Friday, September 11, 2009

Goodbye Mr Steak and Chips

Hats off to Andrea Charman, a ground-breaking school headmistress from Kent (why are they always from Kent?) who has made the news today.

She has decided that one of the school pets is to be sold to the local abattoir. (She claims that this was done democratically, but I suspect that the children were given the choice of “Listen brats, it’s either Marcus or one of you”)


She says that “I am trying to prepare children for the adult world in every sense”.


Good on yer, Andy!


Of course she does not go far enough.


Perhaps one of you would be kind enough to pass on the following suggestions so that she might take her laudable ambition to its proper conclusion. I would do it myself, but she scares the crap out of me.


Let the children slaughter the animals themselves. Have them shown how to sharpen the knives, discuss the best method of draining the blood. Make burgers out of the giblets. Make musical instruments out of the bones. (I was going to say make headmistresses out of the shit, but I am frightened of Ms Charman). Of course, this will not apply to vegetarian children, or “cissies” as they are known in Ms Charman’s school. They will be forced to pick the hand-reared peas that they have been growing at the back of the school prison, and pluck them from their pods, without anaesthetic.

Let’s have some marketing classes. Each hour have one class of children go round the school interrupting the other classes by trying to sell them crap that they don’t need.


Teach them about capitalism. Get them to hand over 45% of their pocket money to the Charman Investment Fund. When they leave school leaving age, they may get as much as 38% of it back, after tax.


Teach them about careers. Get them to do something entirely without merit, and then arbitrarily select one in twenty each term to be ‘made redundant’ from the class and get an “F”.


Teach them about journalism. Get the teachers to tell them a bunch of lies each day. (I suspect old Andrea will already have a good handle on this one).


For the school trip, hand out some Kalashnikovs and send the little loves to some third world country to see how many children they can murder there. Call it “democratisation awareness”.


Have a listen to Ms Charman, and unless you have children about to be put into her care, I defy you not to laugh.

I was struck by this sentence in the article:

“Mother Jo Davis said it was a disgrace that the sheep fed by hand by her eight-year-old daughter Megan was to be slaughtered and sold.” Delete the first 15 words and then you have a school policy that really reflects life in the world that we have made for ourselves.

13 comments:

I, Like The View said...

very moving

thank you

Richard said...

Oh dear. I find myself being serious and sympathising with both sides although I think the teacher is a bit of a berk. I'm not really sure what her point is. This school is only a few miles from where I grew up and in the middle of a huge sheep farming area. Many of the children will have grown up with sheep, as I did, and be fully aware of the beasts' destinies, hopefully after a long life of providing a decent amount of wool. She's not actually teaching them anything they don't already know apart from - indirectly - sentimentality about animals, something a lot of their peers will have little of. If they grow up to be caring and responsible farmers then we ought to be at least grateful. School farms are not unusual in the area, my nephew's secondary school in Ashford has one. My primary school had a flower garden and I grew up a complete tosser. I don't know whether there's a link there.

Geoff said...

The kids voted for it.

The little angels.

Rol said...

Keep the pets, send the kids to the abbatoir.

Richard said...

Mind you, they are a bit strange out on the marsh. You didn't go there at night if you could help it.

Rog said...

Anthropomorphism can turn people into dreamy headed idiots.

That's what Oz was saying earlier today, anyway.

Rog said...

Where's Tom? I agree with whatever he's going to say as he's been up whole nights with his arm up a sheep's arse.

Richard said...

wv = watdoggi

Kill! Kill!

Dave said...

I'm back now. You can return to your usual hilarious posts.

Anonymous said...

I think Rol might have a point.

I wonder if any of these kids will become vegetarians on account of this?

Vicus Scurra said...

ILTV. YW.
Richard. As far as I know, there is no variety of common garden flower known as a "link". I hope that this helps.
Geoff. Yes, sadly Ms Charman failed in this aspect. She has given them the farcical idea that voting makes some kind of difference.
Rol. You have missed your vocation. Are you related to Ms Charman?
Rog. Tom, coincidentally, is undergoing some reprogramming by a relation of Andrea Charman. I am not sanguine about the outcome.
Dave. I am pleased to learn this. I find it difficult to assess how much I have missed you.
MIT. Of course Rol has a point! Do you think people post here just to be frivolous?

Anonymous said...

I've got The Floyd's "Sheep" rattling around in my head now....

Vicus Scurra said...

And then we'll make the bugger's eyes water.