The Weekly Rot

I loved that Susan Boyle video clip on YouTube. I’m showing it to my classes – if they promise not to tell anyone that I’ve used the int­ernet and an interactive whiteboard in a lesson. I have an image to protect.

What a lesson. The video clip is from Britain’s Got Talent programme in which ordinary Brits dance, blow up hot water bottles, pull cars with their ears and sing and let the judges decide whether they’re talented – or not. The audience gets to join in by applauding or jeering.

Yet another academic is bullying schools. This time the bullying is about bullying. She said it’s not only kids who are nerdy or overweight who are bullied. Quite right sister, nerdy and overweight teachers are bullied too.

But teachers don’t just know about bullying from their first-hand experience, we’re the ones doing something about it every day. Instead of writing articles in American academic journals, teachers are in schools, mingling with the bullies and the bullied, dealing with the problem, and learning what works and what doesn’t.

I hate reports. And I really do mean ‘hate’ like I hate greasy fatty mutton chops, dole bludgers and whiney babies in staff meetings.

The Food Fascists lost – the SAS took care of them, in the national interest, because their defeat was integral to Part 2 of the expansionary economic rescue package which is not about GDP or inflation or the interest rate. It’s about qualitative stuff. It’s not about how many iPods we have or how many bedrooms our architecturally-designed beachfront cribs have, it’s about how relaxed and safe and content and fulfilled we feel. All good economists know this.

So – part two of my bailout package focuses on inner feelings.

Crikey, was Big Economics ever so much in the news? I’ve always wanted to knock up a bit of a Marshall Plan, you know, hang out for a week or two at Bretton Woods and create a new world order. Here’s my draft proposal, a working document, a new beginning…

My gut instinct is to tax everybody more – except teachers of course whose tax will be cut to zero. Teachers will also be exempted from petrol tax, TV tax, car registration and alcohol tax. (I think we can further boost the economy by giving teachers an alcohol subsidy.)

What good news – ratbag kids being sent to army boot camp. Early morning running, cold showers, basic food, basic living conditions, lessons in essential life skills and good manners, and then more running. It’ll be boarding school for those who should’ve gone to boarding school.

Apparently last year saw a record number of complaints to the Teachers’ Council – but most were vexatious whines from parents of brats.

Few know though that there were almost a squillion complaints by teachers to the Parents’ Council. It seems that a record number of parents sent kids to school with dirty clothes, dirty shoes, dirty hair.

I know that Gaza is a problem, and the Taliban and the world’s economic situation and the Rugby World Cup and Official Cash Rate – these are all weighty issues, but (and call me shallow if you want), I’m certain I spend more of my thinking time trying to decide whether mushroom ravioli in a creamy Gorgonzola sauce with a big fat glass of Chianti will be better than Veggie samosas, Malai Kofte in cashew sauce, Kashmiri Chaman in tomato sauce, and lemon rice, with butter naans and a few glasses of mango lassi.

The Holy Grail of teaching and learning – that’s what someone called it. Dr Researcher (not Dr Teacher) says that the key to real and effective, long-lasting and deeply affective, nurturing loving and caring learning is… feedback. Duh, really? He combed and trawled through 15 thousand bits of research to come up with that.

And a longer school day will be so much better for kids’ meals. Instead of just controlling what kids eat (and don’t eat) for lunch, the nanny state’s food fascists will be able to control exactly what they eat for breakfast and dinner and afternoon snack time too.

Toast for breakfast will be acceptable – but dry only. Butter, after all, is the devil. It has fat and cholesterol. Cows are exploited. The carbon footprint from butter is bigger than Waikato and there’s salt in it. Butter is Beelzebub.