Posts by Lucy Telfar Barnard
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Thanks Matthew. Rats. Too late to edit it. It should read http://www.nz.uwc.org.
they have warped the empirical '__some (many) of our kids are failing__' into...
'the teachers are failing our kids', when I suspect it's more that government and society are failing the teachers and our kids.
When I envision a future society where children have an equal chance of realising their potential and aspirations regardless of which school they attend, the only way that I can imagine that happening is in a society where the children have enough food to eat and less stresses in their home life, and the teachers have a whole lot of resources (much as I hate the "toolbox" modernism, it's probably apt here) available to them to help where those basics aren't enough or aren't quite there.
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I chair a small committee that administers a set of scholarships (UWC Scholarships, in case any of you have a bright, motivated, socially engaged and engaging under-17 lollling round the house...). Every year, when our applications come in, I go through my annual rage against the inequities in our education system. How, I ask myself, am I meant to compare this application from someone at a large Decile 10 city school, where more than half the Year 11s get NCEA Level 1 endorsed with Excellence, and another third endorsed with Merit, with this other application from someone at a small low decile rural school, where noone got endorsement even with Merit - and so many more didn't get NCEA Level 1 at all. Fortunately we are allowed to select on potential as much as achievement, but that's what makes it difficult. I can't believe that the educational potential of the students at that poor rural school is really that much lower than the potential of those at the wealthy city school. So in between trying to adjust for the different applicants' educational opportunities, I can't help but rage at all that wasted potential.
I don't for even a moment think that the solution is charter schools, or bulk-funding, or "performance-based pay", when all of those have repeatedly been shown to not work. The willful pursuit of these debunked ideas just makes me rage all the more, because it diverts teaching and educational researcher attention, energy and funding from finding and implementing something that will work.
Rage.
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As mentioned once or twice [aka only about a million times...], I'm not really a music festival sort of person, but I've heard this performance was one of the highlights?
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It was a timely point Damian – I was just about to have a rant about some “journalism” today. But your point leaves me a bit uncomfortable. Clearly we are allowed to, and should, criticise the media and the behaviour of some individuals within it. How do we do that while at the same time allowing any individual journalist the same right to bad days that the rest of us enjoy?
So, in today’s case, what do I do? Do I concern-troll the comments, saying “Maybe you’re tired this week, but for a column debating current affairs, surely you can do better than getting sucked into the diversion flag debate?” Do I blame the employer “The Herald sinks to new lows; their choice of headline unwittingly highlights everything that’s wrong with “current affairs” – bread and circuses rather than discussing things that matter”? Or do I just ignore it, or what?Of course mainly I wanted to share the headline because I thought it was so awful it was funny, but now I feel like it would be pointing and laughing, which would be mean. I’ve had the meanness of it called out in advance, so I’ve had the chance to avoid being mean, but I’m still sulking over not being able to share the funnies.
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I first remember becoming aware of Nelson Mandela in 1984, when Free Nelson Mandela hit the charts, and my mother explained who Nelson Mandela was (I'd been wondering what a Nelson Mandela was, and why it was good to get them free, like "Free cookies" or "Free firewood"). Later that year we had a relieving teacher who spent the full day telling the class about apartheid, what it was, and what it meant.
Later I attended a United World College. Nelson Mandela's children had attended the UWC in Swaziland, and he later became President of UWC international. Our choir always finished its concerts with Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, partly in his honour. Now Chair of New Zealand's UWC National Committee, I've always been so proud to have his name on our letterhead.So although I never met him, and never knew him, I am mourning his death. He was so great a man it was a privilege even to walk on the same planet as him.
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I don’t know about calling smoking marijuana victimless. Having spent my early years on a hippie commune, where many of the adults smoked marijuana regularly, I can tell you that having to deal with stoned adults when you are a child is extremely dull and regularly frustrating.
That doesn’t mean I think smoking marijuana should be a crime, only that being stoned can affect other people besides the user (as does being drunk). -
The first "gig" would have been some itinerant band passing through the Coromandel in the 1970s, and thus up to the Colville Town Hall. I doubt I wanted to be there, and have blocked it out. The only one I remember enjoying was Red Mole, but does that count as a "gig"? I thought they were more Cabaret?
And then there was the horror of Sweetwaters 1980 (could'a sworn it was earlier than that, but anyway). I liked watching the circus children practice, but I spent most of the time feeling cold and bored and hungry and penniless. I could not tell you a single band that was there. Looking at the listing on the Kiwi Concert Archive, I feel cheated for not having been able to appreciate what was on offer.
But on to happier times, and the gigs I chose to attend. It's easy to remember these because there are so few of them.
I wanted to go to Madness in London in 1981 (my mother was going), but it was R18 and I was 10. So...
First International Gig: Eurythmics, Athletic Park, Wellington, 28 Jan 1987. I wore a black skirt so short my friends called it a cummerbund. And black shoes borrowed from my cousin because they insisted (valuable advice) that I could not wear white shoes with a black skirt. I enjoyed the concert (enjoying live music was a novel experience), and remember Annie Lennox stopping the show till some anti-social lout was thrown out.
After that, Crowded House in Palmerston North, July 1987. A very dull Mockers concert at Massey in 1988 (far too much like all those childhood gigs I would rather not have gone to), and... no, in fact, I don't remember the other two in 1992 (Powerstation) and 1993 (Mt Smart Stadium). I think after that I figured out live music and I weren't really made for each other, and I was better off doing things I enjoyed more, which is a very long list.
