ways in which class 'reproduces' itself is through the fact that we have devised an education system which suits one kind of class habitus more than another. This was a critique of education more than a 'blame the victim' view of how working class people live. Bourdieu looked at schools in France to see how certain uses of language, 'framing' of knowledge fitted neatly into way language and knowledge was handled in homes where parents had already had higher education. Other researchers looked at how schooling downgrades 'unofficial' knowledge as less valid e.g. cooking, gardening, car maintenance and of course art, music and drama…So even when those abilities and capabilities start to show in children they don't show up as 'high achievement' in school data…but as bodies of knowledge they are no less valid than Latin or English Literature, say. Then Hirsch et al came back and said that it was precisely this kind of talk that was holding poor children back, because lefty teachers weren't teaching poor children Latin and Shakespeare.

Further, the right took Bourdieu up as a stick to beat the left with, claiming that we used Bourdieu's ideas to justify low aspiration even though most of the 'left' teachers I knew/know beat their minds out helping children from poor backgrounds do as well as they can.

Again and again, though 'researchers' find that poverty is a clear marker of low school attainment and that rebranding a school as an academy and/or getting it to be 'outstanding' doesn't significantly close the gap between poor children and the rest. This catches the right on the hop because it defies their take on the argument that poverty is related to school attainment i.e. they say they can overcome poverty through creating academies and bringing in 'rigour'. However, this leaves out the questions of whether schools themselves are geared in such a way as to be unable to use the talents and capabilities of everyone in an equal way.

It is often left unquestioned when talking about 'attainment' that this is something 'objective' when in fact the methods of testing determine a particular way of thinking (not co-operation, right and wrong answers only) and the curriculum (based on 'core' knowledge as opposed to 'society's knowledge and needs') are determining who succeeds and who fails anyway. Moreover, the system is built to fail a percentage of pupils - no matter what happens. HIgh stakes testing throughout schooling means that there is an inbuilt failure rate that must be 'achieved' - no matter what knowledge systems are in place. This failure rate is pre-determined by examiners and the school authorities. It's as if they have a lever they use to ensure they get whatever results they want. And they seem to have a willing press and media to buy this crap as if the percentages they trot out each year are deeply significant.

It's just wonks sitting in offices fiddling with graphs.

New Poem: George and the Window

George is eating the window.

He knows he shouldn’t.

George is eating the window

we wish he wouldn’t.




We like the window.

It’s what we look through.

Soon there’ll be nothing there

apart from the view.

New Poem

He found a way of waking himself up.

As he was going to sleep he kept

saying to himself, “Wake up! Wake up!”

He dozed off with these words in his

mind, over and over again, “Wake up!

Wake up! Wake up!”




At around 7 in the morning he found

himself dreaming that he was asleep

in the back of a car and someone

was outside the car, shouting,

“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

In his dream, he woke up and

because he knew he was in his

dream he wondered if that meant

he was still asleep.

Still in his dream, he realised

who it was who was shouting,

“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

It was him. The person outside the

car was him.




Still in his dream he stared at

himself. The ‘him’ that was shouting

“Wake up!” stared at the ‘him’ who

had woken up.”You’re still asleep!”

he shouted. “You think you’ve woken

up but that’s in the dream. In fact

you’re asleep.”

“Then who are you?” the sleeping

him said.

“I’m the you, who is waking you up,”

he said.

“But you’re in the dream, so you’re

asleep as well, aren’t you?” he said.

“Yes,” said the him that was waking

him up.

“So how will you wake up?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, “all I know

is that I have to wake you up?”

“But how can you wake me up

if you’re asleep?”




That morning, he woke up later

than he had ever woken up before.

New poem

Expedition

One of the most extraordinary expeditions

of all time occurred in 1854

when a group of explorers left London

on a bright summer’s day in July in

search of nothing. The leader of the expedition

was Sir Roland Whisper, a man

who had investigated nothing for longer

than any other person alive. For years

he had pored over maps and charts

with this great task in mind. He gathered

around him a team of fearless adventurers and

London’s finest journalists signed up to

Sir Roland’s team on the off chance

that they might be the first writer to send

back to London the report that a great

Englishman had discovered nothing.

