Words Beyond Repair: War

Posted on April 19, 2018April 21, 2018 by royce1232

WORDS BEYOND REPAIR: WAR

ANOTHER MISCELLANY

CONTRIVED BY

Royce Levi

Where the loon sits

There sit I

Under the moon

And a blighted sky

The words I hear

Are a twisted notion

Writhing in air

With due commotion

Dear old Auntie Joy was my favourite relative. She was extremely patriotic. Her husband, my Uncle Joe, was killed in the First World War. This is probably why his wife was loyal to her native oil field. Throughout the Second World War she dutifully knitted socks, gloves and jumpers for the drillers. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

“A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind general,” said Uncle Joe before he went over the top for the last time. “Ours not to reason why; ours but to drill or die.”

Breathes there the man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native oil field!

I have been declared incompetent by an incompetent judge. Does that make me competent? Speaking of incompetence, don’t mention Gallipoli. Sir Winston Churchill, who designed the deadly Dardanelles plan, was declared a partial dyslexic after this Gallipoli speech: “I honour my Dog, I verse my King, I lasso the Flag.”

Gallipoli did nothing for morale. Yet while there’s strife there’s hope. And adversity makes strange deathbeds. The river of death has brimmed its banks but the voice of a tycoon rallies the ranks: “War’s suffering is infinite but there’s money in’t.”

And thus it’s hello to arms. So be it! First you need an enemy. If you can’t find one, invent one. When this fails, spin folks a yarn about WMD. War is peace. Peace is slavery. Ignorance is strength. You give me the pictures I’ll give you the war.

The Adventures of Annabel

Annabel was poor and her life was sad;

Her future looked bleak and her prospects bad;

Her woes were ended by a bombshell factor;

She went off and married a defence contractor.

Now she wears challis in her palace and rings on her fingers. Has a perfume so costly the memory lingers. And now you can see her flash across the sky as a socialite.

Any man’s death diminishes me for I am involved in mankind. And therefore never seek to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for the arms corporations.

Choose your weapons. Hail Agent Orange, thou Heaven born knave, divine defoliant. Absolute power pollutes absolutely. In the end, your success will be determined by your platitude. I came. I saw. I contaminated.

Sydney streets along which the United States President will travel on Saturday will be named for the day “President Johnson Way.” Sydney Morning Herald: October 18, 1966. All the way with what can you say?

Conscription is, and always has been, a sinister word for Australian ears because Australians have always associated conscription with overseas war. Those who have imposed conscription on a section of our twenty-year-old voteless youths not to defend Australia, but to fight and die in a cruel, filthy, brutal, unwinnable war in Vietnam mangrove swamps, know this very well. Arthur Calwell: Sydney Morning Herald, April 14, 1966.

Child Haven

Vale Errol Wayne Noack (1945-1966)

Australians in Vietnam are the new Anzacs. They are fighting in order that we in Australia will be spared the march of tyranny down through South-East Asia. Thus spake William McMahon: Sydney Morning Herald: April 23, 1966.

They’re selling placebos down my way. Going cheap. I’ve tried them. They really do work. More often than not. You’ve got to believe in things of course. It’s all in the mind. O the mind has mountains! Placebos worked brilliantly at recent press conferences about keeping our borders safe. All with free tea and biscuits.

But some things we need to remember.

“Forward, the 6 RAR!”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not tho’ the soldier knew

Some one had blunder’d:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Long Tan: 18 dead …

Into the Valley of Death

Rode the silent majority.

Peace be with you now.

Proverbs Beyond Repair

Posted on April 11, 2018April 11, 2018 by royce1232

Dear Reader

Been away for a while because I fell down an escalator. Glad to be back.

Here’s a little piece I wrote with one usable hand. Will be fit again soon.

PROVERBS BEYOND REPAIR

A TOTAL MISCELLANY

CONTRIVED BY

Royce Levi

Where the loon sits there sit I
Under the moon
And a blighted sky
The words I hear
Are a twisted notion writhing in air
With appropriate commotion

Once upon a commotion a principle was born: Pay the Rich To Feed the Poor. The result was jobs for the snobs.

Pump A. Nickel was not a snob. He was a human rhetorician smitten with an itch that turned into a twitch. The twitch occurred in his funeral orations after every three sentences. Poor soul. That twitch sapped his strength.

