The BIG issues in life

So I have taken Bella to the park and pulled up along side another car. On the car there is one sticker.....Now I think it is reasonable to assume that if someone has one sticker on their car that is related to some activity/political view/hobby etc then this is probably an issue that is core to their beliefs and something that they think about alot.

Sure you see stickers that are annoying (Baby on Board) but you just have to smile and disregard the stupidity of them (Oh I was going to ram your car off the road and kill you and your occupants but then I saw you had a baby on board so I decided to let your car pass and get the next guy) and just celebrate the love of their child...

So anyway if you think of all the issues facing our world today...from continued unrest in the middle east, systemic issues with regard to the health and welfare of indigenous Australians, decades of unaddressed hunger and poverty in the African continent, the need to add more courts to deal with the increased number of activities of rugby league players, through to the potential for environmental calamity with global warming and yet the woman who parked next to me felt that this was her biggest concern.




















So she is not just worried about (I guess) dogs and cats being made available to purchase by loiving families....No she wants all animals protected from those....those...those pet shops...What about those poor goldfish,living a life of being looked at every day by thousands of people they don't know..No privacy, no quiet place to swim off and contemplate their lot in life.

And what about the poor mice....Ok they still get to procreate (alot!) but is this really a life that we should subject them to.

Oh and not only is there a sticker that can be proudly displayed by the couple of people who truly care about pets being available in pet shops...These supporters of all that is wrong with our society also have a web site!!

As I drove away I wanted to turn back and run up to the woman and say how envious I was of her life. Imagine if, in all the troubled areas of your life and the world around you, the one thing that you feel SOOOO passionate about is that pets are available in pet shops..........You must have a truly wonderful life.

Generation One - really??

So let me first acknowledge that I agree with the view that our indigenous fellow Australians continue to suffer life conditions that are below that in many third world countries. The unemployment rate, health issues and general lack of opportunity is something that all Australians should find appalling and unacceptable...Every effort should be made to find sustainable solutions to these issues and all Australians should see such redress as overdue as necessary.

It is also impressive to hear that Twiggy Forrest has had a lifelong interest in the plight of our indigenous Australians and that he wants to do something about the lack of opportunity available to them....Good on him for voicing his concern and trying to get something done...However..........

So we have this GenerationOne launch at the Opera House with the usual political support from both sides and the nauseating appearance of showbiz celebs (Does anyone seriously give a shit that our Russell or our Cate are at the Opera House?...Iwas not going to support this cause but when I saw our Russell there I had to change my mind and give money....really???) and the sprinkle of rich people there supporting the cause....

It is all about the "Average Australian" getting involved....hey I am all for all of us taking this issue to heart but I actually think that our rich folk...especially those who seem more impacted by the issue than others...could lead by example....real example!!

So what actually is everyone supporting...beyond the Rah Rah, the hand wringing and angst filled faces and PR spin.....Twiggy says the initial goal was to find 50,000 jobs for indigenous people...What does this actually mean and what type of jobs?

Is it just that 50,000 low paid, menial jobs will be taken from one level of the poorer end of the socio-economic scale and given to a group even further down (ie bias in job selection) or does it mean that 50,000 jobs will be created where there were no jobs?? Help me understand this second version...Does it mean that businesses that do not need extra people will now hire 50,000 people they did not need???Surely this can't be the case so it must be version 0ne....ie of the current or next batch of 50,000 jobs to be made available (ie businesses need these people) the next 50,000 or so will go to indigeneous people.....yet given for the most part the people that this scheme is trying to help are low skilled therefore the jobs will be low skill jobs.....and some other poor low skilled worker misses out.

The nauseating notes from our latest premier (KK) about committing to hire 2229 indigenous people...what does this mean??How many was she going to hire anyway??are these new jobs?? If so where and if so why??..What is it about KK...Not only would she go to the opening of an envelope...she will send out the invitations asking people come and she will present a speech on the making of the invitation to the event where an envelope was being opened...My first 50 days opening envelopes.....anyway....

I am NOT against a positive bias towards indigenous job selection and it might just be something needed but can someone be honest and explain that this is what is going on.......Can somone also explain how this creates a systemic and sustainable fix to the problems that exist for indigenous Australians.

