Anti-Smacking law proves its worth
28th June 2008
One year after the notorious “anti-smacking” law came into force the screaming and shouting has begun all over again. Strident demands for a referendum to be held at this year’s general election are batted away by the government; the Opposition is gleeful, sensing another opportunity to bag Labour; Helen Clark reminds them they voted for the legislation in the first place; and somewhere in the depths of Parliament a clerk patiently works his way through politic’s answer to the New World Longest Docket Competition.
So, what has happened in the twelve months since Sue Bradford robbed us of the right to hit our kids? Have the wheels fallen off? Has the thin fabric of society been torn asunder? Yes! shout the law’s opponents. Innocent mums, dads and grannies are suffering the wrath of the state for the slightest rebukes, while a generation of children spared the rod are growing wild and lawless as a consequence.
The truth is more modest. In the past six months police have responded to 82 callouts under the legislation, which have resulted in just 4 prosecutions and, to date, no convictions. This is no upheaval.
The Child Discipline Bill had a single purpose: to remove the defence of ‘reasonable force’ in prosecutions of physical violence against children. As far as I’m aware it was never intended to outlaw physical disciplining of children, but this arose as a public perception during the passage of the bill, where it became the ‘anti-smacking law’, and so it remains in most people’s minds. The insertion of a clause in the bill giving police the power to disregard inconsequential complaints has done nothing to pacify its opponents.
‘Reasonable force’ is a fine legal precedent but, with reference to the disciplining of children, it is an oxymoron – a contradiction. Using force against children marks the departure of reason. When adults hit children they are, at least for that moment, neither reasoned nor reasonable - they have taken leave of their senses.
Some opponents of the law have tried to tell us otherwise. They claim to smack or hit their children in a calm and reasonable way, after patiently explaining to the child why they are about to undertake such an insane act. Who are they kidding? Children get hit when adults lose their temper and can’t think of anything else to do.
‘Reasonable force’ is often accompanied by cries of provocation: “the little bugger drove me to it,” “you can’t reason with kids.” I work with children every day. In my experience there are almost no occasions when children cannot reason or be reasoned with.
The only times I can imagine reasonable force being necessary with children is to restrain them when they are about to endanger themselves or others. No police officer would ever prosecute this.
The issue here is not the behaviour of children but the behaviour of adults. Most of us are kind and caring parents but New Zealand has one of the highest rates of child abuse in the world. Some of us enact the abuse, others observe it and do nothing while the rest of us look on with mild concern or fuel radio talkback with forced outrage. We scream against the Kahui family while failing to understand that the roots of evil lie in society’s general acceptance that it’s okay to hit kids. So important is this belief that thousands of us have signed a petition to restore it as a parental right. This is crazy.
We are told the anti-smacking law will never stop the worst cases of child abuse. I disagree. This law sets a standard. It places the safety and care of children above poor parenting. If the effect of the act is to make adults think twice before hitting children it will, in time, contribute to social change that will reduce even the worst violence.
The deputy police commissioner, Rob Pope, said this week that the act “provides another check in terms of alerting police to different standards of parental behaviour.” For years we have cried out for more police powers to intervene before extreme family violence occurs. It’s odd that, now we finally have something that does just this, so many of us want to get rid of it.
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
185,000 children living in poverty
Research by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) reveals that 185,000 children live in poverty in New Zealand.
There’s more. In the past 20 years New Zealand has had the fastest growing gap between rich and poor of any country in the developed world.
The link is obvious. The widening gap between rich and poor, like a slowly receding tide, has left those 185,000 children washed up.
This means there is a group of people half the population of Christchurch who are under-nourished, poorly housed, ill-fed and without the hope of participating fully in society. And for every child in this group there is at least one adult.
The problem I have, and where I think we should all feel uncomfortable, is that this situation is not an accident. It is the inevitable and foreseeable outcome of our actions as a society over two decades.
This number – 185,000 – should bury forever the myth of New Zealand as a land of equal opportunity. It also buries the last shreds of the social contract that prevailed during my childhood and youth. The terms of that contract were simple: those who were well off agreed to share some of their wealth with the less fortunate. It was, we told ourselves, the measure of a civilised society.
Poverty, especially the deep inter-generational poverty we are witnessing in New Zealand, is very difficult to overcome, but one crucial factor is money. 185,000 is the number of children living in families that receive less than 60% of the average household income which, in New Zealand, is already considerably lower than most of the countries we like to compare ourselves with.
The welfare state transferred money from rich to poor through taxes and benefits. It reflected a consensus that poverty was neither the fault of the poor, nor did they desire to remain forever dependent upon the state.
Perhaps the single biggest change in the past 20 years is the acceptance that the poor are to blame for their situation. To be a ‘beneficiary’ in New Zealand is to be cursed like an Old Testament leper.
The greatest blame is reserved for the unemployed. When the government introduced Working For Families in 2004 it elevated work as the crucial factor in determining social equity. To qualify for tax credits, Family Support and a range of other services you must have a job. “If you are working,” the government said, “we will top up your family income to a level where you can have a decent chance at life.”