And so, with their eyes fixed on the

distant horizon, the plucky little expedition

boat sailed out of the Pool of London.

On quayside, wives, friends and well-

wishers bid them godspeed, hoping and

praying that the expedition would be

a success. The sails of the boat

disappeared from view, expectation

was high and though one or two of those

waving goodbye might have been beset

with the occasional doubt, none could

have predicted that not a single member

of the expedition would ever return.



As a result, no one knows whether

Sir Roland’s expedition force did or

did not achieve the great prize of

finding nothing.

New Poem

Blinking.


Two stars were talking to each other.

The bright one said, “You’re blinking.

You keep blinking.”

“I was winking, not blinking,” said the

dull one.

“No, you’re blinking. There. Then.

That was a blink. That was definitely

a blink,” said the bright one.

“OK, it was a blink.” said the

dull one, “OK, OK, OK.”

“No need to get huffy. I’m not

being horrible,” said the

bright one, “I was just saying.”

“Fine, fine, just leave it,” said

the dull one.

“I am leaving it. I wasn’t saying

that there’s anything wrong with

blinking. Or winking. If you

want to blink, just blink,” said

the bright one.

“I know, I know, I know,” said

the dull one.

“It’s just blinking, it’s no big

deal,” said the bright one.

“I know,” said the dull one, “you’re

blinking too.”

“I’m not,” said the bright one.

“What do you mean, you’re not?”

said the dull one, “it’s what we do.

We sit up in the sky and we blink.”

“Well maybe you do, but I don’t,”

said the bright one.

“It’s OK to blink,” said the dull one.

“I know it’s OK to blink, I told

you it was OK to blink,” said

the bright one, “so leave it.”

“I AM leaving it. I wasn’t saying

that there’s anything wrong with

blinking. Or winking. If you

want to blink, just blink,” said the

dull one.

“I know, I know, I know, I was the

one who was saying that there

wasn’t anything wrong with blinking

in the first place,” said the

bright one.

“It’s just blinking, it’s no big deal,”

said the dull one.

“I know,” said the bright one.

New poem: Wasps

Wasps


I was swatting a wasp with my

fly swat when I heard it say,

‘Cut that out, you’re swatting

the wrong guy, I’m on your side.

I’m an undercover wasp fighting

for you.’

I said, ‘I’m not fighting anyone.’

He said, ‘Oh yes you are, look

at that swat. One swipe through

the air and BLAM! and I’m

done for. It may not look like

war to you, but it sure looks

like that to us.’

‘Us?’ I said, ‘who are you talking

about with this ‘us’? A moment ago,

you were on my side.Now it’s ‘us’.

So you’re not on my side, are you?’

‘Yes I am,’ he said, ‘but I’m still

a wasp. I think like a wasp, I

do wasp stuff.’

‘I don’t get this,’ I said, ‘I’m just

trying to stop you stinging me.’

‘What’s stinging got to do with it?’

he said,‘what is it with you people

on and on about stinging….?

...sting, sting, sting.’

‘That’s because you sting,’ I said.

‘But it’s not all we do,’ he said,

‘we’re not just stingers. We’re

wasps.’

‘Yes, yes,’ I said, ‘but you do sting,

and I’ve discovered

this way to stop you stinging:

it is what you said it was: swipe,

BLAM! That stops stinging.’

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ he said,

‘but you’re not listening to me:

I’m as much against stinging as you.’




Just then, another wasp turned up.

‘C’mon, let’s go,’ he said.

‘Sure,’ said my wasp, ‘this guy

isn’t worth the hit.’

‘What do you mean, “not

worth the hit”?’ I said, ‘what’s

the matter with me?’

But my wasp and his new pal

were off and away and I really

didn’t know where I was with all this.

New poem called 'Cows'…for you to try out soon?

Cows

We went for a walk

and we went past a farm

and on towards some woods

and past the woods

out to an empty sort of a place

and no one lived there

but there was a tower

and we walked up to the tower

and it was full of cows,

I figured that the cows

had run away from the farm

and were living in the tower.

