Horizontal or vertical exorcism

popotas
Horizontal or vertical exorcism
Ημερομηνία καταχώρησης Sunday, April 29 @ 15:00:28 EEST από cpop
An article I copy from Ad Parentes of 2006, now that the European School of Luxembourg Mamer Bertrange will be soon a reality. (opportunities missed)

On the 28th of November 2005 the Europan schools of Luxembourg astonished the world by inventing a novel literary form: “ the literary exorcism of the arguments of the parents association by an unauthorized to speak but maybe self interested professor, under the auspices of the two directors who selectively hide arguments that are not convenient to them” (hereinafter LEAP A USMSIP UAOTD WSHAT ANCTT).

This extremely sophisticated literary scheme merits (just once) a detailed literary analysis albeit away from the sphere of imaginary dialogue that was used by the author WG.

“So what is all this about a horizontal split?” asks the innocent unknown X. Did this idea of horizontal split came out of the blue? Is this lad a green little man that just stepped out of his flying saucer never having heard of the debate that has been on since early 2000? Send him to me Mr Guneratne. I will feed him and dress him and have all the literature translated in martian.

Then comes the absolute demonstration of social manipulation: you take the APEEE’s long list of arguments, shrink it down to three lines, have the wee Martian – who incidentally had no clue a couple of minutes ago – develop a lengthy argument on the basis of the situation he knew in Brussels, all that in order to tell us face up that the current facilities of proximity of the school to our workplace (which of course will remain unchanged for half of the parents) is an unjustified privilege! Send the Martian back to Brussels please. I withdraw my offer to feed him – I will starve him to death instead!

Further comes the summum of literary innovation: a spectacular “revirement de situation”, of the kind you would have expected only in the best master crafted “film noir”,  a reshuffling of the fundamentals of the BoG decision, the living proof that horizontal split is definitely feasible: “ let’s create a modern primary and nursery school to Mamer!” Why ? “because the swimming pool should be close to the secondary school” Foolish me who devoted an awful lot of my energy in order to keep, extend and improve the “crèche et garderie” infrastructures on Kirchberg; they count not!

Does the Lux II director objects to that? Not at all! He declares fully supportive of the initiative since he thanks the expert and states that he is very pleased to submit the savvy conclusions to the Lux II parents! Recommended reading! Academy award! Brit awards! Prix Goncourt!

So finally here we have at last this common ground where everybody agrees upon (conclusiveness or not): the horizontal split is possible if the secondary school remains in Kirchberg! Why, why, why? Because every coordinator can then drop his child at school and be at his class two minutes later? (obviously since the request – made in secret – to allow professors of vehicular sections to keep their kids in the same school as them, against the basic rules of the BOG and irrespective of their residence, was rejected). Or is it because this way all teachers can have lunch at school (a rare privilege) together and then hop over to Auchan?

Afterwards the APEEE receives some whipping for insisting on maintaining the mixity of all sections and options by a fine demonstration ad absurdum: you cannot have 19 or 20 sections in one school, because the Martian’s daughter – yes, he had one from a previous visit to earth and he had chosen a eurocrat to carry her! – was unhappy to be the only one of HER section to attend an option, and if you bring more sections she will be certainly guaranteed to see many other nationalities but still there will be no guarantee that a second Martian will join her class (has the APEEE ever said that we wanted this to happen? No).

Then finally revelation of the kind you would expect to find only in the best of krimies: “It’s all about timetable!” and who compiles the timetable? Is he the much-thanked expert? Is this a declaration of incompetence? Da Vinci code! Digital fortress! A timetable is impossible because (SIC !!!) “the majority of teachers must teach at least two different subjects which vary from country to country! (No mention of course that during the last Administrative Council guarantees were offered that current pupils will continue to receive tuition according to the options established now, even if a vertical split happens, until the end of their studies, so experts have to make sure that timetables work or else hand over to other experts less literature prone, that write less prose but timetable more).

Enfin, this innocent and unprepared Martian, brings out of his pocket (I recognize him at last: he’s the chap of Gyro Gearloose Disney cartoons, the one who teleports from Mars into Duckburg. The one that was capable of pulling all kinds of things out of his pocket. HIRE HIM! He will be able to beam our kids to Mamer – but they will still have to walk since the school will move further up towards Bertrange) – so what was I saying? Yes, out of the pocket come answers that are not!

Briefly comes out a beatification for the BoG decisions: he was told (!!! Believe and do not quest!) that everything was done this way because it had to be done this way and yes this minimizes the impact on families but it also allows them the time to move closer to the school (the latest exchange of populations was not  back in the II World War, it will start soon and could the refugees from Niederanven please start packing now because there is no direct train to Mamer – by the way very much like real refugees parents of ES are refused access to justice).

Kept for the very end the killer argument: if you place the whole secondary school to Mamer it will become a monster beyond disciplinary control. Therefore school and parents should work together and they should not drop water on their gremlins! They should be kept for their safety on the same site as their fratrie in order to feel at home (alone) away from strangers in the night.

Beam me down Scotty! Just to land back to planet earth, city Luxembourg, a friendly reminder to our local expert: this school was the first European school to be ever created. When this happened it was unthinkable to have anything than traditional national schools. Yet some visionary eurocrats deared contest the national schools model because it was not fit to the European spirit. This was and remains the success of the European schools. If some experts feel the attraction and find inspiration in the national school system they only have to ask to join a national system. The man who conceived the ES was the one that set up the parents association as well; to work in tandem with the school. Ever since the APEEE – the first ever as said – is marked with the idea that if you want the ES on board of evolution you must think outside conventions. Finally the SOLE purpose of the school is to allow for quality education in a mixed language environment. Concerns about the well being of teachers, experts, directors, are accessory, secondary; shortcomings of timetables are technical problems to overcome the soonest possible.

Final point: APEEE has its own agenda. Efforts to drag it into offsite discussions (offsite because neither the directors of the schools or the counselor have any competence or authority to decide on the matters they discuss) will remain unnoticed.

Happy new year!  NO MAMER! NO SURRENDER!

C3PO