50,000 jobs is around 0.46% of the total Australian Job market...According to the ABS 2001 data there are (recorded) around 410,000 indigenous Australians so 50,000 out of 410,000 seems an impressive goal...ABS reports the unemployment rate for indigenous people at 14% - 17% so again 50,000 is a reasonable goal to hit....and yet how are jobs created in a sustainable way and hwo do you ensure you create jobs that are not just ones at the bottom of the socio-economic scale..

I can't help but think that a) If the rich folks wants to really help there is a more meaningful approach they could take and b) alot of this Generation One programme is PR Spin, tokenistic and debasing. It offers promise to those that want to address the appalling situation that our indigenous Australians are in but it does so with more style than substance...

So here is an idea...Twiggy has made around $3bn (it goes up and down a bit) over the last few years and Twiggy SAYS that he is personally very troubled by the lack of opportunity for our indigenous Australians...Seems James Packer and Kerry Stokes agree......So given you VERY rich guys care so much why not try this on for size...Twiggy you put in $1b (still leaves you with $2b or more) and James and Kerry you guys put in another few hundred million ( in both cases you will be left with gzillions so you should be ok)...So now we have around $1.5b to invest in sustainable programmes to help indigenous Australians.....

If you assume the $1.5b invested could return around $150m a year FOREVER and assume that it costs around $15K- $20K per year to put someone through an apprenticeship or Uni degree.

This means that for $150m per year you would have 9,000 people undertaking courses at any one time (3,000 in each of year 1,2 , 3) and you would produce 3,000 fully trained and SKILLED indigenous students a year, forever....a sustainable and society changing impact on the lack of opportunity...Also these are skilled roles so the indigenous Australians coudl aspire to jobs higher up the socio-economic scale and have the ability to create a new world of opportunity for their families.

Maybe we should broaden the net further...Twiggy you put up for $1b and your other rich mates scrape together another $1b..Come on Russell, Cate you seem so committed to this surely you can give up 1 or 2 payments from a hollywood move and kick the tin for $20m or so each...So with $2b invested the opportunity programme could fund around 13,500 students...Maybe get the Govt to now match fund this programme and now we have 27,000 students being fully funded in course that will give them REAL job prospects in more than menial pay roles....And this would occur year after year after year.

So all power to Twiggy, his rich mates, Hollywood stars and random politicians for supporting the Generation One programme...but why not stop gnashing your teech about how big the problem is and PUT REAL MONEY to work to fix the issue..

While I am on this rant...So a rich guy (say someonewith $4b) give $10m to a hospital and not only does he get naming rights to the building etc but he is lauded by all as a great philanthropist...Is he really?..On the one hand $10m is alot of money however....$10m being donated by a guy with $4b is like the average Australian giving $700.....(The average Australian has, according to the ABS, a net wealth of $280K..so do the maths $10m eaquals about 1/4 of 1% of the next wealth of someoen with $4b etc etc)......

There are alot of normal Australians who give $700 or more a year to charities close to their heart and no one calls them great philanthropists..Let's not go further into this anlysis by pointing out the obvious which is $700 means ALOT more to a guy with a net wealth of $280,000 than does $10m to a guy with $4b..

So how about this for a plan...Unless you allocate more than 15% of your net wealth to charity (the benchmark for the richest americans and their allocation of wealth to charities) you do not get referred to in any ways as anything more than a normal person doing normal things...if a $billionaire wants to allocate $400m to a foundation or charity then they deserve the accolades....Further how about we REQUIRE our most wealthy to give this amount to charities...Seems they have alot lying around so could afford to kick the tin a tad more..

Full circle now...Twiggy...love the passion...agree with the concern...Nice to invite the rest of us....looking forward to you donating only 1/3 of your massive fortune to help address this issue in a sustainable way....that plus a little help from your friends...

Ch7 Sydney News

So last night I as home in time to watch the evening News. Ringing in my ears was a conversation I had recently had with good friend from the US.

He used to visit Australia regaularly in the 1990's but had not been here since 1997. He visited last year and over dinner he provided a well articulate review of our commerical FTA TV news . His point was that over the intervening yars the News offerings from Ch7, 9, 10 hd become more insular, less global, less news and mre entertainment...Not really News but rather a slightly high brow version of Australia's Funniest Videos mixed with ACA or Today Tonight...

Of course I jumped to the defence of our venerable News services and was quick to attack the insular News offerings that exits in the main US TV markets.....

