Here we go again!

Another weekend and somehow they don't seem so anticipated when the weather is like this and the forecast is like it is. A quick search back on this blog shows that a year ago, temperatures soared to 30+ degrees and every weekend was spent cruising out. This year, summer just does NOT want to arrive. Tonight, I arrived home from work at around 7.30pm and dodged the rain to walk Simba whilst having to wear a fleece and my boots and breathing clouds of vapour from my mouth! Every evening, the central heating has had to go on and my flowers were a complete waste of time and money this year.

This weekend is another busy one with many jobs planned including piles of marking for school along with a list of 23 jobs on Khayamanzi to be done to begin preparing for my trip away in 2 weeks time, (actually 11 school days only!) There's cleaning and tidying and polishing and repairing and preparing to be done and an EXTREMELY over excited bunch of 11 yr olds to be contained somehow.

It's a worrying trend just how 'precious' our children are becoming. On the one hand, it seems to be easier in society for us to have children and then dump all responsibility of parenting them onto the state and on the other hand, more and more parents seriously believe that their child is perfect - they're always the ones that start a sentence with the words, ...."I know many parents believe their child is perfect Mr. Edwards and we're not one of those, but....." there follows a 30 minute harangue of how their child is perfect including, as was quoted at me recently, the words, "I'm sorry, but my child does not lie!" Find me the 11 yr old in the world that doesn't!!

We are just now beginning to reap the results of a previous generation brought up to learn that if you scream, shout and generally spit the dummy out the pram - you get your own way eventually. Some parents are teaching their children this powerful, but not helpful, lesson and as an educator, it grieves that I am powerless to counter this lesson as I am bound by so-called 'professionalism' which basically means don't do anything that might possibly upset a child or their parents. Now I wonder, what would the country be like if politicians and the police force had the same philosophy?

Sorry if all this sounds whinging - it is! I am emerging from a few weeks where we have been inspected by dozens of people who can't teach but leave me wondering who ever inspects to protect the rights of the teaching professionals, where I have spent disproportionate time to a single situation where a parent wants a public execution of other children for crimes their own child has committed and where staff are at home nursing injuries inflicted by a kicking and flailing 7 year old - oh! and we can't touch him in case we get sued, we just have to stand there taking the punches and attempt to talk and reason with him whilst the inspectors watch and tell us we're doing it wrong and then sit back and wait for the hours of paperwork and unsuccessful attempts at justifying when the parents complain that their child is being victimised by the school!

Would I recommend teaching asa career to others - you decide!!