Tuesday, August 1, 2006

Reading, 'riting, 'rithmatic

Bloody work - no time to waste on our esteemed organ of the press for a few days.
Social engineering rears its exceedingly ugly head again this morning with the proposals for a new national curriculum. The requirement to learn another language over English and, the culturally correct but internationally useless, Te Reo Maori makes the front page. This is entirely laudable but the main cartoon later in the rag puts it in perspective emphasizing the need to get English taught properly first. The worrying bit of the new curriculum is, however, hiding furhter in the paper. Eight 'core values' are to be taught and there is already the whiff of compulsion in the reporting of this. These values are government decided and will, therefore, be flavoured by their odious view of the world. I can't remember even half of them (and why would I?) but environmental stuff is in there somewhere (probably along with 'respect' for something or other and all the other usual bollocks.) Am I glad my children have both left school? I sent my children to school to learn reading, 'riting and 'rithmatic. Their values in life will be set by myself and my wife in the setting of a nuclear family just as mine were by my parents before me. I expect any education system to reinforce those values and not teach stuff decided by a bunch of government appointed academics whose ideas, in the main, I wouldn't wipe my backside with. I'm very, very glad this is a road I won't be travelling. I do hope to have grand children though............
See those Greenpeace wallies chained up the mast of that Chinese rust bucket in Nelson at the weekend? A harmless pimple on the backside of the world. Just leave them there until Mum calls them home for tea but of course it all has to be officially dealt with. Plod was interviewed and, with a straight face, told the nation that one of the main problems in getting them down was the plethora of OSH issues. In the end the kettle boiled or it started raining or something but, really, we are paying for the quasi-governmental bodies to indulge in this sort of nonsense.
Unfortunately the Taito Philip Field business appears to be deflatinig as I predicted and Uncle Helen hoped it would. The dents in the shiny persona of the headmistress have been to the panel beaters and its business as normal. It has to stop. Soon the great unwashed must realise that the emperor has no clothes - please.

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