Good News on a different Front

Finally, teachers across England are waking up. What took them so long to reclaim their classrooms? However, changing a system is always difficult when you are part of it, stuck in it so to say. I am glad we never opted in!! Anyway, here is what's going on, and I am proud of them for speaking up!



"Primary school heads will press ahead with a boycott of Sats tests for 10- and 11-year-olds next month, Britain’s biggest teaching unions confirmed today, potentially throwing league tables and assessment regimes into chaos.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) confirmed after a meeting of their executives that their members would take industrial action and would not adminster national tests in maths and English.

The decision means the next government is heading for a clash with headteachers, who will be boycotting the tests on the first day of a new administration.

The tests are due to be sat by 600,000 children in their last year of primary school between May 10 and May 13.

Last Friday, headteachers in England voted overwhelmingly to boycott the tests.

The unions said Sats in their current form 'disrupt the learning process for children in Year 6 (aged 10 and 11), and are misused to compile meaningless league tables which only serve to humiliate and demean children, their teachers and their communities'. They said they supported a system of assessment that “highlights what children can do rather than focussing on failure”.

Christine Blower, general secretary of the NUT, said: 'Not only are we boycotting Sats, but we are saying to schools that this is finally the opportunity to do the exciting things you always really wanted to be doing in the classroom. We can make sure Sats week is a really brilliant week, a creative week, which is what we would want every single week of the year to be.'"

In To-do Mode

After my friend was diagnosed with cancer last year, I tried to be there for her and her son as much as I could. Together with her parents, who flew in from Japan, and her other friends, I tried to turn the summer into a series of happy diversions for the little guy while his mom went through chemo and radiation.

And although she seemed tired and overwhelmed at times, she never let on, just how serious her situation was. And all of us, I think, gladly believed her. We wanted to hold on to our delusional state as long as possible, and she was generous.

I don’t know how she did it. Now that I know the type of cancer and the stage, I am a wreck.

About six weeks ago, we had a couple of long conversations just before she had to undergo major surgery and shortly after. While we sat at her dining room table, we talked about options for treatment and I promised to dig around in recent publications and on the internet. I signed her up for the MayoClinic cancer newsletter and found a clinic near her hospital that complements the therapy with holistic treatments.

On our more realistic days, I began looking for a box to fill with objects, letters, and smells that will remind her son of her, and she ordered the book “My life without Me.” Together, we have tried to grasp the incomprehensible by managing it in a to-do format. Everything is a project, and for every problem, there is a solution.

Except there isn’t.

She has started the next round of chemotherapy, a very aggressive 41/2 month program that will leave her body weak and bald. Not a good, but alas a last chance.

Shortly before Christmas, a few weeks after her second scan which came back negative, we had toasted to her recovery.

...

J. has gone away over Easter. She is spending a few days on the sea. Tom's family will be there. I don't know whether they will talk. His mom is wonderful, but everyone is in shock. And then there is Ricky. He must not know. Life must go on. Eggs must be found and relished. He does, of course, know something. But that knowledge is feathery. Obscure and shapeless like coins at the bottom of a fountain.

I will be doing some research this coming week. I have got some ideas for treatments from preliminary research. Thanks also to you all who gave me pointers. I will be sorting through them with J. once she gets back. Her oncologist wants her to go for a second round of chemo. Five months. A last chance maybe.