listen willya

Tags

2012, 7*, allowing, anxiety, budget, buildings, business, care, communication, consumerism, creativity, David Cameron, education, evaluation, exploration, extension, flag, Have, history, inclusion, innovation, investment, justice, knowledge, learning, lesson, life, listening, love, management, Margaret Thatcher, market, money, nurture, ownership, politics, privatisation, professionalism, prospect, public service, public service cuts, reform, slogans, society, speech, statistics, status, talking, teaching, time, tolerance, Tony Blair, understanding, value-bled education, value-led education, values, vision, wisdom

                                listen willya

                David Cameron, Tony stupid Blair, Margaret bloody Thatcher,
                and all your snivelling Secretaries of Career, and learn this, now –

                                                   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

                                        __justice_
                                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 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, to run public service,

                not demand of it, gives service to the public, not a market,
                gives life to society, not just consuming it

                you lot don’t know the first thing about big society, none of you,
                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;

                so, stop playing your endless games of balance and measure –
                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

                                                   don’t go!__
                                business ) education

it might well be that the above format won’t make any sense if you are anywhere under the age of 45: it is the revered and ancient way of setting out division calculations in Mathematics; it ‘reads’, “business [divided into] education [=] don’t go”, where you might more readily have “5 [divided into] 60 [=] 12” … the result appears ‘on top’, leaving the space below to do the working out of long division (“17 [divided into] 43.6299 [=] 2.56646470588”; ‘show your working-out, boy’ thwackk)

I first wrote this in 2012 when there was industrial action over teachers’ pay and conditions – just about the time I started completely losing my emotional marbles at work; I have slightly reconfigured the piece and re-posted it on the day that the NUT is taking industrial action over teachers’ workload, pay and budget cuts: what does the government respond: ‘we are spending more than ever on education’!? … ‘show your working-out, girl’ thwackk!!!

 

 

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

anxiety wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
buildings wormhole: the policies came to nothing
communication & politics wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
creativity & life & love & society & teaching & time wormhole: ashramas
education wormhole: the coming of ‘The Boats of Vallisneria’ by Michael J. Redford
evaluation & understanding wormhole: the Apple
Have wormhole: Jericho
history wormhole: currency of generations
justice wormhole: dedication
knowledge wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – introdepthion
learning 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 …
listening wormhole: plop!
management wormhole: dry rot
money wormhole: tired
professionalism wormhole: dash
speech wormhole: a crack of lightning / in the dark of night
talking wormhole: “Darling” – poewieview #28
value-led education wormhole: Totnes
values wormhole: Dear Sir/Madam,

 

… anymore

Tags

2014, advertising, brick, building, career, educational behaviourism, identity, infrastructure, lintel, loss, managerialism, message, politics, public service, shadow, slogans, sound, speech, teaching, time, value-bled education, values

 

 

 

                      this velvet coup worming
                      silent and diseased through
                      all possible infrastructure of
                      any manner of public service

                      I was
                      once good then I refined and developed
                      over 27 years to become
                      barely satisfactory; my values and value

                      shadowed away under something, sounded like crisisinourmidst
                      (New Improved Formula – whiter than white, kills all known germs –
                      dead) under some hammered-up dry-walling – forgotten and mouldy –
                      listening to the bish-bash-bosh of Educational Behaviourism

                      being delivered (reverse lights, hazards, weird-sounding alarm
                      with patently self-obvious message; beware)
                      and wondering why I cannot control a class the way
                      I used to when I am not in the same room

                      but they hammered and they plastered
                      on time with only the cheapest materials – some nails
                      bounce out of the batons, some corners crumble, held by noxious sealant
                      (… oh, I see, Work Experience, Giving Young People a Future)

                      so that by the time it all comes down
                      (and it’s … justabouttocracking) the damp
                      will be all through the bricks and lintels and no one
                      will remember how to stagger bonding to begin anew …

                      … anymore

 

 

 

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

career wormhole: CV
identity & speech wormhole: block ‘n’ role
managerialism & politics & teaching values wormhole: just saying, is all V: // … systematic and consistent disempowerment
shadow wormhole: House by the Railroad, 1925
sound wormhole: 1963
time wormhole: Summertime, 1943

