Welcome to My Thinks

This is my take on global politics. My Thinks focuses on the ideologies and actions of the few that govern the lives of the many. The foibles of capitalism, the idiocy and hypocrisy of the right wing agenda, my weight loss goals – all will be covered by this blog. Sometimes we might even have a bit of a laugh. I hope you enjoy…

Get On With Your Work Lazy Children

Good morning/afternoon/evening/witching hour to you,

I have been silent for too long. You tend to do that a bit as a teacher. Best not rock the boat, but I can’t keep my mouth shut any longer.

This week in New Zealand there was a big hello and heralded fanfare welcoming to national standards. If you are reading this in Britain or the United States and saying, “what the hell are you idiots doing? We got rid of standards because they didn’t work and failed our children.” Well, yes, this is true. However, the lessons learnt from the experiences of other nations don’t wash with the current government – a wonderful mix of centrist to extreme right wingers who believe, among other things, that mining national parks is a really excellent idea….

Let’s back track a little bit.

The brand new National government (I say brand new but they are nearly a year old now) announced their education policy before winning the election last year. Their key plank was the introduction of national standards in education. This policy was devised, in part, because of New Zealand’s perceived failings of our children when ranked against similar kids from similar countries around the world. They also did a lot of work consulting with parents – they said so themselves.

On the face of it this sounds quite good. Improving outcomes for our children. Not being a parent yet (see previous IVF columns) it is hard for me to imagine what I want from a report on my hypothetical child’s educational progress.

As a teacher though, I’m writing reports at the moment. This is the third time I’ll be reporting to parents this year – the others being in term 2 and term 3. You can’t say that my school is not letting parents know about the progress of their child. In saying this though, there is no comparison of the child against other children in the class, school, or nationally. As a parent this could be important information to have.

Parents and educators have to remember this: no matter what the child measures against any set standard or standardised deviation, you have to compare any achievement made against previous achievement. What I mean by this is… if the child has improved and moved forward with their marks since the last time you’ve reported then the alternative hasn’t happened (i.e. they have stagnated or fallen backwards). Kids move at different speeds – sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but they move nonetheless. You have to compare them against themselves, otherwise you’re comparing apples with oranges, grapes, persimmons and, potentially, steroid-enriched guava.

By setting a national standard or a national ‘average’ for children at a certain level, the National government has instantly, with the stroke of a pen or the pressing of the save button, created a document that is instantly labelling half the children in New Zealand schools as failures – children who are below the national ‘norm’.

What happens to that large minority of children who don’t fit any norm? There are kids with special needs who will just never, ever meet this standard. They learn very differently to the rest of us and suddenly the Minister of Education has said that these kids are not achieving. How can you compare a kid with special needs to anyone other than themselves. Every special needs kid is totally different to every other one. Come to think of it… every kid is completely different to every other kid. How is it all going to work?

Boys. Let me talk about boys. Having been a boy at school once I can tell you that the ‘ants in the pants’ syndrome is not made up. It is very real. Boys need to be constantly moving around the classroom. If it’s not to get to their work, then it’s to get to their friends, who are working and may help them. By saying, sit down and read this then write something about it, many boys can’t handle the jandal. It’s not because they are ‘dumb’ or below average, it’s just that they learn differently. They would rather prefer making something, or finding out how something works by ‘unmaking’ it, and then discussing their findings orally. Writing didn’t come naturally to me until I was well into my twenties.

I’ve just watched Anne Tolley the Education Minister being interviewed by one of the worst television journalists New Zealand has ever produced (if you want to know more just type Paul Henry into google – beware though, is truly, truly awful). She is talking about formative assessment, where teachers are, “….constantly assessing how well, what the results of their teaching are throughout the year. Rather than having one test at the end of the year…” and then Paul Henry adds something about a possible “nasty surprise” at the end of the year for the parent. I’m on my third report of the year you dick. Talk to me.

As a teacher I find these to be totally ill-informed comments about how I work my classroom. I am constantly assessing my children to inform my teaching. That, my friends, is how it is. Most schools are taking part in this formative assessment at the moment. Our school is currently in the process of reporting for the THIRD time this year to parents. There are no nasty surprises. Also, it should be pointed out here that if a teacher or school did find anything concerning in a child’s educational outcomes the first people they go to are, wait for it, the parents. Yes, the parents. We don’t sit in our classrooms saying to ourselves, “oooh, I hope the parents don’t find out. Maybe if I just hide this test in the cupboard then nobody will know.” I use my assessment throughout the year to group my students based on need, to highlight any areas of need so they can be addressed quickly, to target learning opportunities in those areas. The implication that teachers or schools are somehow keeping information from parents is preposterous (that’s a good word).

