So much importantance is placed on the coming of the new year, for those of you are are making resolutions, good luck and Happy New Year if there is any special 'thing' that happens as the clock strikes twelve then may all your dreams come true.

Book/Books I am reading

Video Stories - Meera Nair


I was greatly excited when this came in the post on Friday, but it has proved to be slow reading. It is ok, the stories are just not particulary suprising in their telling, slow for me I guess.


Why Children Fail - John Holt.

Good, I like it because I agree with him, he offers some insights in to why schools, (any big one size fits all system) would fail children. In his later books I believe he advocates home schooling. Problem is I am not quite ready for that.

READ IT

Totally and absolutely pissed at the state school system at the moment,.

"The school, as a microcosm of society, often replicates these societal inequities in its broad policies and more specific curricular and instructional practices. When unexamined, education tends to proceed as business-as-usual and, in the process, perpetuates the status quo. To develop the capacity to provide all students with equity of opportunity to learn--a central goal of multicultural education--preservice students should examine the status quo, both societal and educational.
Although progress has been made, women and minorities are still underrepresented in such sectors of society as business, government, and education (Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995). Individual ability and initiative certainly play large roles in one's attainment of positions of authority within society. However, ability and initiative, or their absence, cannot fully explain the disproportionately few positions of authority held by women and minorities. The rest of the explanation likely derives from inequity, or unequal opportunity to succeed.
Whatever the reasons for the disproportion, the fact remains that with authority comes power. Power tends to be viewed differently by those who have it and those who do not. Delpit (1988) notes: "Those with power are frequently least aware of--or least willing to acknowledge--its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence"

Going to have to move my daughter, I can not sit by and watch her confidence destroyed,

Weakness, what is it? If I am weak, do I love too much, or too little? Do I fear life? Or love life too much. Is my strength, my capacity to endure, my weakness? If I question my strength, does that mean that I can not be strong? Is my need to protect those that grow under my wing my weakness?

And if I am weak, please tell me how I can grow strong, so that my will not bend, my step not sag and change not scare me. Let me grow strong so that I can wake up each new day knowing that I have done all that I can. That I can banish all the questions that make me fear myself and my weakness.

Me dear man, look yeah! Jus' fancy, if life were a t'ing dat money could buy, de rich would all live an' all like me poor one here would ha' fe dead! (anon)

There is a real need for children’s books for 5-7 year old children with black characters in them, literature written with love in the way that Octavia Butler wrote or Toni Morrison, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's writes, the books that I have picked up for my daughters by black writers are often lack lustre copies of traditional tales coloured in. I feel there most be children stories that come from us? Maybe I am missing them? Maybe they are not published yet and are languishing in corners waiting to be discovered. What ever it is we need them now.