 

just saying, is all V: // … systematic and consistent disempowerment

Tags

2013, agenda, Daleks, Europe, experience, Lost in Space, managerialism, politics, practice, Steely Dan, teachers, teaching, thinking, value-bled education, values, war

 

 

 

just saying, is all V:

                                so, all those with experience
                are experienced in the Old Ways
as if they were Europe before any of the Wars; there is a New Thinking
                which older teachers a priori and de facto cannot respond to
                                              therefore,
                                screen out the older ones
                (“… and pan-fry the Big Ones
                   use Tact, Poise and Reason
                   and gently squeeze them …”)*, neutralise their experience, and if they
won’t go – even if they have good values,
                                even if they have good practice – allow them
                to participate ONLY if they subsume their practice in a
                                              management role (‘keep your enemies closer’)
                                and if they won’t do that (‘… pain …’; sharp intake of breath):
                                              ‘they – will – not – contibute
                                              does – not – compute
                                              danger, Will – danger
                                              exterminate – exterminate’

                                                                                 … systematic and consistent disempowerment

* Steely Dan, ‘Throw Back the Little Ones’, from Katy Lied (1975); used without permission but definite alignment

 

 

 

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

managerialism wormhole: sometimes
politics wormhole: any answers
practice wormhole: really old
teaching wormhole: wriving
thinking wormhole: dream 260815
values wormhole: nothing // matters
war wormhole: Bodiam Castle

 

nothing // matters

Tags

2011, acceptance, achievement, agenda, consistency, doing, emptiness, expectation, hearing, identity, meaning, nothing, purpose, significance, thinking, values, world

 

 

 

                                              nothing

                nothing (that I thought matters)
                matters (in a world which juggles agendas)

                nothing (that I thought important)
                is important (in a world which is value-bled)

                nothing (that I had created)
                is significant (in a world that clings to consistency)

                nothing (I say)
                is heard (in a world that only expects)

                nothing (I do)
                is achieved (in a world with no manner)

                I came out of nothing
                tried hard to achieve something

                heard only the noise of my own effort
                                – no echo –

                maybe I should accept that
                there    –    is    –    nothing

                and as the texts then say
                everything happens and everything matters

 

 

 

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

accpetance wormhole: that
doing wormhole: is that so!
emptiness wormhole: start where / you are II
identity wormhole: you can only smell the candles / when they have been snuffed out
meaning wormhole: my life / of others
thinking wormhole: up here
values wormhole: Totnes
world wormhole: the stance of Buscema // qualitatively

 

Totnes

Tags

2015, arrival, being, career, communication, dandelions, dog, drawing, feet, identity, lifetimes, living, looking, meaning, muse, others, passing, pattern, pink, pointlessness, portrait, ripple, river, society, sound, talking, teaching, tide, Totnes, travelling, value-bled education, value-led education, values, work

 

 

 

                                                              Totnes

                                talk
the 250 miles long about the work and the communication done –
                done – thud! – with balls on the table –
                                and working with value
                                              and never the twain shall meet
                                                              with all the crack of void amid

                                hah!
                I tried to navigate between value-bled and value-led teaching
and can only work part time now –
                                splintered work from life

                                but
                you have to stick to the A roads
                                whether they are by-passed or not
                                              and eventually you have
                                                              to arrive
                and watch the dandelion stems by the river
                                is it out or coming in …?

