Sunday Offering

“I do not want the peace which passeth all understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace” – Helen Keller

I read about Helen Keller when I was very young. The thought of being unable to see and hear was intolerable to me. Her miraculous effort to communicate showed such determination and fortitude and I can distinctly remember the story of how she used her sense of touch to learn words – such as water; her first breakthrough into language. How she did it was phenomenal and shows the rest of the uncommunicative world just what obstacles can be overcome to share in this brilliant existence of ours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller

Not only did she learn to read and write but she developed a clear interest in politics and philosophy. Her objection to the war and her feminist stance in life led her to the Socialist Party of America. I suppose people excused her insanity and put it down to her inability to hear and see.

Of course, in true Zen style, Helen Keller could hear and see more in a day than most people do in a lifetime.

It fascinates me how people such as Keller become known and how they overcome such disabilities to have their voice heard. Everybody has a voice and so many people shy away from using it. If you have a voice and discovered that you have it, then I feel as though there is a certain obligation to get speaking, talking, writing, sending your messages loud and clear across the world. Blogging makes that so easy these days. People with something to say have to say it otherwise a mass of reality and truthfulness will sit there, lacking in multiplication, silent in oneness. Lone voices are fine but when the world suddenly realises that there are like-minded folk out there who are expressing views so similar to their own, you never know what might happen and what potential there is for change in this yes, brilliant but bewildering world of ours.

I remember pretending to be Helen Keller as a child. I closed my eyes and walked around the garden, feeling my way, trying to understand what it must be like not to see things. I also tried to block out the sounds too by placing my fingers in my ears, whilst simultaneously scrunching my eyes together so all that I could see was the orange, black and red dots of the blood pouring through my eyelids.

It was easy for me though. I already knew the pathway down the garden. I knew where the thorns were and which steps I could take to avoid any obstacles along my way.

Can you really imagine a world without sound and without sight? It would be bad enough to lose one of these senses but to have neither of them in your life seems to be utterly intolerable. No music, no sound of water crossing over sand and pebbles, no sunrise, no sunset, no eyes to look at, no sunflowers or trees, no wind whistling through, no beautiful people or faces, no sound of laughter.

But Helen could probably hear one hand clapping far better than most, far better than you or I.

We take so much in life for granted and we abuse the powers that have been given us. We waste our sight and we destroy our sounds. We hide from darkness and silence when their radiance increases with every opportunity to see and hear the lightness of the world. We rely on these senses often at the expense of others. We do not touch the world and we do not allow the world to touch us. We ignore the potential for peace by trying to intellectualise it rather than letting it be. We abuse our loved ones, our friends, our family by not speaking to them and by not hearing them when they are open and honest enough to want to speak. We defy the difficulties faced by Helen Keller to no avail. We have a voice and we have ears, if only we would be prepared to open both once in a while.

Helen Keller spoke without speaking. She listened without hearing. She touched without worrying. How many of us can say that we do any of those? How often have we really considered a life without sight and without sound? How can we begin to appreciate life more if we do not speak and do not share the vital parts of our lives with others?

How can someone so shut off from the world be such an inspiration?

She learned to communicate and was prepared to learn about the world. She never closed her eyes and she never cast away the opportunity to hear, even though the organs were not working.

Keller was an inspiration and her words or wisdom shone through. I wonder if she had ever looked at zen philosophy for even if she had never heard about it, she certainly appears to have lived her life according to its magnificence. Keller chose a path that was far more open and alive than many of us who have our sight and hearing in full working order. She demonstrated how to be silent whilst speaking volumes. She showed how to listen without ever hearing a single word. Isn’t that the Way?

“I do not want the peace which passeth all understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace”

What an incredibly insightful phrase. Without even realising it possibly, she is saying more about intellect than most people with a pocketful of mysterious internet browsers can do these days. Yesterday, I spent some time looking at the definition of “intelligence” and about 95% of the quotes that I found were about “intellect” and not “intelligence”.

Here, Keller demonstrates both.

She knows that understanding requires intellect, amongst other things, but also appreciates that no amount of understanding will suffice unless it is acted upon. There is no point in loudly declaring that peace is wanted without understanding what the peace actually entails. There is no peace if the quiet is not understood. There is no peace if we choose to disregard its reason. There is no peace if we have to stay silent and compromise to the point that the peace is false. All we do is accept the peace without plumbing the leak. All we are doing is passing over something, so that the underlying cause of destruction is never placated. There can be no peace without understanding.

I too want the understanding that brings peace for this world. How many treaties and agreements have been drawn up with warring factors that have not stood the test of time because there has been no understanding, no logic, no fairness in what has been agreed to resume congenial behaviour? How can the Israelis agree to a shared state with Palestine if they are never able to understand the reason behind it? How can they agree to peace when they have not understood and empathised with others? How can you resolve an argument with a member of your family if you just brush it aside without understanding of yourself and your sibling or mother or child? Peace cannot be unconditional, and neither can love.

Surely it is far better and far wiser to embrace an understanding that leads to peace rather than live in a peace which is oblivious to or deliberately ignorant of cause, effect and comprehension?

I like wise women. I like wise men too but there is still something that resonates with me when I hear the voice of a woman who has overcome so much to speak to the world. I too want to be a woman who speaks to the world because I have so much, possibly too much, to say.

The learning that I have been through is vital for me, and I feel as though it could be vital to others. My reason is my own but I feel so profoundly about its truth that I need and want to share with others. I do not expect everyone to automatically adopt my stance, my ideas, my philosophy but at least I can do my bit by speaking and saying what is my fundamental beliefs, knowing and delighting in the possibility that they are ever changing, with the ability to listen to others within my construct.

The world needs change. Change doesn’t have to be dramatic to find truth. Change can be tiny and almost incomprehensible but if I have an opportunity to speak of change, and listen to the views of others, then isn’t it my duty to do so, and isn’t this what Helen Keller was telling the world? If a woman like her can speak and listen then surely to goodness the likes of me has a duty to do the same.

To finish, I have chosen a few more Helen Keller quotes to demonstrate the intelligence of the woman.  She talks of peace and I have found some through her today, all thanks to Twitter. She talks of peace and I continue once more on my own unique pathway of understanding that will bring me some peace, and hopefully peace to those I care about too.

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Intelligence – oh why did I spend so much time yesterday searching for a definitive description of intelligence when so much of it was written years ago by a woman who thought, felt and imagined so much.

Have a look at the quotes below. The brilliance of them is that they encapsulate the whole notion of three dimensions of intelligence. It is not about one intelligence any longer, dear world. It is about how we use our intelligences together to make us see, to allow us to hear and to capture the very peacefulness that Keller was talking about in that first quote today.

  “Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.”

