the Telescope

Tags

assessment for learning, evaluation, integration, knowledge, learning, learning objective, lesson planning, questioning, teaching, teaching art, teaching craft, telescope, understanding, unpacking

Unpacking the Telescope

Having ‘sighted’ the Learning Objective, here is where the true magic begins.   The teacher – with all h/er degree course, holistic understanding of the Learning Objective – needs to ‘unpack’ it.   The whole Learning Objective (the topic) needs to be broken down so that the pupil can begin to access it.   A skilled teacher does not wade straight in with the issues and analysis of a topic, s/he will plan the lesson which starts with identifying the topic (knowledge), then showing how it works (understanding) and finally, if a pupil can get that far, nurture analysis or discussion of it (evaluation).   The lesson is the topic unpacked (which takes a high level of discerning analysis on behalf of the teacher, we do need to know our subjects at degree-level).   Teaching is the alchemy of taking the pupils’ minds through the lesson, of making them see, guiding them, allowing them, clueing them in, clueing them through, pointing them to the Bigger Picture of the Learning Objective.   This requires the art of communication – the tricks, foolery, adjustment and dancing which can never be captured in a tick-box sheet of paper.   This is where the power of the teacher lies, not just in producing the lesson (a marvel in itself if well unpacked – and mapped), but in taking the pupil through the lesson (the creative, unmethodical dynamic which is communication).   The ‘telescope’ needs to be opened out in order to see through it.

Looking Through the Telescope

The pupil’s learning – the response to the lesson – is one of finding and then integrating.   Finding straight facts is one level of learning, categorising them is a higher level, linking them together is a higher level, relating them is yet higher, testing them is yet higher still, analysing them still higher, contextualising them from a macro perspective…   Each successive level of learning requires the fitting of what has been already learnt into a wider perspective – integration.   The lazy pupil will be satisfied with the straight facts (the disaffected pupil won’t even get this far); the enquiry of a pupil (or the skill of a teacher) will seek to see how far their knowledge can be taken.   If the way to integrate the knowledge is clear (again the skill of the teacher) learning will develop (not just be ‘received’).   The telescope will be folded back once the view has been seen: knowledge fits into understanding fits into evaluation.

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

evaluation wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
knowledge teaching craft & understanding wormhole: the View: from Here to the Learning Objective to the Learning Horizon
teaching art wormhole: The Future of Teaching: performance or capability (‘oh, not ‘teaching’ then?’)

 

Advertisement

just saying, is all – III

Tags

2012, 2014, 3*, accountability, achievement, assessment for learning, career, CPD, dialogue, education, funding, GCSE, inclusion, intervention, love, measure, National Curriculum, nurture, outcome-led education, planning, politics, process, professionalism, public service cuts, pupils, results-led education, school, slogans, statistics, subjects, targets, teachers, teaching, vocation

 

 

 

                                                                                    just saying, is all – III

                                              I watched the first generation of pupils sit their GCSEs

                                              then I watched the National Curriculum
                                find a gear
                and crunch-jerk launch the level system of attainment
                                across all the subjects
                                              then I watched the whole dialogue –
                political and educational
                                and the funding that went with it –
                                              shift from process and nurture
                to outcomes and statistics

                                and then I felt the reform of teaching professionalism
                and watched the proliferation
of endless sheets of planning, four – part lessons, Assessment for Learning, Ready for Learning, Every Child Matters, Inclusion, Continuing Professional Development, targetting, intervention, Boulders into Pebbles, Investors in People, accountability, Achieving Together, Be a Part of It, G₂O                      
                                the unforgettable 2 As & 2 Bs
                the Freedom to All Think Along the Same Lines (glorious times)
(and I’m really looking forward to the innovative work to be launched soon by Professor Cobbly from the prestigious University of Fisc’ut, Corporateshire, (not least of all because he happens to be my uncle))

                                              and all the while
                                those who work hard achieve well
                                              in the wash
                those who don’t don’t whether they are intelligent or not
                                if they are going to be angry or lazy
                they will find a way to be so
                                              whether you teach them to their very marrow
                                or just let them alone

                                              most teachers
                                just get through their career
                all of them measured to within an inch of their vocation
                                some keep their love
                                some make a difference
                                              sometimes
                                when no one is … measuring

                                              all kids
                                just get through school
                                most kids do OK
                                some kids thrive

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

career wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
education & results-led education wormhole: poessay VIII: / educational behaviourism
love wormhole: plethora: the Dark Knight Strikes Again (2002)
politics wormhole: my life is not your market
professionalism wormhole: the Lamp
teaching wormhole: which is worse

