Progress

There’s just something about a new washing machine …

beckyjo125Leave a comment

Monday 29 May 2023

This weekend, our new washing machine is delivered. It is such an upgrade, I feel as if I’ve joined the space age. And I am smitten …

It is sleek and silent. The controls are an intuitive inspiration to navigate and its zips through the weekend laundry with eco-friendly ease. Oh I could and sit and gaze at it all day!

Now that does take me back! Because in the late 70s, when we got our first automatic machine that is exactly what my elder brother and I did. Pulled up small chairs and sat there, with our bowls of Rice Krispies, foregoing Saturday ‘Swap Shop‘ on TV to watch the clothes rotating round in the drum instead; such was the excitement!

Although it was a fond farewell to its predecessor, the old ‘twin-tub top loader’ device, which I recall being honoured to help with… very occasionally. My chubby toddler legs planted firmly on a kitchen stool, mum would let me use the huge wooden tongs to haul soggy garments from the washing side to the spinner!

I can only imagine one almighty mess with me at the helm of this operation but I think that mum was so busy marvelling about what a step-change this was from the laundry days of her childhood and doubtless, re-telling yet again the gruesome tale of her brother, getting his thumb caught in the mangle (ouch), that she failed to notice!

So, from the menacing mangle machine to my Bosch series 4; what rapid technological progress in my mum’s lifetime alone! And what a difference it has made to women in particular. Is that the secret of the washing machine’s allure?

It has undoubtedly brought huge labour saving benefits to the home. Actually, let me just amend that, homes in the developed world. In his brilliant TED Talk ‘The magic Washing Machine’ Hans Rosling, not only captures, with charm, the the impact of the first automatic machine but also challenges us to address the disparity in global technological development and the issues this poses for both equality of opportunity and world-wide energy consumption.

Whilst acknowledging the severity of climate change issues, Hans remains an enthusiatic advocate of the washing machine throughout, citing in his hugely engaging talk

“If you have a democracy, people will vote for washing machines…”

And many others agree. Google ‘the benefits of the washing machine for women’ and there are countless authors, from the Vatican to University researchers who have written about how reducing the chore of washing that weekly load from a 4-hour slog to a 40 minute automation has had a profound impact on our world, and women’s lives in particular. Tina Ruseva CEO of Montessa, writing on International Women’s Day in 2020, sums it up neatly ” … contraception, washing machines, and the Internet – technology has empowered women like no public program in human history. In fact it has empowered society as a whole….”

So my marvelling is not misplaced this afternoon, in fact I feel utterly justified in brewing myself a nice coffee and taking a moment to moon over my newest kitchen recruit once more.

Welcome washing machine and were you on the ballot paper in the next election…you’d probably get my cross!

Education – the great leveller?

beckyjo125Leave a comment

Wednesday 15 May 2019

In the week when Prom-dress daughter starts her GCSEs, and half the teenage world shudders with stress and probably more than half of their parent do too, I wonder about the fairness of it all.

Education, as the ‘great leveller’ has been my lifelong passion. I love the fact that a set of top exam grades from your local comprehensive is every bit as good as the same grades from Eton or Harrow. I’ve been intoxicated by the concept of GCSE results day as the one day of true equality on the calendar, when any 16 year old who’s worked hard and aimed high is assessed on the same scale as, and can get better grades than …. even the future King of England.

Education undoubtedly was my liberator, and took me to places and opportunities, that I’d never dreamed possible. I recall on my journey to University, back in the 1980s, being too frightened to open my mouth, as the train headed south of Birmingham, for fear of my Northern accent inviting ridicule. Three years later, I was ready to take on the world! And I was grateful: for the boost of confidence and self esteem; for the privilege of 3 years with like-minded friends; for 3 years of being allowed to be myself and still fit in… and I wanted to give back. I moved into a career in Education.

But how much of a leveller is our Education system in 2019? Here’s the data; and I am, not surprised. but deeply saddened that, in 21st Century England, a well developed country, the progress of disadvantaged pupils falls so far behind that of their non-disadvantaged peers. A Progress 8 score of -0.44 suggests that across this substantial cohort of vulnerable pupils, almost half their results were one grade lower than you should expect for a pupil of the same starting point. If that was your child, and 4 of their 9 grades were lower than other children who arrived at high school with the same results, what you you think? And the actual picture is even starker than that. Research is emphatic that by the time a disadvantaged pupil reaches high school, they are already significantly behind…the gap just continues to widen throughout their school life.

So GCSE results day, “the one day of true equality on the calendar?” We could not be further from the truth! The data dispels my naive utopia and just leaves, as a bad wine on a long awaited night out, a very sour after taste. ‘Disadvantage’ predominantly indicates parental poverty, with the vast majority of the cohort drawn from the population who qualify for free school meals. The data screams out, that despite the same schooling, your family background will still be the key determinant your educational success. It’s a devastatingly far cry from the ‘cultural capital’ and social mobility we aspired to in Butler’s 1944 Education Act.

Does the over- involvement of parental affluence in education exacerbate the gap? Affluence can mean money for private tuition, money to keep your child away from a time consuming part time job, money for technology and a wealth of online revision resources, lack of financial worries so more time for home support. I don’t know if this is the reason. It’s a highly complex issue and one thing is for sure, it’s ridiculous to expect any parent not to do all they can to support their child’s education. I will certainly continue to make Prom-dress daughter ‘porridge and berry’ breakfasts until these GCSEs are over, and to head out for emergency chocolate after any tricky and tearful exam.

No, it remains the job of educators to relentlessly drive this cohort with more ambition and higher expectations where needed; and it clearly is needed, I’d advocate positive discrimination of time and resources too. But it’s not just a challenge for schools. Think Grenfell, media attitudes to asylum seekers, the Jeremy Kyle show, the refusal of all but a few commentators to listen to the 51% of the population who did vote for Brexit, the 51% who do not recognise Britain as a fair and prosperous land at the moment. Does our nation really care about and respect the most disadvantaged in our society? I think we could all strive to do so a lot better….