(which rhymes quite nicely, don't you think?)
Ok, so continuing on yesterday's subject of how we define ourselves, (and in some cases defend our definition of ourselves), I thought I would start/continue the ball rolling.
So who am I? What do I do?
Well I've covered the 'I-stay-at-home-with-my-children-but-please-don't-patronise-my-heroism-at-looking-after-my-own-kids' bit and the 'I-home-educate-but-really-dont-want-to-discuss-it-RIGHT-now-thank-you-very-much' bit.
Is that all I am? Is that all I do?
Well I work as well. Yes work. By that I mean not real work, but PAID employment. I have a job: I keep a seat warm at a desk in a library and I smile pathetically when people ask me questions that I - almost always - can't answer. The questions I CAN answer are:
'Where is the photocopier' (yep after 3 years I've worked that one out!) and
'Where are the toilets?' (the first part of the answer to the latter question is 'Not here', the second part is more tricky as it involves directions and emphasis on the 'down the INTERNAL stairs' which nobody asking the question listens to and inevitably gets lost but is too embarrassed to ask again 'where are the toilets?' and probably sneaks off to have a wee by the beautiful trees outside the library or, alternatively, they wet themselves.
And in between keeping the seat warm and giving not very helpful directions to the toilet I watch dust gathering on books. And library dust has a particular smell (particularly academic libraries), which you really couldn't replicate in a laboratory. But now I'm getting offtopic...
Anyway, while keeping the seat warm (and answering, or not, customer's questions) I have another very special job: at half-past eight in the evening - or sometimes 8.45pm if I'm looking at a particularly good web site or trying to finish a blog post or, as I was last night, researching the very interesting subject of temporary marriage in Iran (more about this later) - I go and count the people in the library. Which is A VERY IMPORTANT JOB [said in my best Winnie the Pooh voice]. Not only does it involve the skill of counting and finding a pencil sharp enough to tally the figures, but it also involves the challeng of finding the shortest route around the library. I've been working on this challenge for - ooh - around 3 years now and think I am close to cracking it. There are many many staircases in the library where I work, and 3 floors. So, there must be millions of combinations of ways I could complete the task. I have the secret method whereby I can cover all desks, bookcases, computer rooms etc in the shortest distance. If I had a pedometer I could prove it too!
Yes it's a sad life the librarian lives.
Anyway, back to the issue of temporary marriage in Iran. It really is a very interesting and contraversial subject. Google it if you want to know more.
And if you wish to answer the question 'What do you do?' feel free to comment (as long as it's not in Chinese with links to websites where the girls really could do with a sweater or two)
Showing posts with label employment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label employment. Show all posts
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Sunday, 21 February 2010
I don't like to be smug but...
...'Schools are churning out the unemployable'
according to The Sunday Times, February 21, 2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7034975.ece
[Apologies to all those who send their children to school, but I AM going to have a smug Home Educator moment. I deserve it. I earned it. Just bear with me while I make rude signs to Mr Badman et al. and his cronies while quoting from the article...]
"...Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco, put it bluntly. Too many children have been leaving school after 11 or 13 years of compulsory education “without the basic skills to get on in life and hold down a job”. He said 5m adults were functionally illiterate and 17m could not add up properly. “On-the-job training” cannot act as a “bandage or sticking plaster” for “the failure of our education system”.
A CBI survey revealed that literacy and numeracy were not the only problems.
More than 50% of employers complained that young people were inarticulate, unable to communicate concisely, interpret written instructions or perform simple mental calculations...
...The DWP has made it clear: work is where the inflated claims for our state education finally hit the buffers. At every stage we have a system in which the expediency of politicians and the ideology of the educational establishment take precedence over the interests of pupils.
We have children who can barely read and write scoring high marks in their Sats because it makes the school, and therefore politicians, look good. We have exam boards competing to offer the lowest pass mark because it allows heads to fulfil their GCSE targets. We have pupils pushed into easy subjects at A-level — which excludes them from applying to a top university — because it benefits the school. And we have universities that offer a 2:1 degree, as the IT company director put it, to “anyone who bothers to sit down and take the exam”. "
according to The Sunday Times, February 21, 2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7034975.ece
[Apologies to all those who send their children to school, but I AM going to have a smug Home Educator moment. I deserve it. I earned it. Just bear with me while I make rude signs to Mr Badman et al. and his cronies while quoting from the article...]
"...Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco, put it bluntly. Too many children have been leaving school after 11 or 13 years of compulsory education “without the basic skills to get on in life and hold down a job”. He said 5m adults were functionally illiterate and 17m could not add up properly. “On-the-job training” cannot act as a “bandage or sticking plaster” for “the failure of our education system”.
A CBI survey revealed that literacy and numeracy were not the only problems.
More than 50% of employers complained that young people were inarticulate, unable to communicate concisely, interpret written instructions or perform simple mental calculations...
...The DWP has made it clear: work is where the inflated claims for our state education finally hit the buffers. At every stage we have a system in which the expediency of politicians and the ideology of the educational establishment take precedence over the interests of pupils.
We have children who can barely read and write scoring high marks in their Sats because it makes the school, and therefore politicians, look good. We have exam boards competing to offer the lowest pass mark because it allows heads to fulfil their GCSE targets. We have pupils pushed into easy subjects at A-level — which excludes them from applying to a top university — because it benefits the school. And we have universities that offer a 2:1 degree, as the IT company director put it, to “anyone who bothers to sit down and take the exam”. "
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