Strike Action

I'm not striking myself on Thursday but I fully support all those who are.

This is the first time in my life I can make such a statement as I am fundamentally opposed to strike action in the public sector. 

My opposition of strike action started when I was a small child.  My Grandmother had been a nurse in her professional life, she was also a Welsh Conservative from a mining community and had strong views on strike action and the personal and professional compromise she had to equate.  Being in a vocational profession, which many in the public sector are, she recognised the impact on her patients that she had faced during times of industrial action and could not justify in any terms patients who lost dignity due to lack of nursing care.  This had a huge impact on me and I was fully signed up to the notion that private sector industrial action was wrong from an early age.

My own parents followed labour when I was younger but could rarely explain to me the whys and wherefores of politics and I became frustrated by the negative undertone and lack of personal and financial accountability I saw in the party and policies.

In the late 1990's I worked for a short time for a company in the private sector where I saw industrial action costing hundreds of thousands, even millions of pounds.  At this time I saw shop stewards who at times seemed ill informed and ill-educated militantly leading people into strike action which cost money and cost jobs.  My mind was made up, there must be a better way?

2011 here and now and the biggest teachers union and other public sector workers are about to go on strike.  I'm not striking myself, I don't belong to those groups but I do have a huge amount of sympathy for the majority of those who will be out on strike and these are the reasons why.

• Many public sector workers are equally or better qualified than many of their contempories in the private sector yet are paid less in salaries during their working years and receive typically less in reciprocal benefits such as private health insurance, car schemes etc
• The changes are too widespread, too big and too quick to be implemented
• The summer strike will not majorly affect the education of children preparing for life changing examinations or transitional moves
• There has been little or no compromise from the government alongside a host of other educational changes that are ill thought out, rushed and having an impact across the board such as the removing the BSF capital investment programme, academy policy, teacher training changes and changes to the inspection framework
• Attacking public sector pensions on the basis that they are better than the private sector does not mean that pension provision across the board becomes acceptable but rather the public and government are making a statement that dignity, care and well being in old age is not important.  This is also shown in the shambolic care and state benefits system for older people in society that the government is yet to address. 
• The government know this for them is a battle for the taxpayers support and not about the moral high ground or the financial deficit.  The PR/spam machine is in full swing!
• The young in the profession will soon be saddled with huge tuition fee loans, with the cost of pensions set to rise by so much and diminished benefits, how many NQT's will be able to make increased pension contributions or see it as important.  In the long tern this leaves the tax payer with a much higher bill as it will need to provide state care and provision.
• I am a parent and value how hard teachers work with my own child, pension contributions rising by up to 50%, the retirement age jumping, (let's face it how many private sector workers will be faced with 30 4 yr olds in a reception class unable to read and write or 30 15 yr old teenagers who can't be bothered to learn when they themselves are 68?)  Is this what is best for our children whether or not demographics tell us we are living longer? 

I urge everyone to think long and hard about strike action, what it means for our public services, what it means for our children and what it means that it is necessary in the first place and as for the Conservative party elements of the government, you are losing people who have supported you all their voting lives, get back to the sounding board and make some better decisions.

School - remind me of the pros?

While my eldest has been off school this week we've seen her old character come back, the happy relaxed little girl she was before she started to attend school.  When she has been up to it we have read books, done Christmas crafts, played, baked, made music and started to learn how to tell the time and more about weather.  It's been so enjoyable being at home together and  I've started to wonder about school and really what the benefits of it are for her.

We sent her to school following the status quo really, we didn't challenge or question it particularly and there are practicalities too, we need my part-time income and we have a child much younger to think about too.  Is it possible to mix all these things without school?  In some respects I feel that we and many other families to some degree use school for free childcare.

Since starting school we have had two sickness and diarrhoea bugs which have gone through the whole family, several colds and a dose of chicken pox, we have learnt the words hate and stupid in context, she's had her hair pulled and been slapped, she's been grouped according to ability and cried at being separated from the only child she knew in the class before she started, she's sometimes anxious and often grumpy and overtired from the school day she's become indoctrinated with the idea she must do homework and read her book EVERY night without exception, she panics if for any reason we haven't had opportunity to do it in case she is in trouble at school and yes she is still only 4 years and 4 months old and has been at school just 4 months.

It is true to say that since she started school her reading and writing skills have improved, but I do wonder whether they would have anyway with the daily discipline of sitting with her every day with a book and also practising letter sounds.  Given that in school an adult listens to her read once a week and at home we are reading with her every day how much of her improved ability is actually school related?  I also understand that historically state education for the masses was a huge improvement for children, unlike today many families were not literate and many children would have been forced to work down mines, in factories and in agriculture but is state education still the answer for all our children today and if it is how can it be improved so that children are treated more respectfully and individually rather than great herds of cattle.

It is often argued that children need to go to school for socialisation but I do wonder about that argument for a child who takes part in weekly swimming and music lessons, has a network of friends and family completely separate to school, belongs to a church community and who when out makes friends easily and confidently with other children who may be about.  At school she is with children all born within 12 months of her, all wearing the same clothes, all doing the same things and when working in the small groups all of about the same ability, how boring and how unlifelike!

I am not being critical about my daughters school in general, we chose it because we believed it to be a 'good' school, parents like to believe that don't they?  It has a good reputation in the local area, the children generally seem happy and balanced, they have won lots of awards, they give the children opportunities to be involved in many different activities outside the normal curriculum and they have good facilities, we also appreciated the Christian ethos that being a church school brings but is it enough to ignore all the negatives that come with mass schooling, how long will it be before her peers are teaching her overtly sexual language and behaviour or she comes home practising swear words which no doubt will all be shared with her little sister.  It's not that I don't want her to grow up, of course I do but I want her to grow up to be a happy and fulfilled adult, a person who has developed in her own way and learnt to know herself before she is forced to accept the rather harsh realities that the world can throw at us sometimes.  I want her to be a child who is not frightened into general submission or encouraged to rebel by peers but one who is secure who can push her own boundaries and limits to achieve her potential without being driven by others.

I'm not entirely sure where that leaves us, we have discussed the possibility of flexi-schooling as an option while she is still very young but not in great depth, I'd love to hear suggestions of why school can be great too to convince me that school really can be a good place for our youngsters and not just a cattle market.


NOTE
Despite writing this blog post I am aware that for some children and some family situations school IS the best place for the child, this is particularly related to the circumstances we are working with at the present time.

Further info:
http://www.education-otherwise.org/