Working For Families has been successful in reducing the number of people on the margins of poverty, but it has enabled other injustices to remain. It has shielded employers from the responsibility of providing a decent wage, and consigned many people to dull, repetitious, low-skilled employment that contributes little to our economy and nothing to their quality of life.
For the jobless Working For Families is a disaster because it streams government funding away from benefits.
Working For Families stems from the belief that the poor are idle and undeserving. But it is a mean-spirited society that does not recognise some legitimate reasons for not being in the work force. People should not be reduced to poverty because of long term illness or staying home to look after the kids.
Linking income support to jobs looks good in a buoyant market where jobs, even “McJobs”, are being created. I think we are about to see what happens when jobs start to disappear. The 450 meat workers who were laid off in Dannevirke this week have lost not only their jobs but also their access to Working For Families. Are they idle and undeserving?
I hold no hope that either Labour or National intends to reduce child poverty. Their policies reflect voter expectations and as a society we shrug off the problems of the poor. We forget that poverty is everybody’s problem. Poverty breeds crime, child abuse, ill health and ignorance. Morally, these are compelling reasons for change. As a purely fiscal argument it is much cheaper to lift people out of poverty than to pay for more prisons and hospitals.
Our politicians must hear the message that rather than cutting taxes they need to invest in some genuinely equitable social policy.
Ultimately this is about self respect. I am not proud to live in a country that turns its back on 185,000 children. Are you?
Research by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) reveals that 185,000 children live in poverty in New Zealand.
There’s more. In the past 20 years New Zealand has had the fastest growing gap between rich and poor of any country in the developed world.
The link is obvious. The widening gap between rich and poor, like a slowly receding tide, has left those 185,000 children washed up.
This means there is a group of people half the population of Christchurch who are under-nourished, poorly housed, ill-fed and without the hope of participating fully in society. And for every child in this group there is at least one adult.
The problem I have, and where I think we should all feel uncomfortable, is that this situation is not an accident. It is the inevitable and foreseeable outcome of our actions as a society over two decades.
This number – 185,000 – should bury forever the myth of New Zealand as a land of equal opportunity. It also buries the last shreds of the social contract that prevailed during my childhood and youth. The terms of that contract were simple: those who were well off agreed to share some of their wealth with the less fortunate. It was, we told ourselves, the measure of a civilised society.
Poverty, especially the deep inter-generational poverty we are witnessing in New Zealand, is very difficult to overcome, but one crucial factor is money. 185,000 is the number of children living in families that receive less than 60% of the average household income which, in New Zealand, is already considerably lower than most of the countries we like to compare ourselves with.
The welfare state transferred money from rich to poor through taxes and benefits. It reflected a consensus that poverty was neither the fault of the poor, nor did they desire to remain forever dependent upon the state.
Perhaps the single biggest change in the past 20 years is the acceptance that the poor are to blame for their situation. To be a ‘beneficiary’ in New Zealand is to be cursed like an Old Testament leper.
The greatest blame is reserved for the unemployed. When the government introduced Working For Families in 2004 it elevated work as the crucial factor in determining social equity. To qualify for tax credits, Family Support and a range of other services you must have a job. “If you are working,” the government said, “we will top up your family income to a level where you can have a decent chance at life.”
Working For Families has been successful in reducing the number of people on the margins of poverty, but it has enabled other injustices to remain. It has shielded employers from the responsibility of providing a decent wage, and consigned many people to dull, repetitious, low-skilled employment that contributes little to our economy and nothing to their quality of life.
For the jobless Working For Families is a disaster because it streams government funding away from benefits.
Working For Families stems from the belief that the poor are idle and undeserving. But it is a mean-spirited society that does not recognise some legitimate reasons for not being in the work force. People should not be reduced to poverty because of long term illness or staying home to look after the kids.
Linking income support to jobs looks good in a buoyant market where jobs, even “McJobs”, are being created. I think we are about to see what happens when jobs start to disappear. The 450 meat workers who were laid off in Dannevirke this week have lost not only their jobs but also their access to Working For Families. Are they idle and undeserving?
I hold no hope that either Labour or National intends to reduce child poverty. Their policies reflect voter expectations and as a society we shrug off the problems of the poor. We forget that poverty is everybody’s problem. Poverty breeds crime, child abuse, ill health and ignorance. Morally, these are compelling reasons for change. As a purely fiscal argument it is much cheaper to lift people out of poverty than to pay for more prisons and hospitals.
Our politicians must hear the message that rather than cutting taxes they need to invest in some genuinely equitable social policy.
Ultimately this is about self respect. I am not proud to live in a country that turns its back on 185,000 children. Are you?
Friday, July 20, 2007
Privacy No Problem for Digital Natives
According to Frieze magazine 75% of old or unused computers in America remain in the possession of their owners. They live out their days in cupboards, under stairs, in basements and garages.
I suspect the same is true in New Zealand. Do you have an old computer in your wardrobe? I do. And I have a shed full of them at my school.
Old computers are hard to throw away, not because they once cost a lot of money or that we shrink from adding to the trash mountain. We may tell ourselves we’re keeping the old computer to give to daughter or son when they leave home, but we know the last thing they want is a machine boasting Windows95 and possessing the memory capacity of a goldfish.
