Now I know the object of writing a blog is communication and the last thing I should do is grumble if my ramblings have inspired others. BUT, I am suffering blog envy. Someone very close to me has proved to be a more fluent and prolific blogger than I am. BTW (techno shorthand for 'by the way') I thoroughly endorse and recommend this person's blog which you will find at:
http://murphydoneablog.blogspot.com/
It has made me LOL (look that one up yourself) on more than one occasion, but I am just a tad envious.
Maybe I am not the e-democrat that a dweller in the 'global village' (is that still the concept or is there something more 21C I should be saying?) is expected to be but while I was as chuffed as anything that my blog got a few comments I wasn't really expecting one of my circle to burst forth with a blog of their own that is vastly more entertaining.
This is where I find out that I am perhaps inherently competitive because I want to be LOL funny too! Or that blogging perhaps isn't my forte as I don't put stubby fingers to the keyboard half as often as I think I ought to. I haven't been REALLY inspired to write anything for a couple of weeks, that's despite seeing the Tim Burton Sweeney Todd and series 2 of Life on Mars starting up on television. I guess it is all about finding my e-voice.
I've finished the volume of Proust I started in January so I can take that pretentious bit out of my profile. Now I'm reading the pro sloth, hedonistic musings of Tom Hodgkinson - a writer and broadcaster to whom you could probably append the (again very 1990s) label of 'new lad' (he has a home pub). A friend gave me his book 'How To Be Free' for Xmas. It meanders along making some nice observations about self sufficiency such as growing your own vegies and false idols like having career ambitions and I would probably be enjoying it if it didn't (a) make me feel so old (Tom Hodgkinson was born in 1968 the year I came to Australia) and 2. make me feel so much a part of the reviled bureaucracy. He considers most things done under the banner of 'occupational health and safety' or 'equal employment opportunity' to be mean spirited erosions of individuality and freedom and talks about 'meritocracy' with complete disdain... Unfortunately these are the very areas I always gravitate to when I get public service employment so, if I accept any of his thesis, my career, I mean job, would seem to be kind of perverse S&M game. I am only 75 pages into his 339 page tract so I guess there is plenty of time for real guilt or rebellion to take hold!
Monday, February 25, 2008
Friday, February 8, 2008
Er, Hello, Ms Chipps
The music teacher from my daughter's school was recently featured on a television program about 'inspiring' teachers. Just as any discussion about what motivates adults to achieve or to behave in a certain way must acknowledge that one person's carrot may well be another's broccoli, I think we need to admit that while some kids may find bluff paternalism reassuring others might consider it bullying!
My daughter, for example, did not find the remark 'Of course you want to join the choir, here, I'll carry your bag for you' uttered whilst simultaneously comandeering her backpack and taking it to a place of choral practice so much inspiring as like being press-ganged! She felt her protest that she did NOT in fact want to join the school choir were somehow not being taken seriously.
In relating this incident to me my daughter told me she submitted to the practice session and was still making up her mind whether to attend more. If she does she will make it clear to Ms Chipps that she was recruited under duress! That they can possess her lungs and vocal chords for an hour a week but they cannot have her spirit!
As a proud parent (and one who has heard the school choir perform on various occasions), I can not help but believe that Ms Chipps was desperate to recruit a trained (and rather lovely) voice to their ranks. If my daughter's imitation of the breathy, mumbling technique employed by her peers was accurate there is no doubt that her inclusion will be an asset!
But how much better if Ms Chipps had enquired into my daughter's reason for not wanting to join - an 8 am start the day after her evening practice with her other, extra curricular, serious choir! (And, dare I hope it? perhaps a burgeonng sense that homework needs to be squeezed in somewhere). And how much better if she'd leveled with my girl and said 'Actually we need voices like yours!'
I think she'll stay. They're moving school choir practice to a lunch time and I think she's chuffed that her voice is clearly improving their overall sound. Ms Chipps could have put her recruitment on a rather more inspirational footing if she'd framed it as talent spotting rather than coercing.
My daughter, for example, did not find the remark 'Of course you want to join the choir, here, I'll carry your bag for you' uttered whilst simultaneously comandeering her backpack and taking it to a place of choral practice so much inspiring as like being press-ganged! She felt her protest that she did NOT in fact want to join the school choir were somehow not being taken seriously.
In relating this incident to me my daughter told me she submitted to the practice session and was still making up her mind whether to attend more. If she does she will make it clear to Ms Chipps that she was recruited under duress! That they can possess her lungs and vocal chords for an hour a week but they cannot have her spirit!
As a proud parent (and one who has heard the school choir perform on various occasions), I can not help but believe that Ms Chipps was desperate to recruit a trained (and rather lovely) voice to their ranks. If my daughter's imitation of the breathy, mumbling technique employed by her peers was accurate there is no doubt that her inclusion will be an asset!
But how much better if Ms Chipps had enquired into my daughter's reason for not wanting to join - an 8 am start the day after her evening practice with her other, extra curricular, serious choir! (And, dare I hope it? perhaps a burgeonng sense that homework needs to be squeezed in somewhere). And how much better if she'd leveled with my girl and said 'Actually we need voices like yours!'
I think she'll stay. They're moving school choir practice to a lunch time and I think she's chuffed that her voice is clearly improving their overall sound. Ms Chipps could have put her recruitment on a rather more inspirational footing if she'd framed it as talent spotting rather than coercing.
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