So here we are last night watching the Ch7 News....The telecast opens with the story about the killer of Victor Chang being released....Now the fcts are that this guy committed a terrible crime, robbing Australia of one of its true heroes. Victor Chang's murder was a tragedy of national proportions...However this guy (Lim) served 18 years in prison and was being released on parole. It was decided (I gues gy him with the sanction of the appropriate authorities) to allow him to fly bck tohis country of bith in Malaysia...

In summary...criminal leaves jail after 18 years on parole and goes home to Malaysia..short story....Noooooooo..Channel 7 start with the expected photos of Victor Chang etc then the presenter cuts to some flack at Sydney Airport (where Lim is to fly out)..chat chat chat..The we cut to...seriously...I am not making this up...we cut to Kuala Lumpur where another ch7 flack is waiting...what the fuck is he waiting for...... Why do we need to see video or Sydney Airport, refer to a flack out there who tells us again that Lim will fly out on Malaysian airlines with some federal govt staff...Why then did we need to go to flack #2 to tell us that Lim will arrive in X hrs time in Kuala Lumpur...This is not a surprise....Lim is flying home on a commercial jet after being released form jail..He is not escaping on a plane that he has hijacked......

As I watched this parody of a news story pondering why all the unnecesary BS it all became clear...Ch7 needs to pad out the 22 minutes in the 6:00pm news and to keep costs down and outrage high....so pad this story out for the maximum time possible...pad just to the edge of it looking ridiculous and stop...Well executed ch 7.

Then we go to the story about the interest rate rise. Background.....We have had historically low interest rates set by the Reserve Bank to assist in making sure we did not gon into recession..During this last year or so every commentator, politician, Reserve Bank employee ha stalked about how rates will have to get back to normal levels in the short term...So the base rate goes up from 3.75% to 4.0%...All as expected..The 4.0% rate is still well below more recent normalised levels and yet.......

Ch7 rolls out probably the most naff story construction in their history. The story focuses on a mum who talks abotu having to make cut backs...Firstly what was she expecting when rates went down to 2%..That they would stay there forever...That all the pundits, experts etc were wrong when they told her time and again rates woudl go back up??? Anyway she has a child's blackboard where she is drawing the things that they will hve to now cut out of their expenditure..She draws a lolly, then something unintelligible, then a house....So so so naff and shame on ch7 for such a pathetic and basically unhelpful story...

The Chris Bath references a video about a near accident in the US on an icy road..Roll the video once...roll the video a second time...and I think they rolled it a THIRD time...Cut to an ad break and after the ad break....Guess what...roll the video again!!!...I get it...The US Policeman on soem random US highway nearly got killed...Yes it was a close call but I am guessing there were alot of close calls around the world yesterday...This was not the most important and even if it was I only needed to see it once!

Truly this was an exact cut and paste of the approach taken by Australian Funniest Videos...which is fine except this is meant to be a serious News broadcast!!!!

So what else happened in the world yesterday..What stories failed to make the cut?? What stories fell in behind the near crash on some random US highway?

Yesterday...
The International Court of Justice commenced the trial of Karadzic - the Bosnian leader charged with genocide.

There were more aftershocks in Chile and Chile struggled to cope with the aftermath of the earthquake.

Flooding in Europe.

Issues with Malik in the upcoming and potentially world changing Iraqi elections.

Pakastini forces capture a major al-Queda cave stronghold.

Ongoing developments with the massive debts that many European countries are struggling to deal with.

The seminal US Health Care debate continued with Obama trying new tactics to get this through.

Just to name a few...Let alone slightly more important local issues such as the release of the national cutrriculm blueprint.....

It is sad to say but my friend is right...Our commercial TV news services are all style and no substance..For any of them to suggest that they take seriously the issue of News production and disseminatiion is a massive insult to the intellgence of the Australian community...Far better to re-run some sitcom..At least we then know when to laugh....

Tiger - the Update - Short

Ok so this is getting either really weird or really, really funny.

Today many news outlets reported that Tiger's response to his multi-year, multi-women affair is to...

Change his prenuptial contract to make it incredibly expensive for him to cheat again on his wife.

Apparently his wife gets $5m now (kind of a downpayment on past indiscretions) and a further $80m if the marriage lasts until 2016....I wonder how they define "marriage lasts"...Does that mean he doesn't stray until 2016 or that he can stray but she can't chase him around the house with a golf club....until 2016....

No..stop laughing I did not make this up.....

