Shine on (The Hollies)

Post script to the UEFA Euros I had fun watching recently: Germany won the final for the sixth time in a row (I got that wrong in my initial post - they'd won it 5 times in a row before this final).

They deserved it too. Norway put their heart and soul into the game but muffed two penalties and no German side is going to ever let up in a final competition.

What is it about them that makes them so formidable on the football field? Man are they tough to beat! Every year makes the 1966 England win ever more remarkable.

Anyway - it was a great competition.

Interesting today in class with my amazing Year 9 English class.

My students have finished a poetry anthology of their own poems and ones they like. Today they began presenting their one chosen poem to the class. One student picked this poem by Sylvia Chidi about girls/women to present:

If I were a girl

'But I'm just a girl, it feels like a pitiful spell'

If I were a girl
I'll wake up each day
I'll tell myself to go and learn at school
No fancy mini-skirts, No acting cool as a fool
I'll play it safe with a boy
Simple jokes and simple joys
I’ll stand-up for only love and equality
Not for some stupid momentary flattery
These silly lines inspire only immorality

If I were a girl
I think you would understand
How it feels to be constantly disrespected
Treated as a feminine reject even if an intellect
Thought of often as a sexual object or project
I swear I’d be a much tougher woman
I'll take out my dustpan, Let everyone
Start slowly again from where it all began

But I’m just a girl
It feels like a pitiful spell
To be forever taken for granted
Whether I’m multi-skilled or talented

If I were a girl
There will be no wedding bells
Until I'm completely educated as well
I'll always take care of me
I'll always hold onto dreams
And any boy who says he loves me
Will have to work with me as a team

But I’m just a girl
And I don’t want a life of hell
I want to play with cars and not just dolls
And besides a boy I always want to be an equal

 

This led to a lively discussion afterward about the 'girls can do anything' slogan I remembered from the seventies. The girls indicated to me that while the slogan was good, things had got WORSE for girls/women since then.

I was a tad shocked by that idea and challenged them on it but they were adamant. They are a very articulate bunch and I listened to their discussion (no one, btw, thought that it wasn't worse for girls now).

Made me think!

First thing that came to mind were those UEFA championships. Guess how much time the TV ONE Sports News spent on the event. That's right - none. Instead their was a moronic story about fat, tattooed, pot bellied berks playing darts.

Guess the girls had a point!

Love and peace - Wozza

P.S. I'm off on a school camp on the weekend - Y12 and various staff and doing the Tongariro crossing. I'll report back next week when I return, inshallah.