                                I think
                                I learnt
to let lives be and not disturb the ripples
                                but all along
                I didn’t realise the ripples have no pattern –
dogs on the quay wag one end pant the other
                look up river look down
                                then sit
                                panting

                                I thought
                to read the ripples, tell their hidden story
                                for all the world to see
                                              (for all the world to flow)
                but I didn’t realise all the while the ripples have no pattern
like the heh-heh-hrr-hr conversations
                                from the spreading terrace of the
                                              Steam Packet Inn

                                              ~O~~~

                                now
                there’s a dude with tattoos, vest (and
                                is that a joint?) finished work, she takes a call nahh!
                                              lays down
                and the most beautiful pink
                                soles ‘n’ toes
                                suns rise
                behind topless dandelions
                                              (in the next life
                                               she will sit up and sketch intricately
                                               to the right and just below centre of the next page
                                               of her notebook)

 

(short break from work over a bank holiday, to Totnes in Devon with Carol to see Elizabeth – the medicine of travel)

 

 

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

being & feet & travelling wormhole: [start where you are III] – delve
career & talking wormhole: Trinity Arts
dog wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
identity & looking & others wormhole: lifetime
living wormhole: (another / gulp of air)
meaning wormhole: addicted / compulsive / identity
muse wormhole: ambling around / the garden centre
passing wormhole: prologue-ing
ponk wormhole: hot summer / morning
pointlessness wormhole: mass
river wormhole: the 20th century
society wormhole: up here
sound wormhole: 1963
teaching wormhole: gazing at the night / as my eyes passed the jagged hole / my head disappeared
value-led education wormhole: poessay IX – … just saying, is all II
values wormhole: breathe it all / in
work wormhole: To my Mum

 

breathe it all / in

Tags

2013, being, breathing, connection, identity, life, living, reflection, settling, thought, tired, values

 

 

 

                                no thought today
                                nothing is joined up
                                nothing ever was

                                I just thought it was
                                thought it should be
                                the way I valued it

                                          to be
                                          so tired

                                from not connecting
                                from finding no reflection
                                to recognise myself

                                to be and so sure that
                                all these thoughts were
                                coming from a someone

                                          some
                                          where

                                                                                       it will
                                          never
be so

                                it will never be
                                so and the import
                                ance of all this

                                is to live and
                                breathe it all
                                in

 

 

 

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

being & identity wormhole: extrapolates
breathing & life & living wormhole: letters to Mum V – carrying on in duty and love
reflection wormhole: there
settling wormhole: reversing the polarity
thought wormhole: connections
values wormhole: the sounds the difficulty and the long long strands of liquorice

 

the sounds the difficulty and the long long strands of liquorice

Tags

2012, abandonment, ageing, being, belonging, childhood, comics, Dad, difficulty, doing, duty, emergence, growth, life, liquorice, living, looking, others, play, reading, settling, society, sound, talking to myself, values

 

 

 

                                                                      young –
                I don’t know how things are done I just stare wonderingly and act inexplicably
                                                   sometimes
                                but I had the perfect cover – I was a child

                                                                                    Dad left –
I still don’t know how things happen so I sit and explore the wonder in comics
                                most of the time
                under cover of being – ‘the man of the house now’

                                                                      teenager –
                I still don’t know how to be with others
but I am finding an ethic and aesthetic wonderful within the things I don’t understand and beginning to see
                                                   that others do not
                while reading and being a student – that’s what students do

                                                   and adult –
I do all the things I’m supposed to do
                but still do not understand them and even try to take them seriously
                                all the while slowly becoming old and left alone
                                                                      politely – I’m past understanding now

                                was it me –
                or was there really nothing to understand all along
or did I just go wrong looking for the sparkle elsewhere than where I’d find it …

                                                   …

                                                                      …?   – play play play
                                with everything – the sounds the difficulty and the long long strands of liquorice

 

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: I don’t know what to do …
being wormhole: the empty page:
childhood wormhole: transition
comics wormhole: Knapps
Dad wormhole: … still waving!
doing wormhole: the Big Stage
emergence wormhole: still there // above the / Dallin Road / allotments / looking high over the river and the city
life wormhole: lost self
living wormhole: Have what, now?
looking wormhole: let
others wormhole: as they wish
play wormhole: NOW!!!
reading & talking to myself wormhole: tag cloud poem III – the journey to BEING and back again
settling wormhole: 25% scaffolding & rope
society wormhole: shared anxiety
sound wormhole: tired

 

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

Tags

'scape, 2012, being, childhood, combe end, conservatory, creativity, doing, doors, fir, freedom, garden, ghosts, gold, ideas, identity, knowing, learning, life, lost, melodrama, oak, power, reading, recognition, silence, silver, sitting room, sun, thinking, time, tragedy, values, wind, windows, winter, world