So after cheating on his wife for 3 years and coming out to say that he is going to work on his behaviour etc etc his answer is to increase the financial penalties for him if he strays again...That's it...So the only thing that will keep him from taking on another mistress is to have more money at stake.

I can see it now...his new prenup fixed at $80m...His deep (newly found) morals kicking in....I told you darling that I would be faithful and those last 137 women only rated somehwere between $15m and $63m..but Svetlana...Come on....She is at least a $88m prize..Sorry but there is just so much a man can bear....


The we hear today that a 6th mistress has come out with (apparently 3 more in the wings!)...Exactly how does someone have 3 or 4 affairs going on while married???Also how come he is so shocked that this has all come out....He really thinks that he can have affairs with 6 women and for it not to come out. No wonder his golf has not been that great this pastr couple of years...Tiger has been a busy little boy running between home and his vast array of mistresses...Such a chore for the poor golfing great...


So what happens next. We find out that Tiger has had sex with every woman spectator at the recent US Open while at the same time conducting a year long affair with the all of the cheerleaders of his favourite football team???

I just can't wait to hear how our intrepid Today show gurus (Karl and Deborah whatisher name) respond to this latest news.....I can hear them already warming up...Karl you go first.

Well Tiger suffers from a rare and sadly incurable mental illness called fuckwhoeveruwantitis..Sadly many rich an famours people fall prey to this insidious disease and my professional opinion is that we should all turn a blind eye to this poor man's struggle with this disease, slip him the name of a few brothels and go back to idolising his golf swing.........

What do you think Debo.

Well we have already organise a cover shoot for next week's AWW. Tiger and his wife look so happy in the photos - which shows that clearly nothing untoward has gone on...I mean look at their nice clothes, the beautiful setting at their home, his big broad smile and the little children in perfectly co-ordinated outfits...Call me old fashion but when I see happy family snaps like these I knwo what the truth is....All this mistress stuff is a hoax perpetrated by jealous golfers who want Tiger off the PGA Tour.....It's just like that fake moon landing in 69.....

Tiger, Tiger, Tiger and the Today Show

So the facts seem to be (at this point) that;
1) Tiger Woods has had an affair for at least 3 years with one woman
2) Tiger was so worried his wife would find out that he asked one woman to change her voicemail (quick interlude here.....Tiger's wife was checking his mobile phone...Is this normal behaviour in a secure marriage or rather the actions of a wife that knows her husband is cheating on her?..anyway)
3)2 other women have come out claiming affairs...That is 3 women in 2 days....hmmmm me thinks there are more to come out
4)Tiger crashed his car at 2:25am..Was he a) deserate for a magnum icecream, b) he wanted to get an early start at the golf course or c)his wife had found out about one or more of his affairs and she wanted to smack him with a 5 iron.

Fast forward to the Today Show on Ch9 this morning. Karl and Deborah whatishername from the Woman's Weekly were chatting about the "Tiger incident"..Ok family loving Karl and defender of women's rights Deborah...let fly.

Deborah said (words to this effect) " Tiger has lots of groupies throwing themselves at him every where he goes so perhaps he just gave in to temptation". ie those bad, nasty girls tempting Tiger...And to tempt him so forcefully for him to have a 3 year affair...that is some tempting. You horrible women!

Come on now Karl...Come through for family values..

Karl (words to this effect).."Tiger has had a very controlled upbringing since his early childhood and maybe this is part of him breaking out of the control".. What the %#$^...So Tiger's therapist sat him down and said "listen son I know you have had a controlled life and sure this life has delivered you world wide acclaim and about $1b but to deal with this horrid past you need to go out and sleep with a bunch of women..I know this is against your family values but Tiger I must insist...this will help you get better".

Also did I miss something...when did Karl get a Phd in Psychology??

Both fully paid up members of the "Tiger can do what ever he wants" club, Karl and Deborah then chatted about how it was kind of normal for famous people to sleep around. Karl even made a comparison of Tiger to Shane Warne...Now that is a low blow....except Karl was trying to be complementary!.

In summary these esteemed media commentators believe that Tiger had such an appallingly controlled childhood such that when he was confronted with those temptresses he had no option but to screw their brains out...Poor, poor Tiger.

How about this version.

