"Stan The Man" wrote in message
...
In article
Perhaps one reason for our declining education standards
is that too many teachers teach without having achieved their degree
and teachers' training qualifications. I know there will be exceptions
but in general we need a way to tell whether we can happily entrust our
children's education to certain institutions or certain teachers.

Though I understand the educational aspect within the link between the
teachers topic and the garden show Telly presenters, I think it's stretched
a bit too far.

Firstly, there's the route difference between "children's education" and
the age of those who might wish to absorb some titbit of information from
the telly gardening programme.

I never took too much notice of names, so quite unlike you, I don't
recognise most of the names previously mentioned, but perhaps the cockney
bloke could pop into make-up and then appear on our screens for the next
April 1st slot, as a very old man, at least in his late forties (-:
delivering information at precisely the same level he normally adopts.

Aside from that, the schoolteacher topic deflects from another area you
mentioned; Meritocracy.



Once, whilst in conversation with my now ex accountant, I responded to what
he was saying by acknowledging I would need to raise my prices. But though
he was not my customer, nor connected with any such person, he responded in
turn that I have no right to do so, simply because I need more money. His
argument being that I was seeking to extend above my station in life.

His prices in contrast, were running at about 10 times per hour more than
mine, even though he worked from home, thereby not incurring anything like
the overheads I have.



Perhaps who will agree with the inherent contradiction between 2 comments
you've made.

Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004

Subject: Beeb Chelsea coverage

"Without these diplomas and certificates, we may have no reliable way to
whittle 1000 job applicants down to a manageable shortlist."



& Also contributed on the same day;



"Anyone who interviews the wrong people for a job vacancy deserves whatever
they get."



Sometimes a job is won on account of the academic excellence of a candidate,
who is nonetheless the worst possible choice for the positions offered.

Perhaps one day it will not seem like such a heresy to question why it is
so, that post-graduates are automatically deemed to be more deserving of
position and success.



In bygone days, presumption to the rights of status, e.g. money, were mostly
inherited, similarly current criteria requires an existing combination of
favourable age, nationality, accent, colour, creed, gender, and appearance,
along with an acknowledgement from our academia dominant educational system
to the effect that the candidate has been decreed to be a model example of
the finished product from said academia's manufacturing line.

It can be a bit like needing an address before getting a bank account, but
needing a bank account to get an address. Yet fulfilling such criteria is no
guarantee of not turning out to be a dud.



Meritocracy! Ha!

Though one does not need a degree to reason, in order to arrive at an
informed opinion, nevertheless, without a degree and regardless of the
merits of such considerations, when contested, such views are often
discounted by society as surely wrong. You do seem to be sharing, or at
least propagating such injustice.

Sometimes injustice is perpetrated through a method of drawing a simple line
between graduates and non-graduates, in order to arrive at an easy (lazy)
conclusion as to whose view must be correct. But sometimes via on account of
how many, like you, seek to readily hold lack of degree status as evidence
that the view of a non-graduate, regardless of how it has been arrived at,
is the product of an uneducated mind and therefore irrelevant beyond
amusement value. Thereby re-enforcing the illusion of current and future
post-graduates value.



Meritocracy!

If the considerable rewards and losses that follow current social pecking
order was fair and accurate, then we would not need to ask someone if s/he
knows a "good" lawyer, accountant, doctor, etc because they would all be
good. Similarly there wouldn't be much point in looking out for a "good"
blue-collar, or non post graduate worker, because they would all be lazy,
stupid, dishonest and just plain bad people.



Horticultural knowledge can be just as complicated and requiring of even
greater intellectual input and imagination than is the case for many
"professional" jobs where the pay is far greater.

Yet, it is not one of those jobs that the majority of the population would
equate with using the word "career".



I've encountered persons whose lifestyles reflect the rewards of their
postgraduate gained professions and yet, they've stumbled over matters of
common sense. Such as that if one wants to cut something with a loppers,
it's no use stabbing the twig with the loppers closed. Even if one does not
know the best place to cut, it works better if said loppers is first opened
prior to encircling said twig, before closing again to facilitate the whole
cutting-of-the-twig bit.

It is therefore an indictment on so-called meritocracy, that the going rate
for good professional gardeners, be they horticultural post-graduates or
not, is a mere small fraction of other occupations requiring even less
resources.



An article within "The Times" (towards the end of March), concerning the
best job to have, seemed to angle towards gardening. But did so in a manner
as to suggest someone there doesn't quite know the difference between a job
and a hobby, irrespective of how high up the graduate level s/he may be.



A hobby may be a piece of work, wonderfully bridging a route to success in
itself, by entailing the need, or opportunity to indulge in creativity and
imagination, leading to the by-product: great personal satisfaction.

However, I suggest that only when it also leads to meeting worldlier,
political necessities such as money, power and social credibility that it
can be called a job.



So much for being the best job, in the article, gardening did not even merit
the lofty title of ""so-called trade profession" in reference to the list of
such trades mentioned, albeit a sarcastic acceptance of professionalism
within those trades and clearly casts further doubts on the integrity of
trade professionals.

Though you have agreeably commented on Alan T's professionalism, if he were
a, erm, mere gardener, albeit one running his own business, he would not be
classed as "professional"

Generally, when dealing with the occupation of gardener, the media prefer to
identify one of my occupational peers, but only after having ensured to
mention a more upmarket position previously held by that person, lest he/she
is perceived as having no credibility at all. A bit like a BNP steward, at a
BNP rally removing black boot polish from the face of a slumbering 'white'
stag-party prank victim, in order to show and assure everyone present that
the reveller is not really black skinned.



Over the years I've encountered what I can only describe as occupational
apartheid. Where is the meritocracy in that?



When reading accommodation to rent adverts, or any other adds that defines
criteria in terms of; ...would suit, / seeks professional... I've always
known that means; not the likes of me. It's like saying No Trade.

So I've not being dumb enough to apply. Where I have assumed I could apply,
I've encountered those who slam down the phone as soon as I mention my
gardening profession. Or, as in the case of letting/estate agents, declare
they have nothing for me, unless it's some rubbish strewn, crumbling, rat
infested, draughty, damp dump, possibly run by someone they want off their
backs. Or if they forget to ask the job question until after an appointment
is made, then all but one have never turned up. (In 16 years!)

Along with that, I've had the experience of people angrily walking away from
me abruptly as soon as I've honestly answered their "So, what do you do for
a living?" question.

Imagine you're seeing two men, strangers to each other, chatting at the pub
and one asks the other the job question, to which the other guy winks,
slides up a little closer and informs he is a male prostitute who has just
found himself a customer. Imagine just how angry the first guy might look.
How enraged he might look as he storms off.

Well I've had just such a reaction, mostly from women and solely because I
did nothing more than say; "I'm a gardener."

It's no wonder those who I've worked along side have asked me not to say
what we do for a living when we're socialising.



Now if instead of being a gardener, I was an ex. Convict and was on the
receiving end of the inferior person's low income-linked standard of living
that I'm currently deemed to merit, then there would be quite a few amongst
the great and the good that would holler how unacceptable it is and would do
so on the strength of slogans such as "has paid his debt..."



Meritocracy!

Funny old world isn't it!



Patrick