If you would like to know what experience the honourable Anne Tolley has had in the education sector before becoming boss of the entire thing… She has been a computer analyst, a computer programmer and a bed and breakfast operator – all roles vastly suited to developing and maintaining education policy and the direction of schools and teaching in any country. If you don’t believe me then just look on her parliamentary webpage. I honestly can’t find any experience in the area of education apart from her years at Colenso High in Napier. Really… how can you possibly do a job that you have absolutely no background in whatsoever? You wouldn’t expect me to be able to run a massive company without having some experience in business, would you?

And back to what we were talking about… Once you set a national standard that’s it. You can’t unset it – unless you totally remove it. As soon as standards are set you begin to make the comparisons. Your kid against the national average. Your kid against my kid. My kid against your school average. My school against your school. This school against the national average… whoops leaky portfolio syndrome… and suddenly you’ve got the media comparing schools against each other based on where their average sits against the rest of the country. Below and you’re a failure. Above and you’re not.

Of course, the policy hasn’t been implemented yet. We can’t compare ourselves against England, where the competition between schools ended up in an environment where schools taught specifically to pass tests. It might be that our experience will be totally different and national standards will boost educational outcomes for our students. If, however, they don’t, which I suspect will be the case, and the media end up getting hold of the national data, which I also suspect will be the case, then this policy will be, undoubtedly, the worst thing to happen to education in this country in many a decade.

But we’ll wait and see.

Boon x

IVF 3

I was thinking about a few subjects to meander through this time…

Should I talk about the New Zealand Geographic Board recommending the city of Wanganui be spelt the same way as the river running through it: with a small ‘h’ following the capital W. That is, the area called Whanganui by the people who’ve lived there for the last few centuries could be spelt as such in the future. An important side note to this is that the city’s residents have voted against that move in a referendum AND that all (not just some, but all) of the people I’ve seen on the news objecting to this, including the his esteemed worshit the mayor Michael Laws, have been white. The objectioning has been so ardent also. Why object to spelling something in the traditional way? Unless of course you need an excuse to be racist…

That dabbling of the toe of opinion into the icy lagoon of racism brings me to the current “campaign” against Obama’s health plan. A lot of the placards seem to be saying President Obama’s plans to let every US citizen (except the illegals – anywhere up to 20 million inhabitants) have access to some kind of healthcare is communist or fascist. Communism is where the state controls everything on behalf of the people. Sounds like a good idea but generally it gets hijacked by the likes of Stalin or Mao who end up killing loads of people who disagree with their version of it. Of course, this is completely different to a capitalist democracy seen in the US where people are elected to the Senate or the House of Representatives so that they can make change completely independently of any company willing to “donate” thousands of dollars to trusts run by their families.

This is, as usual, a generalisation. I’m sure there are loads of capitalists in Washington D.C. who don’t take any money from people working on behalf of companies. Also, since when was capitalism a better model than socialism, communism or fascism? At least with socialism the government is trying to look after the people rather than letting the markets decide (remember when Lehmann Bros “decided” to pay Richard Fuld $300 million in the years leading up to the collapse for his strong leadership and excellent decision making). Comparing Obama to Hitler is not going to make your point very well. It’s like trying to get Christians to convert to Islam by telling them Jesus was a lesbian. Pretending to believe in the 2nd amendment by walking around these protests with an Ak-47 strapped to your dick isn’t going to win you any friends either you idiot.

Anyway, those two small issues aside…

This week the process has begun. We are now officially going through IVF. When I say ‘officially’ I mean the procedures have started and when I say ‘we’ I mean Mrs. Boon. As I’ve said previously during my other two blogs on the subject, my part in this process is important but is about as invasive as scratching the tip of your nose gently when it’s slightly itchy. I’ve also talked about the guilt factor that can develop from this and the fact I wish I could be doing more – and by doing more I mean having things done to me. But in IVF it seems not to be the way for the man to endure these moments associated with artificial insemination. Helping and supporting is our job.

The very first procedure Mrs. Boon went through in our – hopefully not too long – IVF journey involved her joining a research project looking into the effects of a uterus wash of lipiodol on increasing the chances of pregnancy. For those unversed… Lipiodol is a poppyseed oil that is used as a contrast medium. A contrast medium is one that, when pumped into veins or tubes shows up on x-rays allowing physicians to see blockages and the like. In women it is used to see if there is anything holding things up in the fallopian tubes. As with previous accidental breakthroughs like penicillin or coca-cola, it’s been discovered this flushing may actually enhance the prospectss of a successful pregnancy. So Mrs. Boon offered to go into a New Zealand study investigating this phenomenon.