Tiger (like many famous people before him) maybe used his power and influence to chase down any woman he desired.....often I have found that fidelity and respect for wives and children do not matter to famous people...Reminds me of a conversation I once had with a married man who is now head of one of our top professional services firms...He slept around also...in his mind..I kid you not...hand on heart...he felt it was his duty to, as he put it ,share his love around...He had so much love to share and he felt it his responsibility to share the love...Hmmmmmm how about sharing love in the true sense but keeping your dick in your pants....

Anyway the last word has to go to Tiger...he (on his website) apologises for his "transgressions" and feels it is not fair for the media to scutinise him at this time....

Firstly a transgression is something like a drunken one night stand...It is not a 3 year affair with one woman and affairs with at least 2 others....Affairs that required day to day deceit and day to day planning and organisation...listen to the voicemail he left one woman if you want to fully understand intricate planning of deceitful actions...Tiger's minders surely had to know what was going on as well..This was not a transgression but a pattern of deceit going on for years.

As for the demand for privacy...Sorry that ship sailed whentakes the hundreds of $M in sponsorhsip money..they have decided to live a public life for money so they can't cry now that they have been found out.

As to Tiger's statement about working on his behaviour....Funny how we is only doing this now that the affairs are public.

As for Karl and Deborah you should both be ashamed for the positions you took..Tiger Woods actions are nothing less that deceitful and poor form. There is no excuse for what he has done and he should accept whatever punishment awaits..To try and provide excuses for this appalling behaviour says alot about your morals and ethics.....and I had thought you were a decent guy Karl....

Public Schools vs Private Schools

So private schools are full of super rich, arrogant families with a born to rule attititude and a lust for ripping cash from the public purse. Public schools are overrun by the stalinist Teacher's Federation and lawlessness rules the school grounds...If only life were that simple.


Sadly the debate about education has been captured by groups that have an axe to grind and would rather not deal in the facts and try to develop a better education system for all..On both sides there are simple minded and selfish ideologues who perhaps were beaten puppies in a former life, such is their need to drum up anger and bitterness.

So let's first deal with some facts...


IF you take all the money provided by governments for education in Australia and compare the the OECD you find that in fact Australia overall spends LESS on education than do many other countries...



This is the major issue and one that gets lost as successive governments have preferred the fight to be public vs private rather than everyone against the government.


Secondly if you look at total government funding for education (Federal and State) then you find that each public school student's education is funded to the tune of around $10,715 per student (numbers from 2007) and each private school student is funded to the tune of $6,054 by public funds....So to be clear public school students get government funding that is 60% HIGHER than government funding for private school students.



Now there is a skew between the feds and the states. Under Howard the feds did increase spending on private school education but to be fair you have to look at TOTAL public funding when making comparisons of how all levels of government fund education.


Moving on.


The current funding mechanism for private schools is a joke. This is NOT to say that private schools deserve more or less but rather the allocation is wrong..On the north shore of Sydney you have 2 schools that are less than 4 km apart. One school gets DOUBLE the per student subsidy from the government?? Why???




The premise behind the new private school funding system sought to fund schools on the basis of their parent population's' economic status (SES)...If you have poorer parents you got more...if you had richer parents you got less..Seems fair....Except there was also a little clause that said that a school would not be disadvantaged..So unless I am mistraken....adn I am happy to be told I am wrong..... if the new system suggested you should get $2000 per student and you were currently getting $4,000 per student then you were allocated the $4,000 per student...no time line to recalibrate to the right level just more money than you should get forever....Ridiculous! and grossly unfair....


Then you have the situation of really well off schools (large grounds, large endowments) that happen to be located in less wealthy suburbs...They too get a disproportionate allocation because of their geographical situation and historic subsidies...even if their parent population has changed!!..



Further you have really, really well off schools that can spend enormous amounts of money (e.g. a Sydney school that was able to buy a historic building that they can't redevelop for $35m...these guys do not need help from anyone)......

Therefore you have a reasonable premise for funding bastardised by self-interest and poor execution. We do need a new system that provides the same or similar funding per student with any deviation from the average determine by the financial resources of the school (which would include fee structures, endowments, net assets etc).


As to what the average should be...it should be closer to the lower end of the current subsidy range as opposed to the higher end with any excess funds seperately allocated on a case by case basis to truly needy schools.


