When we first moved into our home, my sister bought us two plants as house warming presents. 18 years later they are still going strong. The red one doesn’t flower for long but it’s just springing into life.

It’s quite amazing that after 18 years both plants are still going strong. I don’t have a great track record with plants. I remember my partner for a joke buying me a plant which was described as – the worlds most resilient….will survive anywhere. Clearly they missed off the words – apart from one house in Yorkshire. It was dead within months. But these two have survived. They arrived, I bunged them in large plant pots and left them. Since then they have occasionally been watered and that’s it.

Sometimes the secret is clearly to leave things to sort themselves out. Not always, but definitely occasionally.

I was listening to a politician last night talk about how schools should immediately reopen. According to him schools didn’t need to worry about things like hygiene or social distancing. Kids have been going to cramped classes for generations. Yes kids can catch our current nemesis but its an acceptable risk. Apparently teachers are paid to teach so they should ignore any concerns about things like social distancing and PPE. The economy is paramount. In one notable concession apparently government officials and assessors should avoid schools because of the risk of catching the virus. When asked about kids and parents fears the response was – tough, the economy is more important and if they refuse to attend then they should be forced to. It’s up to the government and the PM if a child attends school.

Really. I will see you in court then.

Schools do need to reopen when it is safe for kids, parents (guardians) and staff. Now is the time to make school a better place to learn and work in. Surely the days of treating schools like archaic education factories must be finally over. Yes schools have been this bad for years and years. That doesn’t make it right. We burned witches for years and years – does that make that practice right…..

And as for the idea that school visits by inspectors are too risky yet it’s ok for the kids and teachers…..

Let’s start making positive changes to schools and then we can start a process of gradually reopening schools. Fully involve teachers, pupils and parents in the process. That way we can build confidence in the system. Some families will be able to go back quickly. Others (like our son) will take longer. Some bloke in London telling people what to do would be just so wrong. My Son will only go back when HE IS ready.

71 thoughts on “Leave it”

  4. Some state politician said “there are more important things than life.” That’s our govt in a nutshell!!

    I thought of you when I saw that some US school systems are giving up on “remote learning”.

    Some govt agency posted guidelines for reopening schools (fear isn’t of kids getting sick but if them transmitting virus to older family members)… desks 6′ apart. Uhmm… schools have been overcrowding classrooms for many years now. To have desks 6′ apart, they either need to rotate class shifts (“congrats… your new school hours are 2-8AM”) or build about 20x more classrooms!!

    Congrats on the plant… it’s quite pretty!!

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      1. Agreed. I don’t know about there but here teachers are ridiculously underpaid, causing the best ones to work in other fields. I hope that an outcome of forced homeschooling is a push to increase pay for school teachers!

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  6. Those flowers are lovely!

    It’s interesting because I’ve got a post scheduled coming soon about how teachers are being forced to go back to school. These “Government Officials” are well into the teacher-bashing at the moment. It’s so annoying, these people keep acting like Teachers aren’t even working, they still ARE. The only time they don’t work (in Australia) is during the 6 wk Christmas holidays. Though, the couple of weeks before school starts, they do start again. It’s so disheartening to watch.

    The other thing that’s been annoying me, is that people who keep acting like teachers are their babysitters. Have, as far as I have seen, saying that they are mentally drained, so they need their kids to go back to school. The ONLY people I have not seen complain about teachers and that their kids are draining them, are the parents of disabled children (in some way). I think it comes down to that parents of disabled children, understand that the teachers are trying to help. Whereas parents of “able-bodied” children, see teachers as nothing more than Government paid baby sitters.

    Now our Australian Prime Minister is pretty much bribing and threatening schools to open. I wonder if any of these people, have talked to a single teacher. I doubt it. It’s all so messed up. Ironically, our schools were closed down, because they were having students come to school with the virus. That’s why they were closed in the first place, so it’s not only possible for children to have the virus, but they can spread it.

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  7. Yes. Unless these Government officials, or anyone else with this virw are happy to sit in a classroom every day with staff and kids then don’t expect kids to, or staff, if you think it’s not safe to attend school.
    Clearly as always, one rule for them, but everyone else, it’s a different one and they wonder why we are not going to follow their orders and go run and jump.

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      1. I can’t imagine how you would make it safe. Less pupils in classroom. But as there is no room in schools to expand buildings as well as time and cost with that, just leaves home schooling as the safe option.

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  8. Back in about the 1980s I bought a dieffenbachia plant in a four inch pot. I still have it, growing in a 36″ pot that stands 2 feet high. It has travelled from coast to coast with me (Canada) and will outlive me when I die. Every few years, when it reaches over 10′ tall I have to chop it down so it can start all over again. This summer will be one of those years. Whenever I do cut it down I have to cut the stem into foot-long or longer lengths and put them into slightly smaller pots so they will grow again as a new plant. All I have to do is stick the bottom end of the stem into soil, and inside a week a new leaf will be poking out near the top. This one plant must have 500 direct decendents, and who knows how many offshoots from them. The biggest problem I have is giving them away.
    They are the hardiest plant I have ever encountered, and no, this variety is not harmful to cats. I’m told it can be harmful to people if the sap gets in one’s mouth, but I’ve never none anyone crazy enough to bite into one.
    As for dumbass politicians, how many of them have school-age children? Not many, I’m betting.

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  12. I think they’re churning these government officials out of a factory somewhere – they all hold the same beliefs and make the same asinine comments regardless of country.

    I too am a serial plant killer. Got a plant you don’t like? Give it to me and it WILL die…quickly! 😀

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  15. A fine post. You’ll get green fingers yet I’m sure.

    The politician who made such comments is clearly an ignorant fool whose thinking is dominated by an ideology so disgusting it makes me ashamed. Such a gung ho and disrespectful attitude, such as running down our public services to the bare bones (and more) over the last ten years is a major contributor to our appalling preparedness and capacity to deal with coronavirus. Clueless and insulting.

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  16. It will be interesting to see not only when but how they reopen the schools. Will they send all the kids back at once? Will online learning still be available to those with either weakened immune systems or fears? I guess time will tell.

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  17. Looks like a pink magnolia tree Gary. It’s beautiful.
    Politicians care only about the bucks and their image. Once again they haven’t thought about beyond the ‘let’s do it’ stage. Stick to your guns and let your son go back when he’s ready to.

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      6. I guessed. Not a great day. I’ve done very little. I have just watched the film ‘Stan and Ollie’ though. It was fab. I really enjoyed it.

        Ps I am terrible with plants. It goes with the territory of being a bit cack handed generally I think. X

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  22. That line, “Sometimes the secret is clearly to leave things to sort themselves out. Not always, but definitely occasionally.” stayed with me.

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