O so tired was Pumpy! Sleep it is a blessed thing beloved from post to post. He dozed off unwillingly while sheltering in a coffin and was buried in the dead centre. Look before you sleep.

“If at first you don’t exceed, buy, buy, buy again,” said the Right Honourable Pierre Terpsichore-a-Stare. Prime ministers dance vulnerable dances. Dance for your daddy my little laddie you shall have a penny when the vote comes in.

Dancing got the better of Terpsichore. Depression set in. A person is known by the corporation he keeps. A profit is not recognised in his own land. True. Pierre Terpsichore-a-Stare is voted out of office at the next election.

Is the climate really changing? Ask a silly question and you get a silly answer. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool that to speak and remove all doubt. Duty is in the eye of the beholder. Old King Coal was a merry old soul and a merry old soul was he. Anthracite! He’s got the hole world in his hands. Dig me grey-beard loon? Yes. Cheats ever prosper if they have a lobbyist.

“Grime doesn’t pay,” said the scientist. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” said the sceptic. “It never rains but it pours,” said the weatherman. “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” said the denier. The wise owl said, “Let the punishment fit the grime.” It did. A dirty society gets its just deserts.

Tree 13

I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as arboriculture. Money makes the world go round. Money doesn’t grow on trees so cut them down for profit. The unkindest cut of all. How green was my valley is what the chain saw. I’ll drink to that. Absinth makes the heart grow fonder. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die in drought induced wildfires or destructive floods. A load of scrap.

Political axiom: Don’t put all your eggs in the one bastard. The Senate has rejected another bill. East is east, and west is west and never the bandwagons shall meet. Still, it’s better to have shoved and lost than never to have shoved at all. A friend in greed is a friend in need. All’s well that bends well. An eye for an eye and a truth for the booth.

Border protection. All you need is hate. All’s fair in love and war. Banners maketh the man. Old soldiers never die, only young ones. Do undo others as they you would undo. Do as I say, not as I do. War kills babies; a poor workman always blames his tools so don’t throw the bathwater out with the babies.

Any sport in a storm. CEOs of cricket need to agonise young men to keep the sponsors happy. And many a mickle makes the Chief’s muckle. One good term deserves another. The road to Hell is paved with free to air intentions. Money is the route of all evil. Slime goes by so slowly and slime can mean so much advertising. A nerd in the hand is worth two in the bush. That my friends is a woebegone conclusion.

images

Pay up, pay up and play the game.

Trust Me I’m A Politician

Posted on January 31, 2018February 16, 2018 by royce1232

Politics is in the air just now. When is it not?

I’ve been thinking of all the votes I’ve cast during my 84 years. Suddenly I found myself hunting up this list of dubious political statements, possibly to help my fellow voters make better judgements. So there we are. Look what I’ve found.

WORDS THAT LINGER – AND FINGER

If you are going to lie, you go to jail for the lie rather than the crime. So believe me, don’t ever lie. Richard Nixon April, 1973 advice to a colleague.

No way will the GST be part of our policy. Never ever; it’s dead. John Howard in 1995, one year before he was elected and a little later introduced the GST.

I don’t want in Australia people who would throw their own children into the sea. I don’t. There’s something for me incompatible between somebody who claims to be a refugee and somebody who would throw their own child into the sea. It offends the natural instincts of protection and delivering security and safety to your children. John Howard, 2001.

A number of people that jumped overboard and have had to be rescued, and more disturbingly a number of children have been thrown overboard. I regard these as some of the most disturbing practices that I have come across in the time that I have been involved in public life, clearly planned and premeditated. I imagine the sorts of children who would be thrown would be those who could be readily lifted and tossed without any objection from them. Minister Philip Ruddock, 2001.

Fiction Proven Stranger Than Truth!

But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman. Miss Lewenski. I never told anybody to lie. Not a single time. Never. These allegations are false. And I’m going to go back to work for the American people. Thank you. President Bill Clinton, 26 January, 1998.

Hussein … spends his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies. Madeline Albright, Nov. 10, 1999 Clinton Secretary of State.

The takeover of South Vietnam would be a direct military threat to Australia and all the countries of South and South-East Asia. It must be seen as a part of a thrust by Communist China between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. R G Menzies, 1965. Really!