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Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to A O,
Again, a discussion can be held without needing to blame anyone.
Sorry, are you saying it’s possible to discuss rape without needing to blame the rapists?
Or, if you’re just saying that it’s possible to discuss rape without blaming the victims, yes, that’s possible, but it’s not what Willie and JT did.
What they said and what they’ve been interpreted as saying are two different things.
Or alternatively, you don’t understand what victim blaming is.
When they said “Yeah but girls shouldn’t be drinking anyway, should they?” and “The other side come to it, are they willing drinkers, all those questions come in don’t they?”, that’s victim-blaming, because it implies (as in, it’s implicit) that the reason the girls were raped was because they had been drinking, not because the boys raped them.
When they said “So anyway you fibbed, lied, whatever, and went out to the parties”, that’s victim-blaming, because it implies that the reason the girls were raped was because they lied to go out to parties, not because the boys raped them.
When they said “– did you not know they were up to this mischief?”, that’s victim blaming, because it implies that the reason the girls were raped was because they went to a party where there were boys who some of their friends may or may not have known had raped before – not because the boys raped them.
When they said “Do you think over this period any of the girls could have got together and said, this is not on?”, that’s victim-blaming, because it implies that the reason the girls were raped was because none of the girls got together and told the boys off, not because the boys raped them.
These are only some examples. My posts are often longer than I think ideal, so I’m trying to keep it short.
Those are their exact words, and what those words mean. It’s not “what they’ve been interpreted as saying”, it’s what those words mean. Again: they did not say “we condone the actions of rapists”. They just condoned the actions of rapists by what they said.
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Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to A O,
neither stated that they condone rape or the actions of rapists.
I don’t think you understand what victim-blaming is.
They didn’t say “we condone rape and the actions of rapists”. They said [things that mean they condone rape and the actions of rapists].
You can’t blame rape victims for their rape without saying that it’s [at least partly] their fault. If it’s [at least partly] their fault, it’s not all the rapists fault. If it’s not all the rapists fault, then it’s not always the rapist’s fault. If it’s not always the rapist’s fault, there are some situations in which rape is acceptable. If you believe there are some situations in which rape is acceptable, then you condone rape.
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The other problem I have with Graeme's argument is this:
Let's imagine an alternative history in which I didn't write to Countdown and say "I will not be shopping with you as long as you continue to advertise on JT and Willie's show". Let's assume lots of other people didn't do variations on the same thing. Let's assume Gio didn't write so eloquently to the whole lot of them.
Let's imagine we did as Graeme suggested: we rang RadioLive endlessly, to tell them how offensive what they did to Amy was, how wrong and offensive their views on rape were.
What would the outcome have been?
I'm pretty confident that the outcomes would have been these:
1. Wille and JT and whichever other callers would pretty soon have got bored of being told how revolting they were, over and over, and exercised their own editorial control over the callers, with combinations of the Hang Up button and "we've got to cut to some advertising right now, call again later."
2. Possbly, those of us disgusted by their behaviour might have phoned in to RadioLive for the very first time, to continue using the only pressure Graeme would have us exercise, our own voices.
3. Eventually, as Willie and JT either get bored and stop playing such callers, or decide it's a ratings winner and say even more offensive things in order to maintain the controversy, we get exhausted, as we already are, at having to try to shout or argue down men with more power and louder voices.
4. RadioLive as a station notes that caller volumes have increased, listener numbers are up, therefore advertising revenue has also increased. They, and the advertisers, profit from Willie and JT's rape enabling. Perhaps they also give Willie and JT a payrise as a way of saying good job for increasing profits.At the end of the day, Willie and JT are no worse off. The message to rape enablers is: you can be as obnoxious about rape and rape victims as you like, without any adverse consequences. You might get a bunch of angry feminists yellling at you for a bit, but ha ha, that's what they do and nobody cares what a bunch of hairy-legged man-haters think anyway, ha ha ha, it's funny, let's bait them some more!
The message to women who have been or will be sexually assaulted is "You can try to challenge the power of rapists and rape enablers, but they have more power than you, and nothing will happen to them."
Or, another possible non-advertiser-boycott history:
We stop listening to RadioLive in general, and Willie and JT in particular. Eventually, if the public maintain it long enough, the advertisers figure out that noone's listening. They move their advertising elsewhere. RadioLive say "sorry JT and Willie, noone's listening and you're losing us money, we're going to have to dump your show." Willie and JT and other rape enablers learn that enabling rape has consequences.
In this second possible history, the final outcome is exactly the same as what's actually happened. The only difference is that the "advertiser boycott" is a whole lot less exhausting, and makes it happen a whole lot faster.
There is of course another small difference between what actually happened and these possible alternatives. In the advertiser boycott version, I have power. I can email Countdown and threaten to withdraw my custom. I can feel I have a small part in ensuring that Willie and JT experience adverse consequences for enabling rape. As someone who has experienced sexual assault, I find this empowering.
In the possible alternatives, I have no power. In the first scenario, when I phone RadioLlive for the umpteenth time, and it makes no difference, I am disempowered. In the second scenario, I can't stop listening to RadioLive, because I never listened to them in the first place, so I have no power to do anything. The realisation I have no power is also disempowering.
Yes, there is some danger in that. All power corrupts, and all that. That's a risk I'm prepared to take.