Hold your mind firmly in one hand, tense your muscles and slowly draw back your arm, preparing for launch. Then very quickly turn one hundred and eighty degrees on the spot while strongly swinging your arm, releasing your grip as you do so. In this way, cast your mind back and perhaps you will remember, to the days of your childhood or young adulthood or just your adulthood (depending on what age you are at present) a certain particular juvenile tool of amusement.
An arts and crafts type object given to children by parents in the vain hope of inspiring some creativity, basically consisting of a tube to blow through and a certain plastic paste which, when inflated with use of the aforementioned tube, formed a near (relative to normal soap bubbles) indestructible plastic sphere. This tough, thick, strong, rubbery, plastic, burst-proof bubble is the sort of bubble I mean when I say, "my school is an upper middle class social bubble."
Nonetheless, even this seriously snobbish private school which proudly presents its self as at least in the top five if not one percent, still attempts to make some sort of gesture of compensation for the excessive use of wealth by organizing community service projects. There are many community service projects on offer, ranging from gardening to helping out at a disabled school to serving the aged and statistically close to death. However the one I have chosen to partake in this year, and which I also took last year, is possibly the least socially helpful of the lot.
In no way does it give anything back to those less fortunate than us, at best it is the five percent being mildly helpful to the six percent in a patronizing and self indulgent manner. This most obsolete community service of all is "Minimus", teaching Latin to nine or ten year old children from a relatively wealthy background.
Last year I was given the task of drumming a dead language into the minds of two nine year old girls, Anna and Mia, the former being a bright but irritatingly patronizing individual, the latter being a cheerful air headed snob in the making. To give an example of the difficulty in dealing with these malignant creatures, in the second week of teaching Latin to them (the lessons occur once a week every Friday), Anna, who had clearly not been impressed by my efforts in the first week, gave me a hand written ten bullet point list of "How To Be A Good Teacher". An outline of the skills that I had apparently been lacking, beginning with "be firm but kind" and ending on "Make the subject come alive!"
However, despite my obvious sneering contempt of their existence and ever present insulting remarks which their juvenile brains could only hope to vaguely get the gist of, the two of them seem to have some affection for me. Hence this year, even though they can no longer be part of the Minimus course, they still send word to me via their friends who now attend the classes. It is through one of these friends that I learned something today which truly filled my heart with joy.
Towards the end of the last year, the two children, Anna in particular kept insisting that I give some sort of present to them. Their pestering was so incessantly grating away at my sanity that I relented and, having quickly rummaged through my pockets, I lovingly gave Mia a well worn pencil (so internally fractured that it was probably beyond saving even with the full use of modern day medical technology) and Anna a rusted muddy bottle opener which I'd found on the ground that very day. Mia accepted the pencil as a sentimental gift and made no complaint, however Anna insisted that she deserved a better present. In order to keep her quiet, I sarcastically and dismissively told Anna that the bottle opener was magic and if she licked it, it would grant her three wishes.
Today one of her friend's reliably informed me that Anna had in fact gone home and licked what was essentially a solid chunk of disease roughly sculpted into the shape of a bottle opener. This then directly leading to her skipping school for several days due to severe sickness. The friends accused me of being a malicious liar for telling Anna she would be granted three wishes but in my defense I would argue that, in the fashion of a self fulfilling prophecy, she probably did have her wishes granted. More specifically her wish that her temperature would go down, that her headache would secede and her nausea stop, which of course, after several days of pure sickening agony, it did.
All things considered, I would say that I went above and beyond my call of duty as a teacher. Educating Anna not only about the Latin language but about some key principles in life as a whole, namely "don't unquestioningly lick things that a man tells you to because you will probably get a disease". Now thanks to my compassionate diligence and sheer excellence as a teacher, Anna is far less likely to get oral herpes.
Showing posts with label service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label service. Show all posts
Saturday, 20 October 2012
Sunday, 30 September 2012
Giving Back
I am currently taking part (not actually doing much but its the taking part that counts) in a patronizing (in the same sort of condescending and judgmental atmosphere of grandparents attempting to be understanding but nonetheless making their lack of understanding blindly obvious in the process by saying things like "Oh darling, you're a lovely girl, it doesn't matter if you didn't do well at school so long as you can cook" or "You're friend forgot to wipe his shoes when he came in but it's fine, its not his fault he's uncultured, I expect they don't teach their children manners in India") government funded program entitled "The Challenge" which aims to get young people (whom they presume have no morals, intelligence, understanding of the world or social life) to "give back to the community" by doing some sort of community service.
