A case of mistaken identity

This week we have seen another example of political correctness gone mad, with a small primary school publishing a "doctored" photo of some of their pupils on the Internet, to avoid it getting into the wrong hands.

This action has been criticised by many groups and led to complaints from all and sundry.

One particularly forceful group of complaints came from the Smiley family - pictured above. They stated that the school's actions had ridiculed their - less than normal - appearance, and would now not be able to go out in public without people recognising them!

See also previous article in 2006

UK schools in child labour outrage

Whilst we have often heard of the practice of "child labour" in Third World countries, thankfully it is far less common in either the EU or UK.

However, I heard today that a school in West Sussex was employing children as young as 12 as classroom teaching assistants!

Such practices are seemingly not even being kept particularly secret, as an inside source revealed to me: -

"...She was very open about her birthday and the fact that she was only 12 today. She even brought a cake and balloons into the school for both the teaching staff and children to share."

It is important that this matter is investigated further by the local education authority, because however mature and hard-working this person is, it cannot be morally right that she is being exploited in this way.

Whilst there is a shortage of classroom assistants, is there no other way to solve the situation?

THIS IS TRUE STORY!!

(What I don't understand is the fact that the "child" in question is apparently married with children of her own! How does that work?

A "quick" lesson in equal opportunities

Despite the "evidence" in yesterday's entry, of the increased ability of women to "multi-task", it is clear that they are no more able to limit the speed of their car to within the national speed limit than men are.

This, I (personally) established yesterday by attending a 'Speed Awareness' Training course, along with an equal mix of men and women.

Two facts struck me from the outset.

The first was that the participants for this course whilst all having one thing in common - namely that we had been"caught" speeding - were, from an equal opportunities perspective, "ideally balanced".

As well as balanced on gender, we were also, suspiciously, evenly mixed between young and old, ethnic and non ethnic, AND we had two trainers one of whom had a disability!

This "nirvana" for EO officials (I can imagine them ticking all of the boxes of their forms - in triplicate - as I write) also led me to question whether we had in fact been caught or had in fact been "targeted".

The second fact that struck me was that 'Speed Awareness' was not a very good course title. We were all very aware of speed, having recently experienced lots of it. In fact there is also (allegedly) photographic evidence to prove this if the course organisers had been in any doubt.

What we needed to increase our "awareness of" was going slow. A 'Dawdling' or 'Crawling' awareness course was what we needed.

That being said, the course was very good, although the most stressful part was ensuring that we weren't caught speeding either on the way to, or possibly worse, on the way from the course!

I'm not sure whether I bought in to all of the "learning" for as I slowly drove home I did start to think that the government's latest 'Road Safety' campaign -

'Speed Kills, Kill Your Speed",

to be somewhat factually incorrect.

Speed doesn't kill! Hitting people with a car kills. Admittedly more so when you hit them with a very fast car.

So speed isn't a problem, just like fatty food doesn't make you overweight...... unless you eat it that is!

Location, Location, Location

Reports appeared all over the press in the UK this week in connection with the fact that OFSTED - which I believe stands for the Office for Standing in the way of Education - have stated that children are being denied the chance to take part in geography field trips, and that as a result geography is in decline in England's schools as growing numbers of pupils abandon a subject they find "boring and irrelevant".

One key way to make lessons more exciting is through field trips, Ofsted said in a report. But teachers often decide not to take pupils on expeditions

In an extremely outrageous and stereotypical statement, Karl von Stubbings, Professor of Sexist studies at UCL stated that "...we all know that the staff sex imbalance is particularly stark in primary schools. The figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families show that in 2008 just 15 per cent of primary school teachers are men, down from 20 per cent in 1986.

This fact combined with research undertaken by psycho-biologist Qazi Rahman, of the University of East London, which concluded that: -

"Overall, men are better map readers, and by quite a big margin."

Even with practice, most women can only improve their performance slightly.

This is because men and women navigate in different ways. Men take a bird's eye view of their journey to get an overall sense of where they are going, whereas women break it down into bite-size chunks, navigating in relation to where they are at the time. This is why women turn maps around to match the direction they're facing, and use landmarks to find their way.

Professor von Stubbings stated that his conclusion was that the reason why geography results are falling is not that female primary schoolteachers don't take their pupils on field trips, they do....it's just that they can't find their way back!!

A new language emerges....

As if the world doesn't have enough words AUSTRALIA appears to be continuing to invent words and phrases to reflect modern society and is holding a competition to see which should succeed. Here are a selection of some of the entries - with a few additional nominations.

Perhaps these will become part of our everyday language at some point in the future...albeit for some in many, many years time.

1. SMIRTING - developed as a consequence of the smoking ban... "Smirting" meaning chatting up a fellow smoker while having a sneaky puff outside: "Smoking + Flirting = SMIRTING".
2. BOSSTALGIA - nostalgia for the old boss when you've forgotten what a nightmare they were: see Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair et al.
3. CARBON PAW PRINT - this is what is left by owners taking their dogs - in cars - to the park for a walk.
4. MONKEY BATH - a bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: "Oo! Oo! Ho! Aa!Aa!Aa!".
5. MOUSE POTATO - the on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.
6. WIINJURY - injury sustained whilst playing on a Nintento wii.
7. GADGETRICIAN - one who embraces new technology and the host of new gadgets it brings.
8. SPROGINATOR - derived from terminator - child with tendency to destroy best laid plans.
9. PLEATHER - e.g. cheap leather 'look' handbags that are made of plastic.
10. PICNIC - Problem In Chair Not In Computer. Often seen on IT help-desk reports.
11. GLOBESITY - the problem of rising obesity around the globe.
12. FLOORDROBE - the use of the floor as a substitute wardrobe.
13. PASSWORD FATIGUE - Frustration caused by having too many passwords and failing to remember them.
14. TANOREXIA - An obsessive desire to have tanned skin.
15. CHINDIA - refers to China and India as a collective unit, in terms of economic power and strategic importance.
16. KIPPERS - adult children who fail to leave home - a contraction of Kids In Parents' Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings.