Stuff and Nonsense

So, as you do when you have young children and you’re travelling you buy tacky gifts at the airport. You know the type of think… wristbands, pencils, pens, keyfobs…

Buying gifts at the airport isn’t in the same category as buying your wife flowers from the petrol station on the way home either. The gifts are tacky but kids like tacky. All they really want is something that has the name of the place you visited and is small enough to take into show-and-tell on monday. This type of souveneir isn’t sold in the massive shopping mall next to your hotel, it might be sold at some tourist spot but on a busy business trip generally you are not going to make it there. So, the airport is the place. The place you can rely on for the little things that get kids wonderign about the world and gives them something to look up on the globe, pin to a map, whatever.

This has worked very well in a recent spate of business travel. Wristbands from The Netherlands, Key Fobs from Paris, Red Sox plates from Boston (best not mention this last one since I bought three and only had two on unpacking in the UK…) but Malaysia? No. At Kuala Lumpur International Airport you cannot buy this stuff. You can buy Gucci, Dunhill, Perfume, Cigarettes, Cigars, Booze and Kids toys that you will find in Tescos all over the world. You can buy chocolates and you can buy Union Flag Key Fobs and little Beefeater figurines from the KLIA branch of Harrods but can you buy a T-Shirt “Someone who loves me went to KL and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”? No. Can you buy a key-fob, medal or indeed any piece of tat with “Kuala Lumpur” emblazoned upon it? No.

Fortunately, anticipating a certain lack of shopping ability on my part rather than cheesy-gift-free-zones my Wife makes plans for my failure to obtain appropriate gifts and has a certain stock of location agnostic giveaways that could be from anywhere and are at least something, rather than nothing.

I type this on a Malaysian Airlines Business Lounge PC, gazing onto a pristeen  taxi-way awaiting the flight home. The headache has almost gone, the Nausea already has and the “Kuala Lumps” (think Delhi Belly) seems to have, how shall I say, run their course.

Wait! Genius! I just notices a small pile of identical postcards. Pictures of a 747-400 at KL and on the back it says “Malaysia”.  They will do. Write a “Wish you were here” message on them and post through the door back home. Three delighted kids guaranteed. Thank you Malaysian Airlines!

“Flight MH4 now boarding at gate 4.” I have to go…

Good grief. Labour are at it again. This time it’s the even more bonkers than usual suggestion that parents should be given the right to “vote out” the senior management teams of failing schools and “vote in” the senior management team from an “accredited” school.

I see a couple of problems with this. First, the aim is to have 500 “accredited schools”. Well, there are around 30,000 schools in the uk. So thats a 1 to 60 ratio. I would challenge any school management team no matter how good they are to manage a second school as effectively as the first without declining standards in the first. Unless the rate of failing schools is less than 2 in 60 then this means every accredited school will be split between two schools and there will be an inevitable decline as the performance of each reflects the split loyalties and time. If the rate is higher than 1 in 60, you won’t even find 500 accredited ones to start with!

Of course, I’m probably missing a huge amount of information that may make this idea sound slightly more plausible but hey, most soap-box ranting is under-informed, especially on the net so why should my blog be any different?

I am sure of my ground on one point though. Parents should not be given any more power over schools than they currently have. The problem is this. There are a lot of poor (morally, emotionally, not financially) parents out there. There are a lot of parents who rarely read to their children for example. There are more still who fail to hear their children read regularly. Unfortunatel,y those parents least likely to take an active part in their children’s education – the “high achieving” workaholic salary ladder slaves with mortgages and cars they can’t really afford unless they work so much they don’t see their kids – are precisely the types who will turn up to vote out a failing management team because their kid can’t read without realising that their kid can’t read because they never do it at home where it really counts.

As in all things of course, it’s a bell curve. The parents I describe above are at one end of the curve. There are parents who can’t spare the time to actually parent at the other end of the curve working double shifts just to pay the heating bill. In between there is a broad range that are doing their best and doing a good job but the problem is everyone has a vote and most parents’ experience of education is limited to just being a parent. They are not qualified to teach or to manage teachers. They do not understand the pressures that teachers are under; they do not even understand for the most part the laughable way in which the national curriculum calls for more hours to be taught each day than exist in any actual school day. (Don’t believe me… go ahead, get a copy. Add up all the recommendations. It comes to about 6 hours a day. Now how long, less lunch, breaks, registration, religion (grrrr) is left in your kid’s school day? a lot less than 6).

For crying out loud, most people you will meet in life are very likely to be insufferably stupid anyway (note: this opinion may be as a result of my acknowledged anti-social outlook and like most statistics “most” may be completely bogus.) The chances of getting a sensible reasoned decision on anything from a sample of “the public” are slim at best and parents, myself among them are well, you know, The Public.

Fixing education is simple.

1. Don’t have a national curriculum then leave wriggle room for teachers. Either give them free reign and let the cream rise or mandate the teaching so even the crap teachers can do some good and the really creative ones will go off and do something creative.

2. Have governing bodies made up of seasoned retired teachers who can serve for up to five years following their last full time teaching post. They should have the power to separate the wheat from the chaff. They should get paid.

3. Don’t try to kid parents that it is school’s job to teach their kids to read, write and add up. This is the parents’ job. The teacher’s job is to add some structure and to make sure the gaps are filled in.  This should be made clear to parents. Stop trying to come up with nannying tactics that make parents think that they can devolve their child’s education to the school alone.

