Report card for the academic year

One of New Zealand’s most successful columnists is ex-teacher Joe Bennett. In the following column published in late December 2007 he produces a report card for countries around the world.

“Your Grace the Bishop, board of governors, staff, parents and pupils, as headmaster of the School of the Globe, it’s my duty to report on the academic year that is now ending. And I shall not pussy-foot. I shall say what I think and name names, writes Joe Bennett this week.

So let me begin with a rocket: Africa House, pull your socks up.

I’ve said it before, indeed I have said it every year since 1961, but I shall not stop saying it until those socks come up and a garter fixes each one in a seemly fashion just below the knee as stipulated in the school rules. You could start by selecting a few decent house prefects and finding some way of keeping them honest.

Yes, I am aware of the outbreak of bullying that over-ran the school in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, leading to many rival houses installing prefects in Africa House and running the place for their own benefit.

It was unpardonable. And I regret that I and the board of governors did not intervene earlier.

We were, as our longer-term parents will no doubt recall, preoccupied at the time with the unparalleled expansion of the science block.

But all that is now history and it is time for you in Africa House to take responsibility for your own affairs. You generally do pretty well on sports day, except in the swimming pool for some reason, but there is more to life than running and jumping. Your sick bay’s a mess, evening prep is a shambles and your house kitchens are frankly appalling. And if you continue to rely on gifts of tuck and pocket money from squidgy-hearted members of other houses you will continue to flounder.

South America House, as I mentioned in my report last year, seems to be getting somewhere at last, India House even more so and, if they can, then so can you. All Africa House prefects will report to my study immediately after this assembly.

At the other end of the scale, my congratulations to China House on a simply splendid year. You have motored up the academic league tables. Africa House could profit from studying how you have trebled the length of evening prep and abolished sleeping. You fully deserved getting your name engraved on the Mayor Dafting Cup for Most Improved for the first time since 1306.

There is one matter that concerns me, however. Several incidents have been brought to my attention of junior boys from China House copying work done by scholars from other houses, passing it off as their own, and then selling it. This seems to be going on with the connivance of China House prefects and even perhaps the Head of House. The practice is objectionable for several reasons, not the least of which is that most of the pocket money I distribute every Friday now seems to be finding its way to China House, to be then lent out again to boys from Europe House and America House at a rate of interest. The short-term consequences no doubt seem agreeable to all parties, but in the long run it will end in a playground brawl. The practice will stop. If I have to mention it again there will be a few characters dipping their backsides into the Yangtze to cool them. Do I make myself understood? Talking of playground brawls, I am aware that many of you and, yes, I am addressing myself to America House in particular, take joy in constructing ever more complicated sling-shots, pea-shooters and water-pistols. Such things are a healthy tradition of boyhood and I have no plans for mass confiscations.”

Read the rest of the column on The Southland Times website.

What is a column?

As I have discussed in previous posts the first writing task for Year 13 will be writing a column. I have put examples of columns on the blog but some of you may still be a little unsure about what exactly a column is.

According to Wikipedia a column is a recurring piece or article in a newspaper, magazine or other publication. Columns are written by columnists.

What differentiates a column from other forms of journalism is that it meets each of the following criteria:

• It is a regular feature in a publication
• It is personality-driven by the author
• It explicitly contains an opinion or point of view

Feeding our girls a lifetime of angst

I have added another column extract from India Knight as she is writing on a topic that many students find interesting. Body image issues are a popular column topic and Knight’s comments are certainly thought-provoking.

“It was reported last week, not for the first time, that girls as young as six have issues with their body image. They consider themselves to be “fat” and to have problem areas. This is, obviously, appalling, and I’m sure we are all suitably shocked. What is seldom mentioned in conjunction with this issue, though, is that those of us who are the most shocked – little girls’ loving, devoted, mothers – are also the ones directly responsible for this terrible state of affairs.

Six-year-old girls don’t – I hope – read Heat magazine or the more scurrilous internet gossip sites, of the kind that mock female celebrities’ bodies whether they are fat, thin or somewhere in between. Six-year-old girls still have their clothes bought for them by their mothers; they know nothing of fashion, other than pink and sparkly equals good, and pink and sparkly with My Little Pony equals ecstasy.

They don’t exist in the adult female world, where every woman is judged on her looks and on her body shape, most notably by other women – the great irony about all of this is that men don’t seem to care whether their love object is a size 4 or a size 14. Where, then, does little girls’ dissatisfaction with the way they look come from?

From Mummy, that’s where, and it starts very young, with the idea that some foods are so “sinful” or “naughty” that they are either banned outright or doled out as if they were incredibly precious.

If you ban the average toddler from eating chocolate, chocolate becomes the most desirable thing the toddler can think of. If you ban chocolate and tell your three-year-old that it will not only rot her teeth but also make her fat, you’re introducing the idea of weight at an age where it has no relevance whatsoever.”

Read the rest here.

Unhappily ever after

India Knight has written a thought-provoking column about families called ‘Britain plays unhappy families’. Knight is a novelist and a regular columnist for The Sunday Times. I have put part of the column below and you can read the rest at Timesonline.

