Is dignity a dirty word?

This time out, for a change, I'm not going to go on about education. But I'm sure teachers are getting the blame for this issue. What am I on about? Let me tell you.

Why is it ok (in fact, it would seem preferable) these days to be rude? And loud? And not care what anybody thinks? I know I was raised in a different era and some things do have to change, and often for the better, but some things which were important then are still important now. Let me give this a context. 

I was in the local shopping centre recently and there was a young mother sat on the bench, with her child in a buggy, shouting into her phone. I gathered from what she was shouting that she was talking to the father of her child. The basic content of her tirade was that he was a useless dad and she could manage without him. Well, nothing wrong with that. Plenty of us single parents have raised children we're proud of without any help from their fathers. So what was wrong with what I saw? It wasn't just that she was shouting. She was shouting with a foul mouth. In front of her child (to the father of that child) she was yelling obscenities at the top of her voice in a public place. Her anger and apparent frustration were also making her look like one of Shakespeare's witches. Now, people who know me know I'm no prude. I have been known to swear on the odd occasion. But I certainly never swore in front of my children when they were small. I still don't swear in front of people who don't know me. And I would certainly never swear at the top of my voice in public. Unless maybe someone was murdering me.

So why has this incident led me to write another blog post? Because I see this as symptomatic of a general breakdown in the standards of our society. Why didn't she care what everyone else thought of her? Why didn't she have any consideration for the other people around her, just going about their normal business? I think because most people only care about themselves nowadays. We've all seen other people try (or even tried ourselves) to intervene in these sorts of situations. And all we get for our troubles is threatened, or a mouthful of abuse. 

Where was her dignity? Where was her self-respect? Don't get me wrong, if he deserved a mouthful she was right to give it to him. But there's a time and a place, surely? Or isn't there any more? I was brought up not to 'wash my dirty laundry in public' and that was very public. Couldn't she (shouldn't she) have had that conversation later when no one else was listening? Why is it ok for everyone to see us when we are at our very worst? Why are we happy to share even our most personal and intimate moments with the whole world?

But this isn't just about that girl and her lack of personal awareness. We've all seen examples of young women so drunk they can't stand in their heels behaving in ways which should be reserved for the privacy of a bedroom. Did all those brave women who fought to give me the right to vote, fight to give women the right to behave however they like? Did all those women who struggled to give us equality struggle so that we could behave like (or even worse than) men? Timothy Leary once said 'Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition'. I think he meant we should strive to be better. Not just better than men but better human beings. 

Perhaps we need to take a step back from this very open, public, access-all-areas life we all seem to lead. Perhaps Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc shouldn't be used to share every private moment of our lives. Perhaps we should think twice about how the world sees us. Perhaps more people should have had the role model I had: a strong, independent woman who managed to be that and to remain dignified and lady-like. Because of her, I still care how other people view me and I hope I always will.

Outstanding

Warning: I'm back on the same old rant. Education. If you stop reading at this point, I won't be offended. Most of my readers (as far as I know) are friends and family who are either educators themselves or who know me well and understand why I am passionate about this subject, so they expect it. If you don't fall into either of those catagories, leave me a message to let me know and next time I'll try to write about something else. 

But, back to today. With the spectre of Ofsted inspectors coming to check up on us again, I've been thinking about their expectations. Not so long ago, it was enough to be 'good'. Good used to mean better than ok. If you had a 'good' car, it was more expensive, and performed better, than your neighbour's. If you were described as a 'good' little girl by old ladies your mum met in the corner shop, then your mum would have been proud of you. If you went out for a 'good' drink on a Friday night, you had a hangover until Sunday morning.

Now? Apparently 'good' has been down-graded. Each school's performance is expected to be 'outstanding'. Every lesson is expected to be 'outstanding'. Every teacher aims to be 'outstanding'.

'Outstanding' used to mean 'of high quality; excellent’. Is that what you would expect everyone to be all the time? Is it realistic to expect every second of every hour to be ‘excellent’? 
But let's look again at the dictionary, another definition is 'satisfactory' and the example used for that definition is 'a good teacher'. 

So do I understand this correctly, a good teacher is, by definition 'outstanding'? Or do we actually have to strive to be 'outstanding' because to be just good is no longer good enough?
Don't misunderstand me, I wouldn't do what I do if I didn't care: if I didn't want to provide the best learning opportunities for my students every time I stand up in front of them; if I didn't want to push, pull, cajole, inspire them to want to achieve their full potential; if I didn't want to be a good teacher.  But I think I'm doing just fine if I am a good teacher.

Yes, there are still schools that need to improve; there are teachers who need to rekindle their love for the job, so there is a need for a system that checks on those things. But can that system, can those parents, can those 'stakeholders' expect us all to be outstanding all the time? If I asked you to think of an outstanding footballer, you might name Ronaldo, Beckham or (if you're as old as me) Pele. If I asked you to name an outstanding person, you might say Nelson Mandela or Mother Theresa. But if I asked you to name an outstanding teacher, would you? Could you?
Forgive me, I'm not comparing myself or other teachers to any of those people (though I think most of us are worth more than a couple of ridiculously overpaid footballers) but perhaps you're getting my drift by now. Surely the meaning of outstanding is to 'stand out' from the crowd? If every teacher, every lesson, every school is expected to be outstanding than what on earth are we 'standing out' from? Yes, demand high standards from us, believe me, most of us demand that from ourselves but to expect us to stand out all the time is an outstandingly ridiculous demand. 

Just as a matter of interest (and because I'm a word geek) I thought I would share the fact that there are more than 50 definitions of the word 'good'. The first of those is morally excellent. Teachers are expected to be that too. You only hear about the few who aren't. Nobody ever gives us credit for the fact that we have to provide the moral guidance that many of our students don't get at home. 

Do you know what? Maybe I am outstanding after all.


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/good