Friday, 23 October 2015

A Night in Accident and Emergency





On Sundays, I teach for 3.5 hours. The students come to me for all levels of tuition. The Sunday just gone, 18th October, I was feeling unwell. Nothing specific: just a general lethargy, bit of a headache, feeling a little nauseous.

As I have done on numerous occasions during my career, I managed to get through the work and was very relieved indeed when I could just slump in front of the TV. An early night, I was sure, would sort me out.

The following day, Monday, I felt dreadful. I hoped I would feel better as the day wore on. I didn't. I felt worse.And worse. Finally at 10.30 pm I had no choice but to go to A+E. I believed I knew what the problem was. I have Addison's Disease - the condition named after Doctor Addison who discovered it.

So, what is it? Until I was diagnosed with it ten years ago, I had no idea at all about it. That is not in any way surprising, as it is very rare. Addison's Disease is a failure of the adrenal glands, which are at the top of each kidney, to produce sufficient adrenaline and other hormones. It is a gradual thing. You feel unwell, you feel sick, you lose your appetite and have great difficulty in performing the slightest physical movement without feeling out of breath and exhausted. The doctor told me I had a virus initially and then on several more occasions. This was some virus! This 'virus' made me barely able to go upstairs  - I had to take each step very slowly, arriving at the top, puffing and panting and needing to sit down to recover. This was no virus.

After being rushed into hospital, I was finally diagnosed with Addison's Disease. A drip of pure adrenaline was attached and within hours, all was well again. I learnt I was in good company. It is believed that Jane Austen died of Addison's and that President John F Kennedy had it too, and thanks to him,  there is a cure today.

So, in the hospital I knew what was needed. Most of the time, Addison's is stable, but there are the occasional blips and this was one of them.

For a Monday night A+E was packed. There was shouting, swearing, drunkenness, people with mental health problems and many with physical problems. It was a long wait, but at two o'clock in the morning, I was dealt with. The doctors were junior doctors, but very skilled and energetic. They were pleasant and respectful - really respectful, throughout.

There were people coming into A+E at an alarming rate. One man came in after having had a crash on his motorbike. He had been placed in a neck and back brace but wasn't happy at all wearing them. He was sitting up on the trolley he'd been placed on. He had been expressly forbidden to do so. He was also attempting to remove the two braces he had been placed in for his own safety, to prevent the possibility of paralysis. With superhuman patience the nurse kept telling the patient to lie down. The nurse would then readjust the helmet and brace. A number of times this happened. The nurse spoke firmly, but did not raise his voice at all, or shout - suit yourself mate! as I probably would have done.

So much work, so many people to deal with, real skill and intelligence in evidence, none of the staff complaining.

Our NHS - and I use the word 'our' advisedly, is far too precious to allow the Tories to dismantle. I am, and have always been, so massively impressed by the NHS. It is our country's pride and joy and the people who work in it on the front line are a special breed of exceptional human beings.

Wednesday, 21 October 2015

Grammar Schools or Comprehensives? Some Thoughts

  



Nicky Morgan, Conservative Education Minister and possible leadership contender for when Cameron releases himself from the job of Prime Minister, has granted permission for a grammar school to go ahead in Sevenoaks Kent. The place is significant. Note that there is not a plan to introduce a new grammar school in Sunderland, Middlesborough or Barnsley.

My instinct is to say no to grammar schools and a resounding yes to comprehensive schools. It feels wrong to decide the educational future of children aged 11. On the other hand, we hear stories about the child who went to secondary school and did so well that he/she was transferred to a grammar or who stayed at the secondary and got a whole host of excellent GCSEs. That these individuals are worth a story perhaps suggests that there are so few, in reality, who make the cut.

Granted then, there may be the odd one who succeeds after failing the 11+ but they are few. Some, identified as bright, and offered a transfer simply do not want to go. They have their friends, very important to secondary age children, and most likely will be in the top set at their current school, and are perfecty happy. Why transfer to the unknown?