Intellect, spiritual, personal, social – she describes how her world of books has opened her world to new adventures, to intellectual stimulation, to an ability to share with her friends, whilst simultaneously explaining her very personal passion – that of reading and awakening to a world of possibilities.

“Many persons have the wrong idea about what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”

Are you listening, those who think that happiness can be taught? Happiness cannot be attained by ticking off a list of hopes as ‘completed’. Keller demonstrates once more that the intelligent thing to do is have purpose in life. With the fulfilment of purpose we find pleasure. Of course a little self-gratification can help along the way, especially if it is combined with or is a demonstration of the worthy purpose. Now that is intelligent!

“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an unchartered land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.”

I want to discover the secret of the stars. I definitely want to sail in unchartered waters for I have already found my way to the shore. Spirituality comes from such words, such hope. Personal wellbeing is an added advantage to discovering the potential for humankind.

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”

She even manages to encapsulate the truth of instinct. How can you ignore the instinct when there is an impulse to rise? Good or bad, the instinct has to have its day, and say, and actions, even if it is short lived and reason returns once more.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.  They must be felt within the heart.”

And the mind and the soul, where the spirit dances with the surrounding and enveloping beauty.

 “We could never learn to be brave or patient, if there were only joy in the world.”

It is strange that I was saying such a similar thing the other day. Joy is as destructive as any other emotion. Like it or not, we need to be aware of and sometimes even feel destructive emotions in order to understand. Some of the hardest lessons in life are the most challenging as far as intelligence goes. Sometimes, even when we know how to be intelligent, we lose it all in an instance. But the intelligence remains, however hidden and we must learn from our experiences so that we can truly embrace and maintain joy, without trying too hard.

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

My being, me, who I am requires tribulation. But only if it takes me forward. This is the same for all which is why much can be learned from the stresses and strains of a season.

“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therin to be content.”

Be content, be peaceful, be you.

Chaos and Ignorance

There are times in life when the truth is hard to cope with. There are times in life when sometimes it is probably wiser to withhold information to lull a person into a false sense of security because the horrible reality of a situation is too difficult to contend with. There are times in life when not saying anything is the easiest if not the right thing to do.

This happens to me frequently, and I can explain precisely when this happens to me and how it affects me.

Travelling back from work on many evenings, I get in my car, I switch my radio on to my dependable Radio Four and I have the technology tuned in to tell me of the misfortune ahead of me as I make my way south. Only sometimes, I hear nothing about what I am about to experience.

In London, the traffic news is frequent, as are the same names that you hear daily, repeated every quarter of an hour throughout the two hours of heavy traffic in the morning and evening.

It’s the Hogarth Roundabout or the Tolworth Junction or the Hammersmith Flyover or the Blackwall Tunnel. Frequently it used to be the Albert Bridge but that is currently closed for repairs or Kensington High Street or Chelsea Embankment and so forth. If you live in London you know these places because they are always on the travel reports, and I have clearly missed some obvious ones as well.

For those who do not live in London, let me tell you a little secret that the rest of the world hasn’t cottoned on to. The majority of the places listed about happen to be in the West of London. My word, says the geographically intelligent population outside London, that western part of the city must be a nightmare. It’s only the Blackwall Tunnel that seems to be blocked on the other side of town.

But no! Recently I wrote about the Chipping Norton Set and here is the thing, here is the truth and reality of life. The Chipping Norton Set and their friends and colleagues don’t have to travel to the East of London to get into the godforsaken city. They have to travel over the Hammerhell flover, returning via the Hogarth Fuckedabout and that, as well as a ridiculous amount of traffic, is why you hear these names so often. They affect the rich and famous!

However, the real damage, the real and perpetual gridlock is happening on my patch, thank you very much, as I inch down the Eastway to that interminable tunnel approach before crawling through and receiving even more traffic south of the river.

It is a gloriously, revolting nightmare, only made easier by the company of Eddie Mair, Jenni Murray and the likes.

But what is this about this withholding information?

As I approach the motorway (well I call it a motorway because it has three lanes and looks and feels like a motorway apart from the 40mph speed limit), I have my radio ready. The travel information frequently comes on as I sit at the traffic lights in anticipation, and I wait. And wait. Obviously the news from the west of town takes precedence for the reasons I have explained previously. It is only when a nuclear bomb has been diffused (can you do such a thing?) that the Blackhell Tunnel gets a mention first; when the traffic is seemingly going to require a wait of an hour or so to get through the blasted tunnel.

And yet, even then it is sometimes ignored. Sometimes the news from the west takes so long, it seems as though they run out of time before they can tell us Blackheller’s of what we are about to receive. Sometimes, however, I have now come to the conclusion that they don’t actually tell us what is happening on the approach to the tunnel because it is too damn scary. They would rather us drive in ignorant trepidation rather than reveal the calamity of what is the main route between north and south at the wrong side of town.

Sometimes I honestly think that they can’t be bothered to inform us of the potential misery because it is too bleak to do so with such frequency. The poor announcers are simply bored by the repetition. So they just calmly forget to mention the Blackwall buggery.

Or even worse, the simply don’t give a toss because it is not involving themselves or their friends.

The amount of times I have been foolish enough to think that all will be well because the BBC have not felt it important enough to mention that there is a three mile tail-back that will take me over an hour to travel through. Fifteen miles it is from A to B, and I can guarantee that the journey, at a certain time in the evening, can take me up to two hours, certainly never less than one hour and twenty minutes – at a specific time.

I can cope with the truth and make my decision based on the reality of a situation but what I find intolerable is this lack of information so that I have already stuck my indicator out, despite having listened to the travel report, to take me onto the main road to Hell, only to find that the Hogarth Roundabout had a fingernail out of place on the driver of the 5 series BMW which had caused a slight blip in Jemima being picked up from the child minder by 5.59 pm which meant the news about my route home was deemed to be insignificant.

It’s tragic.

But the tragedy does not stop there. Not only do they conveniently forget to mention the horror of fume-fuelled disaster awaiting me as I sit in stagnation every evening, but also someone made the monumental decision to close the tunnel every night bar Friday and Saturday from 9 pm so that if you want to return from north to south on the eastern side of town after 9pm, you have to wheedle your way along the slowest road in town, that was clearly not designed to take the heavy goods vehicles, through the terribly sweet but utterly annoying Rotherhithe Tunnel. The joke is that they have a sign up saying 20 mph – I wish!

Have these people never considered a contraflow?

And it doesn’t stop there.

Someone from Transport for London had the absolute brainwave of informing passing travellers of precisely how many incidents of disruption have occurred through the tunnel for the last month.

How very informative, I hear you say, but can I please ask a simple question...... what is point?

