.
“Since the recession began, applications to train for teaching have shot up.”
BBC News Radio 4.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7933690.stm
So this is now a clear case of potential teacher supply outstripping demand. And what does a stupid government do in this situation? Well, a truly stupid government, as represented by Jim Knight, creates an incentive for supply to go up even higher by saying it’s going to compress PGCE training courses from an already ludicrous 12 months to - wait for it - 6 months. That’s SIX months to learn about and become skilled in the arts and sciences of being a teacher.
What the government should be doing, of course, is fast-tracking redundant bankers with their fat kiss-offs into work experience as Teaching Assistants, to give them a substantial first-hand insight into why the majority of them SHOULD NOT, and CANNOT, become teachers.
That would serve two purposes. First, to disabuse them of what it’s actually like to be a teacher, and save them the time and expense of training to be a teacher. Secondly, to rid them of the idea that they have the intellectual, emotional and spiritual resources to be a teacher.
The very few who survived this sort of apprenticeship to a practicing classroom teacher for at least 6 months, before even embarking on training, would then
* be absolutely certain that they have the qualities of sensitivity, empathy, intuition, intellect, instinct, humility, emotional intelligence and resilience that you need to be a good teacher.
* be clear that they can function effectively in a professional setting as a member of a team of professionals, which of course you don’t necessarily need to do as a self-serving banker.
* be clear about the sort of self-discipline and self-sacrifice it takes to be a good teacher.
Having had such a workplace experience, any sensible applicant for teacher training would then demand that basic training should be effective and thorough, and conducted by highly skilled and experienced practitioners in both the college and their placement schools for a minimum of two years.
-------------------------------------
There’s talk about the government introducing a Masters degree in Teaching & Learning. The incredible thing is that we apparently don’t already have them. How can that be?
Could it be anything to do with the idiotic world of academia where subject specialisation is all, and “Teaching & Learning” is a bit . . . . . generalist? A bit like Primary teachers - regarded as the poor relations, generalists, etc. When what they are in terms of their professionalism is actually a specialist in child development and pedagogy.
No-one can actually teach a young child who has limited language and literacy without understanding what makes a child tick and how to motivate them to want to learn. Or at least that’s what Primary teachers used to be able to do before NuLabour got its hands on education and turned teachers into operatives in results factories, “delivering national strategies” and teaching to tests.
In Finland, the world’s best educational system has not only an all-graduate profession, it has an all-post graduate profession, with every teacher being trained to Masters level in pedagogy within 5 years of starting teaching.
As a teachers’ Union spokesman said on the radio - it’s completely mad to let semi-trained people loose on teaching children when they haven’t even begun to properly understand the basics of child development and pedagogy, let alone know how to organise up to 30 children within a small space so that each and every one of them has his and her specific educational and personal needs met, all day every day.
Let alone be able to offer them a daily experience of school that fosters a love of learning for its own sake, and allows every child to develop high levels of intellectual, social, emotional and spiritual intelligence.
Even experienced teachers find it difficult to do that - principally because these days they’re no longer trained in such skills. They’re fast-tracked into “delivering” literacy and numeracy strategies and “the curriculum”. In other words, preparing the children for tests and exams.
But of course this is what people like Jim Knight imagine teachers should be doing. Any old banker can surely be trained to stand in front of a class and fill children with imperial gallons of facts. Within six months. Can’t they?
That’s right, Jim lad. Hammer them with grammar, “wow words”, “connectives”(?), number facts, bits of science, history and the rest, plus some training on test techniques, and Gordon’s your uncle.
------------------------------------------------------
Here’s an excellent article, published on the Guardian website yesterday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/mar/09/anthony-seldon-examinations
I can’t imagine Anthony Seldon wanting any semi-trained ex-bankers working in his school. Can’t imagine the fee-paying parents wanting them either. Maybe they’ll be fine for the inner-city schools. Eh, Jim?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2009/mar/09/anthony-seldon-primary-tests
---------------------------------------------------
Returning to Oxzen’s recent comments on Brown and Harriet Harman, I notice Jackie Ashley wrote some very important comments in yesterday’s paper, under the strapline,
Harman and Darling are the PM's most constant allies. He should let them speak out, rather than slap them down.