It was a cow tower.

I was trying to work out

how the cows got to the top

of the tower when I saw

some doors open

and a cow walked out.

It was a lift,

the cows were using the lift,

and my dad said,

‘Phew, there’s a bit of a pong,

isn’t there?’

And I said, ‘That cow’s pressing

the wrong button.

It’s pressing the button

that keeps the doors open.

It’ll never go.’

My Dad said,‘Good point, Mick.’

A new poem. Feel free to share it with young or old...

The Whooshing Sound




The doctor asked me to sit still

and then he handed me

a thing that looked a bit like a plug

and asked me to put it over my bellybutton.




I did that.




Then he attached a tube to the plug

and switched on a machine.




There was a whooshing sound.




For a while nothing happened

but then I started to feel my belly

swelling up.




‘You’ll feel your belly swelling up,’

the doctor said.




‘Yes,’ I said.




It felt a bit like having a tight belt on

or maybe having a bit too much to eat.




‘It may feel a bit like having a tight belt on,

or having a bit too much to eat,’ he said.




‘Yes,’ I said.




I went on swelling up

and I started to feel light,

as if I wasn’t sitting so heavily in the chair.




The machine went on making the whooshing sound.




Then, very slowly, very gently,

I found myself lifting off the chair.




‘Were you expecting this to happen?’

I said.

‘Yes and no,’ the doctor said.

‘What happens when it’s a no?’

I said.

‘Oh...sometimes, it leaks,’

he said,

‘I’m in the air,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said.




I was floating round the room.

‘Oh,’ he said,‘did I weigh you?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘It’s a bit late now,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t know how to come down

from up here and stand on the scales.’

‘What’s your date of birth?’ he said.




‘Is my date of birth the same as my birthday?’

I said.




The window was open.

I looked out.

I don’t know if it was because I looked

or if it was because of the way the wind

was blowing

but I found myself drifting towards the window.




‘I think I’m floating out of the window,’

I said.

‘What did you say was your date of birth?’

he said.

‘I am floating out of the window,’

I said.




‘Is it, the 4th of June 19..?

I didn’t catch the rest

I was out the window and

too far off.



Too far away.

Another new poem...

Paper Plane

(for Simon Armitage and his book ‘Paper Aeroplane’)




When I was a kid

I once made a paper plane

that was so big

I went for a ride on it.




What happened was that

I was at the park

and I threw it

and as I let go of it

I jumped on it.




I flew over the bit

where we played football

and then over the pond

with the island in the middle.

What was great was the way

people looked up at me

and waved.




I loved the way they waved.

It made me feel really good

the way they waved.

The day hadn’t been good

up till then.

I had had an arithmetic test.

It didn’t go very well.




The landing wasn’t too good though.

The plane came down hard

and crumpled.

You know how paper crumples up.

That’s what happened.




I wasn’t what you might say was ‘hurt’.

Just a bit shaken up.




Some people came over and

asked me if I was alright.

I said, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

Someone said, ‘You’re not going

to leave all that paper there, are you,

sonny?’

I shrugged.

A woman helped me crumple it up

really small

and we put it in

a bin.




Then I went home.




My dad said,

‘How did the arithmetic test go?’

‘Not too good,’ I said.

Another poem to try out…today? Tomorrow?

A Whale Got On My Bus




I was on a bus

and a whale got on.

The recorded announcement said:

‘Please move down the bus

so that there is room for passengers

getting on the bus.

Please move down the bus

so that there is room for passengers

getting on the bus.’




We moved down the bus

and the whale squeezed in

and the doors closed.




I was next to the whale,

it said,

‘Sorry, I’m dripping.’

‘No worries,’ I said,

‘same thing happens to me

when I’m wearing my waterproof coat.’

‘What this much?’ said the whale.

I didn’t want to make the whale feel bad

so I said,

‘Well, yes actually.’

‘Do people complain?’ the whale said.

And I lied,

I said,

‘Yes,’ when in actual fact no one

had ever complained.

‘I can’t see all the way round the back of me,’

the whale said, ‘could you look to see

if I’m dripping over everyone back there?’