 

 

 

                                              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

                                from childhood – I just don’t know
                so I learn to read a what and when
                I learn to make a how and why
                                and get so lost
every time I am blind-sided and over-ridden

                                I had
                based my identity (out
                                of ‘don’t know’)
                                on my seen and proffered
                                I had
                invested my value
                                in my take and provision

                so I become transparent
                                and even shake my chains a little
                                              every time
                                                              for such a long time now
that I sigh a tragedy and become a melodrama
                                all by myself

                actually

                I have good ideas and do some good things
                                              but they never were and never could be
                                                              me
                                I had … them
                                I created … them
                and I am ever far far quieter and wider than any local opinion or play
                                              if only I could remember that
                                              if only I could live that

                                trouble is
                the seeking validation
                the seeking confirmation that what I say and do
                                              is valid in the world

                                because
                what I think and do is valid but
                                not because
                                              and never only because
it wins a notice or purchase in the world all like the wind

                                              I have
                so much freedom and so much power in the world
                                I can think anywhere
                                              I can do anything
                                if only I did but squander it all chasing pieces of silver

                                maybe
                I’m way too polite
                                I don’t obstruct I don’t get in the way
                I keep objection to myself
the only way as a child to be of value or benefit throughout life
                                hoping someone will notice the golden silence I have to offer
                in a pathologically uninterested world

 

 

 

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

being & identity & reading wormhole: only
childhood wormhole: cupboards
combe end wormhole: 3:30 am
conservatory & recognition wormhole: again
creativity wormhole: inverse superhero
doing & life wormhole: Child of Illusion
doors wormhole: the early morning of the sixties
fir & garden wormhole: dream 040198 / Eglinton Hill
ghosts wormhole: nightmare
gold wormhole: heavy shower …
learning wormhole: good / enough
oak & sitting room wormhole: ‘the next station / is Hever’
power wormhole: the way
silence wormhole: zazen in everyday life
silver wormhole: Eridge Station
sun wormhole: red net curtains / with appliqué blooms
thinking & wind wormhole: through the window
time wormhole: too
values wormhole: Put service back into people rather than productivity
world wormhole: Woodbrooke labyrinth / affirmations
windows wormhole: through the window
winter wormhole: the sun / in a clean / industrial / sky

 

Put service back into people rather than productivity

Tags

communication, decision, education, holistic education, management, managerialism, money, organic education, structural time, teaching craft, values

As an individual, and not overly-excitable, teacher I have been growingly resentful of, and frustrated with, and exhausted by, the management of education on a quasi-business level.   I am moved with concern for the whole school when decisions are made on purely structural, financial criteria at the expense of educational criteria.   I am worried that individuals within the school (both pupils and teachers) are seen as secondary concerns with management decisions, not as those who are the beneficiaries of those decisions.

I would like to hear much discussion about why we teach, the value of the subjects we teach, what we would like our pupils to end up with having graduated through our institution, what we consider to be ‘an educated pupil’, how we can best educate such a wide range of ability, effectively, on whether a teacher is an artist or an operative, is a crammed curriculum the proper way to culture a pupil, what are the values of the school and how do we actually communicate them to the pupils etc?

I personally tussle with the way we currently educate our children; I have problems with much of the affective syllabus we deliver.   Therefore I would welcome a holistic and natural overhauling of what we teach and how we deliver it.   But I am unshakeable in the conviction that education is possibly the most important activity that one human being can do with another.

There are only some jobs done in teaching which could be handed over without increasing the need for administrative communication and liaison.   They usually don’t ‘stand alone’ but are part of the business of teaching children.   If you extract an aspect from a teacher’s whole job and call it ‘administrative’ and thereby give it to somebody else, you simply create yet another route of liaison and communication and extend the administrative nature of the task across two people.   It makes it worse.   You need to recognise that the job of teaching has grown plural, but still remains a whole job – a holistic job.   If you try to split the job up into aspects you simply end up making the job even more – and unnecessarily – complicated.   To enable the job of teaching to happen you need to provide the structural time for the teacher to do the whole job.   Money would be better spent on increasing time for teachers to co-ordinate the tasks themselves as part of their teaching.

