let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

so it's snowing. schools are closing and kids are going home early or not going in at all. and...parents are complaining.

"teachers take any excuse to have some time off" and "we don't get to go home when it snows so why should they?" is being muttered around water coolers and over desks around the country. talk radio hosts are whiping up a frenzy and everyone from the middle aged to the long ago retired are recycling tales of "in my day this would never happen."

but I have a couple questions. who is this really serving?

consider this, teachers pay is decided by the performance of the students and parents, in case you haven't realised, many of you aren't providing us with great material to work with in the first place. this means, keeping our homes, feeding ourselves and our children, wearing clothes that kind of fit, keeping the lights and heating running, often depends on your little bundle of joy succeeding. we don't take closures lightly.

so why do we do it?

short answer. safety. that and litigation. you see, parents have, time and time again shown that they will go to great lengths to divorce their children from not only, responsibility for their actions but any kind of consequences. how many times does the urchin need to steal something before it'ss parents accept that their little ray of sunshine is a sociopathic kleptomaniac. so, in the interest of the childs safety and not ending up in court, we send them home. think about it, if you have to choose between these three phone calls which would you rather have,

1) your child is being sent home due to unsafe conditions outside of our control. please make provisions for him/her.
2) your child has been taken to the hospital due to the foolish and irresponsible actions of either himself or a fellow pupil during this time of unsafe conditions. please make your way to X hospital.
3) your child is to be interviewed by the authorities in connection to another child being hospitalised. please make yourself available to accompany them.

it really is that simple. and can you imagine a child falling down some stairs at speed, the fractures and broken bones, the contusions and concussions, the bandages and stitches etc, and the parent walking up and saying..."next time be more careful"?? it's not going to happen.

so parents, when you're tempted to complain about teachers, take a moment to think about what you're really saying. 'cause t sounds like you're saying you'd like us to keep your child in a dangerous environment because it's convenient for you. and at the end of the day....

that's all there is to it, isn't it?

behold what complacence has wrought

I've been away for a while. A whole month in fact. and not without good reason. I've been busy with the everyday stuff. hands full with the stuff that keeps the sun in it's place and the earth spinning on it's axis. the stuff that living is made of.

but something has all the while been brewing under the flimsy cover of my busy ness. my hand has been itching and I've had to bite my tongue. but now that october is over I finally feel like I can come out with it boldly and say,

      "Black History Month, what a complete waste of time"

I'm not even going to try to apologise for that sentiment so don't ask as blatant, overt and blunt refusal is likely to cause further offense.

to the original designers and implementers of this 'celebration', with their lofty goals and hopeful ambitions, I say thank you and to those who, through their yearly observance help keep it alive, I offer my profound gratitude. you have both groups, brokered, on behalf of black people throughout the western world, a compromise that will forever segregate us from the mainstream of education, the mainstream of history and the mainstream of the future.

tell me this, mr. onemonthayear black man, from whence did you come? and where are you going? and who are you for the other three hundred and thirty three days of the year? and you ms. blackforthirtyonedays, what is your language? where is your country and who are your people?

no. black history month is more than a farce, it is a travesty. it is a slick used car salesman specialising in sleight of hand, dazzling us with its trivialisation of the very history it claims to promote while it simultaneously sells our future on the cheap.

when we have literature lessons all year long that never mention achebe, du bois or even dumas, how dare we claim to acknowledge black history? as long as we have mathematics sessions innumerable and no one hears of benjamin banneker, science semesters that pay no tribute to george washington carver and budding politicians who are unaware of the efforts of booker t. washington how dare we speak of celebrating black history? how dare we?

black history month is a fools gold. it is the festering, putrid, vile scab of complacency that has grown over the nasty, hideous truth. this uncomfortable truth simply put is that black people are not yet seen as equal. in anyone's eyes.

we are not a spectacle to be gawped at or a foreign species to be investigated for presentations and I'd like to think we're not immature ignoramuses to be bought with a wink, a nod and a month of half hearted recognition....or are we?

you see, my history is the story of people and civilisations. it is the story of love and war, greatness and great foolishness. it has shaped the world of today and will shape that of tomorrow because my history is the story of all that there is and no matter the colour of your skin your history is no different.

so when this story is sterilised, segregated and forced on to a reservation we all lose out. and that is my whole point. there is no such thing as 'black history'. there is history and we are all in it. let's represent it like that or not at all.


