the ghost with open wound

edited and reposted from the ghost with / open wound, 6th January 2012

 

 

 

the ghost with open wound

I

                      I grieve for my stillborn children
                      the markbook the yinyang learning
                      delivered and left in the theatre
                ‘how beautiful those babies are!’ said the people in the gallery
                      but the surgeon had left the room
                talking urgently with his staff about something else
                      much more important

        I grieve for the upbringing I gave to them anyway
        all of my mother’s thought and striving
        all of the creativity I put into them
                lesson after lesson
        for only adventitious and unexpected gain
                like a mother from the wrong minority in the wrong neighbourhood
                raising her children to have pride and dignity
                to have their place in this fair and equal society

                                     not openly condemned
                                ‘for we are a righteous, civil profession’
                           but silence’d awkward-ed false-smile’d
                                ‘it-must-be-so-difficult’ed
                           ‘if-there-is-anything-I-can-do’ed
                                ‘how-are-your-children-getting-on’ed
                      while all the newspapers and televisions ask and debate
                                openly, transparently and so very fairly
                      what exactly these minorities contribute to our fine society
                           which aspires to be an Outstanding society
                      to stand proud in posterity …

II

                      … I am Rosa Parks
        tired of having to give way
                                even though I am sitting on the right seat
                in Montgomery I am Steve Biko still
chanting with my bloodied lip
                                     face down on the cell floor
                           in Port Elizabeth I am Solzhenitsyn blowing
        warmth onto my hands
                      far far across the Archipelago I am the
                Chilean mother with pictures
                      of my sons tied around my neck
        in Santiago I am a Vietnamese family
                                split up and adrift
                      on several boats in the South China seas I am a silent
        Thich Quang Duc sitting
                by the Austin Westminster I am an ex-monk
                           on a tour around the restored Jokhang in Lhasa
        China I am a
                                ‘best minds of my generation’
                succumbed to madness

                           and I howl silently
                      against the society that put me in this cell
                      but told me I am free
                           I am tired but push on
                                even pick up the pace a little although
                I forget: I am weak
                      no one cheers me on
                      others only notice
                           when I stumble

III

                twenty five years ago I was scurrying about
                      trying to pick up the pieces of a dream
                but the wind kept blowing them out of my reach
                      as I kept bumping into fences and walls
                ‘stop the wind!’ I complained in longer and longer documents
                      although no one would hear me
                      through the noise of the machines

        ten years ago I offered up a lightweight
                latticed bin with which to tidy up the yard
        ‘what is he carrying that bin around for
                while we are trying to push the leaves into one corner’
        they shouted to each other from their walls and towers
                ‘I wish he’d get out of the way?’
                      ‘but the bin’ I said
                           something whole integrative dialectical webbed adjustable

                clamour excitement
                      I could hear the crowd grow to a roar as I ascended the steps
                the torch held high I lit the beacon and …
                      … absolutely nothing.
        No beacon no crowd no stadium no roar
                the tumult had built and built and
whmmph! –
        not even an echo remained

IV

                           Where am I?
                           Was I in that stadium
                           did I run those steps
                           was I going to light
                           that whole stadium?

                           Surely I didn’t imagine it all!
                           Surely there were steps
                           the stadium the beacon
                           all those people.
                           Surely all those things
                           were there!   Why else
                           was I carrying the torch?

                The torch I kept.   I kept it burning.
                I burnt it more and more efficiently
                      – clean, pure, bright.
                I fashioned a lamp to keep it in.
                It sent out light beyond itself and
                I wandered around this bardo.

                                     But most of it is gloom:
                                     odd voices odd shadows
                                     strange noises and chants –

                           seepeedee                youpee-ess
        ay-yeffell                      arr-aygee                      geetoo-ohpe
                      errf-ormanst                      argits-cry
                                     tear-eearrrr

                      From time to time I could see
                      people calling me to account
                      I moved between them, I held up my lamp
                      but they couldn’t see me, couldn’t hear me.
                      And then they’d turn and talk to me
                      they’d look me in the eye and tell me
                           – so that I understood clearly
                           that this was urgent –
                      what society needed now
                      how deficiency was related
                           directly
                      to what I – face fixed
                           eye-contact name at the top
                           of the document   You!   Me?   Now!   Already?   Criteria!
                           But…?   Proe-fesh-shun-all –
                      did and what I did not do

                      and then they would Team me
                      three more heads turn and fix me
                      six heads – heartbeat self-conscious
                           ‘I’m noticed at last I’m here’ –
                      advance towards me
                           ‘I can act again’
                      bear down on me
                           ‘I know I’ll…’
                      and walk right through me –
                           whuphh, mphhwaphhwumpp, phblphbdphbdph…
                      … agghh!

                      held up the lamp
                           almost blew the wick out
                      quick turn it down turn away under my coat
                           shield it keep it alive
                           hide it

                      I am alone again
                           just the noises
                      keep it alive hide it
                           keepitalive hideit
                      keepitalive hideit

                           I – am – keeping – it – alive – !