What is the point of telling me that there are currently 40 dimwits whose cars broke down either immediately before or in the tunnel during the last month? Is there any purpose in telling me that the traffic was halted due to 80, yes 80, trucks or lorries being too tall to pass through the barrier, thus having to be taken out and directed to an alternative route?

That is more than two a day. And this, I assume, for the month of August when the traffic is allegedly less problematic because we are all allegedly away from the city finding a source of sun and enjoyment without school runs to clog up the system.

Surely, the money that has been invested in furthering the angst of the frequent Blackheller’s to inform them that there have been 80 incompetent lorry drivers and 40 useless drivers who have either crashed their cars, broken down or, heaven forbid, forgotten to learn how to read a petrol gauge could have been better spent by putting some notices up further down the road to prevent the fuckwits from causing havoc before they get to the bloody tunnel? Or am I being naive?

It is utterly intolerable that there appear to be three incidents a day that close the tunnel – all due to the stupidity of the people that we carefully trust our lives with every day as we accompany them towards the tunnel only to find that they either can’t drive or can’t judge the size of their juggernaut.

And even more intolerable is that nobody seems particularly bothered about putting some preventative measures in place to stop this from happening.

I cringe at the thought that this is what is going to be greeting the many visitors that we are about to receive in this country for the Olympics. I wonder why nothing was done about this when we had the announcement in 2005, when everybody has now known for nearly seven years that this side of town seriously needed some help and consideration.

Talking of 2012, the television skit on the Olympic planning team even had an episode about the flaws and problems of the traffic approaching and travelling through the Blackhell Tunnel. The irony of this particular episode was that the Blackwall Tunnel is so bloody hopeless and so terrifying that they couldn’t actually bear to show the vile thing in reality and ended up filming the Limehouse Link instead – just in case the reality of Blackhell was too frightening to put on television. It might put people off. Of course, had they used the tunnel for filming, then there would have been a tailback from Gilligham to Cambridge, so that wasn’t likely to happen.

More veiled truth.

Whilst I may sound like the most tedious of bores with a bee in her bonnet, I am writing this slightly with a tongue in my cheek, but sadly, there is too much reality in what I am writing. Yes, it is frustrating to sit in traffic having made assumptions that no news is good news but as my darling Dad said to me once when I was flipping about something quite incidental, “For goodness sake, there are children dying in Africa”.

And he was right. Traffic is mind-numbingly tedious and incredibly frustrating, all the more so when no information or veiled truth is being sent down the airwaves, but there are more important issues to concern us with, and every single time I am caught up in this sort of traffic, I have to think positively. I go to work because I love it. I travel in the car because it gives me the independence to move as and when I choose rather than being reliant on a strict timetable, and the endless hours of travel enable me to stop, listen, think, not think (other than being in full command of my vehicle) and spend some time with myself in a very busy schedule.

So many times I have been caught in this sort of traffic and have had time to plan my writing or reflect upon a wonderful day, whilst listening to the real disasters in peoples’ lives around the world.

Perhaps this is what we should really be reflecting on. Perhaps we should all take a calmer and more tolerant look at the world.

Before any friends to the West start screaming, and before any non-Londoners accuse me of being ignorant and dismissive of the rest of the country, I say outright, I sympathise with anyone caught in intolerable traffic, and I am all too painfully aware that London, and the East of London is not the only place that suffers with this debilitating problem.

Recently, it took me over two hours to reach the Hogarth Roundabout from work; a journey that by right should take no longer than 45 minutes. There are huge traffic problems in the west of town too but at least it feels as though someone gives a damn.

The other day, I was travelling back from work after Blackhell had been closed for the night. Some ludicrous person had then decided it was a good idea to dig up large chunks of Commercial Road (the road to the alternative tunnel of Rotherhithe) at the very same time as the Blackwall Tunnel was closed. Over an hour, and I was still some way from the old Victorian warren to Southwark, and nobody seemed to care. Coordination is really bad.

As for the rest of the country, they don’t fair too well either. Last night, I crawled through Port Talbot at less than six miles per hour, clogging up an entire town because the motorway had to be closed for maintenance.

I am not suggesting our roads should not be closed for repairs, but there needs to be more management of such situations. Do you, for instance, really need to close a stretch of four junctions simultaneously? Do all lanes need to be worked on at exactly the same time? There has to be an alternative to diversion, and talking of diversions, if you are going to introduce such a system, please make sure the signposts are all in place. It was only due to my relatively decent sense of direction yesterday that I managed not to follow the diversionary sign that would ultimately have sent me back to the motorway in the wrong direction.

But returning once more to reality, however hard it may be, sometimes, one just has to accept that traffic chaos is annoying but not necessarily the worst thing that we have to endure in life, and for those who disagree, then you are either the fortunate ones who genuinely have no threats or concerns with life or you simply aren’t enlightened and intelligent enough to want to know anything about the world, the injustice and the problems that so many of our fellow men and women live with on a permanent basis. If a fucked up transport system is really the most important thing in your life, then you are fortunate or foolish.

That said, here is a plea to the BBC, Transport for London and others. Remember little us on the other side of town. Don’t hide behind withholding information or simply not telling – the resentment that can build from such dispassionate behaviour is extreme. Keep us informed, consider ways of preventing Blackhell from being so called and spare a thought for those of us who choose to love East rather than West.......... and if you forget, well believe me, you may well regret your procrastination and disregard when it comes to wanting to visit the wonderment of the Olympic site for next and subsequent years.

There is life on the other side of town and we are prepared to let the Western grockels come and have a look, but don’t forget our plight once you flee back to the dismal delights of the other side of town.

I mean, just think how many thoughts are amassing in that approach to the Blackwall Tunnel. If someone managed to gather that, well, the East would have its day.

Enlightenment approaches.

Economcially Speaking

In the news today, a rogue trader has lost an extraordinary amount of money in the City. What precisely is an extraordinary amount of money these days? Nick Lesson only lost Baring’s Bank £800,000,000 – small feed apparently these days. Today’s little loss is not quite as much as the ‘mistake’ from the French rogue trader three years ago who lost his bank, Societe Generale, a small 4.9 billion euros. In fact Kweku Adoboli only lost about half of that – at £1.3 billion.

It all happened on the third anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy submission. And there was us thinking that nothing like this could happen again. Surely the bankers had learned their lessons.

Ever heard of addiction, greed, dishonesty, thieving? It’s not just those in the dumps of society that go in for this nasty behaviour. With those who already ‘have’, it seems to me far more despicable.

I make that statement because the quiet one, Iain Duncan Smith, stated that the recent riots were a wake-up call to the middle classes. He stated that the riots showed a “distorted morality that has permeated our whole society, right to the very top”. The middle classes, according to IDS, have shielded their eyes for far too long – “for years now, too many people have remained unaware of the true nature of life on some of our estates”, he said. “This was because we had ghettoised many of these problems, keeping them out of sight of the middle class majority”.