-peace-

but you don't really know, do you?

it's a touchy subject but I'm in the mood to push some buttons, and first, just so we're clear - the next person to tell me they 'know what it's like being black'.....beware.

I mean, dammit people...growing up around black folks gives you as much insight into our lives as growing up around cars makes you run on gas. just because as a kid your loud caribbean neighbour invited you over to dinner 2/3 times a week, your dad let you listen to his UB40 collection and you smoked your first roll up behind the bicycle sheds at 14, that does not make you James Meredith, heck, it doesn't even make you Uncle Remus.

let's look at the flip side for a minute. I've lived in england for a little while and so I can honestly claim to have grown up around a lot of white folks. believe me, I don't know what it's like to be white. I don't know what it's like to walk into a store and not have security follow me around. I don't know what it's like to run pass a police man, trying to catch a bus, and not have him try to stop me. I don't know what it's like to stand in a playground talking to friends and not have a teacher split us up for 'conspiring some sort of mischief'. I don't know what it's like to be called to the front of the queue and served in front of patrons waiting patiently before me. I don't know what it's like to be preferred for promotion, not pulled over for driving my new (-ish) car or not asked for class A illicit substances by random strangers.

my point is this, I don't know what it's like to be white. and that's not a bad thing, because I'm not. it's our differences that make us who we are. but it's rude and condescending to assume that being black is the food I eat, the clothes I wear and the music I listen to. as if being black is a trend to be analysed and adapted to.

being black is a history and a heritage, a birthright and a responsibility, it is to be borne and to be gifted, it is to be lived as much as it lives through us. simply put, being black is a way of being.

I believe this is the same for any other people group. to know it, is to be it.

so don't tell me your-brother's-best-friend's-cousin-went-to-school-with-a-guy-whose-sister-played-on-the-same-hockey-team-as-a-girl-whose-brother-shared-a-taxi-with-a-black-girl-once, so you what it's like to be black. it's ignorant and demeaning.

and for the record, I don't have anything against white folks, some of my best friends are white.

on imposition

a friend once asked if I thought she should tell her son about her beliefs. her problem, as she saw it, was that by imposing her views onto the child, 10 years old, she would inhibit him from making reasoned choices later in life. conversely, if she chose not to share with him he would be in a better position to consider all options when and if he got around to making up his own mind.

I am in the habit of speaking plainly with most of the people I know and have to admit, on this occasion, I may have used derisive sarcasm to emphasize my point somewhat, but the main gist was as follows...."bull!"

as a parent your very role is an imposition. you tell the child when to go to bed, when to wake up, what to wear(and increasingly) how to wear it, what to eat, how to eat it, sometimes who to talk to, often who to listen to, how to walk, how to talk, what they will and will not do in supermarket aisles, school playgrounds, roads of all sizes and parks. You demand from them certain behaviours as are in keeping with societal standards and your own. you insist they follow the laws of the land with the hope that they continue to do so as they grow older. all of this and more is not only your right, it is your responsibility.

so I suppose then the real question is this...do you believe that your beliefs are important, relevant, or even true? because when you get down to it, that's all that matters.

the child will always make a choice. you don't teach them to lie, you even encourage them not to, so you can't really hide behind that. there will be choosing.

and there will be imposition, I think I've made that clear. but there is this to consider also. what you don't tell a child sends a loud message too. not challenging littering when you tore him a new one over swearing says that littering is not important. ignoring selfishness when you routinely punish him for fighting says the same.

doing away with the smoke screens and the excuses the only real question is...do I really believe or do I just tick the box and hope no one asks?

and that's one I can't really help with.

on speciesism

Definition of Speciesism: Giving moral preference to the interests of members of one's own species, over identical interests of members of a different species, solely because it is a member of your species.

I really, really want to write something witty about this. I would like to know if Mr. Singer ever came across a sleuth of grizzlies debating over the social mores surrounding the tearing off of human faces. or, perhaps a pride of lions deliberating over whether or not their survival warranted their treatment of the slow antelope or wildebeest.

my point being that it is perfectly natural and acceptable to give preference to the interests of members of one's own species. it's called nature. I'm not saying cruelty to animals is justifiable, in fact, I am strongly against it. but I do believe that humane treatment of other species is a measure of our own humanity not a reflection on the value of the creature in question.

our power over the other sentient beings on this planet (by means of force and/or intellect) is without question. our power over ourselves, exhibited through compassion, kindness and self control....this is where the true battle lies.