This is another sad indictment on Brown, who’s still failing to realise it’s time to admit what the rest of us already know about NuLabour’s complicity with the City and ‘globalisation’ this past decade, and understand that he’s now operating in a totally new epoch that requires totally different approaches to politics and economics.
(Harriet Harman) seems to be fighting her cause in cabinet, taking a more anti-City line than some other ministers, and refusing to have her equalities legislation nudged aside by Mandelson . . . Under great personal attack, she's got her head down and is plugging on regardless. You don't have to regard her as some kind of political titan to think this is cause for mild praise rather than contempt.
Personally I think it’s cause for enormous praise - both what Harriet said about the bankers not being allowed to keep their booty, and the fact that she’s still fighting for her equalities legislation, especially if Mandelson is against it - which he would be, wouldn’t he?
Unless people feel politicians, like the rest of the world, have been shocked into rethinking their assumptions, how can they feel confidence in future decisions? This is not about weakness. You can't base a new politics on denial.
The Tories, with all their hedge-fund chums and banking backers, are still far too smug in their finger pointing, but even their language is now altering. Labour, take note.
If (Brown) was able to admit that he had been too credulous about the banks but had learned some painful lessons, he would actually now be in a stronger position, far better able to get a hearing.
If he was able to see Harman and Darling as loyal people with minds of their own, rather than as potential renegades who need to be slapped down, then he would also be in a better place, and his administration would seem more coherent. Why pick fights with friends?
The mood of the country has changed, anyway. People want something different in truly dangerous, recessionary times. They want politicians to be less tribal, franker and more open about what went wrong. It's a time for rallying round, not for finding new divisions.
It's not quite true that everyone failed to see the expanding golden bubble for what it was. A few did. But millions were mesmerised and the consequences are going to be horrible. At this hard moment, there is no place for false pride. We are in it together. The prime minister must be less proud. He has, frankly, less to be proud about.
There were a couple of good comments on CIF after this:
From guardianreeda (on Mandelson, and someone‘s suggestion that he could take over as PM if Brown resigned)
For a completely unelected, completely unelectable multiply disgraced multi-million pound trousering liar to end up running the country courtesy of Labour is indeed a fitting way to draw this desperately disappointing period in our history to a close.
From ardennespate (on someone’s comment that Brown’s successor should fire Mandelson immediately)
... from a large cannon, off the highest turret of the Tower of London, in the general direction of Elephant and Castle. Without a crash helmet.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/09/gordon-brown-harman-darling
------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, is getting involved. Quite right too. This whole economic and financial crisis is, in the end, about spiritual intelligence, ethics and morality, equality and purpose.
Archbishop delivers attack on impact of globalisation.
Time for everyone to look at own lifestyles, he says.
Blaming the greed of individual bankers for the financial crisis was too easy and people should instead be asking profound questions about how poorly regulated economies obsessed with ever-growing consumer choice have skewed the judgments of entire countries, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.
Focusing on the greed of bankers had made people lose sight of the fact that "governments committed to deregulation and to the encouragement of speculation and high personal borrowing were elected repeatedly in Britain and the United States for a crucial couple of decades", he said. "Add to that the fact of warnings of some of the risks of poor (or no) regulation, and we are left with the question of what it was that skewed the judgment of a whole society as well as of financial professionals."
The archbishop . . . attacked "opportunistic" offshoring and outsourcing by large international companies. "The present situation favours economic agreements that give little or no leverage to workers and that have minimal reference to social, environmental or even local legal concerns.
"Learning how to use governmental antitrust legislation to break up the virtually monopolistic powers of large multinationals that have become cuckoos in the nest of a national economy would also be an essential part of a strategy designed to stop the slide from opportunistic outsourcing towards protectionism and monitoring or policing the chaotic flow of capital across boundaries," he said.
Plenty of good sense and things to chew on there. Excellent.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/09/deregulation-spending-banking
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/09/rowan-williams-lecture-full-text
.
