Tuesday 16 June 2009

Some people say...

Some people say it's alright to leave children in school to be assaulted, battered and otherwise shamed to the depths of them.

Some people say it doesn't bother them if children are bullied in schools because they were bullied in schools when they were kids and it didn't hurt them.

Some people say it's alright to decide what other people should wear, eat and think.

Some people say home educators should be monitored because we need to protect their poor little kiddies who can't speak for themselves.

Some people say it's fine to write a report which will affect many disparate people and their children and not consider what you are proposing or care just because you think you know everything about something you know nothing about.

Some people say it's perfectly reasonable to club and beat up people who are exercising the right to protest against what other people say.

Some people say home education is a cover for abuse while turning their backs on the countless incidents of spirit-draining abuse that goes on in institutions.

Some people say they want home educators to jump through hoops of testing like little performing monkeys because... well, there's no reason.

Some people say it's life to let a child sit next to a wall crying and sobbing while her 'friends' tell her she's fat and stupid and she'll never get a boyfriend.

Some people say you shouldn't interfere when a gang of big boys has a skinny little boy down on the ground and is kicking his head in and the blood is running down the street in the gutter.

Some people say that teachers are experts, but other people say experts in what exactly?

Some people say that cooping children up in small smelly too hot or too cold boxes is good for them, when others say let them run free and enjoy themselves because there's not enough enjoyment in the world and they'll grow up soon enough and have the cruel punishment of paying taxes.

Some people say it's progress to slash into the lungs of our world called the rain forests.

Some people say they love monitoring because it gives them the chance to have an adult approve of what they do, and it's often because they have no confidence because no one ever listened to their ideas and saw them as valid or approved of what they said or did.

Some people say it's OK to let another person judge you, but the bible says "Judge not, lest you be judged" and what goes around comes around, and the American Indians say you shouldn't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins.

Some people say that it's not due process to have Badman write a review, and try to kettle people doing the best for their children.

Some people say I don't mind if my child is weighed and measured at regular intervals, and, when he fails, he never recovers from the disapproval but that's the way it goes.

Some people say it doesn't matter to them if teenagers, wear hoodies, shout abuse at old ladies with sticks cutting through the parks, because that's what all teens are like really.

Some people say oh I'd leave baby Donald in a nursery because everyone there is CRB checked and he'll be alright because I need to go to work to buy more things which I don't need.

Some people say oooh, it's nearly the end of the summer holidays and I can't wait for school to open so I can get rid of little Tiffany and Reginald because they're driving me mad and the babysitter is sick and I can't get out on my own and shoe shop.

Some people say my kid has no brain because the teacher can't get through to him and he keeps escaping over the fence around school to go talk in the park about peace and love and stuff.

Some people say that a sixteen foot, sixteen year old should go to school and, when he tells them he won't, his mother should pay a fine or go to prison or something because she's a bad mother because she doesn't force him to go to school.

Some people say it's good to force someone to do something because it's good for them.

Some people say I'll tell you what to do because I'm an expert who gets paid and I'll get paid even more because I'm telling you what to do.

Some people say there's an economic crunch on so that's why the banks are paying old people a few pennies of interest on their savings, but those people can find funding to subjugate others and safeguard their children by interviewing them in a room alone, that is without their parents.

Some people say it doesn't go far enough to monitor home educators because the abusers (oh, not you, dear, we know you're nice and middle-class and you won't hurt your babies) can be tricky and we have to REALLY stop them by putting cameras in every room in their houses, and bug their phones, and ask their neighbours to keep watch on them because they're filthy rotten crims, you know, and it's OK to spy on people in the lav because Big Brother does it and it's on telly so it must be cool, mustn't it?

Some people say they like it when other people tell them what to say.

Some people say I don't mind monitoring because I've got nothing to hide, but other people say that's not the point, they can make stuff up or change the laws when they want to catch you, even if you have nothing to hide.

Some people say we welcome monitoring for home educators because we are school teachers and we think it's important for kidz to git n'educashun, innit.

Some people say we think it's great to force other people to do things.

Some people say we like tasers because the police are always right and if they think someone is being naughty it's best to shoot electricity into their bodies because the tasered people might shoot other people and hurt them, mightn't they?

Some people say they think it's a good idea to put other people in prison for what the other people are thinking.

Some people say they think it's a good idea to put other people in prison for what they think the other people are thinking.

Some people said they didn't notice when Hitler came for the dirty gypsies, the economically useless thickos and people who had no legs and sent them for a lovely cool shower because cleanliness is next to godliness, and gassed them.

Some people said good riddance.

Some people.

8 comments:

  1. I have left links to your blog every where I can, I hope you don't mind, because I think it is truly fantastic.

    I think some people really really need to read it.

    'In any report' made me cry. But you said it so very well.

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  2. Brilliant. Really, really brilliant.
    *Ads to my list*
    What a fantastic piece of writing.

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  3. (PS though, you have a sixteen foot teenager... you may not have meant to!)

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  4. Thanks for commenting, guys. I appreciate knowing that you appreciate my writing. Merry, LOL, I did mean sixteen foot teenager (some of those boys are TALL and some of their mothers are tiny)! Should have used metric, I guess.

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  5. Ouch! I hurt for those children left in school :-(

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  6. my favourite bit is where teachers turn into Anil from Basil Brush - innit? You see, the school culture finally got them!!!
    I used to find myself into the prevailing grammar around me whilst I was supposed to be the teacher modeling the queen's English!
    I'm not sure which was most pernicious in school ... the kid culture or the teacher culture. I think maybe the latter, as I never could sell into the cynicism about kids and bullying's in there too you know.

    I think maybe tiffany and reg would be glad to get back to school and stop getting dissed. However, they will get dissed in the school playground whilst waiting for mum to stop chatting to all the other mums who agree kids are a pain. It's all part of small talk and the school run to talk our kids down in front of them! When my eldest was in school I think I was often considered 'up myself' because I thought my kid was nice!
    It's all part of English modesty to disclose how 'intolerable' your kids are!
    "Oh no darling, I'm sure my kids are far worse than yours ... don't you worry. Hey! stop tugging on my sleeve! Can't you see I'm talking? ... as I was saying ..."

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  7. "Some people say it's good to force someone to do something because it's good for them."

    and mostly that it's good to force a child to do something because they need to get used to a 'real life' in which they can expect to be forced to do things!

    I hear one variant or another of this sort of argument, frequently from my father in law. I don't hear one variant or another of this sort of argument from my mother because she hates confrontation ... until I show a slight doubt in what I'm doing ... and then out it comes!

    My favourite crazy argument is that you should prepare children for the 'ultimate disappointment of life' by ensuring they get good practice being disappointed! or variants thereof!
    Don't they think Kids get plenty of opportunities for disappointment and habituation to oppression without us constructing ones for teaching purposes ... just so's it doesn't hurt them when they come across it!!!

    When it's couched like that people can often see how ridiculous and tautological their 'getting practice' arguments are!

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