apologies for my last blog...... don't get me wrong. I am excited about my new room, it is a real gift and i know it.

but i am fairly sure i was not created to get excited about a new bedroom! I, we, all of us, were made for more important things.... it is frustrating that life in london forces you to down size in so many ways.

Today in a training day at school I was struck by the futility of it all.... my whole dept was sat round the table trying to work out how to help the life of this one young girl..... to put things in perspective..... over half my school is poor enough to be able to receive free lunches (and even breakfasts) and most of that half live in the worst 30% of housing in Britain. So life is not great for them even before they reach the school gates.

I don't want to bring a wrong comparison or belittle the poverty of those I am about to mention, but merely to say that hearing about some of the situations today reminded me a bit of the IDP camps in northern uganda. Now in so many ways they are not even on the same scale....... but in terms of childrens lives being screwed over and me just sitting there and trying, in vain, to lift the sheer weight of oppression off them. thats where they are the same....

But it is so frustrating because there is so little i can do.

We spent a brief while flicking through the exam results today (not that relevant in our dept), only to find some the girls had exceeded our expectations.... they managed a couple of low level grades between them. A 'great success'.

for who i ask? for us, because we "added value"? For them, because now they fit the mold a little bit, even if badly. (they make everyone else feel better, so lets force them in the mold).

Would it not be better, rather than force them on a track which will only belittle them, make them feel worthless, not pay them enough to live on and leave them struggling..... would it not be better to help them carve out a new shape, a new path..... one that leaves them growing in a the sun rather than left to rot in the shadows. One that encourages dignity and esteem based on who one is rather than what one does.

Not that it will be free of struggles - but ones that they know they can overcome, rather than struggles that they know will only end in an 'F' (which we then falsely tell them is great!!).

..... i know, i know. a first frustrated day back.
and a rant. just had to get it out. was and still is, giving me a head ache.

answers on a postcard.