Of Chalk and Cheese, Childhood and Sex!

Being a mother, grandmother and great step-great grandmother, plus having spent some years as a teacher (including Reception) it is hardly surprising to have a deep interest in communication and the welfare of children.
We can learn a lot from little ones. The small child who volunteers his favourite soft toy to a hurting friend, the toddler who tries to give his comforter to the baby crying on the TV. Of course children, as they grow older, can also be jolly spiteful too and bite the hand of a playmate, or hit a pal with a toy. Were these children different when they were younger or did they lose their innocence? Exactly how much are children influenced by their environment?
My sister and I (two siblings left out of a family of six children) are totally different and always have been. We don’t look alike, we don’t speak alike, we rarely like the same things but we love each other dearly. Yes, as children we used to fight and argue. But being a little older than me she would look after me out there in the big bad world.
One Sunday, dressed in our best clothes, we were going for a walk. My sister stopped to see a friend while I watched older boys digging in a hole. Being nosy I wanted to see what they were getting out of the dirt. I soon found out. They called me over saying they wanted to show me something. Daft as ever, I did as asked. The boys stuffed worms up my sleeves, into my pockets and down my neck. I stood screaming like Violet Elizabeth from Crompton’s Just William. Come to think of it, those boys were rather like William! My sister came running to my rescue and her verbal attack put them to flight.
My sister often helped my dad with his repair work on engines and such, while I would be given sewing tasks, to do, trim my dad’s hair and be my mum’s hairdresser. From leaving school at fourteen, my sister picked up the swearing of her workmates. Not so me. I guess I took after my mum, apart from which I had witnessed the fury of my dad when he heard women (girls) swear! (He was pretty good at swearing himself but men were expected to swear.)
In a Reception Class you can see characters forming and that is a wonderful thing. So too, seeing their minds grow as they respond to teaching through word and their environment, exploration and discovery. What a shame much of what they learn as they grow older is far from life enhancing.
WE are born with certain drives to keep us healthy and ensure the continuance of the species. Are these drives traded on? Food is an obvious case. But has the whole of society, never mind children’s clothing, been sexed up and innocence lost? We see things on television that boggle the mind — not forgetting the other parts meant to be titillated. What is right and what is wrong? How can children judge these things when so much is thrown at them? How is that sex with children under sixteen is a criminal offense and yet we have so many young teenage pregnancies? Is it okay then for children to have sex with each other at a very early age but if one reaches seventeen then he or she is a criminal? The Pill was to solve the problem of unwanted pregnancies but it seems to have started a revolution of sexual freedom with young people pressed into sexual experience as many are into drink and drugs. Surely, ‘responsibility’ has been devalued, as has the joy of sex that goes hand in hand with lifetime loving partnerships. At least THIS is something we sisters are in agreement. Can’t think of anything else we totally agree about though!

Photograph — photo of us discussing the state of the country during our visit to Attenborough Nature Reserve (My sister lives many miles away and meetings are few.)

University Fees For English Students

This is not the usual thing I put on here but it does not fit my other blogs either. I hope those interested in the subject will find their way here. This is important.
There is an urgent need to settle the student fees issue. Justice must be done.

I have given serious consideration to the matter regarding University fees as applied to English students. Wales and Scotland who, to those not aware of the situation in the UK, get their huge grant to run their internal matters such as Education, Health and Social Services from Westminster, pay the fees for their students (and are generous with other social services too). Hardly surprising that English students feel hard done by. Hardly surprising if some English tax payers feel somewhat annoyed too. But that is another issue.
I can see a certain logic in students paying back the costs of their university education but I believe it to be deeply flawed. At least, the cost of student fees should have been left as they were. But maybe the whole business of higher education needs looking at and trimming done. I would question why the school leaving age has been raised.

Like many of the older generation, we were brought up never to be in debt. We saved for all our needs. There were no credit cards (thank goodness). A mortgage was a necessity due to shortage of rented accommodation and long waiting lists for Council houses. We were in a bed-sit for three years and still at the bottom of the housing list because we had no children. We would not have children until we had our own home. It is somewhat ironic that we, along with others who know the value of thrift, are now having to pay for debts not of our own making. And for excesses in handouts that have made it cruel for many who work to be worse off than many who don’t and have no intention of doing.

With this in mind, I believe it to be totally unjust that today’s young people will have the burden of paying back University fees for their own education (at least at this higher rate), at a time while paying taxes to help subsidise the final-pay pensions of the more fortunate, the cost of supporting the ever-increasing elderly at home or in care, and credit handouts for this, that, and the other, not to mention the escalating sums for the NHS as new drugs and procedures are discovered to lengthen life and ease pain, while many are living lives as if to test how long their heart, liver, and lungs will last. PLUS the graduates, on starting work, putting aside a large chunk of their salary for their own future pension. What a burden!

Youngsters seem to have little say about their education. When I taught it was child-centred learning. Now they are pushed into exams as though passing them is all that education is about. Money would be better spent getting youngsters into apprenticeships and continue, where appropriate, studies through Evening classes and a day release. A University education was once held in high esteem, that honour seems to have diminished. Surely with realistic opportunities for those who are not University inclined the way could be paved for a better future.

Education is lifelong and enters every aspect of life. But, at least, each citizen should have the right, at some time in their lives, for two or three years of free higher education, if appropriate, at University level.

(I speak as someone who had to give up a college design course at the age of sixteen so as to earn my own living, my father having become seriously incapacitated — benefits in 1949 were almost non-existent. I was fortunate enough to realise my ambition through sheer hard work and luck. Later I trained to be a teacher. I gained all my qualifications, then and later, as a mature student. I know of others who gained all of their qualifications through evening classes and rose to high levels of management or engineering.)

Already, there are cutbacks for care of the elderly, cutbacks in other major and important departments. At this time, perhaps it would be appropriate to raise part of the shortfall by putting a tax on top of VAT for those luxury goods that only the truly well off can afford?

As for the marching students, those who simply mouth slogans without knowledge should get to know the facts. Marching is fine, protesting is fine when orderly, but following 'the crowd' in ignorance of the true facts, makes the public wonder if they are ready for mature learning.


NOTE: Photograph of Nottingham University. My brother was a student here in the late 1940's at a time when 'boys like him' did not go to University. (There were few Universities then). He left school at fourteen, gained an apprenticeship with Rolls Royce and attended night classes. He went on to study for higher degrees and gained a scholarship to study in the USA for his PhD. When he died, he had 54 patents in his name and was acknowledged as a specialist in his field. He was also involved with athletics and gained various awards and prizes. Determination is needed to get on, in all walks of life.

School — the best years of your life? The joys of teaching!

A poem by Gladys Hobson

The joys of teaching

They come in the night, and daytime too —
Dreams and nightmares of many a hue.
We shake them off with laughter jolly
But most of the time we’re off our trolley!
In confident voice we teach what we know
And try to hide what we don’t want to show.

We stand at the front and spout the lesson
And hope to be able to last the session.
Some kids are angels and want to learn,
But there’re also those who are ready to spurn —
All that is taught, but still is our hope
That none of the kids will end up a dope.

We sit in our chair and read out the names
Of all our pupils ready for games —
Not the sort you play with bat and ball
But who’s to win and who’s to fall
In the battle of wits they play with their teacher —
Jim’s taunting of Miss is a favourite feature.

At least terms are short and holidays long,
And sometimes surprises come rolling along.
Young Jimmy is offered a place at Oxford
And Marlene is nursing in USA Botsford.
Some are employed, most are at college,
And not one is inside — eating his porridge!

Gladys Hobson

Ah yes, some of the best years of my life!