Girl in a tree

photoprint, originally uploaded by Slaminsky.

by popular demand

Someone talks sense about education, Slaminsky in shock

The Cambridge Primary Review 'identified problems are serious and the required changes are substantial...'

Thank you thank you thank you thank you, Cambridge University.

The fact that this comes from Cambridge University gives it more clout than, you know, mere staff who work in schools, but I'm still grateful.

Here's my favourite bit:

The report finds: children’s statutory entitlement to a broad and balanced primary curriculum compromised by the national tests and strategies; particular pressures at the start (reception) and end (year 6) of primary schooling; acute anxiety about the fate of the arts and humanities and, increasingly, science in primary schools; erosion of both entitlement overall and standardsin ‘the basics’ by a policy-led belief that breadth and standards are incompatible, when the evidenceconsistently shows the opposite – that one requires the other and the best schools achieve both; a curriculum which is two-tier not just in its distribution of time but also, as a result of the relative neglect of the non-core curriculum in teacher training and inspection, in terms of quality; excessive micro-management by government and the national agencies; the dislocation of mathematics and, especially, English by the national strategies for numeracy and literacy; a muddled, reductive and damaging discourse about subjects...

*weeps in gratitude*

World Book Week

Say you had to dress up as a character from a children's book (thus making an arse of yourself in front of your colleagues and children who formerly thought of you as a figure of authority)
who would you choose?

(At the moment I'm thinking Max from Where the Wild Things Are. Now where can I get a wolf suit?)

Reginald Perrin

Ever had a desire to leave your clothes on the beach and bunk off out of your own life? I'm having one of those right now.

Sticking up for wankers

It has been brought to my attention recently that this is mundane, worthless, egotistical, navel-gazing wank, and I should be out doing something productive with real people. (not that you're not real, dear reader, but you know what I mean.) I didn't stick up for blogs very well, because really, it's a fair point, but it did get me thinking (yet again) about the whys and wherefores of blogging.

And this is what I came up with - if my job has taught me anything, it's that human beings have a great need for play, (whether that's fulfilled through blogging, making pictures, making music, playing computer games, doodling or roleplay or constructing the Sistine Chapel out of matchsticks or trainspotting or building ships in bottles or...) And they need to tell stories to make sense of the world. That's what it is.

Do you have a better defence? Let's hear it.

Vote

for your favourite, please.

I tried to number them but Blogger driving me mad. You'll just have to describe it.

Political graffitti

Alive and well on Hackney Road.




PS: I did not write this.

The internet: not just for porn

Things I must do:

Pay my electricity bill.
Pay my credit card.
Clean my flat.
Food shop.
Phone two friends who are long owed a phone call.
Post a parcel.
Go for a bracing walk in the outside world.

Things I have been doing:
Footling around on Flickr.
Watching The Turntable Kitteh.

Oh God, I make an absolutely rubbish grownup. There is no hope for me ever achieving anything now they've invented the internet. How much time is too much time at the computer, do you reckon? What is the longest time you've ever spent in one go?

How can I live without him?

Carlos, in his 'tempting you to tickle my furry belly before I bite your hand off' pose.

I can't work out if he's exceptionally dim or an evil genius. After all, if you had the choice, you would just eat and sleep* all day whilst the stoopid hoomans run around making money to feed you, wouldn't you? (* shagging no longer a possibility for poor Carlos, which is why he's in a state of arrested development.)

Another brick in the wall

My feelings have become increasingly uneasy the more I do this job. Before I started training, I thought, how hard can it be? Then I saw how hard it can be. Sure it’s a demanding job, but the increasing bureaucracy, an insistence on vast quantities of paperwork, on assessments and testing and more assessments and more testing and statistics and targets and more and more and more pressure, on the kids, on the staff, on the parents, seems antithetical to the very idea of what education is or should be...

And the fact that every time you think you’ve got a handle on what you should be doing, they throw it out and insist on new strategies, new schemes of work, new demands on the curriculum (not worked out, not thought through, unresourced, unfocused…) I spent 3 years teaching the same age group, but never got to use the same plans twice.

Who’s running this? Surely they can’t believe it’s a good idea to run things like this… your bottom line has always got to be, is it helping the kids? Is the amount of time we spend tapping data into the computer the best use of our time, or would it be better spent with the children?

But now I’m getting really really cynical. Because it’s so clearly stupid, and a waste of everyone’s time… every day, reinventing the wheel, on the behalf of people who have no clear knowledge or beliefs regarding how children learn the best; a case of ignoring basic common sense, and years of people saying til they’re blue in the face, that we need a creative,child-centred approach...

It’s not that they don’t trust to do our jobs as professionals, as I once thought - now I’m thinking, that they don’t WANT education to educate. They WANT to tie us up in paperwork, to get us so hung up on keeping on top of the mountains of changing legislation, that we’re baffled at what we’re doing.

