Jean Walker

I agree about just sharing what you love. I found the one I was looking for - it just appeals to me as a modern love poem

Definition of Loving

Thank you for love, no matter what its outcome,

that leads us to the window in the dark,

that adds another otherness to others,

that holds out stars as if they were first diamonds

found in a mine that had been long closed down,

that hands out suns and makes us ask each morning:

What else do we need, picnickers in time?

Thank you for love that does not hang on answers,

that says, " Enough's enough, to love is plenty...."

- by such signs do we know the world exists,

amo ergo sum, thank you for that.

The miles, the years, the lives that lie beween,

- they always lay there, and they always will,

but look, the loved one spans that dizzy distance

by the act of being, and we lovers turn

our faces steadily thou-wards as a field

of sunflowers like a tracking station turns,

charting its meaning by the westering sun.

Bruce Dawes (another fine Australian poet)_

http://www.lesmurray.org/index.htm

More of his poems here.

This is one of Les Murray's short poems. He's considered our best modern poet and is widely taught in Autralian schools. Haven't found the love poem I was looking for, but will keep trying.

The Meaning of Existence

Everything except language

knows the meaning of existence.

Trees, planets, rivers, time

know nothing else. They express it

moment by moment as the universe.

Even this fool of a body

lives it in part, and would

have full dignity within it

but for the ignorant freedom

of my talking mind.

from

Poems the Size

If it's OK with him I will.

I have a special interest in this topic as I have a grandson, now 14, diagnosed quite young with ADHD. His sister is perfectly normal, they had the same sort of upbringing, but he had severe infantile asthma and stopped breathing briefly when he was 18 months. He has "classic" ADHD - impulsivity, unawareness of consequences, insomnia etc etc. He set fire to things, vandalised school, got in with a gang - it was all quite awful. He has come close to breaking up his parents marriage, but they have thankfully survived. He was put on Ritalin but it made him Zombie like and his mother took him off it. His schools have done their best, but he was beginning to get into serious trouble. This is going to sound odd, but as a last resort, a close friend with a family of her own, offered to "take him in" and see what she could do. It's had a wonderful effect - he phoned me last week to thank me for his birthday present, the first time he has done of his own volition ever.

Now, you could say he was being badly brought up, but I think what happened was that his parents' responses to him had set them into a pattern they couldn't break by themselves. Someone new without their emotional baggage seems to have done it for him. So, I guess I agree with whoever said that one to one is the answer, but it's too expensive for schools.

John

I wouldlove to include your article above in our union journal, acknowledged of course. Could you send it to me as a word document if that;s OK with you?

I also meant to add that the week before in Melbourne, I went to hear Germaine Greer deliver a visiting lecture on Women in Shakespeare - she was as great and feisty as ever and looking much better in real life, at 65, than she does on TV.

I also find that young women think there is nothing more to achieve. They are often amazed when I tell them that I started work on unequal pay, had to resign each time I had a child, had no superannuation for years, as a long-term temporary had no holiday pay and now as a result have a very limited pension payout. They think all their benefits have always been around.

Some interesting stastics from the Conference:

Women in Australia earn on average 64% of male average salaries. 44% are part time and 70% of those are casualised (bigger than OECD average of 26%) Less than one third of families are the traditional male breadwinner variety.

US and Aust are only countries in developed world that don't have paid maternity leave. In the state of Victoria's education dept, 73% are women while 8% are Heads.

In 1996 67% of Australian women didn't work, in 2004 it's 45%. 62% of couples now have 2 wage earners. Less than 3% of men stay home to rear children full time.

In 1997 women did twice the work of men in the home, now very little different.

message to young women - you can do anything as long as you're prepared to do most of the housework as well.

Now 28% of Aust women won't have children.

I've just returned from a 3day biennial conference in Melbourne of the Women Educators of Australia and it was wonderful - marvellous speakers, some of our leading women thinkers/writers/educators. The theme was really around what we've achieved in the last few decades, but is it regresssing under the new right-wing, neo-Liberals/Conservatives? The fight to gain equality for girls in school has resulted in a backlash about boys' education, and is it really justified?