                                space all
                                around
                                no echo
                                no denial
                                no light
                                madness

        I saw the ghostly stadium the neon beacon
                (‘bulb needs changing. A flame would be much better)
        people blurring past and through me
                I held up my lamp but it lighted up nothing
        people ran through it –
                almost put the flame out

                                          I died a living
                                          active yet muffled
                                          for ten years then
                                          twenty not sure
                                          how long and
                                          every so often
                                                                                              I go mad

V

                I have been in, but not part of, the stadium all this time.
                It is here, all about and above creaking and flapping
                      I had thought it didn’t exist at all.
                It is cardboard and canvas standing up
                against the inevitable winds and snow.

                So much construction, so little structure, so little warmth.
                It is cold here in this wasteland.

                I am still cold but I sit to one side now –
                      out of the way –
                and try to stuff my ears to the noises the voices.
                I still have a lamp.   I try to keep warm by it.

                I can’t see them – out in the night and cold –
                but are there other souls wandering lost
                      feeling their way?
                Is there anybody else out there?
                Please come and join me over here.
                If we sit together I can get quite a lot of heat
                from this lamp.   It is powered by …
                      fire.
                Let’s see – what wounds have you got?

 

 

 

career wormhole: my life / of others
society wormhole: lobby

 

Struck

 

 

 

                      Struck

                I went on strike today.
        For the first time in almost twenty-one years of teaching I went on strike.
        I withdrew my work –
        I didn’t go in and collect nuggets to show
        I didn’t strategise how I would show them
        I didn’t find in myself the way to ‘say’ the nuggets
        I didn’t ‘OK’ and then give them again
        I didn’t quickly paint a picture and ‘arm-wave’ it to the class
        I didn’t chip away at my comfort and maintain my professionalism
        I didn’t jump aside and think a second to give the focus
        I didn’t sit to one side and give yet another bridge
        I didn’t hold my breath a little and give another tool –
                ‘hope they’ll be careful with it –
        I didn’t make eye contact by marking work
        I didn’t share a vision by building yet another step-up
        I didn’t clap or smile or care when I recognised or reported
        I didn’t remember to do the tracking
        I closed the gate to a world when I didn’t plan
        I didn’t practise patience when they failed my aspiration
        I let the gate open when I didn’t tutor.

        I didn’t do ALL of this
        because the government
        shuffled around in its pocket looking for the
        small change while I –
                even though I know my place –
        shake the tin one more time and
                yes I would rather spend it
                in Starbuck’s AND have a slice of cake with it
                as well …

        and for one of the
        first times in twenty one years
        I felt that what I do in teaching IS still noble.

 

 

 

listen willya

 

 

 

                                listen willya

                David Cameron Gordon Brown Tony Blair
                John Major Margaret bloody Thatcher
                and learn –

                                                   don’t go!__
                                business ) education

                you’ve created a RIGHT MESS
                trying to make it go and you’ve spent
                a QUARTER CENTURY trying to make it go
                trying to work it out with long division
                taking everything apart to make it go
                it just has no value anymore
                nothing has any value anymore
                no one cares anymore
                we are all just anxious

                dy’know you said KUE* every lesson
                I said don’t be so silly
                I spent five years making it work
                I said I’ve made it work
                you said don’t be so silly
                it doesn’t influence the statistics

                I have to go to school now and
                pretend I’m a professional in all sorts of ways
                to make it look like it goes but it just doesn’t

                y’know we’re going to have to start all over again
                if we want anything like education in society again
                right back to the drawing board and no history

                let’s see –

                                                           _creativity_
                                              nurture ) education

                                               exploration_
                                listening ) education

                                                          _wisdom__
                                              tenure ) education

                           _inclusion_
                vision ) education

                                                                    _innovation_
                                              management ) education

                                                    _extension_
                                exploration ) education

                                 _allowing_
                creativity ) education

                                                            _tolerance_
                                              wisdom ) education

                                                       ___love___
                                              care ) education

                                   _prospect_
                investment ) education

                                        __fairness_
                                love ) education

                oh I could go on and on

                and – no offence – but stuff your statistics
                and your statuses and your budgets
                and your slogans and your privatisation
                and your reform screw them up
                into one huge ball of paper and throw them in the bin
                and let’s just have some honest communication now

                you all of you went wrong as soon as you thought
                that public service should be value for money
                should save money should make money but no

