Month: November 2013

Anybody can teach!

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Secret Teacher

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I wish I could say this was some kind of practical joke; that this had appeared on a whimsical website poking fun at government policy. However this is no joke, and nobody is laughing.

The South Leeds Academy are in need of two maths teachers, but not just any maths teachers. Those with any sort of qualifications to teach are deemed surplus to requirements. Indeed those who have the experience and expertise to assist pupils adequately are going to be immediately overlooked. They needn’t apply. The South Leeds Academy epitomize a worrying transformation in the education system in recent years.

When Michael Gove removed the requirement for QTS in academies, the rhetoric was of professionals such as scientists, engineers, musicians and linguists teaching pupils. I doubt anybody could argue that the above advert isn’t looking for professionals, for professionals are almost always qualified. There isn’t even a mention of a…

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From a distance the world looks blue and green

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Sometimes, when I get bored or when I need a distraction to get my brain going, I take quizes on Jetpunk.  Normally film, trivia or can you name all the states in America in 4 minutes.  I sometimes can, mostly I forget Wisconsin or Oklahoma or Nebraska.  Today I tried a new one and, quite frankly, I was rubbish at it.  But it gave me an idea. Since I’m going to be 30 in 3 months less one day, I’m going to set myself a challenge. I’m going to try to complete the quiz in real life…

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The Eighteen Year Old Blues

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I’m feeling low down, I’m 18, and I don’t know what to do with my future: I’ve got the blues, man.

I’ve googled teenage songs and come across this lyric from the Eighteen Year Old Blues by Steve Carl from 1958 in a list on the Guardian website.  Apparently the song ponders the options available to him.  

I’ve been thinking about what my options were when I was 18.  This morning I’ve been talking to the year 13 students at my old school. (Hello if any of you are reading this!)  Teenagers generally get a bad press.  Most articles or pieces about teenagers in newspapers or on the news focus on antisocial behaviours, how they are illiterate or lack numeracy skills, how many are NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training – over a million at the latest estimate) etc.  It’s not a positive picture being painted.

What options are there for teenagers now?  Adults with different levels of experience are struggling to work, there is a push on volunteering to get a foot in the door but many companies and organisations are reaching saturation.  How many companies faced with an experienced out of work adult or a teenager are likely to pick the teenager?  It’s an economically unstable world, there are few jobs for life anymore and it’s hard to find part time work.  I’m not sure I’d like to be 18 now.

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Responses to the last post..

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I put a link to this on a facebook community page and it sparked off an interesting debate.  Eventually it got into a very heated discussion about the use of the word ‘pikey’ to describe members of travelling communities.  People were stating their views very strongly and some others were getting offended and hurt by it so I decided to delete the post and all the responses.

I did have email alerts set up with each reply sent to me, so I thought I’d put a few up here, names of contributors removed please let me know what you agree or disagree with in the comments below. (I will give each person a colour instead of a name so that you can see some of the back and forth).

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Everyone’s a little bit racist?

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I’ve decided to write this because of something that has just popped up on Facebook.  It’s very much going to be a stream of consciousness so let’s hope it works out.

I was scrolling through the news feed and spotted something written by one of my friends in Australia. (She’s from Britain but moved to Australia a number of years ago).  I thought I’d mis-read it to start with and then re-read it, but no. It was actually a comment that said ‘dirty abos and their dirty children, I’m not racist but I bet if I spat on them they’d be cleaner… urgh disgusting specimins!!!’ Three people had ‘liked’ it.

I’m just going to let you sit with that, as I did for a little while.

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And the band played ‘Waltzing Matilda’…

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Today is Remembrance Day,  the Sunday closest to Armistice Day and, as such, many people have been wearing red or white poppies and visiting cenotaphs to remember the dead, both civilian and military, that gave their lives in wars across the world. 

 

Tomorrow is 11th November and 95 years ago it was the day of the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o’clock in the morning—the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918. Armistice Day is a day to remember the sacrifices made by many, too many, people over the years in order to protect the ways of life back home. 

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Oh I get by with a little help from my friends.

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I’ve been a bit slack on here because I’ve been making things and working.  I’m saving up to go on a round the world trip and so will be selling my felt creations to go towards this and help me blog from exciting places. 

 

If you would like to help fund this then please click on the tab ‘Felt creations’, have a look through and fill in the form and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. 

 

P.S. If you’d just like to donate, then please do, that would be awesome!