Interesting language.

He stated that the banking crisis, the phone-hacking scandal and the MP’s expenses debacle showed that this moral decline was happening at all levels “right to the very top”. I am assuming that he meant that politicians, bankers and Mr Murdoch et al are the “top” whereas the folk rioting from our run-down estates in Tottenham, Hackney, Lewisham and the likes are the bottom. Oh how good it is to have such differentiation – really helps to break down the barriers of inequality.

I wonder how it would feel to be seen as the opposite of the top all the time? I wonder how it makes one person or a group of people feel to constantly have it suggested that they are the lowest in society, as though the lack of money automatically makes them degenerates.

There is a time and a place for some pecking orders – this is not one.

The corruption of the bankers is far more degenerate and corrupt to me than children and young people who are bombarded by adverts, enticed to want the very items that they are never going to be able to afford, trotting off and grabbing a few goods for themselves. At least one makes sense. At least you can see the reason why someone would want a new television or a decent pair of trainers; they’ve been brainwashed into thinking that this is something to which they should aspire.

How can anyone want to keep on making the ludicrous amounts of money that occur in the Square Mile just for the buzz? It is quite incredible to me. It is quite the most revolting scenario.

And where does this money go? Nobody seems to explain what happens next? Surely there has to be someone somewhere making a healthy profit on UBS’s loss. Someone is having a party right now that they have been the winner in this particular gambling game. Tomorrow they may be the losers.

Winners and losers – I know it is divisive language but it is where we are. This is the way things work in society. Top and bottom, first and second, higher and lower, and whilst I applaud IDS for making such a statement, he isn’t exactly looking at this holistically is he? It is his government that is perpetuating the polarisation. It is his government that is trashing the local services that these people in society do not even know that they need, especially with regard to preventative services which don’t tick target boxes but are so integral to future change.

What else have we had this week? Unemployment has reached dizzier heights than the month before. More public sector cuts are predicted. On the positive side there have been something like 40,000 new jobs created in the public sector but that is set against an increase of 119,000 lost in the public sector. EDF and British gas have announced a 15% rise in gas prices that they are going to have to pass onto their customers. A further 4 or 5% increase is expected in electricity. London transport announced, on average, a 7% rise in fares at the beginning of 2012. And today, there was the announcement that the average rent now stands at £713 a month. Look at that figure again, £713 a month.

Now as I have professed on many occasions, I am not particularly adept at mathematics but even I can work out that a freeze on public sector pay, mirrored in the private sector means that everyone is going to be paying out more than they are receiving. Figures such as 15% are going to be felt by people. The immediacy of travel cost increases are going to be very apparent to those who were on an extremely tight budget and could not possibly have forecast such a rise, especially when it is added onto an increase of the same amount the year before.

Recently, I was talking to a couple of friends about the cost of housing. One was in her mid twenties, the other a little older. Both are currently renting. The first friend knows that she cannot afford a house of her own. She also knows that at the current rate of earning, she may never do so. What bothers her is that she cannot even afford to rent a place of her own. She can only afford a house share with people that she does not know. It is a risk to her wellbeing, as far as she is concerned. The other is paying over a £1000 in rent. This friend has done some homework and realised that if she had a deposit for a mortgage, she could reduce the monthly outgoings by nearly 50%. Even if she could get a 100% mortgage with no down payment, she could reduce her outgoings but who is going to give her a mortgage for a £250,000 house when her income implies that she would never be able to pay this off?

What are we going to do about the cost of housing? The capitalist owners of properties are in a prime position to monopolise on this situation. Those who can never have a mortgage have no alternative than to abide by the inflationary grabbing prices that the landlords pour down upon them. It is immoral.

It is also a sad indictment and a huge irony that a mortgage suddenly appears to be the cheapest option, if only one could persuade a borrower, a banker that it is a worthwhile use of money. But there we are, back to the bankers, the gamblers, the ones who are prepared to lose billions of pounds in a split second of excitement whilst hard-working people who are not demanding the world are struggling to even put decent food on the table for their children.

And talking of bankers, our very own Mr. Osborne this week has finally told them that they have to separate their game-playing from the business of looking after our money. They cannot gamble our futures by using our money to play the markets – only this is not going to happen until 2019. By that time, with the increase in costs of services and utilities, we may not have any money to put in their precious banks. What will happen then? Will the chancellor back track and allow them to gamble as the only viable way of making any money?

Obviously, I do not know enough about how this works but it worries me, considerably.

It’s not been a good week. I am worried about my younger friends and their future. I am concerned about my children too. I am not suggesting that having the noose of a mortgage around their necks is a viable proposition but you can understand their frustration at knowing that such a deal would, in the short term, be a cheaper option for them.

If only there was an increase in a half-way house; like housing associations who work with people to enable them to feel secure in a home whilst starting to invest in it. The most awful thing about renting is the ability for a landlord to simply get rid of his or her tenants at the drop of a hat. It hardly makes for people to feel secure or to add their creativity and personality into the very place where they spend the majority of their time. Who would want to borrow a favourite pair of trousers knowing that within the whim of another, they could be whipped off your body as and when a fancy took?

Today, what with student loans and mortgages, we are teaching our young people to be borrowers rather than savers, whilst persisting with this opposing ideal of getting them to save and live within their means. They can’t. They are being frugal and still cannot make ends meet. This week’s inflationary figures together with the announcement that one well-to-do has lost a couple of billion must really shatter these people at the lower rung of IDS’s ladder.

And as a final thought, there are four miners stuck in the middle of a mine in the middle of a valley in the middle of south west Wales. News has just come in to say that at least one of them is dead. There seems little hope, at present, that the others are alive since nobody has heard a sound from them – not exactly the joy that was experienced when the Chilean miners were rescued.

A friend of one of the miners was quoted in the newspaper as saying that the man was merely trying to provide for his family. He said, “people don’t go mining for fun”.

Indeed they don’t. People go mining because there is no alternative. People go mining in this part of the world because there are not other jobs available for them. Long gone are the times when people went down the mines because it was a trade passed down through the generations. This particular mine is hardly the sort of major colliery that once stood proudly in this area of the world. Someone put paid to that in the 1980s, and come to think of it, she too didn’t give a toss about the consequences either.

Inronically, Melvyn Bragg’s Reel TV last week showed a film of some miner’s being rescued. It all seemed so ancient, so “of another age”.

Perhaps it is about time for us to fully address who is at the top and who is at the bottom and what we can all do to make life a little more equal. Policies on housing needs to change - now. Policies on banking cannot wait until 2019. Policy on education is a fundamental preventative measure to increased polarisation of society, if it is looked at in a progressive way (today’s announcement on phonics testing will really help the future miners of this world, because although literacy can help to “raise people out of the quagmire”, there are still people who will be needed to do the more dangerous work of the world).

