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Bernard Dineen: Village school provides a lesson for Mr Balls
A SPEAKER at a recent Yorkshire Post Literary Luncheon prompted warm applause when he said politicians should get off teachers' backs and let them get on with their jobs.
He was Gervaise Phinn, now a well-known writer. He was formerly a teacher in South Yorkshire and then a schools inspector in North Yorkshire for many years.
I thought of his words last week when I visited a village school in North Yorkshire. As soon as you stepped inside, you could taste excellence. The headteacher glowed with pride as she showed the work done by the youngsters. A study of the village in Victorian times was a masterpiece of endeavour.
With fewer than 60 children, this was a model of what education should mean. I don't know where it stood in any league table, and I don't care. You don't need a computer to assess excellence, Gervaise will know exactly what I mean.
Then you read about the grandiose 10-year Children's Plan announced by the Education Secretary, Ed Balls, who is rapidly turning into the Dr Strangelove of the Brown Government. He has produced 170 pages of "initiatives" which effectively take the job of parenting out of parents hands, so as to make
Britain "the best place in the world
to grow up".
Every international measure show Britain failing in maths, science and literacy. Yet Balls tells us that standards are improving all the time. I only hope he is being cynical because it raises doubts about his sanity.
As comprehensive teachers say, pupils can pass through 11 years of schooling, even pass exams, without an understanding of basic subjects. They are spoon-fed information, assisted with their coursework, and led by the hand to meet targets and boost state figures. Now Balls plans
to turn everything upside down
yet again.
Meanwhile, let's give thanks for that little Dales village school and others like it – and the dedicated teachers who continue to deliver excellence despite all the burdens politicians place upon them.
I KEEP meeting people returning from holiday in Cuba who say what a wonderful place it is, with happy people, under the benevolent gaze of Fidel Castro. They are not alone.
Naomi Campbell compared him with Nelson Mandela; Jack Nicholson declared Cuba "a paradise"; Steven Spielberg became starry-eyed after meeting the evil dictator. Not to mention Kate Moss.
Only one question need be asked. Can Cubans leave if they want to? If not, it is a prison. Can you set up a political party? A free trade union? Is there freedom of speech? No. But who cares about such things as you relax on a tourist beach (from which ordinary Cubans are barred).
What is it that persuades otherwise intelligent people to fawn on a butcher like Castro, ignoring all the evidence? Amnesty has chronicled the regime's crimes over the years, like the brutal imprisonment of the blind president of the Cuban Human Rights Foundation, who said: "These are catacombs where people scream, but the sound is drowned out by a hermetically sealed door."
Then there was Castro's denunciation of homosexuality as a "bourgeois perversion". Hundreds of gays, including academics and artists, were imprisoned in filthy jails. All without a single peep from the Castro fan club.
He has lasted so long largely because of the misguided US embargo, which enabled him to blame every failure on the wicked Americans. As he disappears from the scene, Cuba may again get a chance of normal life. But prepare yourself for a massed rally of Castro groupies, from Hollywood to Islington, at his state funeral.
LET'S hope the new year will see an end to the Diana hysteria. The disgraceful circus at the inquest has brought the legal system into contempt, at the behest of Mohammed Fayed.
Her death was an accident caused by the reckless driving of a Fayed employee. The French police never had any doubt.
Neither did Sir John Stevens,
the former Metropolitan Commissioner, after his 3m inquiry. Neither should we.
The inquest has done the memory of Diana no favours at all. She is revealed in all her shallowness, romantic excesses, and misjudgment of people.
But she did not deserve the macabre parade of love letters. Seeking to show that a couple of gushing letters were proof of anything was a joke. She spent her life gushing and flirting.
The judge acting as coroner has wisely allowed the exploration of every seedy avenue so that he can never be accused of acting as a stooge for the Establishment. So we were knee-deep in detail about contraceptives, menstruation and every kind of filthy gossip.
When you consider that an attempt was even made to drag the Queen into this squalid soap opera, it shows the depth of the lunacy.
Diana aside, it has been a strange year, with more downs than ups. But tomorrow is another day. A Happy Christmas to you all.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Friday 25 May 2012
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