No, we hang onto our old computers because of the ghosts in the machine; the files that, like the adolescent tattoo or the packet of poems to a long lost lover, would make us squirm with embarrassment if they were revealed. In the wrong hands those files could frame us, defame us or publicly shame us. They could be used to steal our identities, strip our bank accounts, force us from our jobs and destroy our good standing in the community.
Sure, we could crank up that old machine and erase the files from the hard drive, but CSI has taught us that a shadow, an imprint, is always left behind and can be smoothly retrieved by a 12 year old hacker.
One thing I am sure of: the old computers of America and New Zealand do not belong to anybody under 30. They are the property of ‘digital immigrants’ like you and me, the generation for whom ICT was the unexpected complication on our journey, the mob of sheep that blundered into our headlights which we are wildly swerving to avoid.
Like a person who learns a second language late in life, our generation may acquire fluency with computers but very few of us ever gain the deep intuitive understanding that enables us to master the technology. I would never fiddle with the settings on my computer or cellphone as I see my daughters doing for fear that I’d become wedged in some tiny, dark corner of cyberspace and be forever lost.
Our children, the ‘digital natives’ who wear computer technology as comfortably as our grandmothers wore fur coats, have not only mastered this new language, they have also acquired distinctly different views about privacy. They seem delighted to display themselves and their lives in full view of the techno-public.
I was made aware of this by two recent experiences. The first was at the function Sylvia and I hosted for our daughter and her friends prior to the Ashburton College ball. We were struck by their eagerness to have themselves photographed. When I was 18 a photograph was something we shrank from. Photographs could embarrass and incriminate. They could pop up at your 21st and totally spoil the party or, at the very least, land you in trouble with your current partner.
Our children have shrugged off this restraint. They love being photographed and use all the resources at their command to publish their images: attaching them to emails, flicking them to friends via cellphone and posting them on the web.
The second experience was a job application. A teacher applied by email for a position at my school. Along with her CV and application form she encouraged me to visit her website, lodged on MySpace. MySpace is one of several interactive web-based platforms for capturing friendships. They enable users to talk, trade gossip, share stories and photographs.
My reaction to this young woman’s website was pure digital immigrant. I was embarrassed by her personal diary, by the photos of people with their heads down toilets, by her frank revelations of dreams and desires. I was intrigued to read her correspondence with the principal of another school to which she was also applying for a job. It was, simply, too much information.
I suppose the willingness of digital natives to live their lives in public springs not simply from the enabling technology. It arises from the ‘bare it all’ mentality of reality television and coffee table magazines.
But it puzzles me. Do the people who publish the intimacies of their lives on MySpace or Bebo really understand that the information is therefore in the public domain, accessible by anybody who cares to look? Or do they see it as a private transaction between themselves and whoever logs on?
To a digital immigrant it seems fraught with peril. You’ll never catch me revealing myself so publicly.
According to Frieze magazine 75% of old or unused computers in America remain in the possession of their owners. They live out their days in cupboards, under stairs, in basements and garages.
I suspect the same is true in New Zealand. Do you have an old computer in your wardrobe? I do. And I have a shed full of them at my school.
Old computers are hard to throw away, not because they once cost a lot of money or that we shrink from adding to the trash mountain. We may tell ourselves we’re keeping the old computer to give to daughter or son when they leave home, but we know the last thing they want is a machine boasting Windows95 and possessing the memory capacity of a goldfish.
No, we hang onto our old computers because of the ghosts in the machine; the files that, like the adolescent tattoo or the packet of poems to a long lost lover, would make us squirm with embarrassment if they were revealed. In the wrong hands those files could frame us, defame us or publicly shame us. They could be used to steal our identities, strip our bank accounts, force us from our jobs and destroy our good standing in the community.
Sure, we could crank up that old machine and erase the files from the hard drive, but CSI has taught us that a shadow, an imprint, is always left behind and can be smoothly retrieved by a 12 year old hacker.
One thing I am sure of: the old computers of America and New Zealand do not belong to anybody under 30. They are the property of ‘digital immigrants’ like you and me, the generation for whom ICT was the unexpected complication on our journey, the mob of sheep that blundered into our headlights which we are wildly swerving to avoid.
Like a person who learns a second language late in life, our generation may acquire fluency with computers but very few of us ever gain the deep intuitive understanding that enables us to master the technology. I would never fiddle with the settings on my computer or cellphone as I see my daughters doing for fear that I’d become wedged in some tiny, dark corner of cyberspace and be forever lost.
Our children, the ‘digital natives’ who wear computer technology as comfortably as our grandmothers wore fur coats, have not only mastered this new language, they have also acquired distinctly different views about privacy. They seem delighted to display themselves and their lives in full view of the techno-public.
I was made aware of this by two recent experiences. The first was at the function Sylvia and I hosted for our daughter and her friends prior to the Ashburton College ball. We were struck by their eagerness to have themselves photographed. When I was 18 a photograph was something we shrank from. Photographs could embarrass and incriminate. They could pop up at your 21st and totally spoil the party or, at the very least, land you in trouble with your current partner.
Our children have shrugged off this restraint. They love being photographed and use all the resources at their command to publish their images: attaching them to emails, flicking them to friends via cellphone and posting them on the web.
