2016
January 6
Here, have a reward for being normal
Welcome back.
Why thank you.
Hang on, I’m conversing with myself here. That’s what happens when you grow old and grumpy so I might as well exude a little more grumpiness and press on.
Do.
I will.
You know when I was at school my parents used to get a report from my teacher at the end of each term. It would update them on my progress although, being great parents, they had kept up with my side of things over the term anyway. I would get asked, usually each night, what I had done, what I had learnt and how I had done in any test. I discovered pretty quickly that there was no point in lying as grades would be included in the termly report.
I also discovered that I had parents who accepted me for the child I was. If I came home and related that I had achieved 100% in an algebra test, I was congratulated. If I came home and revealed a 42% score in a Latin test, that was accepted too. My father might explain why, in his opinion, learning Latin was important (he was a classics scholar) but he accepted that this was something I neither enjoyed nor really could understand. I never felt a failure nor, indeed, a genius. I just felt like I was me with skills and inabilities.
In the top left hand corner of the report was a little box which contained the number of half-days I had not attended. My parents would know this already as I never deceived them and it was simply taken as a fact. In my early school days I suffered from ear and throat problems, having my tonsils and adenoids removed at age 5. My attendance then was not good. The little box was just that; a factual record of my attendance. If it had been seriously poor I am sure that the teachers would have made some comment and that could have been discussed either if my parents had requested a chat or at the next parents’ evening. By the way, sorry to spring a surprise here, I never attended a parent’s evening. It was there for my parents to talk freely with my teachers and hence well-named.
Now where, you say, is this all leading. This week I discovered that a local senior school will give out certificates to pupils with a 100% attendance record. Not satisfied with rewarding something that is expected, they then get a treat, in this case being taken to the cinema. I find this disgusting. What about any child who for health reasons has been unable to attend? Does he/she miss out on the treat? If not, who makes the decision on the validity of the health reason, presumably a medically untrained member of staff. I am horrified for several reasons.
Firstly, I do not believe anyone should be praised or rewarded for achieving what they are supposed to achieve. Secondly I do not believe that anyone should miss out for reasons that they may not have any control over. But thirdly, and most importantly, this “carrot” idea immediately penalises, and therefore makes them feel a failure, a child who has, for whatever reason, failed to attend for 100%.
In a world where we cut down on sports days because, so I have been told, we don’t want children to feel like a loser, we are happy to make them feel failures because of something over which they may have no control. Lose a race and it’s most likely your fault. You didn’t run fast enough, used poor tactics or just don’t have that particular ability. That doesn’t mean you are a failure; it means you are not a winner. So, go away, train a bit harder, think a bit better or just try and beat your own time. But if you miss out on a treat and a trip to the cinema purely because you have been unable to attend full time, what can you do?
We are becoming a society who will reward the necessary but ignore the amazing. If everyone gets an award or everyone gets a top grade, what does that show?
I’ll answer that.
Go on then.
It shows nothing at all and we will all end up equal and performing the same as the next person. Individuality will be stifled. Pete Seeger - Little Boxes.
Well Malvina Reynolds really.
What have they done to the rain, North Korea?
Exactly, now stop talking to me as I am trying to print out my certificate for breathing all day.
January 13
Information isn’t knowledge
I have been aware, for quite a long time, that many people seem to think we have become a very knowledgeable society, partly because we all have so much knowledge at our finger tips, quite literally. But sadly, Information is not knowledge. By the way the words which appear in italics in this blog are quotes attributed to Albert Einstein, who most people seem to agree was quite a clever chap.
The fact that we can google absolutely anything and find something about it, does not give us knowledge. It gives us facts, sometimes written by people who may be wrong, or it gives us information, also sometimes incorrect. As of now, we are not a knowledge-based society; we are an information-drowned society.
And sadly, because information is readily available, many will turn to it in the forlorn hope that they will gain some knowledge, some intelligence, to help them in life. Most accept this information and think no more about it. Worse still, from what I see, the young of our world, in their education, are similarly being given information and, in an exam, being asked to regurgitate it. If they do this to the approved standard they are praised.
But they have not been asked to think, to inquire, they have not had their curiosity stimulated. It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry. Instruction. Ah, I can tell you how to do something and you can do it time and time again, probably successfully. If it goes wrong or a new idea is input, what then? Can you think about it, can you work out what to do?
It is vital that our young people are given help to learn not be instructed. It is the ability to work out a problem, think through a design, improvise a concept and imagine a new idea that should be the real purpose of an education not to walk off with a certificate saying you remembered something. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
So, information is everywhere and, it is true, we can gain some knowledge from learning what to do with the information we have but as a society we will never progress, or possibly survive, if all we do is find out what someone else has already discovered. All true learning is experience, everything else is just information. Children, young people, need to have that chance to experience things in order to be able to learn.
I will leave you though with one more quote, nay two more. The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. Imagination that gift which every child has but, when there is a constant exposure to the ideas of others, when apps will do everything for you, that gift is slowly unwrapped and exists no more as a gift. If every minute of your day is planned by your app, your laptop, your phone, when do you need to think? We will, eventually, and maybe not too far into the future, no longer need to think at all. We will, essentially, become stupid.
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. There is then, clearly, no limit to how far we can decline as a society. If you can then, think about it and imagine where we may end up and ask if this is what you really what for your children’s future.