When she said yes to taking part she had a 50/50 chance of either being in the control group, who would not have had the flushing, or being in the group who did. When the researcher opened the envelope last week she was pleased (although this may be a bit of an understatement) to hear she was not in the control group and was going to receive the lipiodol. Once again, as if I needed any more proof of how amazing my wife is, she selflessly puts her body forward so researchers can develop better and more successful methods of IVF for other couples.

I must also mention at this point that yesterday, the day of the lipiodol wash, was our 5th wedding anniversary.

So next week we head into the hospital to learn how to inject her with hormones that bring on a menopausal state. I am fast running out of superlatives to describe the overwhelming sense of awe I have for my wife and her willingness to undertake such a vast range of actions to bring our baby into the world. I only hope that one day I can return the love.

See yous later.

Boon x

Worst President Ever

George Walker Bush is a criminal and a murderer.

I suppose technically a murderer is a criminal… but let me explain further.

The thing with a hurricane is that it’s big. You can see one from space. Hurricane Katrina was no different. Clicking on the link shows you a weather pattern stretching from the Cuba/Mexico part right across the gulf to the south coast of the United States. It’s not like it magically appeared either. No. Miss Katrina was heralded into existence by the National Hurricane Centre as early as 26 August 2005. Previously they’d just thought it a bit of a storm next to the Bahamas I suppose…

Come the end of September New Orleans was a toxic swimming pool and Bush had lost the Republicans the next election. So bad was the hatred that not only did the Republicans lose to the Democrats, they lost to a Black Democrat who was half African.

Good old Bush.

By good I mean appalling and by old I mean dickheadedly arrogant. Bush was to the United States of America the type of thing that Ebola is to humans. One minute you’re petting the cute Texan monkey funded by the Halliburton of the Congo, next minute your internal organs are melting and you’re bleeding out your eyeballs. Having read over that metaphor it was making sense at the start but I think I lost it towards the end. Basically I’m trying to compare His Bushness with something terrible – perhaps Ebola or some kind of Bobbit-like incident upon your person – because he was truly the most atrocious president I have had the misfortune of living through. That’s saying something because Nixon was in power when I was born.

George W. Bush – an anagram of Beg Worse Hug… mmm, indeed.

How could someone in the face of total catastrophe leave a city to wash into the gulf? How could someone leave one of the cultural capitals of his country to rot in the summer sun? How could a ex-drinking coke-fiend decide to spend anywhere between $US177,000,000 and $US400,000,000 per day in Iraq looking for weapons of mass distraction. Oh that’s right, I remember now. Bush wasn’t actually president. Cheney and his mates were. Bush was just the Texan joker with the mellow accent who made all the evil done by the satanic lapdogs the extreme right boosted to the White House kind of sound OK.

It’s estimated the cost to repair the damage from Hurricane Katrina is going to be around$150 billion – depending on where you look. This would equate to around 850 days (2 and a bit years) worth of Iraq War (based on above estimates which I suppose can be questioned as to accuracy since I didn’t count the actual money as it was being spent). If the Bush/Cheney regime of plantation owning oil munching slave traders had pulled out of Iraq when the world called their bluff on the weapons of mass distruction they may have been able to rebuild New Orleans in about a week.

Why am I going on about this 4 years after the fact? See the Spike Lee documentary When the Levees Broke. It’s an astounding portrayal of how little a federal government made up of rich whities can care about its people. No wonder there are so many fundamentalists roaming around Utah and Montana training for the imaginary apocolypse.

Ah well… at least in New Zealand we don’t have to worry about that sort of nonsense. The government here looks after the people and the country. Oh no, wait, that’s right. They don’t at all. This week the National government, whose been in power for about a year, announced that vast tracts of land owned by the Department of Conservation – the government department responsible for looking after what’s left of our natural landscape – up to mining and exploration of our mineral wealth.

My god. Honestly. Could you be any more unsustainable than that????? Well yes you could. By invading Iraq and spending more than the entire yearly New Zealand GDP figure per day on a war that was argued for on the basis of weapons that didn’t exist.