Showing posts with label apology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apology. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Layer 131 Brown, Congress, Mando, Witless Crap and Apologies.
.
Oxzen’s view that the world is full of twats and self-important tossers has been amply reinforced in the past couple of days.
BBC2 last night screened an hour-long documentary about the cringe-makingly awful British contribution to the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics - 8 minutes of tacky, embarrassingly awful rubbish.
I needed to watch it because I’ve been wondering who was responsible for such a pile of complete dross - and now I know. Step forward Martin Green and Stephen Powell - godfathers of garbage, impresarios of shameful bilge that made Britain the laughing-stock of the entire planet.
What made matters worse, of course, was the fact that the Chinese had just mounted what may be regarded as the greatest-ever show on earth, when you consider the opening and closing ceremonies combined.
And in comparison, those 8 minutes of British naffness looked unbelievably horrible, nasty, silly and unworthy. Because this country does have some great artistes and creative geniuses, here and there. So who put these two twats in charge?
And who allowed them to carry through with their insane idea to make a roof-shedding London double-decker bus, a footballer and a bunch of crap choreography the centrepiece of ‘our’ contribution? (See Layer 71 - Goodbye To The Games - August 26th.) Lord Sebastian Coe - that’s who. He listened to the ideas of Green and Powell, looked suitably unimpressed, and nodded his daft little head. Deal done. Idiot.
-------------------------------------------------------
One of the worst aspects of Gordon Brown is how much he resembles David Blunkett. OK, he’s only 50% blind, but still he has eyes that don’t see, that don’t focus, that clearly aren’t working, that are never animated or sparkle or engage with whoever he’s supposed to be talking to. Two dead eyes that convey nothing at all - no emotion, no warmth, no reaching out or taking in.
Watching him on TV with Obama in the White House was just embarrassing. Two different species of human being. One who’s alert and alive and vibrant, and one who’s a burnt-out wreck.
Brown also has the Blunk’s thick-set dour unattractiveness, the same machine-politician’s dull and deadly delivery, an air of having carefully prepared everything he’s about to say with his clique of readers, researchers, advisers and consultants. He’s therefore a mouthpiece for a set of professional political policy-makers - a group of people that are forever in the thick of it, so to speak - trudging from briefing to briefing, from committee meeting to focus group to Whitehall office.
Brown’s speech to Congress was also embarrassing. A mixture of the leaden and the wooden, with cogs grinding and gears clanking. Why was he doing it? PR of course - selling himself and his dodgy, worn out ideas, whose very structure could be heard creaking and groaning with every dull, clunking sentence. Not so much a big clunking fist - more a set of big, clunking, obsolete ideas.
Obama’s been telling America that it’s the disastrous ideology of Chicago-school free-trade market economics that has brought the world’s economy to total ruin. And here was Brown - having the utter gall and the complete idiocy to lecture Congress on the need to press ahead with open markets and non-protectionist free trade, regardless of the consequences for the downfall of national strategic industries and unemployment.
He expects the Americans to allow their motor industry, for example, to go the same way as ours - either down the plug hole completely, or sold off to smarter foreign operators who will asset-strip and relocate it. And to whose benefit? Does he really still cling to the Friedmanite doctrine that everyone eventually benefits from greater ‘efficiency’ and lower prices, which are supposedly the outcomes of globalisation?
Will he never admit that it’s always the little people that get screwed and then tossed crumbs of comfort after the mega-deals and mergers have gone through, commissions pocketed, lawyers paid off, shareholders paid out, the bosses and their consultants and bankers showered with booty?
He can’t even see how sick we all are of politicians like him acting as the mouthpieces of the fat cats and the bankers, desperately trying to make a busted and broken-down system function as it did before. Not that it ever really worked in the way it was supposed to. As even George Soros has had the honesty to admit - unregulated globalised capitalism itself is the problem, not the solution to anything.
And Brown just doesn’t get it.
-------------------------------------------------------
I don’t want to be unfair on Brown. I’m sure he has good intentions, and was as brainwashed as Blair and the others into honestly believing that Chicago-school economics was/is the only game in town, and that it was/is pointless and/or counterproductive to try to regulate Big Finance.