It is good contextual information; it can’t be used as league tables. Julia Gillard in March, 2017 on the NAPLAN test.

The nineteenth century American Party, also known as the Know- Nothing Party because members were forbidden to reveal its details, has echoes in our present world.

The Know-Nothing Platform 1856

(1) Repeal of all Naturalisation Laws.

(2) None but Americans for office.

(3) A pure American Common School system.

(4) War to the hilt on political Romanism.

(5) Opposition to the formation of Military Companies, composed of Foreigners.

(6) The advocacy of a sound, healthy and safe Nationality.

(7) Hostility to all Papal influences, when brought to bear against the Republic.

(8) American Constitutions & American sentiments.

(9) More stringent & effective Emigration Laws.

(10) The amplest protection to Protestant Interests.

(11) The doctrines of the revered Washington.

(12) The sending back of all foreign paupers.

(13) Formation of societies to protect American interests.

(14) Eternal enmity to all those who attempt to carry out the principles of a foreign Church or State.

(15) Our Country, our whole Country, and nothing but our Country.

(16) Finally – American Laws, and American legislation; and death to all foreign influences, whether in high places or low!

Source: 11/12/2017.

Whole Document Source: The Duke University Special Collections Library: 11/12/2017.

South Vietnam would become a Communist State, and the lives and security of millions who have resisted Communism would be in jeopardy.

The impact of our complete withdrawal, as proposed by the Labor Party, would be felt throughout South-East Asia. We, too, would come under threat. Harold Holt, 1966 – election speech.

In the actions we have now taken we are not concerned to stop Egypt, but to stop war. None the less, it is a fact that there is no Middle Eastern problem at present which could not have been settled or bettered but for the hostile and irresponsible policies of Egypt in recent years, and there is no hope of a general settlement of the many outstanding problems in that area so long as Egyptian propaganda and policy continues its present line of violence. Anthony Eden, 31 October 1956 justifying the disastrous Suez invasion.

Are there not other alternatives than sending our armies to chew barbed wire in Flanders? I have it in me to be a successful soldier. I can visualise great movements and combinations. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, 1914 aged 40, just before he initiated the disaster of Gallipoli.

*****

To end on a lighter note I conclude this little exposé with a reference to political words of a different kind: creative abuse. I have found no better exponent than

Paul Keating.

Peter Costello was “all tip and no iceberg”, Andrew Peacock an “intellectual rust-bucket”, and Wilson “Iron Bar” Tuckey a “stupid, foul-mouthed grub”. He famously called his 1993 opponent John Hewson, “a feral abacus” with a performance “like being flogged with warm lettuce”, and in saying to him “I want to do you slowly”, delivered a taunt that still echoes in the dark corridors of the Australian political imagination. Keating may have lost the election to Howard in 1996 but one suspects that Keating’s special brand of spoken bastardry will endure beyond any memory of Howard’s words. What, after all, do a majority of votes matter, when your opponent has described you to history as a “mangy maggot”, “the old desiccated coconut”, “araldited to the seat” and a “dead carcass, swinging in the breeze”?

As to the ethics of this, you can decide.

Source: 12/12/2017.

So there you have it; just my little collection of political dalliances with the truth, garnished with some Keating sauce. I hope I haven’t given you indigestion. R.

_________________________________________

Some years ago I tried to do something about all of this deception. I wrote the little book below. It was the subject of an interview on the ABC and raised a laugh there and at other places.

It was fun to write. Greg Gaul is a masterly cartoonist who caught my ideas so cleverly.

Here’s a little video I’ve just made about the book.

I have also given it to some political friends with a waiver saying they did not need it. If you want a copy, there are still some left. Just click the PayPal button below. The price is $12.50 AU author signed and posted free anywhere in the world. If you want it, don’t forget to give me your right postal address when you use PayPal.

A Survival Guide For Dishonest Political Bastards

A$12.50

Thanks for your company here,

royciebaby.

Mirum Hospitium (Remarkable Hospital)

Posted on January 14, 2018January 15, 2018 by royce1232

So you wake up to a morning that seems possibly your last because of a frightening dizziness. The world is spinning so you close your eyes to avoid the turmoil. If you get up you’ll fall over so you stay in bed hoping the revolving world will stop. It doesn’t.

