Never Seconds trends on Twitter

I love it. The power of Twitter, that is. I can't be said to love the council for whom I used to work and in whose area I live, nor the idiocy that had them ban a blog about school dinners, nor the illiteracy of the hapless employee who was chosen to write Argyll & Bute's public statement about their reasons for such an action. And I fear, from the relative silence of the council's Twitter stream, that they will currently be buckling under the strain of the incoming flak - I've had to delete the column as it updates too rapidly for me to read at the moment. The blog in question has attracted 2543350 hits and the stat counter shows a new hit every second. You can go and look for yourself while I ramble happily here.

When I ran a school newspaper in an Argyll & Bute school, they did a feature on school meals. We didn't actually think this was out of line - that's not a royal 'we', despite the Jubilee season, it's my pupil editors with my approval - but rather something that would appeal to anyone who'd ever eaten school dinners. As as result, my articulate and wonderful editors - and gosh, haven't they done well in later life? - were hauled over the coals and told that a school meals supervisor had left her job ... Did that really happen? I don't remember being brought into the fray, as the pupils in question assured me there was no need, in another example of fortitude under fire and independence of thought and other worthy attributes that I was proud to help foster.

I've had my ups and downs over social media this week, but today's outpouring shows, perhaps, why people fear it so much. Yes, there is the odd numpty who uses a trending hashtag to post nonsense (usually sexual) on Twitter, but it was easy to filter them out of my screenshot and most of what I've seen reflects the mainstream view: that banning a pupil from taking photos of the food she has paid for and is about to eat is high-handed, authoritarian nonsense. Of course, they will justify it by saying they've banned mobile phones in schools or making some other similarly thoughtful response. People tend to want to ban anything that might expose their workings to public scrutiny - and nowadays, that's virtually impossible. The workings need, then, to be such that the organisation or individual is proud to have them on display - and that, chums, includes the food we feed our children. Martha, whose blog has caused all the furore, seems to rate most of her more recent meals pretty highly - do the council know something she (and we) don't?

I loved my time as teacher editor of The Pupils' View. I'm proud of what my former pupils have achieved, just as I was proud of them at the time. But right now I'm glad I don't teach any more, glad I don't work for Argyll & Bute council, glad I'm not answerable to anyone on this subject. I suspect I'd be too full of rage this morning to work effectively. But if I were still involved, I'd have the satisfaction of knowing that my MP, the Minister for Education, was on my side. How? Because I'd have read it on Twitter.

Footnote: and - again on Twitter - I learn that the Chief Executive of Argyll and Bute Council has reversed the decision to ban the blog. Cheers!

Twittering Argyll and Bute

I've just picked up (via AB) on an interesting wee story set in my own local authority and involving some outrage over the Tweets of a teacher. You can read the original tale here. We have the obligatory angry parent who "knows half the pupils being commented on", and the local councillor who doesn't think teachers should be wasting their time on such sites - he thinks it is a drain on public resources.

If the reported tweets are representative of this teacher's crime, then the angry parent is either psychic or has been indulging in extensive research through her child. Maybe she spends her days on Twitter herself. And both she and the councillor seem to think that Tweeting takes up a lot of time, while anyone who knows anything about it is well aware it is the work of seconds to tweet a comment. No, what people don't like is the sudden insight into the life of a teacher, this well-paid paragon who always feels enthusiasm for even the most disruptive class, never blanches at the paperwork she has to fill out every time a child swears, never, ever complains about the lovely children whom the complaining parents have dispatched for the day and whose behaviour and work will always be the very best they can manage.

Teachers have always indulged in this sort of conversation, with each other, with friends, with anyone who cares to listen, on a bad day. This teacher's tweets seem not to name names, and to be, frankly, pretty bland - and two out of the four quoted were made outside school hours. What will Argyll and Bute do to the defiant ones who dare to tweet again? How wonderful if there were to be a deluge of @Argyll&Bute posts - the system might well grind to a halt, given past form.

Goodness, am I glad to be free. Are other councils run by such ignorant technophobes? I feel a Keatsian moment coming on: Tweet to the spirit ditties of no tone....

Wee girn

In recent months the people of Dunoon have been fuming at the proliferation of yellow lines along residential streets. Some of these lines seem unnecessary, some create more problems than they solve. But the yellow lines in the photo above are a necessity, as traffic forced by les travaux on St John's Church to use this minor road round the gardens have to make a sharp right on the hill into Royal Crescent, which curves (as crescents do) in such a manner as to conceal oncoming traffic.

In Dunoon we have a long-serving and assiduous traffic warden. Cars are nicked on a regular basis for illegal parking - even for a few minutes. But this council lorry was there, on a double yellow line, for long enough for me to have a near miss crawling round it, curse, go home, unload the messages - and go out to photograph it. But then, the council workmen had grass to cut - or whatever they were up to.

One law for the cooncil, I reckon.