Going ever so slightly ‘off-message’, this post has nothing whatsoever to do with race, culture, politics or education.
I was seduced by a fascinating and quite frankly bonkers statistic and just had to share it. But rather than just give you the naked statistic, I’ll give you the whole sentence.
“The amount of chewing gum being spat on to Bristol’s streets has fallen by 59 per cent in the past year.” (For full article in Evening Post click here.)
The facts of this story leave me giddy.
- Bristol has been “congratulated” on this achievement.
- Bristol came 4th on a league table which measures such achievements.
- Bristol lost out to Oxford, Blackpool and Colchester. (86%, 85% and 60% reductions respectively).
- Bristol has a number of chewing gum “hot spots”.
The magic just goes on and on and on.
Now like any sensible person I think clearing up litter of any description is a good thing, and chewing gum is obviously a pain in the backside. I’ve no idea how they even begin to measure such an activity as the ratio of people who spit out gum.
Maybe the ‘Chewing Gum Action Group’ (which is a real group by the way!) - who are obviously a highly committed, intelligent and capable bunch of boffins and activists – should be put in charge of the city’s schools.
If not actually running the schools, at least draft them in to evaluate where the root of where our education problem lies, and come up with a heady statistic and a probability of how the problem can be solved. Let’s be fair, what harm could it do??
I await seeing the results of the new regime with interest.
(I’m pleased with how I’ve managed to shoe-horn in education eventually!)
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Some gum in a Bristol playground getting stuck to the bottom of a child’s school shoes, yesterday.
Nothing like getting to grips properly with the real issues – like chewing gum pollution ??? – is there!! Never mind poverty, climate change, health and wellbeing…..