 And as for the costs of utilities, well, if I remember rightly, the government used to own such services. Perhaps if they hadn’t sold them off there could be some control on these too.

But I was always a stupid idealist.

Mister Clegg

In the dim and distant past of a couple of months ago, I spent some time following the phone hacking story. I watched the Parliamentary Select Committee ‘grilling’ of the two Murdoch boyz and am looking forward to a repeat performance from Tom Watson, assuming that he is going to be given more flexibility in his delving, assuming he is going to be given the opportunity to really grill James Murdoch about what he knew and what he sanctioned.

Of course, the Murdoch’s have got it all sewn up. There is a police investigation so there are certain questions that they can refuse to answer in case they are accused of prejudicing the aforementioned investigations or enquiries.

I am still a little confused as to the legal status of lying to a select committee. Does it count as perjury? Is not parliament part of the legislative process and therefore lying to such a committee is indeed an act of perjury?

I hope that Tom Watson will eventually be seen as a complete hero for the determination and persistence that he has shown in following his convictions regarding this issue. After all, he is a Capricorn from West Bromwich and I happen to be the offspring of such a combination.

But it is neither Murdoch or Watson or the other Murdoch that I wish to discuss today.
It is Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the deputy Prime Minister, the pink Tory, the MP for Sheffield Hallam (for now), ironically born the day before Tom Watson in the same year.

The reason that I mentioned the Murdoch saga was that when parliament was recalled to discuss the phone hacking drama, I spent some time listening to the debate but also paying special attention to Nick Clegg and his reactions. It was fascinating, and I am sure that many a psychoanalyst has studied in greater detail than I to identify the different traits and moods that his body language was emitting.

He had his head down for the majority of the time. His eyes did not rise to the level of any of the speakers for longer than split seconds. There were even times when he raised his eyes to heaven as though he was awaiting some divine intervention to remove him from the excruciating agony of being in partnership with a man who at best had poor judgments in who he employed and socialised with, at worst represented the epitome of corrupt democracy in his relation with the powerful media tycoons. There were even times when Clegg moved his hands towards his face; a classic shielding – but from what was he shielding himself?

Going further back in time, I sat here, on my birthday and listened to the first live debate between the three men hoping to be Prime Minister. Some could easily argue that Clegg was never in a position to be outright leader of the country so he could more or less say anything as he was unlikely to be held accountable.

How short sighted was that Mr Clegg? You should have been a little more optimistic which may have made you a little more circumspect in what you said on that April evening in 2010.

People praised the man for his principles. They admired him for standing his ground. They revelled in his attack on the two main political parties and condoned him for his stance on true democracy. Those of us left of centre could see some real potential in this man’s views. They certainly seemed far left of the alleged socialist party that we had always supported. Tides seemed to be turning and people were beginning to see that a vote for the Liberal Democrats was not merely a wasted vote or a tactical one. There was considerable sense in what he and his party were saying.

The rest, as we know, is history.
I’m not sure what I would have done in his situation. Being serenaded by Ed Balls and Little Willie? Choosing between the two in our monogamous existence of partnership? I’m not sure where I would have gone either.

The Labour Party had screwed up. Clegg knew that there was such general mistrust and disappointment in the country over their mistakes and their reluctance to be radical (in the socialist and progressive sense of the word) that it was almost impossible for him to ‘prop up’ a flailing and failing government. On the other hand, how could he support a party who had such disregard for equality, no matter how much Cameron played the caring conservative card?

He sat proudly on the front bench with his Tory colleagues. The first days in parliament, his body language was far different than the one I witnessed in July of this year. He was cocksure. He was elated. His eyes firmly focused on the opposition benches, riling them, ridiculing them, though of course he would deny such a thing. He was in the most powerful place that any Liberal leader had been for decades. Of course he was swooning on it.

Then there came a huge dose of reality; the student riots, the march for jobs, the unsubtle demotion of Vince Cable for telling it is at should be regarding News International, the health minister’s onslaught, Michael Gove – and so the list goes on.

His own party were weeping. He was caught between the lure of power and the logic of his colleagues. Simon Hughes, a person who has had his fair share of media intrusion, looked ghostly and dejected during that day in July too. He could feel Clegg’s unease but could probably only go so far in his empathy; feeling empathy rather than acting on it. Obviously I am only surmising here for I am not party to Hughes’s thoughts or Clegg’s. It is just an observation, a thought but I felt as though there was a huge amount of sadness rather than resentment within Hughes and many within the Liberal Democrat party.

Since then, what has happened? Nick has been on holiday and perhaps he has had time to reflect on where he is and what he is capable of doing. He must be concerned about his personal political future. There is a distinct possibility that he might not retain his seat in Sheffield. There is huge resentment there for his U-turns and the fact that he is propping up a dysfunctional and radical government. If he makes another U-turn, will that be held against him? Will he ever be forgiven?

Sometimes, there is no greater sacrifice than laying own your own life or your own desires for the greater good, to bastardise a famous politician who didn’t seem to be too damaged by his trip across the floor from one political party to another. If Churchill can turn then surely Clegg can too.

And he has an opportunity, more than one, to make a stand.

He has the power to put a stop to this coalition. He could prevent more mess despite his sell-out on fixed terms and status quo of parliamentary reform.

They sold you a dud Clegg, and you took it.

The lady may not be for turning but you are no lady.

Clegg could choose a range of issues to call a halt to proceedings; subtle privatisation of the NHS, relations between government and the media, economic mismanagement, decline of services to those who require it most, education.

Education, education, education.

It is a popular mantra amongst politicians but when do they ever listen to the people within education, and we are not talking about the bureaucrats at the ‘top’ of local authorities? Education could be the answer to everything, if only these politicians could see further than the end of their political office but then again, how many politicians do you know who have the ability to be holistic? It is not one of their greatest traits.

However, it is education that Clegg has chosen to focus on for his first stance against his colleagues in the cabinet. He has made it very clear that this Free Schools rubbish is very much the domain of the bluer part of the government. He is washing his hands of it all. It was not part of the Liberal Democratic manifesto in 2010, but then again, there were plenty of things that were not in their manifesto that they are now going along with.

Yesterday, Clegg made a speech about the Free School situation. He assures the public, and those within his party, that he has managed a certain amount of compromises from the uncompromisable Gove. He stated that he had received reassurance that any new Free School would be set up in deprived areas. He stated that he had received reassurance that any new Free School was not going to be allowed to work for profit.