The second experience was a job application. A teacher applied by email for a position at my school. Along with her CV and application form she encouraged me to visit her website, lodged on MySpace. MySpace is one of several interactive web-based platforms for capturing friendships. They enable users to talk, trade gossip, share stories and photographs.
My reaction to this young woman’s website was pure digital immigrant. I was embarrassed by her personal diary, by the photos of people with their heads down toilets, by her frank revelations of dreams and desires. I was intrigued to read her correspondence with the principal of another school to which she was also applying for a job. It was, simply, too much information.
I suppose the willingness of digital natives to live their lives in public springs not simply from the enabling technology. It arises from the ‘bare it all’ mentality of reality television and coffee table magazines.
But it puzzles me. Do the people who publish the intimacies of their lives on MySpace or Bebo really understand that the information is therefore in the public domain, accessible by anybody who cares to look? Or do they see it as a private transaction between themselves and whoever logs on?
To a digital immigrant it seems fraught with peril. You’ll never catch me revealing myself so publicly.
Me and Tommy’s One-Night Stand
From where I stand the Celtic Rugby Clubrooms look like they are on fire. Thin grey smoke streams from under eaves and through a solitary vent in the roof. Bright light flickers yellow and orange through streaming windows, and a loose window frame vibrates to a steady bass thump.
The Celtic Rugby Club is not on fire. This is the Ashburton College after ball party, and I am at the scene as one might be at the scene of a good-natured football riot. The centre of the event is a heaving, pulsing mass of human energy but here, just a few metres away, a sort of objective calm holds the bystanders.
Not that we’re gathering to seek autographs or admire the outfits. We are a safety net discreetly wrapped around the event; a cordon of parents, youth workers and security men whose job is to mop up the drunks, calm down the hot-heads and make sure everybody gets home safely at the end of the night.
There’s not much to do. The kids have arrived, divested of their ball gowns and tuxedos and hauling a small distillery of alcohol (cans only – no glass). They have produced their tickets and disappeared into the now-pulsating club rooms. An orange quarter-moon has set demurely over Allenton, leaving the stars in command of the sky and us below, stamping our feet and hunching deeper into our jackets. As the frost settles on the footy pitch and around my ankles I resign myself to a long, dark, cold and uneventful night.
Then I meet Tommy.
Tommy is one of three large Pacific Island men assigned to our small group to earn us a little respect from erstwhile gate-crashers. We stand together in darkness at the entrance to the car park.
I ask Tommy where he’s from.
“Wellington,” he replies.
I am taken aback by this answer. “No,” I want to say, “I mean, where are you from? Which sun-washed outpost of the tropical Pacific does your brown skin hark to?”
Tommy senses my query and guides me to safety. His parents came from the Cook Islands and he was born here, in Wellington. It is a simple whakapapa and a generous one, forgiving my small-town ignorance.
Nevertheless, I am startled by my presumption. Tommy, the child of immigrants, is as much a New Zealander as me, except his parents came from the Cook Islands, which makes him a Pacific Islander, whereas my parents came from Holland, which makes me a kiwi.
As the long night passes Tommy tells me his story. He came to Mid-Canterbury five years ago with the first group of meat workers brought here by WINZ and CMP. I remember their arrival – the sudden influx of street-wise Maori and PI kids into our schools.
“They brought us down for a week’s trial. We all stayed in the motels across the bridge and it went pretty well. I said to them, ‘can you promise me two things: a job as a slaughterman and a house?’ They reckoned they could, so I signed up there and then. My wife was up in Wellington. She said, ‘if you think it’s a good thing, we’ll come down’.”
Tommy never looked back. “We couldn’t believe it down here. There was so much work – we were never out of a job. In my first off-season I worked for a farmer at Dromore, on the lambing beat. I didn’t know anything about farming but he showed me how to mother an orphan onto the ewe. I told him, ‘all my working life I’ve been killing lambs and now I’m keeping them alive!’ ”
We pace in the darkness at the back of the clubrooms. I notice a small movement against the iron fence and call Tommy over. He shines his flashlight over the fence. “Come on out of there,” he says softly. A young couple emerge from the shadows and, under the beam of Tommy’s torch, walk guiltily to the front of the building. Tommy talks quietly to them for a moment before one of the youth workers escorts them away.
Tommy rejoins me in the darkness. “Thought they’d try to get in, I suppose. I hope someone gives them a lift home.”
Moving to Mid-Canterbury was a culture shock. “We were living in Methven and when we walked down the street people would say hello to us. We’d turn around to see who they were talking to, or we’d look at them to see if they were having us on. Where we come from you just don’t say hello on the street.”
“Now we’ve moved to Ashburton to be closer to the works. We’ve got a lady in the bank who’s helping us save a deposit for a house. She says ‘don’t buy anything until you can afford it.’ You know, up in Wellington nobody would ever think like that. None of us would think about buying a house. The PIs up there, we all spend the money. But it’s different here.”
“A lot of my family are down here now; my brother, and my uncle and others. We’ve got a culture group and COGs is helping us set up an incorporated society. We’ve got a church. When I go back to Wellington I tell them they should come and visit me at home. ‘But you are home’ they say. ‘No I’m not,’ I tell them, ‘my home’s in Ashburton’.”