You’ve been dehydrated before so maybe water will fix things. You therefore struggle out of bed and blunder off to the kitchen, hands sliding along a hallway wall to help you avoid falling over. Two big glasses of water.

No relief. So you stagger onto an adjustable chair and almost pass out. Your wife finds you there. In conference, you both decide to ring 000.

Remarkably helpful phone service follows. First the ambulance section arranges for a doctor to talk to me on the phone. She checks things out with pertinent questions.

“Are you in pain anywhere?”

“No.”

“Are your limbs functioning properly with feeling?

“Yes.”

I can’t remember the other questions but they made me feel I was being advised very wisely. Then I was asked to hand the phone to my calm and caring wife to pinpoint the address for the ambulance. I was to stay put and wait.

The paramedics came so quickly to my unit. The date was January 14, 2018. I hope that date brings credit to two fine, professional people.

“Hello,” said one cheerfully at my shoulder. This cheerfulness was magically relaxing to the patient to be.

“That your self-portrait?” he asked jokingly looking at my Frans Hals Laughing Cavalier painting on the wall.

“Every painter paints himself,” I said, “so that is Hals’ self-portrait not mine. A few hundred years out of my time.”

“That your guitar?”

“Yes.”

“Do you sing?”

“Yes.”

“What songs?”

“Folk mainly.”

Then I sang: O the summertime is coming

And the trees are sweetly blooming

Where the wild mountain thyme

Grows around the blooming heather

to some considerable applause…

While all this was happening, professional expertise had sprung into action. Blood pressure. Standing blood pressure. Blood test. Other tests I don’t understand.

I was in good hands.

A trip to hospital was decided upon. I walked with help to the ambulance. What a spotless, well equipped vehicle! Comfortable travel bed with my paramedic seated beside me getting details – with driver’s licence help.

What a calm, smooth ride to Ryde Hospital, mirum hospitium! The travel bed smoothly unloaded and I’m wheeled into Emergency. Explanation of case by paramedic to one duty nurse.

Ryde Hospital: January 14, 2018

It is hard to do justice with words to the benefits I received there. Such thorough, caring attention by my second duty nurse. There is a businesslike energy in that place. You can feel the concern for you and you can see it in the eyes of the staff. Care for your comfort. Care for your valuables. Care for your identity. Care for your peace of mind.

My doctor’s thoroughness amazed me. So many tests to check my physical and mental capacity. Such caring and helpful advice. My dearest wife too, who braved the traffic to follow the ambulance, and remember we are both octogenarians, stayed in the ward for the four hours I was required to complete. She was treated with much care and kindness too.

And so the diagnosis was benign vertigo. My doctor and nurse gave me the final walking test. Then home in my dearest wife’s care. All free.

Can you see why I am a fan of Ryde Hospital and the fine paramedics who took me there? Lucky country.

Lucky me!

Wisdom Begins in Wonder: Socrates

Posted on December 16, 2017December 16, 2017 by royce1232

A Teacher’s Thoughts on COMPULSORY TESTING

The Socratic method has long been recognised as an important way to promote the getting of wisdom. It is interesting to pause a while amidst the current test fever in Australia to consider the validity of the classical model. There was never anything trite in the vast area of Socrates’ Curriculum. Look at the summary of his questioning style: “The Socratic Questions.”

Image Attribution: Creative Commons

The Socratic Questions

Source: http://changingminds.org/techniques/questioning/socratic_questions.htm 14/12/17

• Why are you saying that?

• What exactly does this mean?

• How does this relate to what we have been talking about?

• What is the nature of …?

• What do we already know about this?

• Can you give me an example?

• Are you saying … or … ?

• Can you rephrase that, please?

_________________

In the light of Socratic awareness, so many of our current testing procedures in schools fall short because they are concerned with only a small part of the human story. I am not at all sure it is the right part. A new word has come to mind for these tests: TINTs – Tribal Indoctrination Tests (I expanded the acronym for decorum’s sake).

Such tests control the destinies of the young. Success will define tribal acceptability ranging from satisfactory to heroic. Failure will mean confinement to a lesser life.

This judgement of the tribe is focused excessively on the Cognitive Domain. And because of the cost of other methods, the tools of judgement are dominantly one-off tests.