Those who argue in favour of the 11+ say that it doesn’t really matter so much about those who fail because if a child is bright, no matter where he/she is, that intelligence will shine through. Having been a teacher for 25+years, I am sorry to say, that that view is a complete misconception. Many children, even those with a supportive home life, good nutrition, plenty of money for revision aids, a quiet space in which to do homework and  revise for exams, with an excellent brain, do not succeed despite all that is laid on for them. Maybe when they are no longer of school age, they will realize that they have wasted their chances and will become a mature student. That might be the case for some, but not so for others. A sad fact of life is that some people do not reach their academic potential. I have learnt that the guy driving a truck or the woman doing a job in a care home, may well have a higher raw intelligence than the university professor or the writer of a column in The Times. Let’s not worry too much about them though, as they may well be happier that way.

Grammar schools are undeniably elitist institutions. If you go to a grammar school you are in the top 15%. Wouldn’t it be better then to keep all the bright students together in this way, each one encouraged and challenged by the others? Surely, that way, no one would want to add students with low intelligence, as they would be out of their depth.  The bright ones would be slowed down, then become frustrated and lose motivation. This happens too in the fashionably and politically correct mixed ability teaching. A mixed ability class is also one of the most difficult tasks a teacher can face.  The preparation is relentless and, in fact, a teacher finds him or herself wishing that they were several people and not just one.

Then again, if you stream students, are you not just imitating the grammar/secondary system, except for the fact that the students are all in one building as opposed to separate ones? Students are not fooled though. They know they are in set 5 out of 6, no matter if you call it The Robins, Daffodils or Group 6.

My difficulty with condemning grammar schools is that I actually went to an all girls grammar school and benefited from that experience. At the time, aged 11, I felt such pride that I had passed the 11+, that I hardly spared a thought for those who didn’t pass, I will blame my callousness on my age. Now, decades older, I see clearly that it was a terrible thing to do to children, to separate them at this age and to humiliate a child who failed. It WAS humiliation too.

Whatever the future holds, and I really hope it doesn’t hold grammar schools, the best kind of education a young person can have is a teacher who cares, who is concerned about their future and who can deliver inspirational teaching so that students will WANT to do well. In the end, the ones who succeed are those who want to and will put the work in to get there.


That said, I still do not think it is a good idea to segregate children so young. In some cases that humiliation, or as some say, being thrown on the scrap heap at 11 years old, may well be too hard to recover from.

Saturday, 10 October 2015

Kidults



Kidults are those people who refuse to grow up. They say things like, ‘Having a baby won’t change my life, absolutely no way.’  They say that all you need is a babysitter, it won’t cost much and yes you might be knackered the next day but you just get through it, by hair of the dog.

I want to ask them one question. Are you mad? This attitude to having babies and the certainty some kidults hold up about their existence not changing is frankly stupid. Of course you can get a babysitter, all day and all night, if you like.  In fact, why stop there? Have an almost childfree life, if you so choose. But the truth is that these people do not take into account the anxiety and emotional impact of a baby on one’s life.  That said, some do claim that their lives haven’t changed at all since baby was born. I just do not believe them.

There’s a song –The Oldest Swinger in Town –which is the story of a man in the process of realising that his age separates him from younger people. I imagine this man in a nightclub, leaning at a bar, a pint and a whisky chaser, eyeing up young girls who, when they notice he is ogling them, give a grimace of disgust and mutter, ‘pervert’, to each other. He might wear a shirt, opened too far, maybe there’ll be some gold around his neck, and maybe he has little self-awareness. These girls don’t want you, or any Peter Stringfellow lookalike, they want young, fit men of roughly their own age. It doesn’t prove so attractive either, even if you are rich.

There’s another type of kidult too – those who encourage others to be ‘zany’ (awful word) to do crazy things like when they were in university. Steal traffic cones and put them on your head, pick daffodils from people’s gardens, sing loudly in the street at 3 am, even on a weekday when non-kidults have to go to work and are trying to get some sleep to deal with what will come at them the next day. As Tim in The Office says, ‘It’s other people’s zaniness I can’t stand. I speculate that what Tim means here, and what so precisely chimes with my own view, is that zany acts feel phony, false and forced. It’s not real spontaneous fun. It’s planned, it’s stereotypical and in the main, it’s not funny.


I do realize that maybe some people would accuse me of not wanting to have fun and of being too serious. They could not be further from the truth. A genuine laugh is priceless. A sharp witty comment that makes all laugh heartily is one of the world’s treasures. But there is a time for seriousness and getting stuff done. Keep yourselves to yourselves kidults, you’re not kidding me, but you may well be kidding yourselves.