Here in Oz our leaders would like to push us all back into a 1950s scenario of the little woman at home caring for her hard working bread winner!

Any thoughts?

I love teaching poetry and for 2 years taught in an all girls' high school where THEY all loved poetry. We have lots of very good modern Australian poets who probably don't get much exposure in the UK - Judith Wright, Gwen Harwood, Kenneth Slessor, Les Murray (who wrote on of the best modern love poems I've read and I'll try to get it and put it on here for you) to name a few.

The Lady of Shallot had most influence on me because we had to learn the whole lot by heart and I can still recite it - a wonderful party trick for new classes!!

The film of Clockwork Orange shocked me to the core when I saw it in my teens, but the effect had modified when I saw it again more recently - I do think we become immune more easily these days.

The one continuous panning shot of the Hermitage museum in The Russian Ark was stunning and The Pianist moved me to tears recently.

I love all Mike Leigh's films and am looking forward to seeing his latest, which won best actress at Venice for Imelda Staunton's role as 50s backyard abortionist - can't remember the title.

Also recently saw a new director's cut of The Leopard which has not aged one bit and was tremendous.

I have to admit I read a lot of well written but comparatively light stuff nowadays because I just want escapism in the evenings after heavy days at work, but P D James' novel "The Children of Men" which is a complete diversion from her usual wonderful mystery novels is well worth a read - about a world where fertility stops and no more children are being born - very though provoing.

I also am addicted to biographies of people in the 20s and 30s - at the moment reading Cecil Beaton's Diaries which are a hoot and am about to start on a new biography of the Duchess of Windsor, Don't know why this period fascinates me but it does - The Mitford Sisters, The Viceroys' Daughters (Curzon family), love em all!

But I have to agree that the books I read at 14/15/16 had most impact on me, so i think it's very important that we guide adolescents" reading where we can.

Thanks, David. That's really useful. I've sent you a personal email question about behaviour management in Sweden, but you might like to put your answer on this site as well.

I am not a "Conservative" or a Tory, (not really possible in Australia) but you will never convince me that it is a good thing to be supportive or encouraging of teenage girls having numerous children from unknown and uncaring fathers in order to provide them with an income and a purpose in life, or young men believing it is morally acceptable to father, then leave, numerouis offspring who they will never see, let alone care about. If that is nostalgic and looking back to the past, then so be it - I see as a teacher what that sort of "family" does to children, especially boys, and their development as adults.

Graham

My partner is a journalist and an obsessive film buff and his very, very favourite movie is Mr Hulot's Holiday. So far, in our 10 year relationship, I have been "subjected" to it at least five times!! I thought there could be no one else on the planet who would mention it as a favourite!! (Actually, to be serious, it IS very amusing.)

Last year I showed the newer version of 1984 to my top level all-girls Gr 10 English class and they were stunned by it. There was utter silence throughout and heated debate afterwards. I am hopeful it will remain with them all their lives. I also showed them Animal Farm, Polanski's Macbeth, Zeferelli's Romeo and Juliet , Shine and the new version of Little Women, none of which, I am certain, they would have voluntarily selected at home, and they loved all of them. Us teachers CAN make an impact!

Martin

Can I quote you? I think your article is a brilliant summary of modern life.

Julie

You'll notice from the bit under my picture that I'm from the smallest state in Australia and Martin is from thr UK. We are about to have a federal election here and there isa growing split between many Australians - those who support our present PM who is a sycophant of Bush and who is taking us down the road of becoming a miniature US (eg wars against terrorists and free trade agreements with the US which will destroy many of our industries) and those who want us to follow a different path and become a nation with our own beliefs and attitudes. We are inundated with US news, TV and movies and I have to admit I am not at all pro-US and your posting confirms many of my beliefs about that.