                                               ___don’t go!___
                                business ) public service

                a society that is alive and rugged makes money
                to build public service not own it
                works to run public service not demand of it
                gives service to public not a market
                gives life to society not living in society

                David Cameron you don’t know the first thing
                about big society none of you do
                public service should absorb money
                it should be soaked with money
                it should lose money the only reason
                money should exist is for public service
                because the service it gives
                is always far more important
                than a big building and a flag

                stop playing your endless game
                you’re wasting far too much human
                and start saying something alive
                start doing something truthful
                c’mon now you look ridiculous

 

 

 
____
* Knowledge Understanding Evaluation

anxiety wormhole: wrong
society wormhole: iffyakan / getawaywi`it / you can `ave it

 

Failure

 

 

 

Dear Sir,

You have taken the best I had to offer.   And ignored it.   And – somehow – it has become my own fault – my own lack – that it was ignored.   This has broken me.   I have completely lost faith in education.   I have lost faith in the system that delivers it.   I have lost confidence in my skills as a teacher.   I remain in doubt of the values I live in life.

I have taught for twenty five years and worked hard to become nothing more than a virus: everything I give or say or produce or practise is an irritant in the system.   All I can anticipate of the future is that the system will find more and more ways to find me unprofessional and incompetent.   And this will destroy me.

A year ago I thought I still had much to give.   I have finally realised now that I have nothing.   You have no use for me.   You make no use of me.   I have done nothing wrong but I am treated as an irrelevance.   Just let the torture stop and release me.   Let me retire early from the living failure my career has become.

 

 

 

aghh – we’ve been infected / it’s spreading through the system / we’re losing our files … / it’s taken out the processor … / I, I can’t open with this program anymore … / it’s scanning me – / I’ve got to buy a Virus Protection Program from it …

 

 

 

                                aghh – we’ve been infected
                                it’s spreading through the system
                                we’re losing our files …
                                it’s taken out the processor …
                                I, I can’t open with this program anymore …
                                it’s scanning me –
                                I’ve got to buy a Virus Protection Program
                                     from it …

                we process education
                      and pupils get measured
                we condition education
                      and pupils find their selves
                      defined or confused
                we target education
                      and pupils lose their trajectory
                we measure education
                      and pupils believe it
                we make education relevant
                      and pupils get bored
                we sloganize education
                      and pupils wear uniforms
                we teach education
                      and pupils ‘don’t get it’
                we teach learning in education
                      and pupils just remember
                      at best or not
                we train ourselves in education
                      actually we don’t anymore
                we workshop education
                      and pupils fill out forms
                we expect in education
                      and pupils leak like water

                here and there a teacher teaches
                      and a pupil learns
                but that soon stops because
                      everyone is too busy

                we teach pupils learn     something
                but there is no education

 

 

 

the ghost with / open wound

 

 

 

                      the ghost with
                      open wound

I grieve for my stillborn children – the markbook the yinyang learning –
       which were delivered but left in the theatre – ‘how beautiful those
       babies are!’ said the people in the gallery, but the midwife had left
       the room and taken his staff with him

I grieve for the upbringing I gave to them anyway all the thought and
       striving and creativity I put into them lesson after lesson for only
       adventitious and unexpected gain
like a mother from the wrong minority in the wrong neighbourhood
       raising her children to have pride and dignity to have their place in
       this fair and equal society

not openly condemned – ‘for we are a righteous, civil profession’ – but
       silence’d, awkward-ed, false-smile’d, ‘it-must-be-so-difficult’ed, ‘if-
       there-is-anything-I-can-do’ed, ‘how-are-your-children-getting-
       on’ed
while all the newspapers and televisions ask and debate – openly,
       transparently and so very fairly – what exactly these minorities
       contribute to this fine society – which aspires to be an Outstanding
       society, to stand proud in posterity –

              I am Rosa Parks, tired of having to give way although I am
                     sitting on the right seat in Montgomery
              I am Steve Biko still chanting with my bloodied lip face down
                     on the cell floor in Port Elizabeth
              I am Solzhenitsyn blowing warmth onto my hands far far across
                     the Archipelago
              I am the Chilean mother with pictures of my sons tied around
                     my neck in Santiago
              I am a Vietnamese family split up and adrift on several boats in
                     the South China seas
              I am a silent Thich Quang Duc sitting by the Austin
                     Westminster
              I am an ex-monk on a tour around the restored Jokhang in
                     Lhasa,              China
              I am a ‘best minds of my generation’ succumbed to madness

and I howl silently against the society that put me in this cell but told me
       I am free, I am tired but push on, ‘even pick up the pace a little
       although, I forget: I am weak, no one cheers me on, others only
       notice when I stumble

twenty years ago I was scurrying around trying to pick up the pieces of
       a dream, but the wind kept blowing them out of my reach as I kept
       bumping into fences and walls ‘stop the wind!’ I complained in
       longer and longer documents although no one would hear me
       through the noise of the machines

ten years ago I offered up a lightweight, latticed bin with which to begin
       tidying up the yard ‘what is he carrying that bin around for while
       we are trying to push all the leaves into one corner,’ they shouted to
       each other from their walls and towers, ‘I wish he’d get out of the
       way?’

