Scooting proficiency – a must for primary schools!

In a recent poll a third of parents suggested that schools ought to teach scooting as part of the PE curriculum. Apparently one fifth of all parents are thinking of buying their little treasures a scooter for Xmas. Primary schools are also under pressure to ‘teach’ the language of LGBTQ and explain differences of sexual orientation. Children should be familiar with terms such as gay, lesbian, transgender, transvestite etc, etc.

Gone are the days when times tables, Bunsen burner fun and the Norman Conquest prepared you well for life. Of course those were the days when we had parents. Teachers tended not to know about sex and scooters, so concentrated on what they did know. Parenting seems to have disappeared from the educational equation.

We’re not allowed to criticize or, worse, blame parents. We can’t say that too many unwanted children are born, too many couples break up and don’t manage the job of seeing their kiddies through life’s early traumas too well. There’s also those who don’t break up who can also be crap at parenting.

Whenever my lovely son feels like telling me that I am his best friend – quite a rarity but it has happened – I correct him and say that I’m his best Dad. I am his parent, not his mate. I love him as my son but wasn’t selected as best man at his wedding. Parents should teach scooting and sex and a whole range of stuff in the knowledge that children notice, understand, discern far more than we give them credit for. They pick things up all by themselves. Trial and error is a good recipe for most silly skills. Sex and scooting are just two.

I might have struggled with iambic pentameter and quadratic equations without my teachers, however. Having said that, I can read and so the older I get, the more I learn. And what I read about milkshakes this morning was truly underwhelming. Did you know that some high street knickerbockers have over 1000 calories and up to 30 spoons of sugar? Naturally ‘Action on Sugar’ is on the case. Perhaps schools should identify fat kids and send information sheets home on where to buy low-calorie milkshakes.

More strangely vegan burgers which bleed (beetroot juice) will soon be hitting our supermarket shelves. The Beyond Burger is designed to look and cook and taste like beef. Wow. Doesn’t this represent a climbdown for the vegan community – accepting that plant food should taste like carnivore fodder? That journalist who scuppered the editorial career of William Sitwell might take a view.

Last week I enjoyed a conversation  between a vegetarian and a meat-eater. The starting point had been my blog on the said Mr. Sitwell taking the micky out of vegans. The veggie supported the sacking. The carnivore didn’t. Then the latter asked,

“When did you last go into a vegetarian restaurant which had a meat option on the menu? Angus Steak Houses have a fine range of veggie (and vegan) options. Vegan and veggie restaurants never have meat on the menu. They discriminate, don’t they?”

The veggie’s response, along the lines of that’s not the point didn’t cut any ice. I rather enjoyed this little conundrum. The logic of it seemed rather sound. Logic, now that’s something which could be taught in schools. It could replace scooting in whatever new curriculum is bound to assail our schools when the next government is formed.