My difficulty in feeling any sense of empathy or caring for him is that he patently failed in the empathy and decency stakes when it came to standing up for principle and what is right. Where was his empathy with the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were bound to be war victims and bound to suffer homelessness, injury and death? Where was his empathy with the millions of anti-war protestors?
Whereas Obama could see from the outset that the invasion of Iraq and the notion of a war on terr’r was always going to be a ruinous disaster, and had the courage to say so, Brown ranged from staying silent to actively supporting Bush and Blair.
Whereas Will Hutton and other progressive economists & commentators said consistently that NuLabour must re-regulate the City and the money markets, Brown sat in No. 11 Downing Street and paid them no attention - and showed them no respect.
It’s not as if Brown continued to play ball with Bush and the big boys whilst at the same time warning that things had to change, that the party was over, that tax havens had to be closed down, that the bonus culture was no longer acceptable, that the gravy train was about to hit the buffers, as so many predicted it would.
So now he ought to be big enough to deal with the derision and indeed hatred that’s being rained down on him for doing nothing whatsoever to get a grip on the excesses of the City and the bankers, for allowing tax havens and tax avoidance on a huge scale to continue, for allowing industry to flounder, for allowing the bonus culture and naked greed to run rampant, for encouraging oligarchs to prosper and seek refuge in Britain, for allowing the minimum wage to remain so inadequate, for encouraging more and more privatisations and ‘private finance initiatives’. In a word, he ought to apologise, and just say sorry for his pitiful inadequacy as the man in charge of the economy and finance all these years.
-------------------------------------------------
In the Guardian today there’s a piece by one of Blair’s former speechwriters - one Peter Hymen - sorry, Hyman - a callow little twat of the first order if you go by his photograph - whose verdict on the Brown speech was that he “didn’t just give us substance but a little style too”. Substance? Style?!!
Whereas Michael Billington said emphatically that the speech was “low on substance”, and that Brown would do to remember that Mark Anthony’s seemingly triumphant speech was “short-lived and followed by civil commotion, global turmoil, and his own ultimate downfall . . . ”
-----------------------------------
Mando
Someone on Radio 4 yesterday described Lord Peter Mandleson as ‘effectively’ the Deputy Prime Minister. As it happened I’d just been thinking about Harriet Harman, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the attempts by the political establishment to marginalise her and disown her recent statements to the effect that government would ensure that the bankers would not get their fat pensions, regardless of what the current law permits, or insists on.
So let’s think about this. Mandleson, a failed politician and a European Commissioner, a professional bureaucrat, is plucked from Brussels by our Prime Minister and installed as a noble Lord in Parliament, with such duties and status as to make him effectively the Deputy Prime Minister. And we think we live in a democracy?
A man who is regarded by the majority of the population as a scumbag and a toff, a nasty piece of work, and the co-architect of NuLabour, who we therefore hold responsible for the betrayal of the electorate after 1997 and All That, is now someone we should regard as a ‘Lord’, and effectively the Deputy Prime Minister, even though he’d never win any election he now entered.
Not only that, he’s made it his business to press ahead with part-privatisation of the Royal Mail completely against the wishes of the electorate, which is coming round to understanding that nationalised industries, especially where they are also monopolistic and potentially able to benefit from economies of scale, are preferable to privatised businesses which owe no responsibility to the electorate, and operate solely in the interests of shareholders.
It’s clear the man is a megalomaniac and egotist of the first order, with no inclination whatsoever to pay attention to what people actually want, such as radical social change that benefits regular people rather than fat cats. He’s therefore a would-be dictator, with contempt for the masses, and a determination to pursue his own political agendas regardless of the consequences for social justice and democracy.
It’s as though Brown has installed in Parliament as his philosopher’s stone, his business guru and his private mentor, someone with the tendencies of a Hitler, someone who uses every opportunity to use dirty tactics, to smear and ignore opponents, to use disinformation, to do business through cliques and cabals, to empower himself at the expense of everyone else. Which is another very good reason for disliking and reviling Brown, and wanting him to just pack it in and push off.