I will make it clear that I don't have a problem with community service in general and think its great (so long as I'm not actually the one doing it) but what I do have a problem with, what causes me a considerable amount of vexation, is the phrase "giving back" to the community.
Now, the Community has never done anything for me. If the Community were a parent and I its child, I would have been taken away by social services (or possibly not considering the recent incompetence of the social care system) due to gross negligence long ago. The positive publicity of "the community" seems to be that its an integral part of your life, functioning almost as a family member but as family members go, the community has had much of a presence in my life as an aborted older brother. In summary, I owe very little if not absolutely nothing to the community.
What's more it seems that people think you somehow owe more to the community if you or your family have more money, which when considered logically makes very little sense. My family is relatively well off (and that's relative to the extremely poor economical situation at present) and I'm relatively fortunate (That's relative to those who were born into Uk families with less money/income and not relative to, say, children in Africa in which case everyone in the Uk would be relatively very fortunate which is a positive way of looking at it in a sense. On that note let us all have a moment of silence for those African children for allowing us the privilege of thinking "Thank god that's not me" every time we see a, no longer shocking, "shocking" image of some dying child which provokes less emotion in us than the death of some rich singer somewhere over dosing themselves on recreational drugs) but there's no reason why that means we owe anymore to the community than anyone else.
We all reap what we sow and the community directly plays very little part in allowing someone to make money (unless monetary transactions by each individual member of the so called community is seen as the work of the community collectively) so I cannot see how the rich need to "give back" anything to the community. If anything the rich are more likely to have private health clinics that do not rely on the community and attend private schools (as do I) that do not rely on the community, as well as doing the community a favor every now and then by contributing to the local economy.
I am aware that the above paragraph sounded like the height of snobbery and conservatism so would like to make clear that I do like the welfare system and would support a Robbin hood tax (taxing more from the rich than the poor), however I just object to the incorrect, almost deliberately guilt inducing, phrase "giving back" to the community.
When I said that to those that ran "the challenge" their first response was "well, have you ever used the NHS?", the answer to which is "yes, yes I have once or twice." However my family pays for that enough in taxes and if the use of the NHS is relative to the amount of community service you should do then there are clearly people who use the NHS more but do nothing to "give back" to the community (those in the NHS permanent or intensive care unit for example... possibly because they're too ill to do anything).
The second response, in light of my "reap what you sow" remark was that I, as a teenager, had sown nothing of my own and have done nothing to deserve being in the privileged position I find myself in. That is very true, its complete chance that I happened to be born to the family I was born to and I'm very fortunate to have done so considering the statistics. However, what that has to do with the community is something I cannot fathom. Why would my extreme turn of good luck require me to "give back" to the community, what on earth makes me indebted to the community for having very good fortune?
Do "The community" have powers far beyond my understanding that allow them to control who gets born where? Is that the secret task of the local council, the elected members sitting around a table saying "Yes, I think we'll allow him to be born into a nice middle class family because he seems like a good lad ...though at this point there really is no way of discerning one individual from another since unborn foetuses typically tend not to have much of a personality" In which case I shall change all life dreams I've ever held and strive to become a member of the local council for the sheer power of it all.
However since I highly doubt that is the case, it seems I owe less to the community than I owe to fate and destiny. And if the very little that I owe to the community (possibly in the form of two public library books which have been left untouched in my bookshelf for the last few months, accumulating dust and library fines faster than a cheetah in a car... that analogy possibly falling down due to the fact cheetah's don't tend to have motoring skills) must be "given back" in the form of weekends spent gardening or litter picking (as I was yesterday. Failing to plant daffodil bulbs in a far from local garden which I had never previously been to and picking up pieces of litter which felt more of a disservice than an aid to the community because their garish plastic vibrancy detracted a little from the bleak dullness of the park. All the while wearing skin tight rubber gloves, the type worn by hospital workers and rapists, which makes any job seem more criminal and perverse. The usage of those gloves could transform "baker" to "dough fondler", "barbar" to "hair mollestor" and "Nursery worker" to "Vanessa George") then what terrible price must I pay for the great debts I owe to destiny and fate. How many daffodils do I have to plant to "give back" to destiny and fate? Is that even the right way of going about it?
Perhaps I should just start a cult worshipping destiny and fate, sacrificing a goat to their names every weekend followed by ritual dancing, spiritual humming and general mystical prancing about.