A group of partygoers spills out of the clubrooms and is shepherded towards the courtesy vans. I ask Tommy if his teenage daughter is here. “No. She’d like to be but I don’t want her near the drink.”
We get busy as the party closes, the courtesy vans fill and we tidy up the strays. I move inside to help with the cleanup. As I leave I notice Tommy and one of his mates supporting the last young drunk of the evening. I pause to watch this large man, an immigrant to our community, gently lift the partygoer into a van and fasten his seatbelt.
From where I stand the Celtic Rugby Clubrooms look like they are on fire. Thin grey smoke streams from under eaves and through a solitary vent in the roof. Bright light flickers yellow and orange through streaming windows, and a loose window frame vibrates to a steady bass thump.
The Celtic Rugby Club is not on fire. This is the Ashburton College after ball party, and I am at the scene as one might be at the scene of a good-natured football riot. The centre of the event is a heaving, pulsing mass of human energy but here, just a few metres away, a sort of objective calm holds the bystanders.
Not that we’re gathering to seek autographs or admire the outfits. We are a safety net discreetly wrapped around the event; a cordon of parents, youth workers and security men whose job is to mop up the drunks, calm down the hot-heads and make sure everybody gets home safely at the end of the night.
There’s not much to do. The kids have arrived, divested of their ball gowns and tuxedos and hauling a small distillery of alcohol (cans only – no glass). They have produced their tickets and disappeared into the now-pulsating club rooms. An orange quarter-moon has set demurely over Allenton, leaving the stars in command of the sky and us below, stamping our feet and hunching deeper into our jackets. As the frost settles on the footy pitch and around my ankles I resign myself to a long, dark, cold and uneventful night.
Then I meet Tommy.
Tommy is one of three large Pacific Island men assigned to our small group to earn us a little respect from erstwhile gate-crashers. We stand together in darkness at the entrance to the car park.
I ask Tommy where he’s from.
“Wellington,” he replies.
I am taken aback by this answer. “No,” I want to say, “I mean, where are you from? Which sun-washed outpost of the tropical Pacific does your brown skin hark to?”
Tommy senses my query and guides me to safety. His parents came from the Cook Islands and he was born here, in Wellington. It is a simple whakapapa and a generous one, forgiving my small-town ignorance.
Nevertheless, I am startled by my presumption. Tommy, the child of immigrants, is as much a New Zealander as me, except his parents came from the Cook Islands, which makes him a Pacific Islander, whereas my parents came from Holland, which makes me a kiwi.
As the long night passes Tommy tells me his story. He came to Mid-Canterbury five years ago with the first group of meat workers brought here by WINZ and CMP. I remember their arrival – the sudden influx of street-wise Maori and PI kids into our schools.
“They brought us down for a week’s trial. We all stayed in the motels across the bridge and it went pretty well. I said to them, ‘can you promise me two things: a job as a slaughterman and a house?’ They reckoned they could, so I signed up there and then. My wife was up in Wellington. She said, ‘if you think it’s a good thing, we’ll come down’.”
Tommy never looked back. “We couldn’t believe it down here. There was so much work – we were never out of a job. In my first off-season I worked for a farmer at Dromore, on the lambing beat. I didn’t know anything about farming but he showed me how to mother an orphan onto the ewe. I told him, ‘all my working life I’ve been killing lambs and now I’m keeping them alive!’ ”
We pace in the darkness at the back of the clubrooms. I notice a small movement against the iron fence and call Tommy over. He shines his flashlight over the fence. “Come on out of there,” he says softly. A young couple emerge from the shadows and, under the beam of Tommy’s torch, walk guiltily to the front of the building. Tommy talks quietly to them for a moment before one of the youth workers escorts them away.
Tommy rejoins me in the darkness. “Thought they’d try to get in, I suppose. I hope someone gives them a lift home.”
Moving to Mid-Canterbury was a culture shock. “We were living in Methven and when we walked down the street people would say hello to us. We’d turn around to see who they were talking to, or we’d look at them to see if they were having us on. Where we come from you just don’t say hello on the street.”
“Now we’ve moved to Ashburton to be closer to the works. We’ve got a lady in the bank who’s helping us save a deposit for a house. She says ‘don’t buy anything until you can afford it.’ You know, up in Wellington nobody would ever think like that. None of us would think about buying a house. The PIs up there, we all spend the money. But it’s different here.”
“A lot of my family are down here now; my brother, and my uncle and others. We’ve got a culture group and COGs is helping us set up an incorporated society. We’ve got a church. When I go back to Wellington I tell them they should come and visit me at home. ‘But you are home’ they say. ‘No I’m not,’ I tell them, ‘my home’s in Ashburton’.”
A group of partygoers spills out of the clubrooms and is shepherded towards the courtesy vans. I ask Tommy if his teenage daughter is here. “No. She’d like to be but I don’t want her near the drink.”
