Hello and welcome one and all. Thank you for reading and supporting Syre Byrd’s Word Emporium.
Another week is born for us to share stories, insights, perhaps a little home spun wisdom. Of course even though you are reading this, I can still figuratively extend hospitality by way of a cup of tea and a slice of Victoria Sponge (homemade with fresh cream and strawberry jam filling). I hope that thought is a pleasant one.
Although it is half term here I will have to go to school this week. Such a backlog of issues such as marking, entering data, preparing schemes of study. January seemed to go in a haze due to doing Key Stage 3 exams based on the previous terms work: and that having a knock on affect in the first month or so of the next term.
Who would willingly choose to be a school planner and administrator? The job seems to upset everyone! Politicians, parents, teachers and students! Each with their own set of issues and often competing if not contradictory demands.
Which I why I personally like the clarity of purpose that Katharine Birbalsingh gives her School were everyone sacrifices for the common elevation and good of the school mission. A mission to give top class education to all pupils.
She has been in the news in Britain and doing the rounds on my podcast feed this past week (in discussion with Brendan O’Neill and also on Triggernometry as two examples). She is the Principal of Michaela school in London. Embroiled in a High Court case over of all things, a prayer room. Spiked
I read one of the Michaela School Books about 3-4 years ago just before the pandemic hit and in fact interrupted my reading. Book Of course the first book on Culture looks really interesting as well…. I think I can see why Michaela has opposition.
I have wanted to go and see for myself this school in practice. They have many such visitors. Her school is outperforming all competition. This in an inner city London location with minimal resourcing. Amazing. Yet outside influences and influencers, with their own agendas, are threatening it seems to me the very fabric and ethos she espouses. I will wait with interest and concern, the legal outcomes in the coming year.
In the USA a parent, a Mother, has been convicted in a case that sets an interesting precedent. Her Son at the age of 15 killed students in his school. A mass shooter event. His mother has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter for it seems missing all the signs, for neglect, for not preventing her son’s rampage. For buying a gun even though that is not illegal? The father is in court in the next month or so as well. Reuters report
This precedent is going to work itself out, it seems to me, in all kinds of unforeseen ways. Just for starters and in tune with my start: why did the admin of the school who raised the issue directly on the day accept him back into class? Just because parents had to go to work? If the pictures and behaviour were so bad: why not kick him from school for child protection and safety as is their right? Why did they, after raising serious concerns, not check his bag?
If parents can be culpable then perhaps all the other people who were involved in failures should be treated equally? Interesting times ahead methinks. As I said at the beginning, who would be a school manager or admin?
Still I have had a nice quiet week and as there will be no students at school. I am hoping it is quiet as well.
Quiet means so much more than the word in English implies. It is not just about the absence of noise and the hustle bustle of everyday life. It is also for me the conscious choice to practice, to be in the place, in the zone as it were of quietude.
Thus the circumstances of a place and time (which may be opposite to this choice) may swirl around you in a cacophony of Taylor Swift and a multitude of teen voices mixed in with school bells, alarms and constant bleeps on your phone. Even then you can be quiet and not swept up in the hubbub. I have experienced this: but just not enough! I want it more.
Of course I make no great claim here. I do like meditation. I do try and practice quietude. My altar has always had that kind of focus in my home for me. A place that has the focus for quietude at the heart of my home and hearth.
Yet quite often I fail: I get caught up in the time and place and find that as a consequence that my especial place of the soul, is perturbed. I am infamous for allowing my speech to go in a lower deck patois on occasions. For losing my head in the heat of a moment. Quietude requires self control. I am sorely lacking in practice in that related area. Too busy switching off in the moment and not being aware of myself as a conscious and feeling and spiritual being.
A goal that is more than an aspiration. It is essential to my being. I hope that I can report more positively on my progress in this regards over the future weeks and months. If you have some practical advice and some of the ‘homespun wisdom’ mentioned in the introduction, please share in the comments! I and our readers are all eager to hear and learn more.
Have a Blessed week of inner peace.
Interesting to note that some liberal-left leaning schools (particularly Free Schools) are adopting her methods. But, "minus the Toryism", as they put it.
The Swan School in Oxford for example.