“The problem with political parties lazily banging on about “the family” all the time, as though the nuclear model were the remedy for all society’s ills, is that anyone even slightly observant can’t have failed to notice that the traditional family is in dire straits.

I’m all for families, and for children being brought up in secure, loving environments – who isn’t? – but I get tremendously irritated when it is suggested, as it so often is, that having two parents under the same roof somehow magically guarantees a Janet and John kind of childhood, free of risk or trauma, and that having just the one parent is a recipe for impending hoodie-druggie-gun disaster.

It’s such a load of guff. What actually matters, to children and adults alike, is having happy, contented parents whose felicity communicates itself to their children. Whether the happy parents are happy together or happier separated, and whether the family is the 2.3 version or a more seemingly chaotic model filled with steps and halves and honorary aunties, seems to me completely irrelevant. It’s simple: a happy parent makes for a happy child, and a miserable one communicates misery to his or her offspring – not just occasionally, but for decades on end.

My theory has met with some resistance in the past, though goodness knows why (actually I do know why: it’s because unhappily married people are incredibly defensive). But anyway, I knew I was right, and a survey of married couples last week backs me right up. An amazing 59% of married women said they would leave their husbands tomorrow if they could be assured of economic stability. Half of the husbands questioned defined their marriage as “loveless”.

More than 10% of men and women said they wished they had married someone else; 12% said they would stay in an unhappy relationship for an easy life; 30% said they were staying in a doomed marriage to save themselves the hassle of an upheaval; 37% said they were staying put for the sake of the children; 42% worried about losing their home if they broke up; a third of those polled were worried they would be left with nothing if they walked away; and 30% of men said they were scared of leaving their children behind.”

Chicklit Chart

“Chick lit” is a term used to denote genre fiction written for and marketed to young women, especially single, working ones. Chick lit features hip, stylish female protagonists, usually in their twenties and thirties, in urban settings (usually London or Manhattan), and follows their love lives and struggles for professional success (often in the publishing, advertising, public relations or fashion industry). The books usually feature an airy, irreverent tone and focus on relationships. The genre spawned Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City and its accompanying television series. Popular Chick lit novelists include Ireland’s Marian Keyes, Cecelia Ahern, and Sophie Kinsella author of the Shopaholic series. Check the link below if you are a fan of the genre.

Chicklit Chart

How glasses are good for your image

I really like this advertising campaign from Oogmerk Opticians. It is a series of before and after pictures that demonstrate how wearing glasses can change your image.

Top 10 Books of All Time

Norton (of the Norton Anthologies) asked 125 of the greatest living writers to select their top 10, and then (using statistics) produced a final list of the ten greatest fiction books ever written. At number one was Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’.

The List Universe has posted the list with comments if you are interested.

Pantorexia

Today’s column is about pants. Yep, it is all about great big Nana knickers and it is written by Caitlin Moran. Here is an extract:

On December 3, an attempt by a 23-year-old man, John Marsey, to fry a slice of bread went alarmingly wrong. Within minutes, his kitchen was ablaze. Thankfully, however, Marsey and his cousin, Darren, were able to conjure up a makeshift fireblanket. They grabbed a pair of John’s mother’s size 18 to 20 M&S “big pants” from the washing basket and threw them on the raging pan .

“If they’d been my daughter Sarah’s skimpy knickers, they wouldn’t have done any good,” Mrs Marsey said, posing with her huge pants for a local news story. And, in that instant, she encapsulated the implacable moral, spiritual, political and, most importantly, practical superiority of big pants.

People, I’m going to lay this one right on the line, right here, right now: I’m pro big pants. Indeed, pace Mrs Marsey, I’m currently wearing a pair that could have put out the Great Fire of London at any point during the first 48 hours or so.

Read the rest at Timesonline.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Another classic duo – Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.

Give the little ones a chance

I have added another example of a newspaper column. The writer is New Zealander Kerre Woodham. Woodham is a well-known columnist and her topic is the recently announced Government initiative to identify children aged from 3 to 7 with behavioural problems.

Kerre Woodham writes for The Herald on Sunday.

Here is an extract-

“Can you really predict whether someone is going to become a useful, law-abiding member of the community or a law-breaking waste of space at the age of 3?

A Government initiative to identify little ones aged from 3 to 7 with behavioural problems begins this year, a co-operative venture between the Ministries of Education, Health and Social Development. Kids who tick too many negative boxes – who are violent towards their peers, lack empathy, who are disruptive and self-obsessed – will be identified as at risk of becoming crims. They will be given lessons in how to behave appropriately, hopefully offering them an alternative path to the rocky one they’re treading.

At the same time, parents and teachers will attend workshops to teach them how to respond when children are acting out.

According to one of the experts who advised the Government on the scheme, the success rate should be around 80 per cent and the expense – roughly $4000 a child – will be minimal compared with what it would cost to try to turn around the life of a teenager or a young adult.”

Read the rest here.