I will make it clear that I don't have a problem with community service in general and think its great (so long as I'm not actually the one doing it) but what I do have a problem with, what causes me a considerable amount of vexation, is the phrase "giving back" to the community.
Now, the Community has never done anything for me. If the Community were a parent and I its child, I would have been taken away by social services (or possibly not considering the recent incompetence of the social care system) due to gross negligence long ago. The positive publicity of "the community" seems to be that its an integral part of your life, functioning almost as a family member but as family members go, the community has had much of a presence in my life as an aborted older brother. In summary, I owe very little if not absolutely nothing to the community.
What's more it seems that people think you somehow owe more to the community if you or your family have more money, which when considered logically makes very little sense. My family is relatively well off (and that's relative to the extremely poor economical situation at present) and I'm relatively fortunate (That's relative to those who were born into Uk families with less money/income and not relative to, say, children in Africa in which case everyone in the Uk would be relatively very fortunate which is a positive way of looking at it in a sense. On that note let us all have a moment of silence for those African children for allowing us the privilege of thinking "Thank god that's not me" every time we see a, no longer shocking, "shocking" image of some dying child which provokes less emotion in us than the death of some rich singer somewhere over dosing themselves on recreational drugs) but there's no reason why that means we owe anymore to the community than anyone else.
We all reap what we sow and the community directly plays very little part in allowing someone to make money (unless monetary transactions by each individual member of the so called community is seen as the work of the community collectively) so I cannot see how the rich need to "give back" anything to the community. If anything the rich are more likely to have private health clinics that do not rely on the community and attend private schools (as do I) that do not rely on the community, as well as doing the community a favor every now and then by contributing to the local economy.
I am aware that the above paragraph sounded like the height of snobbery and conservatism so would like to make clear that I do like the welfare system and would support a Robbin hood tax (taxing more from the rich than the poor), however I just object to the incorrect, almost deliberately guilt inducing, phrase "giving back" to the community.
When I said that to those that ran "the challenge" their first response was "well, have you ever used the NHS?", the answer to which is "yes, yes I have once or twice." However my family pays for that enough in taxes and if the use of the NHS is relative to the amount of community service you should do then there are clearly people who use the NHS more but do nothing to "give back" to the community (those in the NHS permanent or intensive care unit for example... possibly because they're too ill to do anything).
The second response, in light of my "reap what you sow" remark was that I, as a teenager, had sown nothing of my own and have done nothing to deserve being in the privileged position I find myself in. That is very true, its complete chance that I happened to be born to the family I was born to and I'm very fortunate to have done so considering the statistics. However, what that has to do with the community is something I cannot fathom. Why would my extreme turn of good luck require me to "give back" to the community, what on earth makes me indebted to the community for having very good fortune?
Do "The community" have powers far beyond my understanding that allow them to control who gets born where? Is that the secret task of the local council, the elected members sitting around a table saying "Yes, I think we'll allow him to be born into a nice middle class family because he seems like a good lad ...though at this point there really is no way of discerning one individual from another since unborn foetuses typically tend not to have much of a personality" In which case I shall change all life dreams I've ever held and strive to become a member of the local council for the sheer power of it all.
However since I highly doubt that is the case, it seems I owe less to the community than I owe to fate and destiny. And if the very little that I owe to the community (possibly in the form of two public library books which have been left untouched in my bookshelf for the last few months, accumulating dust and library fines faster than a cheetah in a car... that analogy possibly falling down due to the fact cheetah's don't tend to have motoring skills) must be "given back" in the form of weekends spent gardening or litter picking (as I was yesterday. Failing to plant daffodil bulbs in a far from local garden which I had never previously been to and picking up pieces of litter which felt more of a disservice than an aid to the community because their garish plastic vibrancy detracted a little from the bleak dullness of the park. All the while wearing skin tight rubber gloves, the type worn by hospital workers and rapists, which makes any job seem more criminal and perverse. The usage of those gloves could transform "baker" to "dough fondler", "barbar" to "hair mollestor" and "Nursery worker" to "Vanessa George") then what terrible price must I pay for the great debts I owe to destiny and fate. How many daffodils do I have to plant to "give back" to destiny and fate? Is that even the right way of going about it?
Perhaps I should just start a cult worshipping destiny and fate, sacrificing a goat to their names every weekend followed by ritual dancing, spiritual humming and general mystical prancing about.
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