The Fifty Seventh Republic - the joy of bank holiday marking

[StaffRepFeistyClub]

You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff only – a sort of room of requirement. Baiters, haters, goaders, and bashers can jog on somewhere else.

If you are NOT staff and just have a general education query please start your own thread.

Do not give the staffroom password to non-staff as it attracts the wrong sort of crowd.

Other requirements for staff room entry include the ability to find the staff room, the ability to find a clean mug in the staff room, knowledge of the photocopier codes, and the ability to sniff out where the booze is stashed - Thirsty Tuesdays, Fizz Fridays now in operation. Do not sit on the chairs and do wear a mask

Fishing seems to have screwed them over in coastal areas of Cornwall.

In unsurprising, school covid news:

science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/04/28/science.abh2939.full

@noblegiraffe

Hartlepool was very pro-leave.

Wasn’t the Labour candidate massively Remain?

Yes, i think so. I feel like he might have had some controversy in Stockton or somewhere too. Possibly being due to being remain.

@Mistressinthetulips

So what was the one that people got in the earlier 80s that leaves a mark on your arm? Actually have just googled it myself and it was the BCG.

The BCG (TB) jab! I remember a girl fainting out of her chair in Maths, the lesson before we were due to have it.

My dc all have the BCG because of their heritage (which is weird, because for some reason the Dr said I didn't need it when I was young ).

I haven’t had the BCG because I lived in Norfolk at the time and they didn’t give it.

Apparently he co-authored a report recommending the removal of services at Hartlepool hospital while he was MP in Stockton in 2017. And they were then removed.

Seems like he was a ridiculous candidate for Hartlepool. Either they’ve totally lost the plot or they knew it was a lost cause and they were never going to win.

I’ve just read on twitter that teaching maths is not only racist but white supremacist.

I can’t help but think that certain parts of the progressive left are doing a good job of alienating people.

John Pienaar said on HIGNFY last night that Labour need to stop telling people that they’re wrong.

I’ve just read on twitter that teaching maths is not only racist but white supremacist.

How???

Yes, that was practically what was being hurled at any Labour spokespeople on yesterday morning's coverage by barely concealed-frustration filled interviewers: stop telling voters outside London and Twitter that they're stupid, racist and wrong and that Britain is a shithole full of stupid, racist, wrong thinkers. They ain't gonna vote for you if that's your main message.

Tbf these examples are from the US (I think) but I’ve certainly seem posts from English posters discussing how maths is racist for suggesting that there’s one correct answer and prioritising one form of thinking over another.

I don’t know why that’s racist but group work combats racism. I spend time in my classroom discussing how we get time (base 60) from the Babylonians, Arabic numerals and algebra, zero from India etc and what wonderfully diverse roots it has only to find it was racist all along.

They could take some lessons from Boris tbh. It won’t do much for the level of political debate in this country, but it might give them a fighting chance of being re-elected.

I’ve just read on twitter that teaching maths is not only racist but white supremacist. How? I mean, I don't feel racist. What am I missing?

Why is independent practice white supremacist but teamwork and collaboration not? I don’t really get the explanation.

I have no idea.

But being told that something you thought was reasonable or sensible is now bigoted and unacceptable seems to be quite a lot of people’s experience with the left.

See concerns about immigration and Gordon Brown.

Another sleeper story in the English locals results is Con decline and LD/Lab advance in "blue wall" constituencies which voted Remain in 2016 but returned Con MPs in 2019.

From the Twitters. Interesting too. I wonder what the RW press would have done with news of those things happening if Hartlepool hadn't been declared before all this. Wales too.

But being told that something you thought was reasonable or sensible is now bigoted and unacceptable seems to be quite a lot of people’s experience with the left.

I really want someone to be able to explain to my why they vote Tory without mentioning the words 'the left' or Corbyn. My dad can't even do it, and he's been a life long Tory voter (and councillor in his 40s).

Oh, my dad also nearly always ends up using "they all lie" as part of his arguments on any politics issue.

My parents vote Tory. They loved Margaret Thatcher. They came from literally nothing and did very well under Tory rule, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and think that if they did it through hard work, so should other people - small c conservative values. They see Labour as wanting to take away from them what they worked for to give to people who don’t want to work for it.

My family are lifelong Labour voters. My grandad was a Labour councilor for over 30 years, and my dad's family were all miners so Labour was the party that was on their side. Dh's family have always voted conservative. I find the contrast very jarring.

Having said that, I'm not entirely sure my grandad would recognise the Labour party now as the same party he represented for so long. A lot of their key values have changed, and the public perception of the party has changed along with that.

That’s labour’s current problem isn’t it? The current Tory party seem to be all things to all people.

Labour can’t win the small c. conservatives without losing other parts of it’s vote to LD and greens. The tories are led by vote leave and are consolidating Brexit party vote nicely, which increases their vote share anyway and because of the pandemic they are paying the wages of a fair number of ‘traditional’ labour voters. Which they manage to do without alienating the small c conservatives who think these people are taking away money they earned.

@noblegiraffe

My parents vote Tory. They loved Margaret Thatcher. They came from literally nothing and did very well under Tory rule, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and think that if they did it through hard work, so should other people - small c conservative values. They see Labour as wanting to take away from them what they worked for to give to people who don’t want to work for it.

Exxactly that. My dad grew up in a children's home. They've worked really hard, but they are boomers, and have also been very lucky with property. They don't see the luck in it though. He's anti immigration, voted Brexit, campaigned for leave (I campaigned for remain, so that was nice and awkward)... yet his best friend is a Hungarian immigrant. Who also voted leave. Argh.

My parents also have a Labour MP, and he's dreadful. A self-serving obnoxious tit. I wouldn't vote for him. They spend a lot of time complaining about him and it all seems reasonable.

I am most put out Count Binface didn’t win London Mayor.

I found that 'maths is racist' thing uncomfortable on Twitter because it didn't need brining up by a white middle aged non maths(?) teacher for derision and mockery when it isn't even relevant to, or part of , our educational contexts. It feels like Old always looks for things to ridicule and that, too often, it is ideas from women and/or people of colour. It seemed to me he was trying to reignite last week's Kriel War.

That is all notwithstanding the plain oddness of what is being said about maths.

The so called progs are at it , too. There was the smug 'teachers should never shout' post, too. At least that one wasn't about race, though.

stop telling voters outside London and Twitter that they're stupid, racist and wrong and that Britain is a shithole full of stupid, racist, wrong thinkers

I do always find that such a sweeping statement. I have never (since Brown who I agreed with, she was was bigoted!) heard a Labour politician say this thing.

In fact, as a disillusioned voter , I want them to call people out more. Boris and co are getting away with what they do because no one challenges them much. I actually think Labour would do better in parts of the North if there were more politicians like Dennis Skinner, more people like Arthur Scargill , fighting and soapboxing. They miss the point that Blair won because he appealed to the soft south, not because of votes in the North.

If I went back to Scotland I am guessing I would now be SNP as it seems Labour is dead there. It's a real cognitive dissonance to me that Glasgow isn't a sea of red.