Waiting for Mr Blair

I was recently challenged to come up with a 500 article on procrastination - here is the result!

Dear Mr Blair,

I would like to make a serious complaint about your procrastination. I know that you are probably very busy right now with gearing up for the next election, picking fights with members of your cabinet, your backbenchers and the opposition party, but, I would like to refresh you memory about something you promised to do when you first came to office.

You remember that catch phrase of yours? "Education! Education! Education!" You probably said lots of other things too as potential Prime Ministers do to persuade people to vote for them! As part of your education shake-up you promised to get rid of bad teachers.

I waited patiently to be found and got rid of! I wasn't quite sure whether you had worked out exactly how I was going to meet my pedagogical end, but I was confident that it would happen. I had mentally spent the redundancy money on financing a book. I had even written the opening chapter - "Teaching - Go Get Your Head Examined." But you didn't come.

I had to find something to do with all the pupils you had left me with, so I wrote new units of work to keep up my writing skills. I discovered how to use a computer and spent hours surfing the net looking for interesting information to hold their interest. I put up interesting displays on the classroom walls. I took them on visits to Museums and Art galleries and even spent a week with them trudging around the countryside on a filed trip on the Isle of Mann looking at Celtic crosses and stone circles in empty fields. It was horrible - the more interesting my lessons became, the more pupils kept opting into them! I developed ways of managing the disruptive pupils, and inspiring the very able at the same time! And all the while I waited, but you didn't come!

With every class room door that opened I expected to see you waiting there with open arms ready to lead me to my new life - BUT YOU DIDN'T COME!

And while I was waiting what do I find you doing? Looking for bad dictators of Middle Eastern countries to chase across deserts; looking for terrorists that threaten our democratic way of life; looking for bad doctors who risk the lives of their patients with careless medical procedures; looking for huntsmen who gallop across the countryside on horses chasing harmless foxes.

In all this "looking for" and "chasing", I have been waiting. I would like to tell you that you can stop looking for me now. While you have been procrastinating in your duty to find bad teachers, this one in grew into being a good teacher. The book has never been written and the opening chapter had been re-titled "Teaching - A Fulfilling Experience".

However, be assured that I can never vote of you. You have shown yourself to be a man who does not keep his word!

Yours sincerely,

Mel K