Here is the live blog and comments from the Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/sep/05/politics-live-blog#block-14

And here is the full transcript of Mr. Clegg’s speech.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/09/schools-children-teachers

Too little, too late screamed the NASUWT. Where was Clegg hiding when Gove first pushed his unwanted and ill-thought Education Bill forward as a draft? Why start objecting now when 25 schools are about to open their doors? Well, it is a valid point but let us give him some grace. Let us hear what he has to say and let us see whether this triggers some other radical action from the man.

The NUTters have also stated their concerns, though bizarrely, have linked this to standards. Equality will not be achieved through Free Schools, so states Christine Blower, and there is no evidence that they raise standards. Well Christine, let’s concentrate on the equality issue here for the ‘standards’ come from that.

Yes, Clegg has been slow to act. Yes, it is about equality. Yes, we need to really think carefully about Clegg’s next steps because the Education Bill has not yet been passed.

So looking in greater detail at his speech, are there any underlying issues that could cause him to further reconsider his approval of the Bill?

Here are a few of my comments from the speech.

“And we do the next generation a disservice by cursing them with our low expectations.”

We do an even greater disservice to our next generation by not offering them a proper education that is fit for the 21^st century. Hidden in all the major changes within the Bill are expectations for pupils to read 17^th century texts that have no bearing on their lives at all. I am all for people studying literature and I am not suggesting that there is no purpose in studying old texts but young people need to feel as though they are involved in their learning. Imposed and illogical texts are not the way to do it. We do a disservice to our next generation by not enabling them to develop the skills and the attitudes to pursue a life of equality and consideration and all manner of other values. Our problem is not just about low expectations. Our problem is that we don’t actually know what our expectations are, and even when we think we know what our expectations are, they are often the wrong ones.

“Labour spent vast sums on schools. And, to be fair to them, some things did get better. Education is clearly an area where money makes a difference.”

Lots and lots and lots of money but no holistic view. Spending money on standards in literacy at the expense of other equally important aspects of living and learning that are going to be so vital for our next generation. Yes, the Labour Party poured millions into the system but how much did all of that affect the needy pupil in the middle of a downtrodden housing estate in a former industrial city? There was ineffectual coordination, there was no overarching theory behind the influx of money other than to raise standards, and there was complete conflict between some socially enterprising (or social engineering policies) and the standards agenda. Of course the Teenage Pregnancy policy did not work. It did not work because there was no legislation to enable those of us who had something to offer schools to actually get in there and make a difference because it was all about standards and only the enlightened few could see the connection between the two.

“Ours is now one of the most unequal school systems in the world. In the UK your background has more of an impact on how well you do at school than in nearly any other developed country.”

Earlier in the speech, Clegg stated that “we allow ourselves to believe some basic assumptions as if they are facts of life” and therefore there is nothing that we can do about them. There are good schools and there are bad schools. Fact. Clegg says that we should not take this as fact. We should do something about it.

So, if our school system is the most unequal in the world, what precisely is this Bill doing to further inequality? Is it all down to the system of schooling or are there other contributing factors like housing and health and support for young families who haven’t got a clue how to cope?

Free schools are NOT the answer, not even if they are established in areas of deprivation. Unless, of course, the schools are free from ALL constraints and can adopt progressive policies of embracing creativity and individuality, of trying to transform lives through a holistic view that incorporates social, moral, spiritual and personal education AS WELL AS concentrating on the basic necessities of literacy and numeracy. This is the ONLY thing that is going to make a difference, together with an all out attack on private education but that is another issue.

“And, when the best schools are concentrated in some communities but not others, poorer families get the raw deal.”

Yes they do. FACT. And what precisely is the likes of Toby Young’s school going to do to solve this sort of problem? Clegg continues to say that any new Free School is going to be set up in deprived areas but what is the point unless, as I say, there is real autonomy for school leaders to follow their vision and offer something completely radical in comparison with what is on offer through the straitjacket currently imposed on our schools, that has been in force for so long that our future leaders are completely and utterly indoctrinated into one way of thinking about education.

“We know that there are a host of tried-and-tested methods for raising attainment. Investing in teachers' training and professional development.
Smaller class sizes. More pastoral support, outside the classroom. Or more intensive, individual tuition.”

No we haven’t! We have NOT tried everything and when interventions such as pastoral support have been established, it is always the first to be cut, and it has been full of complicated red tape. Ask any manager who has tried to develop a role for a learning mentor, for instance. And when has any school had the time and resources to truly look at individual learning, which incidentally Mr. Clegg is quite different to individual learning.

“The same report [from the Sutton Trust] found that when children are older, they benefit from sitting down with teachers to plan and monitor their own progress. They do better if they are given specific, personalised feedback.”

Yes, and once more, when have schools been given the opportunity to involve pupils in planning their learning rather than have it imposed upon them in recent years, in recent decades even? And what is the coalition doing to enable this successful innovation to happen in EVERY school? Hell, you’ve even got the evidence that it works, together with engaging pupils in after school activities.

“Over time, schools themselves will become responsible for the budgets for excluded pupils. They will be expected to commission the alternative education they receive.”

How much time, I wonder? It is indeed good that there is someone to be held accountable for the education of the excluded. Having witnessed an imposed mass exodus from not one but several schools who have become academies in one local authority, I am delighted to hear of such possibilities, but we have already lost a few thousand disaffected young people. Action is needed NOW.

“And we're offering all schools the chance to take on Academy status, either individually or as part of a chain. Where they have full control over their curriculums, staffing and budgets.”

I know this is a naive question but why does it need a school to take on Academy status to get full freedom? Why do you have to be an academy to have “full control” over all the issues that Clegg mentions? Surely this should be an entitlement for every school manager, whereby THEY choose what support they receive from the local authority and not have it imposed upon them as a slapped wrist. Perhaps, if there had been more liberty in the past, with accountability of course, then there would be no need for academies and free schools and all other initiatives that veil the fact that schools are stymied and therefore the pupils within in it are not free to learn properly.

“Sarah Teather is bringing forward a radical set of reforms which will ensure local councils can help knock heads together to get a better deal for disabled and disadvantaged children.”

Unfortunate language here! Knocking heads can cause all manner of disabilities. And is Nick surreptitiously saying that there is an intention to knock ‘heads’ i.e. head teachers into doing something that is detrimental to the needs of the school and the individual pupils within it, disabled, disaffected or not.

“Let me be clear what I want to see from free schools. I want them to be available to the whole community - open to all children and not just the privileged few. I want them to be part of a school system that releases opportunity, rather than entrenching it. They must not be the preserve of the privileged few - creaming off the best pupils while leaving the rest to fend for themselves. Causing problems for and draining resources from other nearby schools. So let me give you my assurance: I would never tolerate that.”

But Nick, that is precisely what you have tolerated. Quid Pro Quo, Carpe Deum, Ergo Propter Hoc – yes, I have no idea about Latin either!