We get busy as the party closes, the courtesy vans fill and we tidy up the strays. I move inside to help with the cleanup. As I leave I notice Tommy and one of his mates supporting the last young drunk of the evening. I pause to watch this large man, an immigrant to our community, gently lift the partygoer into a van and fasten his seatbelt.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Plandemic Panning
2nd June 2007
When the Man from the Ministry arrived at the seminar he was so encumbered with baggage I thought he was on his way to or from the airport. Apart from the obligatory laptop – the modern manager’s bowler hat and brolly – he carried an oversize shoulder bag and a smaller briefcase.
As we watched – twenty-five primary school principals in a stuffy room on a slow Monday afternoon - he unpacked his bags, producing a data projector, two large speakers and a tangle of cables which he meticulously re-ordered, his face a study in concentration. We waited, trying to guess his purpose.
When all was prepared the Man from the Ministry delivered a short prologue – “You are about to see Operation Cruikshank” – and pressed Enter.
Operation Cruikshank flashed onto the big screen at the front of the room. There was a news desk, a brief opening title, and a severe young woman describing an outbreak of avian bird flu spreading through New Zealand. We crossed to the parliamentary reporter standing in front of the beehive, cut to pictures of soldiers sealing off streets and a selection of closeups showing boxes of medication and white-coated health workers with face masks.
Operation Cruikshank rolled out like a snore. Talking heads from government agencies and security services described how they will react when the pandemic – bird flu or other – reaches our shores. A slightly deranged traffic light flashed coloured security levels as the epidemic expanded – from orange to yellow and final, fatal red.
By the end of the afternoon the authors of Operation Cruikshank had convinced us that when the long-anticipated pandemic strikes we will talk the bloody thing to a standstill.
I have endured several pandemic planning presentations. There is a small, bilious corner of the public service dedicated to, nay, enthralled by the theatrical potential of disaster preparation. It is a bureaucrat’s dream, a fantasy of forms and regulations, of action plans, backups and contingencies, of Orders-In-Council and sirens in the streets.
Civil service planners seem unphased by some small realities: the much-anticipated bird flu pandemic shows no sign of rousing itself and even if it does their plans will never work. On one hand pandemic planning is a no-brainer, on the other it is a hospital pass.
The plans will never work because there seems to be no coherent set of responses to mitigate the effects of a determined virus.
Take the influenza pandemic of 1919, for example. Even with the country on a wartime footing the epidemic went where it pleased. The Man from the Ministry reminded us that we are far less well prepared today.
“Oh, I dunno,” intoned a voice from the back of the room. “They may have had the army, but we have powerpoint.”
And sadly, we do. We have, through the miracle of information technology, the capacity to tie ourselves in knots.
I am exhorted by the Men from the Ministry to prepare a pandemic plan for my school. I am encouraged in this by the provision of hundreds of pages of forms
and spurred by the promise that the Education Review Office, the government’s pitbull, will audit my preparations on their next visit.
There are schools in New Zealand where pandemic planning runs to 40 pages of densely typed procedures, where committees and sub-committees have been formed, wardens appointed and students drilled to divert sneezes into their elbows. When pandemic strikes the students in these schools will be laid waste while staff decipher procedural point 44, sub-clause 23B.
Diligent schools hinge their preparation on sending work home to students. They conjure hopeful scenarios of teachers in their own homes emailing assignments to students, marking the completed returned work and generally carrying on as normal.
The Man from the Ministry burst that bubble. “Keep cyberspace free from unnecessary communications”, he said. With the population at home and the regular infrastructure curtailed the internet will be needed for essential communication. We must avoid overloading it with worksheets. Send home a few paper tasks when the kids leave and forget anything else.
As we suffer this plandemic I regret lost opportunities to join other, more vigorous, branches of the public service. I bet pandemic planning is more exciting for police or firefighters. I bet they don’t have to endure Operation Cruikshank. I imagine them throwing rings of steel around neighbourhoods, storming central city buildings, letting off smoke bombs, squirting fire hoses and shouting “bang! You’re dead!” All this while I sit on my backside in a stuffy room.
I’ve thought hard this week about pandemic preparations for my school. I’ve consulted staff and community and we’ve come up with a plan. It is simple and, we believe, effective.
1. Close the school.
2. Reopen when we’re told to.
That should do the trick.
2nd June 2007
When the Man from the Ministry arrived at the seminar he was so encumbered with baggage I thought he was on his way to or from the airport. Apart from the obligatory laptop – the modern manager’s bowler hat and brolly – he carried an oversize shoulder bag and a smaller briefcase.
As we watched – twenty-five primary school principals in a stuffy room on a slow Monday afternoon - he unpacked his bags, producing a data projector, two large speakers and a tangle of cables which he meticulously re-ordered, his face a study in concentration. We waited, trying to guess his purpose.
When all was prepared the Man from the Ministry delivered a short prologue – “You are about to see Operation Cruikshank” – and pressed Enter.
Operation Cruikshank flashed onto the big screen at the front of the room. There was a news desk, a brief opening title, and a severe young woman describing an outbreak of avian bird flu spreading through New Zealand. We crossed to the parliamentary reporter standing in front of the beehive, cut to pictures of soldiers sealing off streets and a selection of closeups showing boxes of medication and white-coated health workers with face masks.