Now some believe that private schools should not get any government funding. This is a stupid and ill informed position to take for many reasons..To just take one point.. Parents of private school children pay tax and some of their taxes fund education therefore they have a RIGHT to some of their education taxes coming back to them in the form of education funding. It is nonsensical and unfair to say that just because you made a financial sacrifice to put your child in a private school that you are now not allowed to get any education funding...

Also as I have noted above if anything the private school student's family SUBSIDISES the public school students (...because the government allocation is biased towards public students and because on average private school families pay more tax than on average the public school families...combination is a healthy subsidry going on for public schools).



I actually think this subsidy model is a good one...The better off in society should help out those less well off. It is the way a good society works..However this does not mean that private schools should therefore get no funding..If funding to private schools was stopped a lot of private schools would close and then what.....


What would happen if tomorrow the approximately 30%- 40% of all students that attend a private school suddenly left and went to the local public school?? What would happen is that the education system would collapse because suddenly the government would have to inject hundreds of millions of dollars in capital works to build more public schools AND they would have to increase the annual operating expenses for public education...by how much....well at least by 60% if you just look at the operating expenses as discussed above BUT in reality alot more if you include massive capital works....Education in this country would go back 50 years...



So to those small minded fools that hate private school and wish they would close...be careful what you wish for.....Also do not assume all private schools are flush with money (like that school in northern sydney that I mentioned above). Most are not flush with $m in loose change and most are populated by normal, hard working families that have made a choice to sacrifice something to allow their kids to go to a private school..It is not just not fair to assume these families are all made up of snooty, snob investment bankers....Ok some schools have disportionate representation by these oxygen thiefs but not all nor most.. And yes there are some private schools that are an embarassment to the majoity of private school families, due to their excess, values and ethos.

However picking out the few schools that are elitist, abuse the use of govt funding and produce nauseating, up themselves young men and women is like picking on the couple of public high schools that have far too regular occurences of violence (to students and teachers) and assume all the public system is modelled on these unfortunate schools...


Are private schools necessarily insitutions of great virtue and morality..Sadly not...Some private schools, as I mentioned above, do engender a culture of exclusion and privilege. They serve their students poorly by pandering to the insecurity of the parents and creating this environment that suggests the students are above those in normal society. These schools do nobody a favour. They breed young men and women that wander around with a sense of entitlement...young people with no sense of the broader society and their responsibilities to help build a better world....



By the way sadly the problem in these schools is often the influence of the "old boy's"...Often a bunch of stufy throwbacks to victorian england...racsist, elitist, intolerant and downright insular...A group that likes the idea of a tiered society, people with entitlement and close groups and clubs......However the great majority of families that attend private schools do not accept these dinosaurs as role models..All they want is what every family wants...the best possible education for their child...Whether their particular prviate school will deliver this is not the point. the point is their motives are no different to any family.



What should happen....All parents and families, public and private, should stop attacking each other but rather turn on our governments and demand more to be spent on education (of all forms)...where will this money come from.....hmmmm how about spending less on sport (Uh Oh I can hear the stampede of the nutty olympics people thundering towards me)....Maybe even tax us more to put more into education...I will bet that if we knew that an extra 5% of tax was going directly to education (or even in the form of a tax credit each family could use towards education) the majority of Australians would agree with a tax increase....




Also for the good of the education system the private school funding model needs to be changed to ensure private schools that have significant stores of cash have their govt subsidies cut back to the lowest level available...This would only be fair and just.....

Gifted.....

On meeting a new parent (i.e. a parent whose child attends school with yours but who you have not yet, until now, met) the median time until they tell you that their child is "gifted" is usually 12 minutes in Australia (slightly longer in the UK and slightly less in the US).. I am really perplexed by this incredibly common phenomenon...Given the frequency by which I come across parents of "gifted" kids either every child I have ever met is gifted (not likely given some of them have ended up doing completely zip with their lives and others have yet to master how to buy a train ticket let alone cure testicular cancer) or b) the bar by which a child is termed" gifted" has been lowered just a tad..I am thinking it is more likely to be b..So lock in b please Eddie.

Gifted is meant to imply an intellectual ability ahead of the average at any particular age and yet intellectual ability can take many forms, many of which are not truly explored in a school environment... Further "gifted" does not mean successful nor does it mean happy nor content nor fulfilled. It just means the kid "may be" smarter than the average...


At this point let me share with you a secret..Generally speaking most of us hope that everyone else's child has a happy, fulfilling and long life. This does NOT translate in any way into any of us caring about what the other person's child is up to and why is it that you obsessive pyscho parents have to try and manufacture some model that promotes your little shit as "gifted".


