We remember John McEnroe’s outburst at Wimbledon in 1981. Long forgotten is the umpire (Edward James), the opponent that day (Tom Gullickson), the winner that day (McEnroe of course).
The media love-in with another ballsy Yank – the Donald – is well under way in this new year. They (we?) are loving his tweets which have shaken Ford, Mexican car workers, China and most other aspects of Obama’s foreign policy. And that’s just the last few days. The luvvie-networks (BBC being one) are revelling in the twitter-titter-feed from Trump Tower. The latest Wildeian quote to please the masses is: The people take Trump seriously but not literally; the political and media elites take him literally but not seriously. Evan Davis enjoyed pursuing this epigrammatic analysis on Newsnight with a bunch of worthies from both sides of the pond. Worthies might be stretching it but there was an articulate tree-hugger, Tamsin Omond, who banged on, amongst many other things, about the cataclysmic danger of Trump reneging on the Paris Climate Agreement. A business prof. called Ted Malloch who might become one of Trump’s senior advisers chillingly countered: Trump plays chess two moves ahead of everyone else both home and overseas. He’s wise, no idiot. Take him seriously.
The chatter bounced around for a while before I began to resent Evan Davis’s revelling in the salacious speculation. My mind had to park the Donald for a little while as I worried about education, education, education. The secondary school where I used to teach has recently made several teachers and others redundant. Subjects such as music have been cut from the curriculum. Morale is low. This is not an isolated story. Budget cuts, which have been savage since the financial crisis of nearly a decade ago, along with successive Tory education ministers wanting to squeeze more blood from the stone, have landed most schools in some sort of financial trouble. My knowledge is of secondary education where politicians and their civil servants have long-sought funding models which prove that more can be got for less. With a protracted period of Tory government most social and educational funding will be savaged. The academies programme – a case of pointless rebranding if ever there was one – fell into the more-for-less agenda.
The effects of constant change and poorly prioritised targets have cost the taxpayer vast sums this last decade. Young primary teachers are leaving the profession in droves. Assessments and targets so often seem unrelated to any context other than the Whitehall ruminations of failed teachers and civil servants who went to the barking mad school for the over-privileged. Secondary teachers are just being sacked – ensuring that ill-equipped young teachers gain posts of responsibility well beyond their competence and acceptable stress levels. Education on the cheap. Literally, seriously.
When McEnroe felt hard done-by, he shouted about it. But it was only a game. Wimbledon is important but it’s not Aleppo. Now Mr Trump tells us that we shouldn’t believe his campaigning vitriol but we must take his presidency seriously. This isn’t a game. Nor is the education of 93% of the UK (the others being much-better funded in private schools).
McEnroe went on to win Wimbledon that year. Ronald Reagan had just become President. Seriously.
simplysorro 
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