However, the UK seems to be also going down the same path and I too don't know how you turn it round. Martin seems to be fairly pessimistic about the possibilities.

On another tack about modern families - because of the high rate of divorce, there appears to be a growing trend to compensate for the guilt caused by serial monogamy and multiple family structures, by overindulging and constant "rescuing" of the children of such relationships. I see so many divorced parents who seem unable to apply any rules, structure or consistency to their children, in case they lose their relationship with them, or because they appear to believe it will assuage their guilt, buy love, respect and appreciation (the market philosophy again?)

These children take and take everything offered to them with no qualms or conscience and grow up into selfish adults who have no respect whatever for the misguided parent who bought them off on every occasion. They are protected from every risk, rescued from every mistake they make, showered with whatever money can buy, competed for by the other parent, and develop the attitude that whatever they do, however they conduct their lives, someone will always be there to save and rescue them. This is another aspect of the "me" generation.

I have a great deal of repect for my partner for everything else, except this - he has four sons from a previous marriage which ended up very messily. Since they were young teenagers, when the marriage ended, he has allowed them to drain him of money for the last 25 years. They are now adult men and still suck money out of him with no guilt whatsoever. They seem incapable of sustaining relationships and every time they get into trouble which is often, their father rescues them over and over, with the result that now in his late 60s, on a very good salary all his life, he has no assets, no savings and little supperannuation. It is impossible to discuss it with him as he becomes intensely defensive and will not allow he has made any errors at all. I give him as an example, but I saw it all the time while I was teaching secondary school. Also, the same sort of "indulgent" childrearing methods often seem to apply to very well-off parents who have their children very late in life.

I couldn't agree more. Why do we keep accepting this constant mantra about change. Every seminar, every meeting I attend, the same old rhetoric is trotted out: change is inevitable and desirable and there's nothing we can do except embrace it. It may be inevitable, in many cases unfortunately so, but is not always desirable and I do not wish to embrace very much of it.

Does anyone want to start a society for opposition to change? Not improvement, that's OK, just change for the sake of change!!

I am an only child and until I married I had no other family except my parents so I was an avaricious reader. I don't know about "changing" my life but the books that had the most affect on me were in order of reading age: Little Women, Anya Seton's "Katherine" which turned me on to history, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Zola's Nana, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, Clockwork Orange, 1984, Animal Farm, Wild Swans. Not sure what that makes me - a romantic socialist perhaps?

I clearly remember being shocked to the core by Clockwork Orange and now I look around and see so much of it has become reality.

I'm afraid I now tend to read light escapism of the P D James, Ruth rendell/Barbara Vine, Peter Robinson variety. Maybe I'll get back to the better stuff in retirement!

I've said this before, but I'll say it again. We have never had inspections in Tasmania -well, not in my time and that's 30 years, yet Australia comes among the top 3 or 4 in PISA and TIMMS international testing and our results are generally improving, not declining. While I'm not a 100% supporter of our newly imposed "outcomes based" curriculum, it does in fact concentrate heavily on pedagogy and the teaching of skills and competencies. So, why does the UK need Ofsted, if we don't, but are no worse off without it?

Have been in Melbourne the last few days at a a conference, discussing the plans of the Labor party to cut funding to wealthy private schools and give more to public schools if they win next month's election - beautiful warm spring weather, went to listen to Germaine Greer give a lecture on Shakespeare's women which was fascinating, and to the visiting exhibition of Impressionist paintings from the d'Orsey museum. So, all in all, a very culturally satisfying few days.

Melbourne paper reported more about divorce statistics - there are more divorces among couples with only 1 to 2 year age gap, fewer when age gap is 5/10 years. Not sure what that implies!

I don't suppose we can be too surprised about the abandonment of children by parents - after all, we have manged to somehow bring up what must be one of the most selfish, egotistical, self-absorbed generations in recent history.