The reason this is happening is because of the unsustainable thinking of idiots who run the country. Making money seems to be the goal of those on the right. Making money any way possible. The capitalist juggernaut barrels through the pristine countryside on the hunt for gold or silver or nickle. What do we get in return? A filthy great hole in the ground, massive pollution left over from tailings dams and no wildlife because the bush covering the stripped land was cleared to get at the land in the first place.

Phew! Why am I so against capitalism? Because the model just doesn’t work. Time and time and time again we see suffering and deprevation that occurs because some boffin in an office, with no sense of humanity, just a sense of the bottom line of his company’s/government’s wallet, makes a decision to cut and slash and burn. Capitalists only see the balance sheet. Their projections are made only in dollars. They cannot or will not see the people their decisions affect.

Economists have a lot to answer for. Formulas are ok in your computers or on your office whiteboard but as soon as you add the complex requirements of a human being, or many, many human beings, the formula is rendered obsolete.

Money was the reason for the Katrina disaster also. The levees broke because the government cut corners. The government failed to respond because the majority of those affected by the levees lived in the poor parts of town. Those votes don’t really count because they can’t really fund-raise like a Newt Gingricher. Iraq wouldn’t have been invaded if there wasn’t oil there or the contract to reconstruct wasn’t won by Cheneyburton (how that conflict of interest failed to get impeached I’ll never know).

I did promise last time something more upbeat and lively. Unfortunately the Spike Lee doco got in my way and Bush pissed me off again. He’s like the athletes foot of thought in his continued return to my psyche.

George W Bush – anagram of bugger he sow.. how very true.

Boon x

New Zealand Has Spoken (with the mouths of idiots)

Well, it’s official.

As of last week, and thanks to $9 million spent by the New Zealand taxpayer on a referendum that nobody has to do anything about, nearly 90% of us voted in favour of being able to assault children legally.

The point must be made that when I say ‘assault’ I mean smack. I use the word assault because if I ’smacked’ any adult in the street the charge I would face is ‘assault’. Do we live in such a backward world where people get so worked up after a law is passed to protect children?

When the law was originally passed all it did was remove Section 59 of The Crimes Amendment Bill which allowed parents to use the defence of ‘reasonable force’ when disciplining their children. For example, 28 strokes of the birch would not have counted as punishment under the revised law. I’m just thinking as well… what normal parent would want to use ‘reasonable force’ against a child. More to the point what adult would believe that using force against any innocent is the right thing to do. Also why would you want to protect your rights to hit the most innocent members of society – those who need the most protection – and campaign publicly to do so? I just don’t understand why or how people see smacking, hitting, or caning of children as OK.

Previously you may have read about my current experiences with IVF and the commencement of our journey through this process (IVF and IVF2). By implication this tells you that I am yet to be a parent. It is very easy for me to say these things when I have never had the fright of my life as my three year old runs out onto a busy intersection without looking. I cannot say what my reaction would be because it hasn’t happened yet and it would be a reaction. But things should never happen when you’re reacting.

Spare the rod and spoil the child? I’m sure we’ve all come a long, long way from this biblical nonsense – or maybe we haven’t. People in NZ obviously want the right to hit their children. They have shown it with their voting pens. Good work there, he says sarcastically. I would now like to hold a referendum and vote in favour of hitting people who don’t indicate when they are cutting across in front of me on the motorway. Just a gentle smack would do. A light smack on the bottom would be all it would take to stop these people from not using their indicators, despite the fact that the indicator switch is one of the closest at hand when you are seated in a driving position. Maybe not just a gentle smack… I would actually like to use reasonable force against these people. Yes… reasonable force. I would like to retrain them by using reasonable force.You can’t do that Boon – it’s assault.

The unfortunate side of this defence of ‘reasonable force’ is the fact that my ‘reasonable force’ might involve a trousers down smack with some kind of reinforced wooden cutlery. However, someone else’s ‘reasonable force’ might include putting their child into a clothes drier and hanging them out onto a clothesline. If you’re overseas reading this think I’m enhancing my point by going to an untrue and exaggerated extreme, cut and paste Nia Glassie Case into Google and see what you find out.

In this referendum month of August two New Zealand children have died because parents and caregivers used what they believed to be ‘reasonable force’ when disciplining – or just had no idea at all about parenting or humanity.

Being part of a couple who can’t get up the duff without a bit of science helping along the way it breaks my heart to  hear these horror stories of severe abuse. It starts you thinking… why can these dickheads have children at the drop of a hat and I’m forced to make love to a jar in a room at a hospital and put my sperm in the freezer to bring my child into existence. If these so-called ‘parents’ don’t want their children let me and Mrs. Boon have a go.

