Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Retrospective


Passions

Reading this, filled me with despair, even though it’s quite precise in pointing to inequities in our educational provision. I thought how 20 years ago I would have fought for such official recognition of inequality. So why the despair? Well of course it’s born out of an understanding that we have a school system that looks for conformity as a solution – conformity of curriculum goals and conformity of measurable outcomes. But also the despair comes from the frustration that we have allowed this narrowing and tightening control of the education of children and young people in the first place. That, and the fact that we still have the same old inequalities.

At lunchtime, queuing up for my spicy couscous at Tesco Metro, I caught sight of the front page of The Independent – not a newspaper I’d normally take home – and there was a story that changed my mood. The cover shows the regeneration of the Broadwater Farm Estate since the 1985 riots. Moreover, the article is a sort of celebration of ethnic diversity. Something we definitely need in this current climate. So, I left Tesco Metro with reasons to be cheerful.

[There are some gorgeous passion flowers in the garden, too!]

2 comments:

Joolz said...

Yes uplifting stuff, especially this sweet biyt:
Mary Kemp, 82, has lived on the estate with her husband, Bill, since it was opened. She said: "We moved here from a house with no bathroom. It was like a holiday camp and that remains the case. We are pure English and do you know what that means? It means being tolerant of people, regardless of colour or creed. It means embracing people who are different from you. That's why we stayed here."

BUT. Are you allowed to have two links to the same space in one post? This could be cheating.

Oh and btw you should know better than to read OfSTED.

Guy Merchant said...

Twas good news, yes. Unfortunately, I sometimes have to ingest OfSTED for my day job - so that's bad news. I suppose it's really quite simple. Anyway, who's joined the link police then?