‘but the bin’ I said, something whole integrative dialectical webbed
       adjustable –
                      clamour excitement I could hear the crowd grow to a roar
                      as I ascended the steps, the torch held high I lit the beacon
                            and …
… absolutely nothing. No beacon no crowd no stadium
                      the great roar, the tumult had built and built and –
                            whmmph! –
                      not even an echo remained

Where am I? Was I in that stadium, did I run those steps, was I going to
       light that whole stadium?
Surely I didn’t imagine it all! Surely there were steps, the stadium,
       the beacon, all those people. Surely all those things were there!
       Why else was I carrying the torch?

The torch I kept.   I kept it burning.   I burnt it more and more efficiently
       – clean, pure, bright.   I fashioned a lamp to keep it in.   It sent out
       light beyond itself and I wandered around this bardo.   But most of
       it is gloom: odd voices, odd shadows, strange noises and chants –
       seepeedee, youpee-ess, ay-yeffell, arr-aygee, geetoo-ohpe, errf-
       ormanst, argits-cry, tear-eear.
From time to time I could see people, calling me, to account – I moved
       between them, I held up my lamp – but they couldn’t see me,
       couldn’t hear me.   Then they turned and talked to me they looked
       me
in the eye and told me – so that I understood clearly this was urgent –
       what society needed now, how deficiency was directly related to
       what I –
face fixed eye-contact name at the top of the document   You!   Me?   
       Now!   Already?   Criteria!   But…?   Proe-fesh-shun-all – did and
       what I did not do
and then they would Team me, three more heads turn and fix me, six
       heads – heartbeat, self-conscious ‘I’m noticed at last I’m here’ –
       advance towards me, ‘I can act again’ bear down on me, ‘I know
       I’ll…’ and walk right through me – whuphh, mphhwaphhwumpp,
       phblphbdphbdph…
… agghh!, ‘held up the lamp, almost blew the wick out quick turn it
       down turn away under my coat shield it keep it alive hide it
I am alone again, just the noises, keep it alive hide it keepitalive hideit
       keepitalive hideit

                      I – am – keeping – it – alive – !

space all around no echo no denial no light madness

I saw the ghostly stadium, the neon beacon (‘bulb needs changing.   A
       flame would be much better), people blurring past and through
       me.   I held up my lamp but it lighted up nothing.   People ran
       through it – almost put the flame out.

                                            I died a living
                                            active yet muffled
                                            for ten years twenty
                                            not sure how long
                                            and every so often
                                            I go mad

I have been in, but not part of, the stadium all this time.   It is here, all
       about and above, creaking and flapping, I had thought it didn’t
       exist at all.   It is cardboard and canvas standing up against the
       inevitable winds and snow.   So much construction, so little
       structure, so little warmth.   It is cold here in this wasteland.

I am still cold but I sit to one side now – out of the way – and try to stuff
       my ears to the noises the voices.   I still have a lamp.   I try to keep
       warm by it.

I can’t see them – out in the night and cold – but are there other souls
       wandering, lost, feeling their way?   Is there anybody else out
       there?

Please come and join me, over here.   If we sit together I can get quite a
       lot of heat from this lamp.   It is powered by … fire.   Let’s see –
       what wounds have you got?

 

 

 

manifesto

 

 

 

                    manifesto

teachers used to be respected then
we were semi-autonomous professionals
whose domain was behind the classroom door then
we all became probationers
      probationers need checking
      checking requires measure
      measure can be changed
      and controlled                (with no control-referent)
teachers now never ‘graduate’ but remain
scrutinised their autonomy invaded and subject to
      a Feudal System of management structure
      a Castle of New Improved Education bought to you by… OFSTED
      a Domesday Book of Performance Management and CPD
      and a Harrying of ‘professionalism’

      rather now the sower who
sifts the seeds between thumb and palm
      some falling back to the bag
and flicks them
                 forward in step then
      shoulder-wide – an arc dense spine
      opening fan – placed
laid dug caught splecked
on open earth in ridges

phlp – lp – lap – phlapd

who smiles with the rain
and breathes the blue air
who turns with the wind
and waits with the sun