‘Sure,’ I said and I looked.

People were getting showered.

‘There’s a bit of dripping going on,’ I said.

‘I knew it,’ said the whale.

‘Do you have a towel on you?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t usually carry a towel around.’

‘Well,’ said the whale, ‘isn’t that typical!’

‘Is it?’ I said.

‘You get on a bus, you’re dripping wet

you ask for a bit of help, a bit of sympathy

and all you get is nastiness.

What is it with people, these days?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I just don’t have a towel.’




And then it all went quiet.

It was all a bit tense.

Awkward.




All you could hear was a

dripping sound.



Drip, drip, drip,drip...

Poem to try out in school tomorrow? (or today even)

Card trick without cards




He said:

I can do card tricks without cards.

I said:

Great.

He said:

Pick a card.

I said:

OK.

He said:

Have you done it?

I said:

Yes.

He said:

Put it back in the pack.

I said:

OK.

He said:

I’m shuffling the pack.

I said:

Great.

He said:

Is it this one?

I said:

Which one?

He said:

This one.

I said:

But you haven’t said which one it is.

He said:

I told you, I haven’t got a pack.

I said:

Right, I get you. Yes, it is that one. You picked the right one.

He said,

I know.

I said:

I can do writing without words.

He said:

Great.

I said:

Here’s what I wrote.

He said:

Nice.

I said:

Glad you like it.

Roland Rance on the two-state solution of Israel

" Those who continue to advocate a "two-state solution" in Palestine, and who still maintain, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Israel might at some time relinquish control over the territories it occupied in 1967, must be wilfully closing their eyes to reality. They are ignoring the way in which the 1967-occupied territories are thoroughly integrated into Israel, and in which today the Occupation IS Israel.
Israel existed for just nineteen years within the Green Line, the pre-1967 border to which these fantasists believe Israel should withdraw. It has existed for 47 years with its expanded borders; it has been forced to disgorge the Sinai peninsula to Egypt, and part of the Golan Heights to Syria, but neither of these areas forms part of Palestine.
It was a salutary moment when, one day in 1984, I saw posters going up in Jerusalem regarding the conscription to Israel's army of kids born in June 1967. I realised that a whole generation had grown up, which had spent its entire life in "Greater Israel", and for whom tales of the state's pre-67 life were as remote as tales of the Attlee government are to me. By now, we are reaching the time when the first grandchildren of this 1967 generation will reach conscription age. Three generations living in the bizarre dichotomy of a state that purports to be democratic for its citizens, while maintaining military rule over millions of its subjects; but which is, in reality, one apartheid regime in the whole of Palestine.
No repartition of Palestine, no "two-state" stitch-up, no continuation of the unequal status of more than a million Palestinian citizens of Israel and the exile of millions of Palestinians, can possibly lead to a just and sustainable resolution of this conflict. Those concerned for the future welfare of Israelis, no less than those concerned for a just future for Palestinians, must join in the struggle for the abolition of political Zionism, and for a common future, in one democratic entity, for all of Palestine's current residents and exiles."by Roland Rance

Teacher (on Facebook) comments on exam regime

"I'm a primary school teacher, a parent and a child of the 80s Thatcher education.
I've seen with my own eyes how schools have changed for the worst. I've been battered by a system, I refuse to bow down to. I've watched children drilled for exams, in tears with their confidence in tatters as early as 7; children that are unable to develop the stamina to read whole texts as they're force fed 'extracts' which meet some assessment focus somewhere; children that are merely dots on a graph expected to move in a linear fashion towards a meaningless one dimensional exam that teaches them no self worth or life skills.
I've watched my own children suffer the same, and eagerly wait for the day that they leave and have hopefully survived the 'education' system that is imposed upon them, rather geared towards them as whole human beings.
It's a sad, sad tragedy. I remain in my job to fight it. To give richness, creativity, opportunity, thinking skills, resilience and self confidence that will provide that love of learning that our system sadly now overlooks.
There are some schools and teachers that still do it but we are fighting a battle and a tide that is becoming harder and harder and to be quite frank, it frightens me."