Some of us who have been on the teaching journey for a considerable time cannot help feeling uneasy about the present day league-table fever. And the cognitive area is only a part of all learning. What about attitudes? What about the Psycho-motor area of mental health? How is the current generation faring in those areas? We have no mass-scale awareness of this. Maybe such concern is irrelevant and all we need from the masses is obedience to ad-talk and polispeak.

How strange it is to divide people the way we do into quartiles of visible success!

The category of failure, or even moderate success, is a harsh one these days to belong to. We teachers have learnt the hard way that the bottom fifty percent are half our future.

My Questions

Is TEST preparation replacing other (untested) teaching?

Are categories becoming more important than individuals?

Is stress controlled mathematically in the ranking, especially for the very young?

Is lack of skill with examination technique really a valid reason to berate children?

Is forecasting questions by study-guides a similar invalid variable?

Is postcode an accounted-for variable?

What precisely is the effect of school morale on learning?

Are all test conditions rigorously uniform for valid comparison of schools or groups?

Is there a clear distinction between diagnostic tests and attainments tests?

Does the vast cost of universal testing remove funds from urgent remedial teaching?

Are we really testing the right things?

Attribution: Creative Commons: Dan Piraro.

_________________

So there you are. Just felt I had to say these things. All those years of sharing learning with my students make you notice things. Things you don’t usually read about in a government’s test reports.

Bye now. R

I Try To Understand

Posted on December 9, 2017December 9, 2017 by royce1232

Right now people all around me seem to be on drugs – word drugs. As I watch their narcotised, stupefied, insensible, befuddled, delirious, hallucinating behaviour I feel as though I have just fallen into Alice’s Wonderland. Why is this so?

I try to understand.

Rudyard Kipling once said that words are the most powerful drugs used by mankind. I fervently agree with him. I do know however that some words are as valuable as penicillin. They are not the ones I am thinking of.

The words currently in my mind can lead to the darkest of consequences. Many of the users of these words aim to suppress logic. They seek to give you a good feeling about unverified things and thus take away a great freedom – your ability to make decisions based on truth and reliable evidence.

What is the motive for this? It’s quite simple: to get your money. A second aim is to gain power over you. When your existence depends not on reason and proof but on the schemes and devices of fable pedlars, you are no longer free.

The selling artifice has become a Janus deal for the power seekers of the modern world. And the bend sanctifies the means.

In the table below then are some of my narcotic words. Their possible ramifications are also shown. All of this is a struggle that continues for me.

Attribution: Creative Commons – http://www.theloquitur.com/leonards-turntable-trending-mixtapes/

WORD ADDICTION TABLE

WORD DRUGS	____________________	RAMIFICATIONS	____________________
absolutely	Slanted perfection.	Absolutely correct = 100%. Correct also = 100%. The big word merely looks better.	Absolute implies an extreme. So we are inspired absolutely to buy. 😯
get one free	You can first decide on the profit margin.	Then divide the needed selling price by three. The three you buy thus pay for the ‘free’ fourth.	Things are not free if you have to buy something else to get them. 😢
35% Off	It is possible to add 35% to the original price before the sale.	You can then with a flourish take off 35% in big letters.	Often the befuddled buy the “bargain” and lift sales and profit. A big trick. Consider this! 😨
just 950 dollars	“Just” can be a false diminutive.	It shrewdly implies you are getting a bargain. It can deceive you.	So go ahead and buy that match-box for just $19.50. Trust the fake mood? 😻

it’s new.	So what? Newness is vague value. Not necessarily good.	A new virus can make all the current medicines useless.	It’s time you knew ‘new’ can be a fake virtue. 😼
50% less fat	Meaningless batter.	Less than what? A pig’s foot? A ton of dripping?	“More” and “less” mean nothing unless all things compared are shown. 🤔
some people say…	Who the ‘some people’ are is never revealed in case you check up.	Are the SP mad? Are they criminals? Are they paid? No information given.	You are mad to see unchallenged truth in such shadowy statements. 😈
recent research shows	Once, recent research showed that man could never fly. Details are direly needed..	Researcher named? Size of sample given? Methods shown? We need to check it all!	Non-reliable non- valid research will eventually crumble like fake prophecies. 😵
ad hominem	Your position weak? Put a bomb in ‘em.	If your opponent is smart, attack his intelligence.	If your opponent is clever scientifically, attack science. 👹
being political	This “crime” has recently been the accusation used by one politician against another.	“In using that argument, the honourable member is simply being political,” said the Minister.	Pray what else should a politician be if not political? Are we not in fact suggesting here that all politicians are bad people? ☠️
strong, firm leadership	Status quo rules. Police state in disguise?	Harsh penalties for dissidents. Laud our way of life; ignore its sins.	Enemies are said to be everywhere. Border protection is stressed. Weapons needed. Jobs and shares rise. Yea! 👿
taxpayer’s dollars	Unlimited funds to support banks, weapons and war.	Not so relevant re. education, hospitals and the aged. Save money for the truly important things and privatise!	Open University Pty Ltd. 😎