I just finished a book written by a 50 something local well-known TV gardening celeb who went to live in France for 6 months. In it she reminisces about her childhood and her parenting. She admits that if given her time over she would have brought up her sons far less indulgently, would have not constantly "rescued" them, would have applied more tough love. I thought it was a brave admission, and probably a fairly common error of the period.

Sorry, I just rer-ead your post and realised Dr Dunn is in fact not Swedish - where does she come from?

David

This is exactly what I have been telling our dept hierarchy here for ages, but they absolutely refuse to acknowledge that Gardner's theories are just that - unproven theories. They claim that they are based on new and proven scientific knowledge of the brain, and that his theories are inviolable. They can't actually give you chapter and verse, but it's enough to be able to con classroom teachers who haven't the time or energy to investigate it themselves and are often intimidated by their "superiors". I like the sound of your Swedish doctor and am going to quote her thinking - but then, Swedes have generally been known for their thorough and down to earth approach to things.

Anne

Yes, that is the model suggested by the consultants - they talk of a "critical mass" of students within a "cluster" of schools which will then provide a specialist service for those students but keep them in their own particualr school. It sounds great in theory but with our small, scattered population, I don't know of it is really possible. It might work for autistic children of whom there are increasing numbers everywhere, but I don't see it working for things like spina bifida where there may only be one or two students within a very large area, without forcing parents to move them to a particular school, which seems to negate the basic idea of freedom of choice.

I just have this feeling that in another decade or two people will look back and think how silly we were to believe that total inclusion was the answer to it all. I hope i'm wrong!

I think you have to be careful about generalising about peoples' morality in relation to generations. What John is referring to was more often the case with educated, middle and upper classes. If you read the diaries of Marie Stopes of that era you will find that the lower working classes did not have the same "high" morals and marriages were often the result of pregnancy and men of that class often made women's lives a misery with insistance on unprotected sex and consequent yearly pregnancies which resulted in horrendous health problems and early death for many of the women. Reading her case books some years ago was a revelation and a shock to me about the lives of the poor after WWI. Don't forget that those morals were closely linked to the unavailability of safe contraception.

However, I do agree that more people stuck together for the sake of children and if you could do that and "hide" it from them, it was often a better way than divorce, at least until they grew up.

I was probably the "in between" generation - morals were much "looser" due partly to Hollywood, rock'n'roll and mass media, but contraception wasn't freely available to young people and many of my age married because they "had to", because it was easy to fall pregnant, but still considered shameful to be an unmarried mother. This, in fact, happened to me - pregnant at 20 to my fiance, my parents refused me permission to marry (21 was the age then) so we lived together which was then considered highly unacceptable and had to be hidden from almost everyone we knew, and certainly from the authorities. I was put on the 5th floor of the maternity hospital. with all the other "unmarried mothers", away from good moral women who had managed to get maried in time, albeit in some cases only months before hand. I had "Miss ....." in heavy type on the card above my head and I was not allowed to visit the other wards. My son was legally noted as illegitimate on his birth certificate and it was only removed on application to the govt after we were legally married the following year.

My mother was actually right - I did marry the wrong person, because we "had to", but we stuck together for 23 years until the children were grown up, when I eventually left and went to live on my own, before meeting my current partner 10 years ago - the sort of man I should have married in the first place!!

My three sons are all now bringing up families and I like to think they are all decent citizens because on the whole they had a good childhood. Their father did the right fatherly things with them despite the unsatisfactory nature of our relationship, because that's what most men felt was their duty in that generation, and on the whole I think it WAS a better choice than a quick divorce and single parenthood. Mind you, I think it was also the first generation when extra-marital affairs became commonplace, also because of the pill.

It was the next generation when the pill was freely available to very young adults, that things changed dramatically. I'm not as sure as John that morals are what change, rather than the availability of safe and invisible contraception, but I'm willing to think more about it.