.
Oxzen’s view that the world is full of twats and self-important tossers has been amply reinforced in the past couple of days.
BBC2 last night screened an hour-long documentary about the cringe-makingly awful British contribution to the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics - 8 minutes of tacky, embarrassingly awful rubbish.
I needed to watch it because I’ve been wondering who was responsible for such a pile of complete dross - and now I know. Step forward Martin Green and Stephen Powell - godfathers of garbage, impresarios of shameful bilge that made Britain the laughing-stock of the entire planet.
What made matters worse, of course, was the fact that the Chinese had just mounted what may be regarded as the greatest-ever show on earth, when you consider the opening and closing ceremonies combined.
And in comparison, those 8 minutes of British naffness looked unbelievably horrible, nasty, silly and unworthy. Because this country does have some great artistes and creative geniuses, here and there. So who put these two twats in charge?
And who allowed them to carry through with their insane idea to make a roof-shedding London double-decker bus, a footballer and a bunch of crap choreography the centrepiece of ‘our’ contribution? (See Layer 71 - Goodbye To The Games - August 26th.) Lord Sebastian Coe - that’s who. He listened to the ideas of Green and Powell, looked suitably unimpressed, and nodded his daft little head. Deal done. Idiot.
-------------------------------------------------------
One of the worst aspects of Gordon Brown is how much he resembles David Blunkett. OK, he’s only 50% blind, but still he has eyes that don’t see, that don’t focus, that clearly aren’t working, that are never animated or sparkle or engage with whoever he’s supposed to be talking to. Two dead eyes that convey nothing at all - no emotion, no warmth, no reaching out or taking in.
Watching him on TV with Obama in the White House was just embarrassing. Two different species of human being. One who’s alert and alive and vibrant, and one who’s a burnt-out wreck.
Brown also has the Blunk’s thick-set dour unattractiveness, the same machine-politician’s dull and deadly delivery, an air of having carefully prepared everything he’s about to say with his clique of readers, researchers, advisers and consultants. He’s therefore a mouthpiece for a set of professional political policy-makers - a group of people that are forever in the thick of it, so to speak - trudging from briefing to briefing, from committee meeting to focus group to Whitehall office.
Brown’s speech to Congress was also embarrassing. A mixture of the leaden and the wooden, with cogs grinding and gears clanking. Why was he doing it? PR of course - selling himself and his dodgy, worn out ideas, whose very structure could be heard creaking and groaning with every dull, clunking sentence. Not so much a big clunking fist - more a set of big, clunking, obsolete ideas.
Obama’s been telling America that it’s the disastrous ideology of Chicago-school free-trade market economics that has brought the world’s economy to total ruin. And here was Brown - having the utter gall and the complete idiocy to lecture Congress on the need to press ahead with open markets and non-protectionist free trade, regardless of the consequences for the downfall of national strategic industries and unemployment.
He expects the Americans to allow their motor industry, for example, to go the same way as ours - either down the plug hole completely, or sold off to smarter foreign operators who will asset-strip and relocate it. And to whose benefit? Does he really still cling to the Friedmanite doctrine that everyone eventually benefits from greater ‘efficiency’ and lower prices, which are supposedly the outcomes of globalisation?
Will he never admit that it’s always the little people that get screwed and then tossed crumbs of comfort after the mega-deals and mergers have gone through, commissions pocketed, lawyers paid off, shareholders paid out, the bosses and their consultants and bankers showered with booty?
He can’t even see how sick we all are of politicians like him acting as the mouthpieces of the fat cats and the bankers, desperately trying to make a busted and broken-down system function as it did before. Not that it ever really worked in the way it was supposed to. As even George Soros has had the honesty to admit - unregulated globalised capitalism itself is the problem, not the solution to anything.
And Brown just doesn’t get it.
-------------------------------------------------------
I don’t want to be unfair on Brown. I’m sure he has good intentions, and was as brainwashed as Blair and the others into honestly believing that Chicago-school economics was/is the only game in town, and that it was/is pointless and/or counterproductive to try to regulate Big Finance.