Often Jonny, who shows an unbelievable skill at reading 4 books at once (literally..one word from each book at a time...very cool party trick), also happens to bite the other kids at pre-school and has an unnatural fascination with creating models of the opera house out of his own poo and yet all we hear of Jonny is that he is "gifted". Why don't the parents also mention these quirky attributes when regaling us all about their gifted child?



Further given my proposition above that most of us do not have a deep desire to understand, in detail, the lives of other people's children either just shut up or give me a more complete picture - taking into account the child's level of happiness, self-esteem, whether they are kind, caring and loving as well as whether they are smart or good at sport.

At this point it is also worth wondering why it is that some parents have to believe that their child is "above average". Why is it an insult to suggest your child might be average? Isn't the true measure of a life not whether you are above average, below average or average but rather are you living a happy, fulfilled life and are you adding true value to the society in which you live?


Is there something inherently wrong with a child being of average skill, intelligence etc? Does a high UAI or ability at sport translate into a successful life....NOOOOOO it doesn't.

Often I have heard parents lament that they "gave" the school a gifted child only to see in the Yr7 report that the child is (shock, horror)...average...Rather than assuming that a) your child being able to finger paint in 3 colours in Kindy does not in and of itself mean that the child was gifted to begin with or b) that other kids have caught up or finally c) the child has a lot to offer the world but is not particularly academic and so the parents have to find someone to blame for no long having a "gifted" child.


Some schools do not help in trying to keep all of this G&T stuff in context..Often you drive by both public and private schools and banners/noticeboards promote their "Gifted and Talented Programme". No mention on their public noticeboards of a programme for struggling students...funny about that.

There are of course some children that are gifted and schools (all) tend to do a good job of ensuring these kids continue to find school interesting and fun. Some (rare) even see how important it is to NOT just focus on the academic performance of the child but rather help the child develop as a complete person....


Yet the parents of the smart kids seem to herald their child's performance as something that somehow implies they (the parents) are better people than parents of not so bright kids...WTF..


Further the parents seem to not understand the role that genes play in all of this. Two parents I know posses very high intellect (we can leave to the side that they are arrogant, uncaring, selfish bores for the moment and just focus on their intellect). Both achieved very high levels in post graduate degrees. They have 2 daughters and one son.....Guess what the kids are good at school...Now you might think that this is kind of what you would expect..If these parents had produced a child of limited academic ability that would have been a surprise..It is not a surprise that the kids do well...And yet at the end of every school year when their child gets an academic award the parents trumpet the awards as both a complete surprise and secondly akin to winning the Nobel Peace prize for physics...Same goes with particularly athletically capable parents who drill their poor kids in a particular sport from the womb...Surprise, surprise, surprise the child ends up being good at sport....

One mother (both parents are good at most sports) told me how her 5 yr old daughter was so good at all sports that it was a complex and stressful decision as to which sport they should channel her into...given she will reach Olympic Gold level in any she chooses......

If you and your partner are smarter than average or better at sport than average then chances are your children will follow this line (through both the beauty of genes and behavioural conditioning)..So it is NOT a surprise...What is a surprise is a kid who does not have the gene pool or environment to draw on, who by sheer effort and application does well..

And yet I return to the central theme of this rant. Having a gifted child is not something that needs to be promoted by the parents nor necessarily desired by parents. If your child is gifted then congrats as your child will (in academic terms alone) have a slightly easier schooling life... and maybe you should move on to focus on helping them understand what it takes to have a successful life and what it takes to become good people as. Ohh and why not show a little humility amongst those with kids who may not be gifted...




If your child is not gifted then do not despair and think your child is any less a person than the genius playing with poo in the playground. Do not also try to create some weird new sport where the child can prove themselves to be gifted. Celebrate your child, help them find self-esteem in who they are and how they can add value to the world around them. Help them become a good person and focus on how lucky you are to have kids in the first place.


More than anything else we need to accept the deep truth - a happy and fulfilled life is not a function of intellect, sporting achievement or significant financial reward. It comes from a complex combination of undertaking a career that you are good at and which adds value to other people, developing relationships where you are truly loved and you love unconditionally, looking out for those in our world who are less fortunate and finally being more focused on enjoying life and all it has to offer and less about trying to be seen to be better than the next person.