That Aren’t Right

According to the news this morning, kids aren’t as smart as they used to be.

“They need to focus on the three r’s,” Nanny said this morning, “like in my day.”

We were sitting in the family room watching alternatively Today and Sunrise – I have no idea which because I haven’t worked out if there’s a pattern to Tracey’s parents channel skipping yet – while we tossed around the idea of the kids being sick enough to stay home.

Two of them were, incidentally, so that was enough for all three to stay as far as I was concerned because lazy.

Then our PM came on stating schools aren’t doing well enough these days and the states have to be held accountable.

Well first of all, on that – I know from the befuddled faces on the teachers at our primary school the last few years and the homework which has been sent home to torture me that Queensland has been doing its damnedest to catch up to the other states’ idea of what level each grade should be at, including grade seven being the new grade eight. Personally, I would have thought a pat on the back would have been more appropriate.

But, no.

It seems, despite the book laden and dishevelled appearance of our dining table of an afternoon, they’ve been letting things slip.

I think maybe the government should stop trying to decipher their reports and talk to a couple of kids. They’re actually quite clever these days. Even mine.

Master11, who was sitting on the floor sipping a cuppa tea and trying to convince me the girls weren’t sick enough to stay home so I could take him to a new boardgame shop in town, turned away from the news and asked Nanny for a bit of clarification on her take on the problem.

“What are the three r’s?” he wanted to know.

“They’re the basics we were taught to help prepare us for leaving school,” she told him. Then she ticked them off on her fingers. “Reading. Writing. Arithmetic.”

“I think maybe they should have focused on spelling,” Master11 told his Nanny before turning back to the telly.

Raising a family on little more than laughs