You’re so busy trying to keep up with the shitwork that you have no time, or indeed energy, to question it. To make it creative, which encourages the kids to be creative; to encourage them to solve problems, to become bright,questioning, thinking, independent human beings.

Because really, truly, they don’t want that. They want passive little worker drones, used to jumping through hoops, passingtheir little tests, leaving school to go on to get shit, poorly paid McJobs with no future.

They’re at the bottom of society already, what hope have they got? At least in the 60s with the secondary moderns, it was more honest about the difference in children’s prospects according to their class, and you might even get taught a trade along the way... Why not squash every spark of interest and curiosity and individuality in the name of SATs? Let the private school kids (at the private schools which don’t have to answer to the LEAs) go on to further education and get the good jobs. Let’s face it, there’s not enough interesting well-paid work to go around.

I don’t want to be a part of that system any more.

My ideal man

On second thoughts, maybe I shouldn't get a cat, I can tell I'd turn into a Great Cat Bore.

Last blog about Carlos, I promise.

Carlos is like my ideal man - greeneyed, redheaded, beautiful, dumb and affectionate. And he makes me laugh - he's jealous of the laptop and has just jumped up on my lap and keeps nudging my hand away from the mouse with his little cold nose.

I like the way he miaows whenever I enter the room, the way he's always pleased to see me, the way he purrs insanely when you stroke him, the way he gazes into your eyes like he's thinking deep thoughts about Being and Nothingness, the way he narrows his eyes in ecstasy and then sinks his claws into your stomach - OUCH OUCH OUCH!

Total aubergine

So, Valentine's Day. Picked up the keys to my friends' house, the cat was happy to see me as he's a big soft dopey ginger lovebug who purrs like a jet engine whenever he has some company. (He exudes a Buddha-like contentment which would be infuriatingly smug in a human being but is strangely calming in a cat. Being around him is chilling me out. That and the amazing silence of my friends' house. Hear that? That sound of silence? They're playing my tune... )

Went for breakfast at the Lemon Monkey (my, Stokey is posh these days) served by lovely flirty French waiter, ended up blowing lots of money in Church Street secondhand bookshops (book on Matisse & old Penguins) and, er, a Very Expensive Dress. Oh well, I'm doing my bit to keep the economy afloat.

It wasn't my fault. There used to be a shop selling doors and bits of wood which is now a vintage clothes shop, it was so amazing in there that I felt like I'd dreamed the place up and almost had to rub my eyes and pinch myself to believe it was real - stacked full of beautiful old clothes by Dior, 40s and 50s dresses in great condition, all at pretty good prices. I wanted everything. (It's called Strutt, visit it if you're ever in Church Street, ladies, and fashion-forward gentlemen.)

So I now own a sparkly aubergine dress by Missoni, which sounds revolting but I think it's beautiful. I feel guilty, but I love it.

And it's actually a SAVING, because the Sony noise-cancelling headphones I'd ordered from Amazon failed to arrive, something went wrong with the order, and they were more expensive than the dress! Trust me, this is female logic.

Anyway, as Bowleserised posted recently as decreed by French Elle magazine, "jamais de total-look aubergine" so what colour shoes and what colour tights with an aubergine dress? (will post a photo when I get home.)

Acqui esta...

Kitteh love

I want a cat. I do. In the meantime, I'm cat-sitting Carlos for the week, and I want one just like him, because he's totally soft in the head, and absurdly fluffy. (another little cat comes in the house to steal his food out of his bowl, and he just looks at you with this piteous 'What can I do?' expression...) But apart from the fact that I can't while the beasts are still downstairs, and I'd rather not have an indoor cat if it can be helped, I've never got a cat before because you know they will die before you do, and you'll get all attached to them and then they snuff it and you're devastated.

There's something not quite right about this thinking, I'm just not sure what it is.

Pub quiz

It's February, the grimmest least fun month in the whole year. So what I'm thinking, is that we need to fight it, people. Here are my plans:

1. Publish Magic G, which my good friend the Curve reminded me recently has never seen the light of day.
Now, anyone know a good online hosting service where I can put the PDFs so you all can download and print your own EXCLUSIVE fanzine, featuring the work of such blogging luminaries as 'Foxy' Tim Footman, Oye Billy, the Mother of all things Rock, the poetry of Geoff, the gig reviews of Delrico Bandito and Istvanski, the stories of Dick Headley, the street art photography of East London by yours truly... all that good stuff.

2. Right then. Speed-dating is hideous, internet dating a chore, but who doesn't love a pub quiz?
What if I was to organise a pub quiz type event? You could send your single mates my way. Everyone has to sit on a team with new people, to break the ice. No lock&key findyourpartner type pressure, just fun, and if you don't fancy anyone then you've just had a good evening in the pub with friendly people.

What do you reckon? What could I call it?

Fantasy football

7 months = £15 million payoff.