 

the Lamp

Tags

accountability, assessment for learning, communication, curriculum, learning, management, managerialism, National Curriculum, performance, performance management, politics, professional development, professionalism, resource, responsibility, syllabus, teaching craft

Since 1988 the government has been ‘reforming’ education: to make provision and attainment nationally uniform and transparent equally for the government, schools, employers, parents, teachers and, yes, pupils.   Since 1997 the government has ‘managerialised’ education: it has dismantled the semi-autonomous remit of the teacher to practise h/er vocation, it has redefined ‘professionalism’ away from vocation and value and into process and productivity in the name of ‘accountability’, and it has quantified this process and productivity and called it ‘professional development’ (soon to be ‘licensed’).   This has left teachers estranged from, and distrustful of, the very dynamic that makes teaching happen: the skilful, adaptive, speculative, compensatory, dancing, alternative, bargaining, creative, tentative, controlling, releasing, playing, explorative, human dialectic of communication between teacher and pupil.

How is this ‘reform’, this ‘professionalism’, experienced?*   The National Curriculum has been defined – and is periodically juggled with – into core/foundation/statutory subjects, clearly and simply, so that they could be listed in a pamphlet.   Very quickly these subjects became disseminated out into national/local/exam-board subject syllabi – what needed to be ‘covered’ in each subject, especially when the need to level/grade the content became compulsory as well as statutory (‘so amusing how the syllabi, at this point, became known as ‘specifications’ rather than syllabi).   When the syllabi arrived in schools they had to be managed into a fit state to enter the classroom, so they had to be disseminated again (perhaps, better, ‘dissected’), (or even ‘disembowelled’).   Each syllabus topic to be broken down into differentiated tasks, mapped cross-curricular-ly, and All/Most/Some’d.   The fragmentation going on from the simple National Curriculum to the classroom has been almost exponential.   What was simple at the essential level (government) became overwhelmingly complicated at the practical level (classroom) – it was pamphlet-able at the government level, it became incommunicable, unlearnable, at the classroom level.

* We were having a nice game of football one day.   As with all games there were hard bits, exhausting bits, unfair bits, but we were holding a 1-1 draw.   Then – while we were playing – there were new rules to the game introduced.   The goalposts were left where they were, actually, but we now had to move the ball around the field …on a trolley!   We all had to have trolleys ready for when we had possession of the ball.   The trolleys were fitted with directional wheels to aid mobility around the field, baskets to hold the ball, racks to hold the football boots that we’d need when we had to pass the ball, shoot or defend a negotiated tackle.   We were told, ‘We have given you all this equipment.   In return we want a fast, exciting, entertaining game.’   So we pushed these trolleys around the field.   The wheels mostly got stuck.   The ball usually fell out of the basket.   No one scored any goals.

The pupil thereby received curricula which were overwhelmingly broad and complicated.   They received them in restricted amounts of time (in an ever-squeezed timetable with up to fourteen different subjects including drives on technology, IT, Citizenship alongside the drives within the Big Three subjects) which, even for the most able, required them to develop guerrilla tactics to learn – in, learn-something, get out, next.   The pupil has lost the sense of studying (exploring, wondering … mastering) a subject, it now just receives – it consumes.     The pupil has become passive, incapable of developing h/er skills of independent study – not enough time for it (or rather, not enough perspective to develop any motive other than ‘getting’ it).   The pupils have become overwhelmed, even, with the simple ‘getting’ of education: overwhelmed by content, they have no perspective, or will, to link their knowledge together (to ‘stand under’ their studies to see how they all fit together), and they will become satisfied with a factual-based appreciation of their subjects at best (making A-level teachers scratch their heads at times wondering why on earth some pupils chose their subject).   At worst they will ‘can’t be bothered’ with it all because there is more to be gained in self-esteem by publically rejecting it all rather than the impossibility of trying to master it.