Thank you for a very interesting reply. You're right in thinking I have a motive for my questions. I am currently President of our state teachers' union. Tasmania is a very small state, about 400,000 people spread over similar area to Ireland. We have just had thrust upon us a completely new restructuring of our ed dept and part of this recommends a "change in roles" for special schools. Currently we have only 3 in the state with a total of about 200 students in them out of 69,000 . The rest are in mainstream, including students with very high needs and very low awareness of their surroundings.

Believe me, I have nothing against inclusion when it works for everyone and I have seen it work wonderfully. However, many parents of severely disabled students are very worried that all sp schools will close, and they have even had a rally outside one of them recently to protest.

We are being told by a firm of ed consultants that we are not inclusive enough and that this is not about money but about creating an equitable society. However, I concur with your opinions about forcing socialization on to both sides when it will do more harm than good. They are the sort of opinions I am hearing here, but our dept does not want to hear them. We rarely bus students here as distances are quite large compared with England, so there is often not a sp school within reasonable distance for them to attend. A lot of our country towns are relatively isolated and so there are no facilities unless parents move to a city.

I have a colleague at work who has a severely disabled young son and she has come to realise that he is much better off in part-time enrolment of a mixture of sp and mainstream schools for the very reasons you give, but she has to fight tooth and nail to get it and has been discouraged from it by dept staff.

It seems almost impossible to prove that it IS about money when the arguments for full inclusion appear so persuasive and the arguments against can be made to sound discriminatory and cruel.

It always seems strange to me that we have this idea that absolutely every disabled child can be mainstreamed for their own and society's benefit, but we don't hold to the same argument when very elderly people become severely mentally or physically disabled - we believe they need special care and to be protecetd from themselves. It seems to me to be a denial of the frailty of the human condition, as if somehow we can force everyone to be the same and have the same needs.

I'll be interested to hear any other thoughts you may have.

I have mixed feelings about it. Like lots of things in education, I think it's a mixture of common sense expressed in educational jargon, mixed with some scientific theory which encourages the public to believe that "properly" trained teachers can somehow miraculously undo the harm caused by present day society

Naturally, it would be a better world if everyone understood and developed control over their less desirable emotions such as anger and greed. Surely, that's a common sense accepted part of the human condition and it shouldn't need a new scientific theory to tell us so. And if parents do this from birth with awareness and sensitivity, then teachers can develop it further and you generally end up with a decent citizen.

However, I'm not sure that it works on children who arrive at school at 4/5 years old from families where emotions are out of control and general common sense/intelligent child rearing is not going on and never will. I have to say that in all honesty, the few hours a day these children spend at school is unlikely to have a major permanent effect on them unless they break away from their family background. However, I suppose some better understanding by teachers about how emotions develop and can be used positively won't do any harm and may do some good. Whether it will eventually help to solve the ills of current society is another matter. I hope it can, but I'm not optomistic.

It just amazes me that thinking people have to have these things presented to them as scientific discoveries, neatly packaged in sets of books or units of work, before it occurs to them that it is a good thing to develop positive emotions in children and discourage negative ones, and to be responsive to others' feelings. My 84 year old Yorkshire mother managed to instill these things into me without the need of a textbook or scientific theory. But I guess whatever helps people to improve their lives, is worth a try, albeit it an expensive one!

Can people from various countries answer a few questions on this topic, please:

1. In the UK are there more special schools in some LEAs than others? Which have more, which less (fewer!)?

2. Here we do not put those whose "only" problem is challenging behaviour in special schools at all. Do other countries, apart from UK?

3. What % of students do you have in special schools? OECD says 1.5 is about average in Europe. We have .05.

4. Is having separate settings within a mainstream campus becoming more common? Is it the way to go?

5. I believe in inclusion where it works for everyone concerned but not total and full inclusion as we are being moved towards here, so that even students who need tube feeding, cathetering, manual lifting etc are placed full-time in mainstream schools, often without full Aide time. Any opinions?

6. Blasphemy, I know, but is it possible that in another decade, we may discover we were misguided to try to mainstream ALL special needs students?