I know nothing about football, but am highly experienced at motivating stroppy, spoiled, underachieving, immature individuals. They should make ME manager of Chelsea. Then sack me after 7 months, I'm sure the results would be identical to old Felipe.

National I Hate Everyone Day

is coming up.

In 37 years, I've never been sent a Valentine's card.

Just saying, like.

Anyway, on Saturday I will be drowning my sorrows with some Bennys (thanks, LC) as a change from crying into my beer, and hopefully will come up smiling on Sunday.

How will you be spending Valentine's Day then? (Special prizes will be awarded for the most miserable entry.)






Card from Etsy

Slaminsky's Guide To Drugs

Massive caveat in case anybody from work is reading: Drugs are Bad. Do as I say, not as I did. Don't do them, kids. etc, etc.

Marijuana: Fairly sociable, in one sense, in that you pass it around. Unsociable in that in makes you giggle like a moron at unfunny things and then go into a stupor. Did it for years until I realised that it was only the smoking bit I liked, otherwise it just gave me paranoia and a feeling as though someone was inflating a balloon in my chest, and switched to normal cigarettes instead of 'funny' cigarettes. Quite good for listening to music, though.

Speed: God this party's great, isn't it? So many interesting people to talk to, I could talk all night, it's amazing when you first meet people and you think they're really boring with nothing to say for themselves but then you get talking and you find that everyone's got something to say and everyone's got their own little thing going on, you know, their own little story - sorry, did you say something?
NB: Speed tastes FOUL.

Ecstasy: Lovely, everything's cool, like floating on fluffy pink clouds. Calm calm calm. Is it really hot in here? Must open a window. Hold on, now I'm shivering. Which is weird, I don't feel cold. Hilarious! I feel like I really know you now - like we have this deep connection. Wait - listen to this bit, it'll really make you rush...

Amyl Nitrate:
'So, how do you take this?'
She mimes inhaling over the bottle like it's a Vicks inhaler. A moment later and I feel as if my heart is about to burst out of my chest like the creature from Alien. People do this for fun?

LSD: Will turn your consciousness inside out like a sock in a spin dryer. Seriously, this is one scary drug. I've never understood why it's the cheapest when it's the most instantly powerful and long lasting (8 hours a trip, anyone?) Had amazing times and shit times on it, glad I did it but never again.

Magic Mushrooms: The same, but more, er, organic. We drove into the Norfolk countryside, crashed the car, lay down in the pitch dark on a country road to look at the stars, climbed over barbed wire fences to get into Sheringham park, climbed the observation tower and watched shooting stars, got chased off by guard dogs, all after mushroom tea. Good times.

Cocaine: I have never discovered the effects of this drug, apart from the fact that it makes you a) keep on wanting to do it and b) an arsehole.

Insufficient grit

Was interested to read this in the Daily Scum:

'Well I'm absolutely fuming' said Mrs A Taxpayer. 'I don't pay my hard-earned taxes just to have these teachers sit around watching porn and eating biscuits in bed. This health and safety business is political correctness gone mad! And they're missing such crucial, vital time in their learning. I don't know why they couldn't do what they did in my day, and spend the time colouring pictures together in the hall.

'Not only did I have to take time off work, losing my company literally billions in the two days I was out, but I had to look after my own children for two whole days! These teachers have no idea how tedious and inconvenient entertaining small children can be.'

Mayor Boris Johnson appeared to back frustrated parents.
'It's not an excuse to skive, you know' he was quoted as saying, shortly before lunch at the Dorchester with some visiting Chinese dignitaries.

Interview with GSE

Update - the elegant and sophisticated GSE has consented to an interview. I reserve the right to heckle her answers on my blog though.

What was the last excuse you made, and why did you need to make it?
I regularly use the same excuse for not doing things well or properly or indeed at all - I've got health problems. That would have been totally valid 15 years ago. Less so now. Yeah, but I've still got health problems...

Complete this sentence: I wonder why _________________.
why anyone thinks that sticking a vibrating mascara wand near one your most delicate organs is a good idea?
Like most vibrating items marketed for women, possibly it will be used on an area not indicated in the advertising - cf the Magic Wand.

What did you look like when you were a teenager?
Nerdy and hideous. So not much change then.
Oh pish posh woman. You are gorgeous and you know it.

What is the best thing you've ever bought?
The monsters - although they were more of a present really. But they weren't cheap.

Do you like or dislike change?
I dislike it on the whole. But it depends. For example I prefer the same breakfast every day. But I change my underwear every day too.

* * *

Never managed to trick someone into guest-posting here, maybe this will work. It's a meme, and here's how it works -

Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will email you five questions.
3. Update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When someone comments asking to be interviewed, ask them five questions.

Snowbound

6.00 am text from head teacher: School is closed today.

I think I've dreamed it. Then I look out the window...





Been watching Scrubs in bed with toast & coffee. Bit bored now. You?