For the teacher: s/he might have been able to rationalise and deliver the disseminated monster that education has become, but it was decided that teachers are fundamentally a-qualified to do the job (certainly, any profession which strikes over pay in the early 80’s needs to be sorted out)!   The nobility of the teacher has therefore been systematically (and publically) dismantled.   Professionalism has been re-defined by questioning the received image of teacher as authority-by-role (both in discipline and knowledge), and even questioning the ‘semi-autonomous professional’, by infiltrating the hallowed ground of the classroom to ensure … measurability of what they do.   ‘Measurability’ of what the teacher does is now quantitative: by input (the production of the paperwork for the lesson which proves that it was planned, what can be seen to be ‘in’ the lesson to be ticked off), and output (professional development is now linked to a performance which is measured statistically – there is so much that needs to be ‘reduced’ and screened out of consideration to make a statistic measurable – even pay is now linked to that same extracted performance).   Teachers are no longer respected but are now accountable (as well as ‘accounted’) to their Head of Department, their Head of Year, their Senior Management team, their School Governors, parents, the government, the public…   The overwhelming proportion of a teacher’s energy has now to be focussed on making sure that they are justified to all parties, before they can start to communicate.   Teachers are now taxed by needing to manage their curricula fit for process and attainment (managing ‘within’) in response to a pervasive management from ‘outside’.   The management of courses has become more important than their delivery.   It is difficult for these courses to be coherent or stepped; it is easy for them to be overwhelming for both teachers to deliver and pupils to receive.   In the past some teachers were inspirational because they could provide the portal to the world of their subject by skill of communication – they knew, through their teaching, what the seed of the subject was that drew a child’s eye.   Now most teachers have a ‘seed catalogue’ and no ‘field’ in which to sow.   Teachers have been ‘accountability’d’ and ‘consistency’d’ out of their skill of communication – out of the skill of drawing the child’s eye – by having to focus on the (measurable) process of teaching rather than the communication of teaching.   Communication has become a rather indulgent distraction in the face of ‘hard’ realities like (selective) statistical results, finance, the school’s PR with parents.    Teachers are left actively paralysed in having to meet impossibly (impractically, needlessly) wide and widening curriculum and (summative) performance indicators.^

                                       ^
                                       The centipede was happy quite
                                       Until the toad, in fun
                                       Said, ‘pray, which leg moves after which?’
                                       This raised her doubts to such a pitch
                                       She fell distracted in the ditch
                                       Not knowing how to run.
                                                     – Marion Quinlan Davis

So how is Assessment for Learning a solution to the atrophying of teacher professionalism?   So many curricular and cross-curricular teaching schemes have been floated during the last twenty years that have shown that attainment (no matter how you measure it) is not affected.   It was necessary to look at the learning in education as much as the teaching.   It has emerged that Assessment for Learning is the mechanism which links the teaching (delivered) to the learning (received) and still enable the measurability so desperately needed (needed, needed) when education has become the political potato that it has.   How does it connect teaching with learning?   It provides a template through which topics can be taught and learnt using the same language.   Topics are delivered broken down into levels 3-8 or grades E-A* and pupils apprehend them at whatever level/grade they can develop.   Both teachers and pupils understand the language of levels 3-8 or grades E-A*.   The skill of the teacher is in providing the ‘field’ of endeavour, the work of the pupil is to cultivate 3-8/E-A* as far as they can.   This co-working, through a commonly understood language and purpose, is called a dialectic; the working of this dialectic is called … teaching and learning.   Assessment for Learning enables that dialectic so that the power to teach and learn can be returned back to their rightful owners.   When Assessment for Learning happens the whole of the edifice which has become education becomes workable rather than impossible – education becomes what it always should have been, an enlightenment.

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

communication & performance management & professionalism & teaching craft wormhole: I don’t think I could do it anymore
learning wormhole: across the room / through the patio doors / through the conservatory windows / at the bottom of the garden / the still bifurcated trunk of / the oak / before the let-grown hair and fringes / of the fir tree / blown every lifetime in a while by the winter sun // actually
management wormhole: Teaching career: much like Monet’s ‘Impression: soleil levant’
politics wormhole: The Future of Teaching: performance or capability (‘oh, not ‘teaching’ then?’)

 

fly

Tags

2*, 2012, assessment for learning, being, doing, markbook, poetry, publishing, talking to myself, writing

 

 

 

                     locked down
                     into NOTHING
                     no – thing
                     not the markbook
                     not assessment for learning
                     not the old one: exercise
                     not counting things
                     not drawing detail
                     not writing       poetry
                     not publishing anything

                     need just to do something
                     anything freshly and briefly
                     then catch the next fly out of there

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being & doing wormhole: while
markbook & poetry & publishing & talking to myself & writing wormhole: again

Assessment for Learning: the Prologue

Tags

assessment for learning, communication, giving, identity, learning horizon, learning objective, managerialism, National Curriculum, performance, performance management, professionalism, teaching craft, vocation

Assessment for Learning is not simply another government accretion brought-in-to-check-that-we-are-working-properly-and-measure-us-accountable-to-a-‘professionalism’-which-is-defined-despite-educational-values-and-teacher’s-morality … (breathe, breathe).   It has come from the government, it is true, and it has been administered, so far, as yet another measure with which to beat the ever-disinterested donkey that is the modern teacher – blinkered, pulling a large cart, uphill, when it doesn’t think it should go uphill and would rather take the long way round and enjoy life a little.   Nevertheless – quite by accident – AfL could be exercised as both a rationale and a practice which is at the very heart of teaching, something which might be hijacked by teachers to claim back the autonomy, the self-respect, the self-confidence, the prestige, the necessity, the indispensability that is the reality of a teacher nurturing her pupils in the million ways that he does.*

* The most damaging aspect of the ever-rolling-out Reform of Education was the seizure and exploitation of what constitutes teacher professionalism by Managerialism.   It became increasingly apparent that those defining, measuring and administering accountability of teaching were not … teachers.