Operation Cruikshank rolled out like a snore. Talking heads from government agencies and security services described how they will react when the pandemic – bird flu or other – reaches our shores. A slightly deranged traffic light flashed coloured security levels as the epidemic expanded – from orange to yellow and final, fatal red.
By the end of the afternoon the authors of Operation Cruikshank had convinced us that when the long-anticipated pandemic strikes we will talk the bloody thing to a standstill.
I have endured several pandemic planning presentations. There is a small, bilious corner of the public service dedicated to, nay, enthralled by the theatrical potential of disaster preparation. It is a bureaucrat’s dream, a fantasy of forms and regulations, of action plans, backups and contingencies, of Orders-In-Council and sirens in the streets.
Civil service planners seem unphased by some small realities: the much-anticipated bird flu pandemic shows no sign of rousing itself and even if it does their plans will never work. On one hand pandemic planning is a no-brainer, on the other it is a hospital pass.
The plans will never work because there seems to be no coherent set of responses to mitigate the effects of a determined virus.
Take the influenza pandemic of 1919, for example. Even with the country on a wartime footing the epidemic went where it pleased. The Man from the Ministry reminded us that we are far less well prepared today.
“Oh, I dunno,” intoned a voice from the back of the room. “They may have had the army, but we have powerpoint.”
And sadly, we do. We have, through the miracle of information technology, the capacity to tie ourselves in knots.
I am exhorted by the Men from the Ministry to prepare a pandemic plan for my school. I am encouraged in this by the provision of hundreds of pages of forms
and spurred by the promise that the Education Review Office, the government’s pitbull, will audit my preparations on their next visit.
There are schools in New Zealand where pandemic planning runs to 40 pages of densely typed procedures, where committees and sub-committees have been formed, wardens appointed and students drilled to divert sneezes into their elbows. When pandemic strikes the students in these schools will be laid waste while staff decipher procedural point 44, sub-clause 23B.
Diligent schools hinge their preparation on sending work home to students. They conjure hopeful scenarios of teachers in their own homes emailing assignments to students, marking the completed returned work and generally carrying on as normal.
The Man from the Ministry burst that bubble. “Keep cyberspace free from unnecessary communications”, he said. With the population at home and the regular infrastructure curtailed the internet will be needed for essential communication. We must avoid overloading it with worksheets. Send home a few paper tasks when the kids leave and forget anything else.
As we suffer this plandemic I regret lost opportunities to join other, more vigorous, branches of the public service. I bet pandemic planning is more exciting for police or firefighters. I bet they don’t have to endure Operation Cruikshank. I imagine them throwing rings of steel around neighbourhoods, storming central city buildings, letting off smoke bombs, squirting fire hoses and shouting “bang! You’re dead!” All this while I sit on my backside in a stuffy room.
I’ve thought hard this week about pandemic preparations for my school. I’ve consulted staff and community and we’ve come up with a plan. It is simple and, we believe, effective.
1. Close the school.
2. Reopen when we’re told to.
That should do the trick.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
The Modest Air Symposium
Saturday 10th March 2007
A small group of children gathers around the pile of wooden blocks and planks that forms a ramp on the footpath. One stoops to adjust the arrangement of timber.
Thirty metres along the footpath Hazel circles lazily on her bicycle, like an aircraft in a holding pattern. She is a blaze of red on the suburban street: red bicycle, red helmet, red school uniform.
There is a brief command from the group – a signal. Hazel turns, purposeful now, aims her bike at the heap of wood and pumps her legs on the pedals. The bike wobbles and straightens, accelerating. The children stand back, eyes fixed on the ramp.
Hazel hits the ramp hard, the bicycle lifts, clears the top of the pile and, for a perhaps a metre, is airborne, with Hazel standing tall and angled like a ski jumper, hands gripping the handlebars, eyes fixed on the end of the street.
The bicycle lands hard on its front wheel. Hazel pulls up in a skid, turns and pedals calmly back to the group which has gathered around the ramp again. There is a brief, subdued conversation and another child peels out of the group towards the take-off point.
This is the Modest Air Symposium, a small society of neighbourhood children whose wooden ramp has become a fixture on the footpath outside my house.
The game originates from the summer holidays when Nick, our 8 year old neighbour, found some off-cuts of timber and piled them up to make a small ramp for his bike. He tinkered with the size and shape of the ramp and gradually accumulated more pieces of timber to expand it.
For the first couple of weeks Nick played alone, as he usually does.
One evening Nick was away and the kids from across the road, who moved into the neighbourhood a few months ago, brought their bikes over to play on the ramp.
A few days later I noticed Nick and the neighbours were playing together on the ramp. By the following week they had been joined by two more children who live around the corner.
The group has remained constant. Every evening when I come home they are playing on the ramp with their bikes. Sometimes the ramp relocates to the other side of the street.
On the face of it the purpose of their game is to ‘get some air’. Snowboarders at Mt Hutt and skateboarders on the local half-pipe aspire to ‘big air’ – high, sustained periods of flight. Hazel’s work off the small wooden ramp qualifies as only ‘modest air,’ although I am sure it is no less exhilarating for all that.
But I notice the game has many more dimensions than the simple thrill of defying gravity for a second or two. Its main purpose seems to be a fascination with the technology of the ramp; moving and changing the wooden blocks for new effect.