big government	Corporate no no.	Viva Efficient Market hypothesis! Market triumphalism: core creed as we cash in on the Commons.	Auction off all that the people own. Make CEOs symbols of righteousness. Fund banks👺
expert advice	Henry Ford’s lawyer said, in 1903, that the car was only a fad.	Lord Kelvin of the Royal Society said in 1883 that X-rays were a hoax.	So the unsinkable Titanic sank. 🙃
the 99 cent gimmick	It seems a dollar cheaper. $4.99 is really $5.00 but the brain sees $4.00.	A deliberate trick to mislead. Yes deliberate. Count the examples.	‘Tis a subconscious swivel to twist reality in favour of the seller. 🙄
buy for $225 and save	You can reduce the cost but do you really save when you spend?	Etymology: Latin salvare ‘to make safe.’ Safe by spending? Maybe.	My daughter said long ago: “I was good today Daddy. Did you see all the things I didn’t do?” 😇
got highest awards	What were they? Were they valid? Is the brand story a convenient fantasy?	Self praise is an overt, lucrative form of fake flattery.	The going price for a knighthood from James I in the 1600s: £38. ♛
nothing but the best	The word *best* is often a fictitious superlative – a risky thing.	Accurate proof is rare. Glib tongues reap undeserved best rewards often.	Thus it may follow that the best possible outcome may be but the least worst option! 😼

THANK YOU FOR SPENDING YOUR TIME WITH ME. R.

🙏

Post Script

514887926

Things are not as bad as they used to be, as this Public Domain archival image shows.

It’s Not Cricket.

Posted on October 30, 2017October 30, 2017 by royce1232

“It’s not cricket.” Did you know that the first recorded use of that expression in England was early in the seventeenth century when folk were accused of playing cricket on a Sunday. That was one way out of a Laurel and Hardy “revolting development.” An excuse was needed to avoid God’s wrath.

Regarding the rules of ethics though, is cricket today the moral pastime it was once claimed to be? No comment from me. You decide.

I do have a comment here however. About something else.

This little speech of mine is a consequence of 50 years of teaching: 29 teaching children or youths K to 12, and 21 teaching teachers. Yes, it is definitely not about cricket. A topic for between seasons perhaps. Anyway here it is. You decide.

I am a graduate of Fort Street, a selective high school in Sydney Australia. I remember Fortians with affection. Yet my memories of my students who struggled to learn with me in underprivileged Western Sydney also give me much comfort in my old age. Learning can be such a victory for some of us! I have noticed that the joy of sudden understanding lasts even longer sometimes than the school itself.

A Parting Plea

Education is not a black and white simplicity. It is technicolour!

An infinite range of variables can influence the learning success of a child. We can mention postcode, home conditions, parent ambition, gender, health, height, hearing capacity, eyesight, teacher-child-relationships, relevance of subject-matter, difficulty of subject matter, teacher mastery of subject-matter, intelligence (whatever that is), attendance at school, change of school, constancy of failure and constancy of success as some of the potential controlling variables. I do not claim this list is complete.

Therefore, how do we measure teaching competence?

Don’t you dare tell me we can measure teachers via pupil performance in objective or one-off single day written tests! Don’t you dare tell me you can measure the competence of a teacher of literacy in the same way!

You have to get into that teacher’s classroom. That is where the essential action takes place. That is what needs to be observed. That is the cauldron where learning has to happen. The judge has to be there; has to taste the climate that children face every day; has to smell the smells; has to see what windows don’t open in hot weather.

