The Law Isn’t Always an Ass

A 17 year old man has been arrested for sending the following tweet to Tom Daley, whose father recently died due to cancer, after Daley failed to win an Olympic medal.

He later apologised profusely, so the arrest was very heavy-handed.

At least, that’s what much of the mainstream media would have us believe.

I was all ready to post the above, but thought I’d better have a look round on the internet, to see if there was more to the story. Almost immediately I found this page.

Click on that link, and you’ll find that the apology was not at all sincere, that the abuse for which the arrest was made was sustained, and rather nastier than the original tweet, and if you look in the comments you’ll find links to screenshots that show that this person has form, including this one:

So it’s worth remembering that the stories behind the headlines are often more complicated than those headlines alone convey’

Journalists (and editors) should remember that too.

Related articles

• Police probe Daley Twitter abuse (bbc.co.uk)
• Teenager held over tweets sent to Tom Daley (independent.co.uk)
• Teenager Held Over Tom Daley Twitter Abuse (news.sky.com)
• Twitter troll aims ‘dad’ slur at Tom Daley after medal miss at the London Olympics (thesun.co.uk)
• Teenage boy, 17, arrested over hate Tweets sent to Olympic diver Tom Daley … – Daily Mail (dailymail.co.uk)
• UK teen arrested over malicious Tom Daley tweets (newstalk.ie)

More Education for Dummies

I teach, after a fashion.

Actually, what I do is work as a volunteer, in a community centre, helping people to learn how to use computers.

The people I work with want to learn, but there’s no set timetable, and I work with, usually, one person at a time, and they learn at a pace that’s comfortable for them. The atmosphere is convivial, even jokey at times, and people are free to come and go as they please.

I have had some success, of which I’m quite proud, but I would not kid myself for one moment that I could do the job a teacher does.

In a school classroom, at least half the kids don’t want to be there and, whereas I can tell people “that’s OK, we’ll try again when you’re ready”, that isn’t an option when there’s a curriculum and a timetable to follow.

And I don’t work with children. Now, I wouldn’t have a problem teaching a child to, for example, read, but the same conditions as I work in now would have to obtain, with minimal pressure on both me and my pupil, but I can’t imagine keeping order in a class of around thirty or so of the blighters. Just imagining that scenario makes me shudder.

So quite why Michael Gove thinks that the only qualification necessary for teaching in schools is knowledge in the subject being taught is a mystery.

Controlling a classroom, while at the same time encouraging the children to learn, is a remarkable skill. Even if someone has a knack for it, they still have a lot to learn, and that’s without all the bureaucracy that teachers have to contend with. While in-depth knowledge of the subject is extremely useful, it’s not the most useful asset for a teacher.

So why is Gove doing this? If I were a cynic, with a deep distrust of the ConDem government, I might suspect that it’s because too few real teachers are signing up to one of his other bright ideas, academies.

Oh wait – I am cynical, especially where this loathsome government is concerned, so that’s exactly what I suspect!

Related articles

• Michael Gove’s own experts revolt over ‘punitive’ model for curriculum (guardian.co.uk)
• Education for Dummies (neitshade.wordpress.com)
• Expert adviser to Education Secretary Michael Gove claims primary school curriculum plans are ‘fatally flawed’ (independent.co.uk)
• Michael Gove is right: we must do better (telegraph.co.uk)