Within this purpose there is a metaphysical dimension expressed in the demeanour of gravity and deep discourse among the children as they rearrange the blocks of wood.
This is a game without obvious excitement. It is conducted in solemn reverence – a symposium, in fact. Dress these kids in togas and they could be classical Greek philosophers, dress them in overalls and they could be engineers testing a new structure or vehicle. They could be farmers at a fielday: kicking tyres, stroking chins, moving slowly but inexorably towards decision.
This pile of planks and off-cuts possesses an astonishing power. It has captivated the group for weeks and broken down barriers of shyness and isolation. The children have become a small society, exploring relationships, experimenting with control over their physical and social world.
As far as I am aware there are never any arguments or falling-outs. There are few rules and no winners or losers. The purpose of the game lies in the deep satisfaction of imaginative play.
As an adult and parent the Modest Air Symposium reinforces some simple but vital lessons about childhood. The best games are sometimes the most simple and least structured. The most improbable material can become a toy.
Above all, the Modest Air Symposium affirms childhood as an adult-free zone.
As parents we are guilty of over-organising our children’s lives. We drive them from one activity to another. We manage their recreation and friendships.
Perhaps we are spurred by media reports of children whose lives are blighted by parental neglect. But in wanting the best for our children we risk neglecting a vital part of their development – the time and space to explore the world through the society of children.
You may observe how positive that society can be by visiting my street for a few minutes on any evening and watching the Modest Air Symposium.
Saturday 10th March 2007
A small group of children gathers around the pile of wooden blocks and planks that forms a ramp on the footpath. One stoops to adjust the arrangement of timber.
Thirty metres along the footpath Hazel circles lazily on her bicycle, like an aircraft in a holding pattern. She is a blaze of red on the suburban street: red bicycle, red helmet, red school uniform.
There is a brief command from the group – a signal. Hazel turns, purposeful now, aims her bike at the heap of wood and pumps her legs on the pedals. The bike wobbles and straightens, accelerating. The children stand back, eyes fixed on the ramp.
Hazel hits the ramp hard, the bicycle lifts, clears the top of the pile and, for a perhaps a metre, is airborne, with Hazel standing tall and angled like a ski jumper, hands gripping the handlebars, eyes fixed on the end of the street.
The bicycle lands hard on its front wheel. Hazel pulls up in a skid, turns and pedals calmly back to the group which has gathered around the ramp again. There is a brief, subdued conversation and another child peels out of the group towards the take-off point.
This is the Modest Air Symposium, a small society of neighbourhood children whose wooden ramp has become a fixture on the footpath outside my house.
The game originates from the summer holidays when Nick, our 8 year old neighbour, found some off-cuts of timber and piled them up to make a small ramp for his bike. He tinkered with the size and shape of the ramp and gradually accumulated more pieces of timber to expand it.
For the first couple of weeks Nick played alone, as he usually does.
One evening Nick was away and the kids from across the road, who moved into the neighbourhood a few months ago, brought their bikes over to play on the ramp.
A few days later I noticed Nick and the neighbours were playing together on the ramp. By the following week they had been joined by two more children who live around the corner.
The group has remained constant. Every evening when I come home they are playing on the ramp with their bikes. Sometimes the ramp relocates to the other side of the street.
On the face of it the purpose of their game is to ‘get some air’. Snowboarders at Mt Hutt and skateboarders on the local half-pipe aspire to ‘big air’ – high, sustained periods of flight. Hazel’s work off the small wooden ramp qualifies as only ‘modest air,’ although I am sure it is no less exhilarating for all that.
But I notice the game has many more dimensions than the simple thrill of defying gravity for a second or two. Its main purpose seems to be a fascination with the technology of the ramp; moving and changing the wooden blocks for new effect.
Within this purpose there is a metaphysical dimension expressed in the demeanour of gravity and deep discourse among the children as they rearrange the blocks of wood.
This is a game without obvious excitement. It is conducted in solemn reverence – a symposium, in fact. Dress these kids in togas and they could be classical Greek philosophers, dress them in overalls and they could be engineers testing a new structure or vehicle. They could be farmers at a fielday: kicking tyres, stroking chins, moving slowly but inexorably towards decision.
This pile of planks and off-cuts possesses an astonishing power. It has captivated the group for weeks and broken down barriers of shyness and isolation. The children have become a small society, exploring relationships, experimenting with control over their physical and social world.
As far as I am aware there are never any arguments or falling-outs. There are few rules and no winners or losers. The purpose of the game lies in the deep satisfaction of imaginative play.
As an adult and parent the Modest Air Symposium reinforces some simple but vital lessons about childhood. The best games are sometimes the most simple and least structured. The most improbable material can become a toy.
Above all, the Modest Air Symposium affirms childhood as an adult-free zone.
As parents we are guilty of over-organising our children’s lives. We drive them from one activity to another. We manage their recreation and friendships.
Perhaps we are spurred by media reports of children whose lives are blighted by parental neglect. But in wanting the best for our children we risk neglecting a vital part of their development – the time and space to explore the world through the society of children.
You may observe how positive that society can be by visiting my street for a few minutes on any evening and watching the Modest Air Symposium.
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