Posted by artwebster on Dec 5, 2008 in
Stupidity A small report this morning has quoted a member of the faculty of the Derby Moor Community Sports College as saying that an investigation is under way into the behaviour of a teacher, there.
This same member said that the reason for the investigation was the desire to ensure that students are happy to be in school.
So, once again we have the spectre of an evil teacher being discovered dismembering children, do we? Or was the teacher, perhaps, selling children to the white slavers? Maybe the teacher was rendering them down to be used in the manufacture of soap?
NONE OF THE ABOVE.
The teacher has been suspended for trying to instill discipline by making pupils who turned up late do push-ups.
It isn’t clear which is the greater of the offences – attempting to instill discipline or the push-ups – but doesn’t this report leave you wondering why we bother sending our children to school at all?
What possible use can schools be to our children if teachers are not allowed to use a little imagination and harmless punishment when pupils misbehave? What possible reason can our teachers have for trying to follow their professional instincts if they must be, forever, peering over their shoulders to ensure that they have not done something which some insanely stupid ‘higher authority’ can have them suspended and held to public examination?
The asyluums must all be empty, by now, I keep thinking to myself, and then I read that yet another inmate has been discovered in a remote holding and been released into a position of authority over the future of our children.
Now we know the lines upon which the YUK is being miss-governed, the lines of insanity encompassed in stupidity.
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Tags: insanity, schools, Stupidity, teachers
Posted by artwebster on Dec 2, 2008 in
Controversy,
Stupidity
I often spend a few minutes taking my dogs around the Sunday market in the car park of La Trocha (How pleased I was to see sanity rule and the market re-open) and often spot things that take my fancy.
Last Sunday was one of those days when I really felt that all the good work done to help a minority to be accepted as part of the community at large was going to be diminished by irrational and stupid marketing.
The sign that gave me pause said “The only gay nativity in Spain”
Mary and Josephina? Joseph and Mark?
Homosexuals have had a long and sometimes bitter climb into the ranks of what is considered ‘normal’ but this, surely, will do them no favours at all! Presumably this was created to use up an over-supply of Josephs or Marys but how could anybody ever even think that the homosexual community would want to re-write the Bible.
It is enough to show your acceptance of homosexuals by simply treating them exactly the same as you would treat any body else - assuming that they would appreciate such a tasteless gesture is both insuling to them and offensive to the rest of us who are happy to accept the story of the nativity as it has been understood for centuries.
Minorities might need support, but this sort they neither need nor want.
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Tags: Christmas, condescension, gay, mad marketing, nativity
Posted by artwebster on Nov 9, 2008 in
Stupidity
I am very fortunate that I live in Coín and have access to an area where it is still relatively safe to walk with my dogs.
Sierra Gorda is being transformed into an urbanisation and has already got much of the infrastructure built. Thanks to efforts by the local ayuntamiento and the developers, there is a lovely area to visit with some of the best views around of the Guadalhorce valley.
The amount of work that has been done means that it is possible to explore large areas without the risk of motor vehicles speeding into you.
Unfortunately it is not the same when it comes to hunters.
Week-ends see hunters out with their shotguns and dogs – far too often less than 100 mtrs from a public road. Why do these people feel that they can discharge lethal weapons in areas where there is very likely to be people walking or pets ranging loose?
This morning I was horrified to see a hunter within 50 mtrs of houses and shocked when he fired two shots! Don’t these people have any regulations governing their behaviour? Don’t they know that even an expended shotgun pellet is capable of putting an eye out?
- I
The picture, above, shows one of the hunters (a second with the dogs cannot be seen) walking even closer to the houses. To his right are houses even closer than the one in the picture as well as several parked vehicles.
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Tags: hunting, insanity, public safety
Posted by artwebster on Oct 24, 2008 in
Stupidity,
The nature of people This was part of the criticism of spending more than €80,000 on sending a group of teachers to Arizona in order to attend a two day conference about teaching poor children.
I would imagine that, unless they flew 1st class (and I wouldn’t put it past them!) they would also say that the flight experience was also insensitive, exposing these poor teachers to the risk of deep vein thrombosis.
Just where do these people get off?
What possible reason can there be for swanning off to Arizona when they can study teaching poor children on their own doorstep? Why study it where the local population is already deeply concerned that their own (American) education system is failing to produce employable, literate young adults?
It beggars belief that any sane person can really think that there is sufficient difference in the methodology of teaching anywhere in the western world (with the shining example of those very few schools that still aim for excellence despite the severe dumbing down of standards that we have seen) to merit such an appalling waste of tax payers money.
Surely, if there is sufficient reason to believe that such a conference could be of value, does the education service in the UK not possess the necessary hardware and software to join in online? Is it not possible to purchase the recordings or transcripts of the conference?
It probably is – but greedy local authority employees (ie. paid their wages out of the pockets of local families) continue to get their ‘jollies’ at the expense of parents who probably could not even afford a day out in Southend.
I don’t think ‘insensitive’ is quite the word, do you?
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Tags: education of poor children, tax payer exploitation, waste of money
Posted by artwebster on Sep 29, 2008 in
Stupidity We have been enjoying a few days of very welcome rain but, if the forecasters are right, that has now come to an end.
One of the things that the recent rain has high-lighted for me is the destruction there has been of the established routes that were used by our native wild life.
Last night, on my home from walking the dogs, I came across a very large toad that had managed to survive crossing a main road from the campo only to find its way blocked by a wall that was built within the last nine months.
Rather than see the poor animal get more distressed as it failed to find a way past the wall, I picked it up and took it to an area where there was plenty of water and access to the part of the campo it had, presumably, been trying to reach. Nothing particularly remarkable in that, you might say BUT . . .
carrying that toad made me aware that I had not heard any of the usual frog/toad choruses that were normal for this area. Last year it was a great pleasure to listen to the variety of squeaks and croaks but this year I haven’t heard any at all.
What a pity we are not only destroying our own environment by concreting over huge swathes of open land, we are also destroying the flora and fauna that makes Spain such a rich and varied biosphere by ignoring both their existence and their needs.
We are building a very grey future for coming generations.
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Tags: destruction, environmen, rain, wildlife
