Morris Dancing Misunderestimated - part two.

George W had that famous line, "I think they misunderestimated me." He was also the one who promised "no childrens will be left behind."

Sarah Palin may well be a fine example of the kind of wonderful education product his policies could produce - Palin would have been a product of dad George's education policies though.

Back to Morris Dancing. I would hate to misunderestimate it's potential - after all, look what England achieved with this as their national dance. This got me thinking, maybe there should be a place for Morris Dancing in our National Curriculum. Maybe we could give some unemployed teachers in Canterbury a job designing the curriculum statement for Morris Dancing, and some National Standards for it while they are at it. Seeing as how most of our children are ensconced in new schools all around the country - ie pretty much anywhere but Christchurch - there are going to be plenty of teachers with time on their hands.

So we need a purpose for Morris Dancing, and here are a few that come immediately to mind..

... An energy efficient way to compact the ground after the recent earthquakes

... A way to bring rain to address the inevitable drought that will hit Canterbury some time in the near future

... A way of ensuring the tri-cultural needs of our influx of Morris dancing English immigrants are met

.. A way of ensuring children who are named Morris but don't like being named after a pretty boring model of car now have a reason to feel good about their name

It needs a good slogan to get it off the ground, perhaps something like, "Morris Dancing - it has the bells and you'll get the whistles."

OK, this particular slogan would probably have a "Yeah, right" to the right of it, but I'm sure some unemployed advertising executive from Christchurch could come up with something cool.

I would love to share more of my Morris Dancing motivations with you but I'm running late for my night class with Ken Ring. He's teaching us how we can determine National Standards achievement levels by reading tea leaves. Just in case you think it only applies to primary principals, Ken assures us this same methodology can be used to assure a 95% pass rate in all non accredited courses at NCEA Level Two too. Try misunderestimating that.

Morris Dancing - Misunderestimated?

One of the most aggressive colonising and prosletising nations in modern times has been the English. For me, the epitome of their ruthless determination to conquer the markets, harvest the natural resources, and market items manufactured from those natural resources back to the 'natives' would have to be their treatment of China.

Think of England and you think of cricket, of rules and royalty, public schools and good, honest chums. You think of Victorian England with its high moral code and its democracy.

But at that time England launched a bloody war (well some 'bloody' cannons anyway) that made a very 'bloody' mess. They bombarded mainland China because the Chinese government refused to buy Opium from the English because of the dreadful impact it was having on their people, their productivity and their society. England promptly bombed them until they changed their minds.

Imagine John Key saying to Maori in Northland, "hey fellahs, you stopped buying 'Government Green'. Don't worry if it's marijuananating your minds, we need you to buy this stuff so we can pay for the earthquake repairs those nice white folks in Christchurch need. If you don't change your minds and buy our good stuff, we'll send the SWAT team in and blow your homes up."

This is in effect what the English did - it's right up there with Gadaffi ordering the bombing of the Lockerbie plane surely.

Anyway. Apparently there has been commentary coming out of England that we are leading our children - particularly our Maori children - astray by having them perform the haka, and thus learning to become savages.

If this is true, then imagine how "savage" the English would have been if they had had the haka instead of the Morris dance to fire them up.

Sport has always played a big part in my life. Too often my state of mind, happiness even, has depended on whether 'my team' won or lost.

I have always been desperately competitive in sport, and while this quality (character flaw?) can have a beneficial carry-over into the real, professional world, it can also cause its share of problems.

I had thought as I got older I would mellow somewhat, but instead find myself too often lacking the discipline and control that should come with wisdom and experience. We all need to have goals, and for me I am hoping this year to replace some of the 'fierce competition' goals with some 'tolerance and role-model' goals.

Speaking of competitiveness, I have always been keen to see any New Zealand team beat Australia in any sporting event, and to see any Canterbury team beat Auckland in the same way. I don't own an eye patch, but do see much better out of one eye than the other.

The recent events of our Christchurch earthquake has caused me a major rethink. I have to say, the response from Australia and from our own New Zealand cities has been humbling and inspiring. The challenges New Zealand and Australia have faced this year, and the way we have worked as one family to help each other, has made me rethink my previous attitudes.

My sister has taken in two children who lost their mother to the earthquake. A senior Australian Police Officer volunteering here in Christchurch bumped into my sister on the street and somehow came to learn of the plight of these two young children. His response has beggared belief. Nothing has been too much trouble for this man. Gifts, event tickets, and free trips offered to the whole family have all been provided. And all out of his own pocket.

The dreadful events of the last twelve months have been an opportunity for our countries and our communities to show the best of us, and to be the people we were always meant to be.

There will always be those who take these times as opportunities to rob, hurt, and vandalise, but fortunately they are the minority.

I see this as an opportunity for us as a community, as a city and as a country, to respond with the resilience and determination and ingenuity that made our nation great. Thank you to everyone who is doing their bit to achieve the rebuilding we need.