A teacher – of whatever level or duty – hasn’t the time to do their job properly because they have a full timetable to teach.   The ancillary tasks I input in my ‘own’ time: after school hours and at home.   Because these ancillary tasks – nevertheless essential to my teaching – occur in time which is in conflict with my family and personal time, they are variably performed well or badly (or not at all).   However they are essential to my teaching and therefore my lessons are consequently taught well, badly or not at all.nbsp;  The performance is haphazard and therefore the learning of my classes is haphazard.   The stress I experience in my job is that engendered not only from having too much to do (in order to do it well) but also in knowing that I could have done it well if I had had enough time/energy for it.   I knowingly run substandard lessons because I haven’t the structural resources to do otherwise.

This leaves little structural time for teachers to prepare/feedback on teaching or perform pastoral support.nbsp;  If you increased teaching/pastoral-support teachers you would be spreading tasks which are part of a holistic activity across more than one teacher and learning experience.   The opportunities for that holistic learning experience to fail would thereby increase.   If you reduce the teacher’s timetable, that teacher could do her teaching and pastoral duties herself.

The key to establishing a ‘community’ style of organisation in the school (rather than the present ‘boxed’ one) is to find the mechanism which bridges the gap between teacher aspirations, expertise and experience and the management structure which allows it to work.   As has grown in recent decades, an overly-weighted managerial system seeks to regulate human communication (in this case teaching) within a structure which cannot allow for individualism, spontaneity – the humanity inherent within communication/teaching.   To weigh it the other way – towards establishing a community of educative, human communication – would need the re-empowering of the teacher with trust in the care and instinct which made them take up the profession of teaching in the first place.   There need to be managerial mechanisms which value those instincts rather than just make them accountable.   A new structure of management and implementation must encompass both teachers’ frustrations and their hopes.   If the structure of a school fails to meet teachers’ frustrations it will fail because teachers will retreat to their own efforts and not share in the responsibility; if it fails to meet teachers’ hopes they will start to become frustrated.   A new structure is going to have to be quantumly different – in scope, in value and in trust – from any other business-management scheme which has existed in the last 15 years (since, say 1988) in order to inspire the confidence of a staff.

You do not need to teach teachers how to teach, you need to allow them to teach.   The management of teaching needs to be supportive before it is either organising or assessing.   It needs to treat them like performers rather than operatives.   Change in teaching does not need to come from the bottom up (teachers have done enough of that for the past 15 years), but from the top down.   There is a need for change of the contextual structure in which teachers work.   There is a need of change in the way management views, values and manages its resource: to view it not as a manufacturing tool which is set to optimum productivity but as a human service which needs a supportive culture in order to thrive.

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

communication wormhole: Woodbrooke labyrinth / affirmations
education wormhole: Now, let’s think this through, shall we? The clunkish philosophy driving today’s education.
management wormhole: management and managerialism
managerialism worhole: inverse superhero
money wormhole: dropped ’till you’ve shopped
teaching craft wormhole: teaching performance
values wormhole: where is there a Middle Way when you want one … / … / … oh!?

 

where is there a Middle Way when you want one … / … / … oh!?

Tags

2012, being, colour, doing, hope, life, middle way, pointlessness, realisation, values, world

 

 

 

          when everything is pointless
                the world is inert and dead
          when I create something
          it colours a piece of the world
                there is value
                there is hope

          then I try to share it with the world
                there is value
                there is hope
          and when it doesn’t listen –
                and it doesn’t listen –
          the colour fades and the world becomes
                inert and dead

          where is there a Middle Way when you want one …
                …

                … oh!?

 

 

 

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

being & doing wormhole: really
life wormhole: the / Woolworth / Building
pointlessness wormhole: NOW!!!
realisation wormhole: point of realisation
values wormhole: Apologia
world wormhole: iffyakan / getawaywi`it / you can `ave it