Can you not see that this is precisely what is happening right now. There’s plenty of mention of oversubscription to Young’s little innovative school but how much research has been done on the impact to schools within the area where the frilly little middle classes push off to get what they deserve. What is going to happen to other schools? I know Toby Young would argue that if they were offering what they should have been offering then there would be no need for his popular new school but it is not as simple as that.

“That's why I am pleased that half of the first wave will be in deprived areas. And the vast majority in areas where they desperately need school places.”

Yes, and I wonder how many of those first half of schools set up in deprived areas are actually faith schools rather than schools that are available for all to attend.

“ We are inching towards inserting the profit motive into our school system. Again, let me reassure you: yes to greater diversity; yes to more choice for parents; But no to running schools for profit, not in our state-funded education sector.”

Well, that’s good news. But note the language. No profit in state-funded education. I wonder what will happen when these free schools realise that they can actually make some money and start charging parents for their services. I wonder how quickly they will be able to convert away from state funding. I know that is highly unlikely, but I am reticent to believe that Clegg has this one won. Gove is ruthless, and I am sure that he will find some way of enabling the Free Schools to retain any money that they manage to create for themselves. There will be clauses. I just hope that other schools within the state system that are innovative enough to engage with local and national businesses will be afforded the same opportunities for retaining well-earned monies or carefully agreed sponsorship.

He then continues to discuss the role of parents and how it is important to have a working relationship between parents and teachers as teachers cannot be accountable for all ills in the child.

“Because a teacher can't make sure that children take time at home to get a proper breakfast that sees them through until lunch. They can listen to a child read at school - but they can't do an extra fifteen minutes at home in the evening. A teacher can't turn the TV off when it's time for homework. Or make sure children get to bed on time so they don't come to school tired. Teachers tell me what a huge difference these little things can make. They also know that they can't do them. But they know that parents can.”

Mr. Clegg, please can I inform you that as a teacher, I was not allowed to hear my children read as much as I wanted because my head teacher insisted that it wasn’t my job. I had a literacy hour to stick to and a numeracy nearly hour to religiously and laboriously undertake. Some parents cannot do this, which is why I decided to ignore my stupid head teacher and actually listen to my children read as often as I could, which meant that I made a choice not to eat in the middle of the day – just listen to Biff and bloody Chip. Of course parents make a difference. But here is something that hasn’t been considered. How about not having homework? How about enabling young people of all ages to relax occasionally? How about preventing them from being put off their own learning? How about thinking about something more innovative than spellings and phonics for homework? How much ore might that engage parents in their childrens’ learning, if the ideas were coming from the children themselves?

Just a thought.

I am now going to have to finish because I have gone on and on and on, and for that I apologise but I am passionate about this.

This speech, whilst in parts impressive, strike me as the voice from a puppet, which is mildly ironic considering Gove’s physical attributes (!) are often compared to a ventriloquist’s dummy. Well, the roles have turned. Clegg, he is pulling your strings man! He will give you your little concessions because his hold on power to some extent depends on being a little bit nice to you. You can have your non-profit stuff and your schools in deprived areas (as long as they play the game) but ultimately this Education Bill is full of rot.

Clegg has to really think about whether he can cope with the appeasement offered to him on this and other issues. Shirley Williams has been put in her place and been told that her views are not that of the Liberal Democrats supporting the Health Bill. Was this the right thing to do? Can Clegg really allow all the issues that he raised in this speech to go unnoticed and untackled once more?

Time to think long and hard Clegg. Time to get that metaphorical coffin in your mind, for the sake of so many.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Clegg

Competitive Character Building

Here I was carefully minding my own business, wallowing in a headache that will not disappear, trying to read the newspaper through squinted eyes, darkened with sunglasses, determined that whatever article I felt needed a comment would simply have to wait until the morning.

And then I found Mr. Seldon, Mr Happiness, Mr. I can say anything I like about education because I have managed to get the combination just right at my mega bucks independent school and let’s not forget Mr. Tony Blair’s biographer.

I have been to a couple of meetings where Mr. Seldon has been a guest speaker. He talks sense. He understands the concept of a holistic education, whereby we should not be thinking purely about the academic attainment of our young people but should equally be considering their wellbeing, their “happiness”, their ability to be socially intelligent, emotionally intelligent and so forth. He concurs with ideas that creativity is important and that young people need to have quality leisure time as much as quality learning. He advocates learning outside the classroom. He deplores the league table stringency and strangulation that has happened in our state education system.

He appears to understand something about multiple intelligences and how, within our education system, we should be not be limiting learning to the mere diktat of a tiny and often anachronistic curriculum. He understands this.

“Through no fault of the teachers – the relentless pressure of league tables has dictated schools sacrifice so much of the education of the whole child for the sake of exam grades.” He says.

He talks about the importance of character building, suggesting that schools might learn something from that ever so liberal Mr Baden Powell in offering the sort of resilience training that the Scouting Movement is known for, and apparently is still as popular today. It is rumoured that there are huge waiting lists to get involved in the Scout movement in this country. There is apparently a lack of volunteers to support these young people. So much for Cameron’s Big Society.

And so this is where it starts to go rather sour. This is where Seldon suggests all manner of possibilities for state education that have been introduced in the new Free School that Toby Young is starting in the West of London, soon to be opened by that old Etonian Mr. Boris Johnson. He suggests that the Left are afraid of competitiveness at their peril. He says that competitive sport is vital, that cadet services would be a useful enhancement to any school, that mental and physical challenges where the young people fail will be extremely good for their character building. He also suggests that those students whose home lives are not conducive to their learning should automatically be given boarding places, in state schools.
Has he got any idea how many kids would be institutionalised with this sort of baseline? Has he any idea how detrimental the state system of education and housing and welfare has been on hundreds and thousands of children, crippling them emotionally, disabling them from having an education and housing appropriate to their need?

Now because I like to be contrary, I am going to say something now which may surprise the reader(s). I agree with Mr. Seldon. I think that character building is very important and I think we do not do enough to build and develop the whole child in schools, assuming this is part of what Seldon means by character building. However, I disagree with his proposed means to build character. There are other ways and too many of our schools have refused to consider the viable alternatives to character building.

Why do I disagree?

Well let us take competitive sport first.

I had the fortune or misfortune, whatever way you choose, to be responsible for the netball and football team when I was teaching. I had to juggle with parental expectations, pupils who thought they ought to be in the team because they were brilliant at sports and those poor little sods whose confidence plummeted at the suggestion that they were not good enough or strong enough to get into the team, yet their enthusiasm far outweighed the footy experts. And that is before we have even considered the little ones who didn’t even put themselves forward because they did not want to suffer the indignity of not been chosen.