In my school teaching days I was inspected by experienced, observant mentors twelve times. Twelve times they passed judgement on me according to what they saw in my classrooms. Once, two Year Eleven boys tried to help me. They said loudly for the inspector’s benefit as they left the classroom,”Gee that was a good lesson!” The inspector smiled and winked at me, but those two young men knew that a glossy CV was not enough for me to get promoted in that system. They knew that I was on display there where you cannot hide incompetence. The inspectorial system was replaced some years ago by a Harvard business model in my part of the world – alas!

More cricket next time, if the weather is fine.

Memories Of A Second Class Cricketer

Posted on October 26, 2017 by royce1232

A Good Innings

III

“Look after that shine please!”

John Blomley, Brilliant Swing Bowler

Attribution: Wiki Commons

I have explained earlier, in my personal cricket narrative, that in 1958 I gave up my sporting ambition and returned to teaching. My appointment at a one-teacher school in the outer reaches of the Hunter Valley, with week-day accommodation only, meant that I spent my weekends closer to the city of Newcastle. So how could I not play cricket again?

The 1960 green field I had the good fortune to return to was situated at Stockton, on the north side of the Hunter River. It was a joyous return to the welcoming friendships and support I found there in that club that was a vibrant part of the Newcastle competition. I hope my surviving team mates and all families will forgive me if I focus just on one team-mate. After all these years I realise more strongly that ever what a brilliant human being he was.

My motive therefore is to make this little piece of mine an obituary in effect to a special friend, John Blomley. Off the cricket field when I knew him, John was a doctor serving the Stockton community in particular. On the playing field he was a star. That star shone not only on the cricket field. As a medical student he had been a fine Rugby Union centre-three quarter with Sydney University, New South Wales and Australia.

Here is a little more on the football side of things:

Born 7 March 1927 at Tumbarumba in New South Wales, Blomley attended St Joseph’s College, Sydney where he came under the watchful eye of the famous rugby coach, Brother Henry. Here, the young Blomley learned the rudiments of the game. Brother Henry insisted on a solid foundation for the young footballer. “There is no room in a college fifteen for a boy whose hands are not safe,” he counselled. “All the footballers at the college must learn the rudiments of the game.”

So Brother Henry turned out Jack Blomley as a polished inside back. After leaving St Joseph’s College in 1944, Blomley entered Sydney University to study medicine and naturally played for Sydney University in the metropolitan competition.

… Although he declared himself unavailable for the Australian Universities tour of New Zealand early in the year, Blomley looked forward to the 1949 representative season with the Maori side touring Australia for a Test series to be followed by a Wallaby tour of New Zealand. Blomley won selection in the New South Wales team that met the Maoris in the third match of their tour. The visitors produced a strong forward display to win 19-14, but Blomley did enough to be selected to play for Australia in the first Test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

(Source: Loc.cit. the link below)

Here is an image of John at the height of his Football power. He was known as Jack in his Rugby days.

Attribution: Loc. cit. the link below

You can read more on the Rugby career of John here at this Rugby site.

Returning to matters of cricket, I can say with some confidence that wicket keepers tend to judge bowlers’ ability accurately. The bowler has a huge hand in the making of the ‘keeper’s status. Part of my destiny was to keep wickets to the bowling of John Blomley.

Now although I was a mere second class cricketer, I have been lucky enough to keep wickets to a number of Australia’s Test bowlers including Johnny Martin, Pat Crawford, Grahame Corling, John Watkins and (as a Golden Oldie) Robert Holland. I have batted against Gordon Rorke, David Sincock and Peter Philpott, all Test bowlers. You can add to that perspective keeping wickets for countless other bowlers from inter-varsity and the Grades of Sydney and Newcastle, as well as the brilliant Merv Black at Arundel for the Australian Old Collegians. Nowhere in that conglomeration of experience can a find another John Blomley.

I am not saying he was the best in my experience. But he was up there, unrecognised largely, with the stars. He was unforgettable with his wit and boundless energy. How sad for him to die aged 43.

John loved every moment of his cricket. His enthusiasm was catching. He polished that ball, especially at Stockton’s oval, like the finest medieval craftsman at work. If you bounced that ball with a throw, you were doomed to hear a torrent of abuse.

He rode the mystic winds of Stockton Bight with that ball like Pegasus. Perfect control with windy support. Three outswingers and then a sudden inswinger at LBW time. A sudden slow ball for a caught and bowled. A faster one, the wicket broken and a bail harmlessly hitting my jaw.