It’s not much is it? I could go on… how about not letting kids move on a year until they’ve reached the required level of attainment in the current year. If they don’t get it, they do it again until they do. Sure, it would be chaotic at first, it would have to be flexible and schools would have to adapt and have the resources to adapt to their local mix of abilities. But no-one would leave school not being able to read, write and add up unless they also needed so much help that they needed help to live independently anyway.  Did you see that program “Kids can’t count”?  quite shocking. Lots of poor teaching going on there admittedly but I’d bet that the most chronic under achievers are not getting the support for learning from home that they need either.

Rant over. I feel better even though it’s highly likely that no-one is reading this and less likely still that anything will change because of another whiny blog post.

I watched ‘Shrek the Halls’ tonight with the family. I think the story was based on my life and I’m not seeing a penny in royalties. Can I sue?

Lets examine the evidence..

First, there is more than a passing physical resemblence between Shrek and I. Anyone who knows me could attest.

Like me, Shrek has three offspring who confuse him with some invincible young person with boundless energy who is impervious to pain inflicted while ‘play’ fighting.

Like me, Shrek has a best friend who is annoyingly optimistic and has to be told quite clearly when his visit is over and it’s time to go home. Sorry Si – you know it’s true.

Like me, Shrek lives in a house that has too much stuff in for its size.

Like mine, Shrek’s house is in a swamp. Not literally of course. But I think of the swamp as a metaphor for living on a modern estate – despite this one being very pleasant by many measures.

There’s another similarity. Shrek likes his swamp too.

Shrek knows the only bastion of peace is the toilet. An Englishman’s home may be his castle but a Dad’s sanctuary is the loo.

Like me, Shrek has an appalling diet. This is because we both know that anything that lengthens the time we can plausibly remain in the throne room is a good thing.

When Shrek shouts, the family listen… then ignore him anyway.

Princess Fiona was a babe before he met her and now she’s an ogress. This is a statement of fact and unlike all the others above bears no resemblance to my life whatsoever.

Shrek is not at all scared of his wife.

So, I took my six year old son to the Cheltenham Literature festival again last weekend, this time for an audience with Johnny Ball.

Who is Johnny Ball? Those of you of a certain age will remember him from the eighties as the ebullient presenter of BBC children’s program “Think of  Number” and others (full details at Johnny’s website if you need a reminder). To younger folks, he is probably as well known for looking slightly tearful on Strictly Come Dancing as his Radio Presenter daught Zoe Ball was voted off.

It’s a little sad that an entire generation have missed out on the infectious enthusiasm of JB’s maths and science based output. I’m a maths head and science enthusiast anyway so I guess it’s no surprise that as a child the impending arrival of Think Of A Number had me totally giddy. To see JB’s performance “in the flesh” was an absolute privilege and took me right back to lying on the lounge carpet, riveted to the show, blocking out all distractions. The hair is thinner and greyer of course (mine too), but the pliable, lively, friendly face and glinting eyes are unmistakable, familiar and reassuring.

Most impressive is, the energy of it all; his presenting style; brash, lilting, full on and animated and then suddenly slow, deliberate, contemplative and smooth as he reveals a beautiful , simple, mathematical truth is absolutely captivating and has not been dulled by the years one bit.

In all too brief a time he covered multiplying large numbers just by knowing your two times table, binary number base, geometrical methods of multiplication and division, the great pyramid, Eratosthenes, Pythagoras and finally, atomic theory. My Son loved it, as did I.

The show was marred by only one thing. Right at the end, with 10 minutes or so to go, Johnny who by this time has the audience in the palm of his hand launches into a lecture on the big business/government conspiracies that say carbon dioxide emissions are responsible for global warming. Now, he has a point, he really does. Many aspects of climate change are indeed over-hyped and in many scientific journals you will find some tempering views on aspects of climate change. Unfortunately though, good argument or not, this was not the platform to do it. My Son, who was keen to ask a question or three after a few minutes of climate change bashing had totally lost interest. He was tired, cuddly, fuzzy Johnny now seemed altogether just too grown up and unhappy all of a sudden and the boy was not impressed.

By the end when Johnny was finished, a lot of the audience left, as did my Son and I. When we came in my Son was keen to have his booked signed and I was keen to shake the hand of someone who was no less than a childhood hero. By the end we just had to get out.

It was a sad end to a brief evening but I don’t blame Johnny for taking his chance when on stage. Unfortunately, this stage, at this time with a audience consisting of a large number of under-10s was the wrong one for much of that audience.

He’s still a hero. You should still buy his books for your children. The BBC should release all his TV output on DVD. Or, better still, on iPlayer! come on BBC!, no distribution costs, little production costs a mention on the website home page and at his book publishers and you will soon see if there is a market for the DVDs.

Johnny is, quite simply the maths and science teacher every parent would wish for their children. His TV shows are as relevant today as they were when first broadcast and enthusiasm for learning never gets old or out of date. There is always a generation who will benefit from exposure to teachers like Johnny Ball.

I didn’t mention his spot-on views on the bland and narrow national curriculum but suffice to say he’d get my vote for schools minister and judging my the applause on this subject, I’m not the only one who agrees with him.

To my youngest two children, twin 3 year old boys.

• Toothpaste is not paint. The bathroom is white enough.
• Toothpaste is not glue, no matter how well it appears to function in this regard.
• Toothpaste is not a lubricant. Doors work less well when toothpaste is present on the hinges.
• Toothpaste is not food. You cannot live indefinitely on it. You are going to have to eat your dinner some day soon.
• Toothpaste is not face paint.
• Toothpaste is not sunblock.
• Toothpaste may be an effective restorer of tiling grout but this is a job Daddy will do.
• Toothpaste is not known to be fatal to tooth fairies regardless of what your big brother says.