My difficulty in feeling any sense of empathy or caring for him is that he patently failed in the empathy and decency stakes when it came to standing up for principle and what is right. Where was his empathy with the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were bound to be war victims and bound to suffer homelessness, injury and death? Where was his empathy with the millions of anti-war protestors?
Whereas Obama could see from the outset that the invasion of Iraq and the notion of a war on terr’r was always going to be a ruinous disaster, and had the courage to say so, Brown ranged from staying silent to actively supporting Bush and Blair.
Whereas Will Hutton and other progressive economists & commentators said consistently that NuLabour must re-regulate the City and the money markets, Brown sat in No. 11 Downing Street and paid them no attention - and showed them no respect.
It’s not as if Brown continued to play ball with Bush and the big boys whilst at the same time warning that things had to change, that the party was over, that tax havens had to be closed down, that the bonus culture was no longer acceptable, that the gravy train was about to hit the buffers, as so many predicted it would.
So now he ought to be big enough to deal with the derision and indeed hatred that’s being rained down on him for doing nothing whatsoever to get a grip on the excesses of the City and the bankers, for allowing tax havens and tax avoidance on a huge scale to continue, for allowing industry to flounder, for allowing the bonus culture and naked greed to run rampant, for encouraging oligarchs to prosper and seek refuge in Britain, for allowing the minimum wage to remain so inadequate, for encouraging more and more privatisations and ‘private finance initiatives’. In a word, he ought to apologise, and just say sorry for his pitiful inadequacy as the man in charge of the economy and finance all these years.
-------------------------------------------------
In the Guardian today there’s a piece by one of Blair’s former speechwriters - one Peter Hymen - sorry, Hyman - a callow little twat of the first order if you go by his photograph - whose verdict on the Brown speech was that he “didn’t just give us substance but a little style too”. Substance? Style?!!
Whereas Michael Billington said emphatically that the speech was “low on substance”, and that Brown would do to remember that Mark Anthony’s seemingly triumphant speech was “short-lived and followed by civil commotion, global turmoil, and his own ultimate downfall . . . ”
-----------------------------------
Mando
Someone on Radio 4 yesterday described Lord Peter Mandleson as ‘effectively’ the Deputy Prime Minister. As it happened I’d just been thinking about Harriet Harman, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the attempts by the political establishment to marginalise her and disown her recent statements to the effect that government would ensure that the bankers would not get their fat pensions, regardless of what the current law permits, or insists on.
So let’s think about this. Mandleson, a failed politician and a European Commissioner, a professional bureaucrat, is plucked from Brussels by our Prime Minister and installed as a noble Lord in Parliament, with such duties and status as to make him effectively the Deputy Prime Minister. And we think we live in a democracy?
A man who is regarded by the majority of the population as a scumbag and a toff, a nasty piece of work, and the co-architect of NuLabour, who we therefore hold responsible for the betrayal of the electorate after 1997 and All That, is now someone we should regard as a ‘Lord’, and effectively the Deputy Prime Minister, even though he’d never win any election he now entered.
Not only that, he’s made it his business to press ahead with part-privatisation of the Royal Mail completely against the wishes of the electorate, which is coming round to understanding that nationalised industries, especially where they are also monopolistic and potentially able to benefit from economies of scale, are preferable to privatised businesses which owe no responsibility to the electorate, and operate solely in the interests of shareholders.
It’s clear the man is a megalomaniac and egotist of the first order, with no inclination whatsoever to pay attention to what people actually want, such as radical social change that benefits regular people rather than fat cats. He’s therefore a would-be dictator, with contempt for the masses, and a determination to pursue his own political agendas regardless of the consequences for social justice and democracy.
It’s as though Brown has installed in Parliament as his philosopher’s stone, his business guru and his private mentor, someone with the tendencies of a Hitler, someone who uses every opportunity to use dirty tactics, to smear and ignore opponents, to use disinformation, to do business through cliques and cabals, to empower himself at the expense of everyone else. Which is another very good reason for disliking and reviling Brown, and wanting him to just pack it in and push off.
.
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