Sunday 24 January 2010

Seeing the Bigger Picture




I posted this photo on twitter earlier with the title *Hot Sugar*. A dear old friend of mine pointed out that it looked *a bit dodgy*, and that perhaps in the wrong hands it wouldn't do the image of Home Ed any good (I know I'm paraphrasing A). When I posted it, it never occurred to me that it looked like someone *chasing the dragon* - a phrase I hadn't heard of until today! It was just a picture of my 6 year old son doing some experiments from the chemistry kit. Ok, I did think it was a bit of a #DCSF Alert as the age on the box says 10+, but that was as far as my imagination went.

Later on, when I was cooking tea, the same son was messing about with some flour left over from pastry rolling. I'm a child of the 80's so I've heard of White Lines!


Of course it reminded me of Grandmaster & Melle Mel so I bobbed over to youtube to have a listen.





Listening to the words I realised that *sugar* was possibly slang, so I went looking and goodness me, what a wealth of drug slang there is! Low and behold, sugar is indeed slang for cocaine, LSD, crack and heroin. So I have posted a photo of my son, titled *Hot Sugar* (because that is exactly what the picture showed), where it looks like he is indulging in some drugs related behaviour. Marvellous.

Incidentally, we also have several syringes in the kitchen drawers. One is left over from feeding the tongue tied baby, the others are from a hydraulics kit.

Oh dear.

We would have to hope that the Local Authority inspector was able to look and see the bigger picture wouldn't we?

The devil, they say, is in the detail. Which brings me, in a round about sort of way, to my point.

We all need to learn to look at the bigger picture, rather than making snap judgements based on first appearances.

The Government and Mr Badman presumably hoped that no one would bother looking for the devil in the detail in their HE statistics, and they would presumably *have gotten away with it too, but for those pesky home educators* who are very used to looking at the bigger picture and teasing out the truth of a matter. Like Dani, who has produced this rather attention grabbing document which lays the lies bare. Have a look, dare to see the bigger picture for yourself, and then the next time you hear or see something that makes Home Educators seem like a dodgy bunch, ask yourself if you're really seeing all there is to see.

4 comments:

  1. LOL Tech :)! I didn't think drugs when I saw that picture, either!
    So, have I got a problem? Or have people who immediately think drugs have a problem? Or are there two different worlds?
    When, from the age of too young, people are taught to chop up their time and their lives into (controlled) bits and sections, it's no wonder they loose sight of the bigger picture. When, from the age of too young, you're taught to listen - and listen only - to what the person in charge is saying, it's no wonder you loose the ability to follow through on your curiosity and ask questions, look at what lies behind.

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  2. LOL Tech. As a fellow HE mum my first thought on seeing the pic was "ooh we've got that science kit!" LOL.
    It's also good to see someone who had to look up drug slang. Sadly after 16+ years in psychy I can't ever sing "Puff the Magic Dragon"..

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  3. like the pp - I was wondering what science kit that was and where to get one!

    Especially as DS1 found quite an old science book at the library with lots of 'doitathome' type experiements that are definitely 'old school' type things (i.e. cue 'oh my god you aren't going to let them do that are you')... I think that particular book may have escaped the libraries recent cull of dodgy books - possibly by being overdue at someone's house??

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  4. This is the kit Helen:
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trends-UK-Ltd-Chemistry-Lab/dp/B000CEB152/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=toys&qid=1264588547&sr=8-1

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