January 20
Mr Plod and Noddy
Americans have been known to describe their role in the world as partly being one of a policeman, bringing order, peace and stability to our planet. You would not be making a big mistake if you felt they might be failing in their self-perceived duty. Can I first explain that I am here referring to the leaders, people and armed forces of the United States of America, who apparently feel they can call themselves Americans. I am slightly uncertain as to why Canadians, Mexicans, Nicaraguans and even Argentinians are unable to call themselves Americans in the same way that the Japanese, Thais, Cambodians etc call themselves Asian. Maybe if you make the most noise, you are entitled to overrule anyone, or everyone, else although I do remember the phrase “empty vessels make the most sound”.
However, regardless of all this, my major concern is the question of who will become the next president, the next leader, of this vast country with a big voice and the role of a policeman. In most civilised countries, especially here in the UK, we tend to drag out a general election over four or five months. For the last election here in May 2015, there was a “long” campaign lasting from 19 December 2014 until 30 March 2015 (three and a half months) and then a “short” campaign from 30 March till Election Day on 7 May 2015 (about five weeks). Total time about five months.
During the long campaign a candidate can spend no more than £30,700, plus 9p per voter in county constituencies, and 6p per voter in borough seats. During the short campaign, an official candidate may spend £8,700, plus 9p per voter in county constituencies and 6p per voter in borough seats.
The United States doesn’t have an official campaign season, but the first candidate to jump into the presidential race for 2017, Ted Cruz, announced his candidacy 596 days before Election Day. Those other “Americans” in Canada managed to hold an election in 11 weeks while in Mexico, general election campaigns start 90 days before election day (and have to stop three days prior to the election), with an additional 60-day “pre-campaign” season, in which candidates vie for the nomination. But the United States drag it out for well over 18 months. I suppose it takes a long time to appoint a policeman.
Sadly, following the latest news from this campaign lasting for donkey’s years, it looks like Mr Plod could end up as the policeman supported it would seem by a transgender Noddy. For those of you that don’t know, Noddy and Mr Plod were fictional characters in children’s stories written by Enid Blyton. Mr Plod always thought he knew how to solve the crime but never really did while Noddy was a little wooden puppet. Aha, you see where I’m coming from now.
In the presidential elections in the United States, Mr Plod is played by a man with a small carpet on his head while Noddy is a woman who made an incredibly intelligent contribution to the last presidential election (I said it was fictional). The good news though is that Noddy has told Mr Plod the people don’t elect US Presidents, God does. The bad news is Mr Plod thinks he is God. So, if Mr Plod has played his trump card early, the rest of the campaign may be paling into insignificance although, should this fictional duo get elected we may be looking at the end of civilisation next January.
Big Ears, where are you? He was always telling Noddy he was silly although as he described himself as a “brownie”, he’s probably been asked to leave the planet.
January 28
Debasing of words
I think we use the word “hero” a little too much these days. By my definition, a hero is someone who does something heroic but then by my definition a celebrity is someone we should celebrate so what do I know. Lewis Hamilton, for example, is not a hero because he drives a car fast and it might be dangerous. He has made, I hope, a considered choice to be a racing driver, pick up an obscene salary and therefore the danger aspects of his job were evident to him when he made his decision; a completely free choice.
Niki Lauda, when he had his accident at the Nurburgring in 1986 was not a hero. He was doing his job. His determination and bravery in coming back to race 6 weeks later was, without a shadow of a doubt, heroic and for this he can be awarded “hero” status. Similarly, Guy Edwards, Brett Lunger, Harold Ertl and, Arturo Merzario, who helped to get Lauda out of his blazing car, were heroes. They went way beyond what is expected of a racing driver; their chosen profession.
The same, I feel, is true of anyone in the armed forces. Just by joining does not make you a hero. Just by serving does not make you a hero. Being sent to a battle zone does not make you a hero. If this was the case, there would be some very dubious heroes around the world. People made a conscious choice to enlist and should know the dangers involved; it was a free choice. Now I will readily admit there are those in the armed services who carry out heroic deeds and they should indeed be given that “hero” status. But I find it difficult to understand the hero-worship of those who have chosen a job which could be dangerous and they survive it.
In the days when we had a large number of coal mines I do not recall a celebratory parade for every miner who spent six months down a mine and came out alive. Between 1965 and 1979 about 100 men lost their lives in mining disasters in the UK and many more were injured and even more had their lives shortened and the quality debased by the foul working conditions. They were doing a job and, in many cases, it was not a choice but a necessity in order to sustain their families.
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not belittling the bravery of people sent by the armed forces to battle zones but that is the job they enrolled to do. My argument is purely in the way, today, we give “hero” status to people doing their job. Nelson was honoured as a naval hero but he would not have won at Trafalgar without the help of the other 800 or more men who fought alongside him on HMS Victory and the thousands on other ships. They were just doing their jobs and possibly, unlike today, not all had made a free choice to do so. In those days, the country would more celebrate a victory than the ordinary men who achieved it.
By all means, if you wish, be proud of our armed forces for keeping our country a safe place to live in, if that is what their deployment does, but be sparing in the use of the word “hero”. And that use is completely different from someone saying somebody is their hero, their idol, someone they look up to or who inspires them. By giving too many “hero” status, we lower the importance of that word just as, today, every one who has their face on TV or in the papers for a minute, a paragraph, is deemed a celebrity. That word now means nothing; it is akin to be a human being, possibly.