There is nothing new under the sun.   And likewise in the classroom – no matter how much you try to mechanise the service by making it run to business models in the pursuit of economic prudence – you cannot escape the fact that teaching requires communication, communication requires flexibility and autonomy, flexibility and autonomy requires a workforce of people who have the vocation to GIVE and the vocation to Give needs a clear structure through which it can be exercised clearly, fairly and nurturing-ly.   Teaching with ‘aims and objectives’ – even with just a title – has always been the means by which teachers train, and exercise, their skills and qualification.   It is only recently, since the National Curriculum really bit down, that these means have been used to measure the teacher’s performance rather than to nurture h/er craft; to control rather than to enable.

Assessment for Learning is yet the latest way to tighten down the ‘business’ of teaching – to ‘tune’ the engine to reach maximum efficiency – but it has stumbled, in doing so, upon the very dynamic which makes the educative interplay between pupil and teacher possible.   Assessment for Learning is nothing new – it is the means of getting ‘to’ the ‘aim’, of getting from the ‘aim’ to the ‘objective’; it is the controlled burning of fuel which turns the engine, it is the valve which circulates blood around the body to work.   It is NOT a means to measure if the teacher is working hard- and responsibly-enough, it is the mechanism of teaching through which a teacher can wrest back the management of their own teaching and regain the honour which becomes anyone who chooses to grow knowledge in another.

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

managerialism & professionalism wormhole: Apologia
performance & teaching craft wormhole: a bit painful this

 

covert being

Tags

2011, 5*, acceptance, assessment for learning, being, divorce, friends, growth, identity, love, markbook, striving, talking to myself, writing

 

 

 

not heard
when Dad left not heard
when friends talked about stuff not heard
when I wrote my thoughts not heard
when I argued an essay not heard
when I floated a ‘why not’ not heard
when I constructed markbook not heard
when I integrated AfL not heard
whenever I reach

and yet

cared for when Dad left
valued for my constancy
referred to for my phrasing
recognised for my approach
relied on for my accommodation
trusted for the field I fence
respected for the freedom I release
loved whenever I just am

don’t strive to be heard but trust
in covert being

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

acceptance & talking to myself wormhole: the discovery of / leaving no trace
assessment for learning wormhole: the ghost with open wound
being wormhole: possible
divorce wormhole: the spectre
identity wormhole: have got // can do
love wormhole: Leicester
markbook wormhole: the Mark Redford problem
striving wormhole: walking
writing wormhole: poets do neither report nor / walk around enrapt in transport but / ’tis when in writing their worlds are wrought

 

the ghost with open wound

Tags

2010, 2012, 8*, Allen Ginsberg, assessment for learning, career, CPD, criteria, Howl, learning, madness, management, managerialism, markbook, performance, performance management, professionalism, resource, society, targets, teaching, teaching art, teaching craft, UPS

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?

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

(hidden) Allen Ginsberg & career & teaching wormhole: my life / of others
assessment for learning & markbook wormhole: ‘let everything go …’
learning & targets wormhole: 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 …
management & managerialism & performance & teaching art & teaching craft wormhole: through a cracked glass greenly
performance management wormhole: Failure
professionalism wormhole: Struck
resource wormhole: dry rot
society wormhole: lobby

 

‘let everything go …’

Tags

2011, 4*, assessment for learning, children, giving, growth, identity, letting go, markbook, parent, teaching

 

 

 

                           let everything go
                           create beautiful things
                           but let them go

                           the markbook that writes its own reports –
                                   let it go let someone else
                                   work it

                           the cognition which learns itself –
                                   let it go let someone else
                                   think it

                           I reared them – let them go
                                   to find their own vocation
                                   their own family their own place to live

                           do not live their life for them

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

giving & teaching wormhole: communication / ing
identity wormhole: Have
letting go wormhole: tan / … gl / … ed

 

the ghost with / open wound

Tags

2010, 8*, Allen Ginsberg, assessment for learning, CPD, criteria, Howl, learning, madness, management, managerialism, markbook, performance, performance management, professionalism, resource, society, targets, teaching, teaching craft, UPS

 

 

 

                      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?