Thursday 11 February 2010

Finding out about the life you damage is probably a tedious sort of responsibility

I've written some fifty comments now. I've posted none of them. You should be glad about that. They run the entire emotional gamut. From fall-to-my-knees and wring my hands, through to kickass smartass, bouncing back via plague upon ye all, then lifting my hand politely with the excuse me's, before falling backwards in a ditch swinging punches, yelling blasphemies that would rip the skin off your ears.

But over here it's my blog. I need to mark how I feel.

I am bewildered as to how a thinking person could look upon this world so busting with knowledges, so filled with ideas, spilling out with people and their lived realities, experiences, ways of seeing and ways of knowing - and then discount the lot of them.

Worse, this thinking person appears unable to put together a coherent argument which explains why all these people should be ignored.

Maybe it's because 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear'. Perhaps the real issue is the 'safeguard'. It might be education, especially 'language learning'. It could be 'Muslim girls'. There we have it: home educating Muslim families need inspecting, so we'll inspect the lot of you.

Then what happens if so many ordinary home educating families present coherent arguments, rationales, questions? Dismiss us. Better make it flippant. Home educated children clearly need help if they are so foolish as to worry about a stranger entering the house to inspect them.

All incomprehensible, then. And I am filled with dismay. Sad, too. Yes, because these people have power over my life, and care not one bit for the damage they do.

9 comments:

Kelly said...

Peanuts turns nine next month. You should know that I have earmarked him for one of the gritlets. Currently, he is thinking of Tiger, because he really liked her tiger playmobil video, and he has done similar work. I think we should announce the betrothal soon. We can incorporate it into our medieval studies and then go on Oprah as the DCSF's worst nightmare. Hong Kong is not such a bad flight from Vancouver Island. Perhaps they can meet next year.

Kelly

Sam said...

Although I would love to read all fifty of your comments, I don't think the "Lords" are even worth one.
They are so obviously not interested, not listening, not caring.
We can only treat them the same, and march on regardless.

However, I now have a smile on my face at the possible betrothal scandal of Tiger and Peanuts, lol!

sharon said...

I think Kelly could be on to something here, but don't stop at just Peanuts and Tiger. You need to pair off all the HE children you know and then have a mass wedding ceremony in the style of the Moonies cult.

As for the Lords, they're an antiquated waste of time and energy.

Maire said...

These two Lords are certainly an antiquated waste of time and energy, but we are relying on them to delay the bill through scrutiny.

This is the crux of why we should not be judged, there are far too many people like this in the world to risk it.

Just imagine if we could judge them, straight into remedial class. One of them is a lawyer FFS.

Grit said...

kelly, this is such a fantastic idea, I accept the betrothal. let's send a wedding invite to ed!

sam, you never know, it could be worth it? isn't it? should we try again? oh, bum. hope is such a crap strategy.

sharon! you have cracked it! you are right - let's do this in style Moonie style!

i do feel totally let down maire - if the blog posts in any way reflect the level of debate we could expect without the back office writing the speeches, we're stuffed, thanks to ignorance and prejudice. maybe we should be aiming to persuade the civil servants instead, eh?

Maire said...

I think we should be trying to persuade everyone, I wonder what civil servants work for the Lords. I have a sneaking feeling that Kenneth Fox of the CSF Select Committee was rather instrumental, we don't really know who pulls the strings.

Merry said...

I've just been driven to total despair by them really. They were our last hope and we've left educating them too late in the hope they'd be less ignorant. I don't know what to do now :(

R. Molder said...

I love anastaisia's comment; I'd post a comment but mine would be to call her a racist pig b!$@h. That comment about Muslim girls was horrible.

On the bright side, congrats on Tiger's betrothal to Peanuts :)

Erskine May said...

Maire: There are no civil servants who work for peers. The House of Lords relies on the experience and expertise of its members. Some are well versed in education and will, I have no doubt, be receptive to the value of home education. Some may well wish to encourage it. You may consider contacting those peers who will be taking part in the debate on teaching being introduced by former Education Secretary Baroness Shephard on 4 March.