John was a busy doctor too. More than once play was interrupted by the urgent needs of a patient.

He was patient with me too, amidst all of his quest to overthrow batsmen. Cheerful with mistakes and generous with success. I still replay a missed stumping that would have given him a hat trick. It was a legside inswinger that left the batsman and me stranded and resulted in four byes. I have replayed that moment so many times that I am sure I could catch it now, old as I am.

It is such a long time now since I marvelled at John Blomley. We all fade away eventually don’t we? All that is left of our dreams is a memory in the minds of others. But somehow that is a very important place to be.

Tea Break From The Cricket

Posted on October 17, 2017 by royce1232

Poems Through A Glass Starkly

A Word On The Yellow Press

That picture above of the Yellow Kid is linked to the reason we have the current term “Yellow Press.” The cartoon character was the creation of Richard Fenton Outcault who was working in the 1890s in the United States for the extremely racist media mogul Joseph Pulitzer and his New York World. Outcault with his narrative cartoon style is generally regarded as the beginner of newspaper comics.

The Kid was an overtly shallow and uneducated character and spoke in a kind of uneducated and “immigrant” language. One key aim: denigration. Pulitzer would have been pleased with the colour yellow as he had an intense hatred of Chinese, especially the mid-nineteenth century gold seekers. The head of the Kid was shaved, a common sight in that age of head lice, and he wore a nightshirt that was an inheritance from a sister and on which were written strange, attention getting statements that many thousands of readers took delight in.

Now the story of the Yellow Kid or, to give him his appointed name Mickey Dugan, has a quite startling relevance to our contemporary lives. His adventures were set in a New York Slum – Hogan’s Alley – in a time of widespread poverty and vast social and racial tension. These exploits captured the interest of a multitude. Newspapers largely without real news suddenly were beginning to make a profit – a big profit. Two pennies bought Mickey; to Hell with thinking about worldly matters!

The Yellow Kid was very significantly a distraction from vital news. He sold newspapers and helped change Pulitzer’s insignificant rag into a goldmine of 300,000 circulation. Arm in arm with rape and murder and scandal and war the Kid helped set a news-media pattern that still exists all around us today. The task for Pulitzer and Hearst was not to educate with true, important information but rather to present news selectively and fill the gaps with non sequiturs. That meant attract attention in your market in any way you can.

So today, when chosen samples of worthless and sensational trivialities seize our time and create a vast ignorance of reality, the name”Yellow Press” is relevant. Mickey Dugan and his world live on.

Randolf Hearst saw the yellow light and stole Outcault from Pulitzer with a higher salary. The Yellow Kid remained the property of Pulitzer (verified by court decision) but another colour achieved similar objectives. But the diversion from reality continued. Other distractions like Buster Brown flourished.

Here is Buster.

Attribution: Publisher: New York Herald. Date: May 4, 1902. Artist: Richard F. Outcault.

In contrast to the Yellow Kid, Buster Brown was good looking. Buster Keaton at the time was a child actor so the name was popular. The character was drawn first for Pulitzer but when Outcault transferred to Hearst the character went too as another circulation booster for Pulitzer’s former protege and then his rival. Buster appeared for both magnates but a court decision forbade the use of the name by Hearst. Hearst created many more circulation boosting comic figures. Let us not be too hard on the comics as a distraction. They often entertain after all. It’s non stop murder, rape, scandal and violence including war subject matter that need a line to be drawn. The saddest line of all is always a Siegfried line. What have the media done recently to stop wars?

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An Examination of Testing

It’s testing time in the madhouse

As the beasties seek to see

If the alphas, gammas or deltas

Deserve a right to be

But the testers have delusions

That illusions must be inclusions

So that all they ever find at best

Is who can do their test

No data on morality in this ordeal hiatus

Just an empty number that proclaims your evil status

Sweet alpha we cannot kiss today for I’m an epsilon

I failed their test and can you guess I am now fit to be spat upon?

So all we humble guinea pigs must make a contribution

While flaws and lies imposed on us have a normal distribution

Someone should write a poem now to expose this dark stupidity

Reliable yes to sort the sheep but what about the validity?

Attribution. Cartoon Source: http://www.thelandscapeoflearning.com/2012/09/please-climb-that-tree.html Date of Visit: 16 October, 2017

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