for fox sake

fox hunting, contentious non-issue that it is, has raised it's ravaged and hotly debated head once more. so let's pretend, like anyone else caught up in this 'controversy', that there isn't a worldwide economic disaster in progress, that carbon emissions (and general environmental negligence) from both developing and developed nations alike isn't hastening a crisis the likes of which the future will forever be ill-equipped to deal with. we can even go so far as to put aside the increasing danger we all live under due to ever growing nuclear proliferation in nations better known for their belligerence and paranoia than anything else and not to mention the looming menace of a nation run by a police force without ethics, boundaries or conscience.

so let's talk about fox hunting. but first, let's not talk about tens of thousands of children dying for a chance to live. let's bypass the less than noble wars raging across the globe by less than noble men for less than noble reasons. let us opt to not acknowledge the poverty of spirit which breeds oppression, the poverty of mind bearing the fruit of ignorance and hatred, and the poverty of soul giving rise to murder, that plagues humanity.

fox hunting. that's what we should be talking about. fox hunting.

teaching by numbers

so I work with children...

some would argue that it's a step up from the world of knuckle dragging , mono browed avarice but you'd be surprised. don't get me wrong, there's a sense of 'giving back' that pushing paper and counting coins didn't provide but school, education, learning....this is big business.

I don't suppose many people realise that education in several London boroughs is contracted out to firms with very little experience in actual teaching, much less interfacing with younglings. Take, for example, the considerable corporate mass that is the fleet constructing, army training, waste recycling, nuclear decommissioning (the list goes on) Group that presently holds the contract for delivering education to young people in Waltham Forest.

Maybe there's a lot I don't understand and undoubtedly there are huge swathes of information that I do not have privy to but I remain unconvinced that these well meaning business people are best suited to do this job.

Spending each day in classroom I am constantly growing a new and deeper appreciation of what it means to succeed. I say this because no one ventures into business without carefully considering what they would find a successful result. but, and this is where it gets interesting, what counts as success for the average nuclear decommissioning company probably differs greatly to what any one of my teacher colleagues would recognise by the same name, not to mention the children.

you see, money is not and cannot be our bottom line. as my father would say 'teaching is a noble vocation'. of course he what he means by that is that one would have to be incredibly self-sacrificing (or at the very least, nuttier than squirrel shit in a peanut factory) to try it. he was a teacher for 20 years before making this declaration...and he's not very self sacrificing, but that's another rant altogether. I guess the point I'm trying to make is this, the bottom line is the children. yes, schools don't run of smilie faces and polite nods, but when we start seeing little pound signs running around playgrounds and stop seeing individuals with often more hardships than hopes, more disappointments than dreams and more afflictions than aspirations then that's when we ought to step out of teaching and perhaps, maybe...consider banking.

my dogma ate my homework, pt.1

I'm not a fan of religion. any religion. by and large, man made institutions, castles of cards made of idiotic traditions founded on rules and regulations created solely to bind people in fear and guilt. religion covers ignorance like a dirty bandage on a weeping sore.

that said I've had my full of the arm chair philosophers, word of mouth historians and the multiplicity of others claiming boldly 'religion has killed more people than all the wars in history combined!' really? come on, we've all heard enough politicking to be able to spot a whopping great pile of manure masquerading as fact, haven't we?

religion is a lot of things. worked into its design, into its very fabric, is manipulation and control through fear and ignorance. careful utilisation of these, facets, so to speak, has contributed to the amassing of great political influence among other things. and the overwhelming greed, that holds these structures together, enshrined in defunct doctrine and tradition, coupled with the paranoia that such institutions engender, keep the wheels turning. this isn't news to anyone.

but isn't this what religion was designed to do? religion is a tool. designed to make a few people very powerful (and/or wealthy) at the expense of the masses. at various points in the history of civilisation this ferocious avarice has came up against diametric opposition in the form of someone else trying to expand their fiefdom. it is inevitable. an old fashioned power struggle. simple as that.

but since when does the gun take responsibility over the shooter? and which courts try and imprison the knife? religion hasn't killed anyone. it can't. insidious as it seems to be, by it's very nature it is inert and incapable of independent thought.

so folks, let's be sensible. people kill people. people have killed people. and by the looks of it, people will continue to kill people. let's have fewer excuses and more transparency. and hey, who knows, we might even someday manage to stop killing ourselves.