It’s something that we’ve thought about. The only problem with the adoption/fostering of children these days is how open it is. Biological parents still have access – to an extent I suppose, dependent on their fitness – but it’s all monitored by the government through their wonderfully resourced and thoroughly agile Department of Children, Young Persons and their Families (CYFS). I don’t think I’d like to be a parent under those circumstances… the thought of giving all of your love to a child and then having that child head off and find biological parents at some later date, or have a relationship all the way through their childhood, would make me feel like half a parent. The carpet of love could be pulled out from under you at any moment.

New Zealand has voted in favour of hitting children. 87% in favour. It’s still astounds that nearly 90% of New Zealanders have voted that smacking/hitting/assaulting children should NOT be a criminal offence. I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it. What is wrong with you people… (thanks to the nearly 12% that voted with me. You are the right kind of people).

I promise to blog on a slightly more upbeat note next time.

Boon x

IVF 2

By way of an update…

The process has begun. Yes, this is true. We are officially part of the Fertility Plus baby making machine. Small portions of me now lie frozen somewhere in the vacinity of -200°c. How my swimmers might be able to survive a slow freezing to that temperature and then get re-thawed back to +37°c both amazes and astounds me.

Let me put in the beep beep beep of a reversing truckular unit here and background a wee bit further the events of last Wednesday…

You may have read in my first IVF blog about my feelings of guilt towards our IVF experience as a whole. Due to my wife’s endometriosis a vast majority of the medical events will be happening to her. The guilt I feel relates to the fact that she is going through all the pain, prodding and procedures while I isn’t. To prevent these guilty feelings taking over I’ve been focusing on giving her my complete and total support when called upon.

Another thing I’ve been doing to allay the guilty feelings is to talk to people about our procedure. This has been quite cathartic also – mainly because everyone seems to be excited about the whole process starting and this excitement is rubbing off on me. I too am now excited about beginning IVF. At some point over the next couple of years (maybe sooner) we might have a little Boon running, crawling, dribbling and/or pooing around the house. That, my friends, is awesome.

The people I’ve been talking to are the ones who have to know – boss and team leader – but there have been others. Fertility Plus gave us a book with a time-line showing what happens and when during IVF. Day 1, as it’s called, will be happening sometime near the start of September. This is the first day of Zoe’s period when she rings up and books in an appointment to learn how to give the injections that will turn her body into an egg producing machine. This time-line is great because it’s all on one page and you show it to people and say ‘this happens there’ and ‘about this time we’ll be doing that’ and so on. The penultimate entry on the time-line is eggs fertilised with the final one being, obviously, embryos implanted.

At the very moment I point to that section of the time-line, or I tell someone about that part of the process, I wait. I wait to see which euphemism the person uses to describe my delivery of sperm to Fertility Plus. I’ve had “your contribution” and “doing your bit”. There’s no getting around it though and when you’re talking with someone about it you can see it in their eyes. You know. They know. You know that they know. They know that you know that they know. Everyone knows. My part involves going into a little room with a plastic jar with a pink lid and getting somewhat jiggy with myself. It’s just me, the room and my imagination. On Wednesday it was my turn to produce a back-up sample so that if I couldn’t on the day there would be one there we could use.

While I was walking down the corridor to the lab I noticed four large picture boards on the walls. Every single one was filled, packed, with pictures of babies and children. All of the children Fertility Plus had helped parents to create. It was a totally awe inspiring sight. Hundreds of pictures, from family pics of the kids lined up on the couch, down to a couple of babies being held up by the doctor/midwife moments after being born. I thought as I wandered down to the lab to pick up my pink-lidded jar that one day our baby could be on the corridor wall. A most heart warming and positive moment. It was the first time in a long, long time that I felt we would have children after IVF, or at all.

After ‘contributing’ to the pink-lidded jar I had to fill in a consent form, which Zoe had to sign. I almost ran down the corridor to the waiting room where she was and told her she  had forms to sign. While we walked I showed her the photos. On one of the photo boards there was a small gap between pictures. I saw this and pointed and said, “Look. There’s the gap for our baby.”

What I thought was going to be a daunting and highly clinical procedure has now turned into one of the most exciting experiences I’ve ever had. That’s in stark contrast to how I was feeling even three weeks ago. It’s amazing what a couple of hundred incredibly cute baby photos does to the IVF psyche!

Until next time, happy contributing.

Boon x

PS: Here’s the link to IVF 3