"Good Ideas" in 7 tweets

You can't learn a fact without learning a way how to learn. You can't learn how to learn without learning a fact. Indivisible.

While reading a story, a child asks a question. Adult and child talk. Child learns that reading can lead to interpretation.

 Child and adult on bus. Child asks question. Adult says, let's look that up when we get home. Child learns how and where.

Child collects some things. Child sorts into categories. Child learns how to compare and classify.

Child browses in library. Chooses. Finds one book good, one bad. Child learns about texts which offer interest or not.

Child is in a club or activity. Compares the club leader or instructor with teacher at school. Child compares teaching and learning methods.

Child makes something. Collapses. No talk of 'failure'. Discuss why. Child tries again. It works. Discuss why.



"Good Ideas, how to be your child's (and your own) best teacher" (John Murray) publ Sept 11

How 'we' 'solve' world problems

1. Someone 'abroad' does something horrible.
2. Our politicians explain that they are monsters and not doing things in a British way.
3. We start bombing.
4. We kill loads of people.
5. Someone 'abroad' does something horrible.
6. Our politicians explain that they are monsters and not doing things in a British way.
7. We start bombing.
8. We kill loads of people.
9. Someone 'abroad' does something horrible.
10. Our politicians explain that they are monsters and not doing things in a British way….
11...

Tory Britain: Polly Toynbee visits Cameron's constituency

This comes from Polly Toynbee's article in yesterday's Guardian

"I just visited his Witney constituency – a safer seat is hard to find. Yet when you lift the yellow Cotswold paving stones, even there you find the depredations of his government biting deeply. The local housing association can’t find smaller properties for its 252 residents hit by the bedroom tax: 47% are in arrears. The local domestic violence service is losing its helpline and 40% of its funds, though Cameron publicly promised to “get a grip” on the issue. I spoke to a Ukip council candidate who has been hit by the bedroom tax: he has a spare room now his invalid wife has died.

The Witney food bank is crammed in a tiny garage on the edge of town, because nowhere in this rich town, not even a church, will house it, yet demand is high. Julie, who runs it, cried when a man came in with four bags of food in repayment for feeding him, now the Department for Work and Pensions had finally sent his money. Cameron visited once, but brought nothing, says Duncan Enright, councillor and Labour candidate here, a man who devotes himself selflessly to local campaigns in this deep blue zone. He found a man and his son sleeping locally in a tent for weeks recently. Wages are low, he says, and housing impossible.

Even here, in this rustic idyll, there are people struggling and Tory voters can see it too, with day-centre charges soaring and service cuts growing. But the Tory party is swimming out to sea on a tide of Euromania, in the grip of a nihilist ideology. Only disconnect from Europe and all will be well – that doesn’t sound likely to connect with most voters’ lives."

Great number-crunching behind 'wonder' academy

Could I please send you across to the blog of 'Disappointed Idealist' for a fantastic and fair analysis of the 'Mossbourne phenomenon' i.e. the flagship academy that is held up as the reason why all schools should be academies.

Here's the link: disidealist.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/mossbourne-academy-the-model-for-us-all

Great student comment on thread following my Guardian article

"I'd be interested to know, how many of the people here attacking Michael Rosen are currently in or have recently been through the education system? Because it's not his background that makes his views valid, it's that he's right. I've just finished school, I've been to state comprehensives all my life. I will now be attending university and in four years time I will have over £50000 in debt and I agree with Michael Rosen.

If I saw diversity among the education team I would find it far easier to have confidence in it. Now the secondary school I went to was very good and so was the sixth form, so good in fact that when looking at applications universities consider to be a private school and yet the students attending have come from a wide diversity of schools some of which this year achieved less than 50% A*-C grades in their GCSEs. My school achieved over 90%. Now is out really fair in this adjustment process of GCSE grades to class these students as the same? No, but they do. 

We need to know about the diversity within an area. We need to see what's really going on with free schools. My sixth form was one that lost out when some of the sixth form funding was turned over to free schools. It would there educate only a tenth as many students. Only those with the interest of the students in mind should be allowed to make policy on education. Or at the very least they should listen when we speak up. "