The whole system, particularly in primary schools, stinks. I have been bombarded by parents who have accused me of being a liberal minded wally for putting certain children on the playing field. I have been screamed at by children who couldn’t believe that I had put a child on the netball pitch who couldn’t catch a ball. I’ve even been yelled at by colleagues who have suggested that my socialist principles have just gone too far. To my shame, I have sometimes conceded to their demands, such lack of will I sometimes have to endure. However, in the main, I stuck to my guns and insisted on every child having an opportunity, irrespective of whether we were going to win the league or not.

Luckily for me, we did, in both competitions but that is an aside and one which surely shows up that nasty little streak of competitiveness within me.

I can also remember the teacher who promised my own child that once he was in Year 6 he would automatically get a game on the football pitch each week, irrespective of the talent available in other lower-age year groups, as he had patiently and freezingly marched up and down the sideline on many a dire Saturday morning when he was younger. Alas, the aforementioned teacher forgot all about this promise when it came to the competition, deciding that my child was too feeble and too incapable of playing the glorious game. I marched in to him assertively and reminded him of his promise, stating that you just couldn’t do that to a child. You could not promise something like that and then tell a child that he was not good enough for a feeble interschool competition. It was soul destroying. It sapped the poor child’s confidence. It belittled him in front of his friends. But this damn teacher would not back down. He needed to win the cup! That was the only thing that was driving him, and it really didn’t matter how mucked up any child got en route.

I suppose this is the sort of character building that Mr. Seldon is talking about. Perhaps he thinks that this dose of reality was the perfect form of character building for my son. Perhaps certain readers do too. But I can think of other ways of building up his resilience.

Young people have to contend with far too many horrible things in their lives, so why should we project more unnecessary disappointments on them?

As it happened, the same year that my son was prevented from joining the football team, his grandfather died. I wonder which one built his character more. I wonder which one was more difficult to contend with? I wish he had not had to endure either.

So I have suggested why I do not think competitive sport is a good idea, and I have merely scratched the surface of this debate. So what would I suggest instead?

Seldon is right in some respects when mentioning Baden Powell but can we please lose the allegiance to God and the Queen, and the uniform? If we strip the organisation of its ritualistic barriers and get down to the nitty gritty of what the organisation should be about, then yes, there is certainly place for activities that are challenging and conducive to team work that should be happening in our schools. But they should be happening anyway. Any decent primary school teacher should be making their activities exciting and challenging. Every decent school leader should be instructing their teachers to ensure that there are abundant times outside of the classroom to explore local parks, if there are any, or certainly their local environment.

Again, as a dib, dib, dib trained person, I took plenty of my Baden Powell activities into the classroom. Nowadays though, I would probably go further, inviting the children to come up with challenges that they can develop for themselves, rather than have me direct them.

Of course, one of the best ways of developing the individual child, including his character, is allow him or her to learn what they want in the way they want, with the possibility of enabling them to share their learning with others, becoming a leader and a learner simultaneously, opting to listen and learn from their peers’ particular interest too.

But that takes a lot of planning and requires the teacher to stop directing and become an enabler and a facilitator; some of them find that tricky.

There is also creativity. How often do we enable our young people to develop their creative side, something that is particularly personal to them? Not every child can be a perfect artist or musician but that does not stop them trying or wishing to create something. Who says that one piece of art is better than another? It is all subjective. And those who cannot draw can use their creativity in another way; writing, photography, singing, film-making. Don’t you think that these activities could be character building too?

But we are overseeing another way of developing resilience and character, one that many a school would not consider.

Let us look east.

I wish to goodness someone had suggested meditation, philosophy and the study of certain eastern writings when I was a youngster. Maybe I might be more resilient to life’s difficulties now had I had this ingrained within me, had I had the opportunity to find another way to develop my mind, my soul and my confidence in myself.

Perhaps yoga or Tai Chi could offer the same character building as the disappointment of not being chosen for the school football team. Who knows?

I may have been a scout but I wasn’t a very good one. I hated doing all those badges and felt that I could never match up to the ones who did. I was never a brilliant sportsperson and as soon as I lost my place in the netball team, that was me and sport finished. I could play a couple of musical instruments but I could never play in the way that I really wanted, improvising and being able to play a tune that I had heard on the radio immediately. I was bright enough at school but was never going to be as successful academically as others, including my sister. Competition and comparison never did me any good. In fact, I don’t need to look very far to see the lasting damage that its powerful revoltingness has left me with. What resilience did I manage to achieve through these constant comparisons and never being the ‘best’?

It does not work. It does not develop character whereas learning to believe in my ability to take photographs or write might have been more beneficial. Finding my own voice earlier might have helped but I had an O level and A Level syllabus to deal with. The only person who ever spoke to me about philosophy was a PE teacher who never actually taught me in a formal lesson. If only I had listened to him more often, then perhaps my own character building might have been more successful.

Seldon is right. School is far more than the conventional and sometimes tedious lessons we prepare for our children because we have a National Curriculum to comply with. School is a place where all sorts of learning could and should take place. I refer to my previous blog about allowing local communities to use the premises so that young people have somewhere to go after hours.

Seldon is wrong, however, to suggest that the only way we can character build is through some sort of army camp or competition. It did me no good. It did my child no good and I am absolutely confident that we are not alone.

Toby Young – let’s just get this over and done with. Toby Young may be introducing these elements into his school for other reasons and not for the alleged altruistic reasons that Seldon suggests, i.e. a character building activity.  I suspect may be introducing such measures because he has a serious chip on his shoulder that he did not go to Eton, and he wants to offer his kids this wonderful form of confidence. I suspect that he likes the regimentation of ‘character building’ and may end up adopting a similar style to Sir Michael Wilshaw of the Mossbourne Academy, whereby all pupils chant together daily “Yes we are all individuals” “Yes we will achieve our best as long as our best is 27 A star GCSEs”. Indoctrination, brainwashing.

I suspect Toby Young wants character building brought in so that his pupils succeed academically and not because he particularly concerned about the individual children involved, but I could of course be being unfair.

Toby Young and his Etonian antics is not the answer to character building, and I suspect that Seldon probably knows that too. There is far more to character building than failing to get into the school rugger team. There is far more to developing resilience than ramming a shed load of failure on a child’s back. And where do the perpetual successes learn resilience? If they succeed at everything, how are they ever to develop humility? How will they cope when someone tells them that they are wrong? How will they cope with the competition when their intellect or physical prowess is not as brilliant as they had been led to believe?

Perhaps we ought to be looking far more carefully at how we really develop resilience through meditation, through emptying our minds, through appreciating the value of oneself than any of these measures could possibly provide.

Perhaps we ought to be looking at shared values and the vital virtues that all should have or certainly strive for because that is going to make for a more contented world where hopefully resilience becomes a natural acceptance of disappointments in life without it shrouding people completely.

Surely Mr. Seldon could go along with that.