Smart Resolutions & An Uneducated Debate

Well it's been over a month since I put to digital paper some of my inane drivel so I thought it was about time I continued to fulfil one of my New Year resolutions. In doing so it got me thinking, that's two thoughts in one paragraph! Why do people commit themselves to a pledge that in many many cases can never be achieved? I am maybe the wrong one to discuss this. I made 5 resolutions as the clock struck midnight on New Years Eve and 13 became 14. Of those 5 I have achieved 3 which I suppose isn't a bad percentage, and I suppose we are only a quarter of the way through the year...and I didn't say when I would complete them! And there lies one of the problems of resolutions in my view and it can be found in most walks of life or business, a vague target with an almost non existent timescale. Like all targets, and a resolution is a kind of target, it needs a specific goal, steps where you measure progress or not, be realistic and achievable and crucially have a timescale for completion. Most resolutions fail because they aren't covered by one or more of those SMART targets. Realistic and achievable I would imagine are the common pit falls, "I want to lose 2 stone by Valentines Day!" As they finish off the quality street in front of Jools Holland. My two failures fall into the timescale category and it's something I am working on, but I wonder as I discuss targets with groups of managers as part of my job whether or not this is a British trait both in the office and during the singing of Auld Langs Ayne? On a more serious topic this week saw some disruption in schools with a strike by some teachers. It never ceases to amaze me how fickle some of the great British public can be. I was fortunate if that's the word to be driving a lot on the day of the strike and from the 6:30 news the trap was set...these public sector workers...it's not like that in the private sector...don't know they are born etc etc etc...the debate about the reasons hardly surfaced again and when it was offered by some they were shouted down by the I work harder than you brigade...the basis of their argument was, I'd love their holidays, surely if you teach one child you can teach any child, I work weekends, one even said they should count themselves lucky they work indoors!! Classic tabloid ignorance fuelled by media and some ministers. It was the old divide and rule, us against them, goodies and baddies and the facts are lost. On the point of the hardness of the work all I can say is that 2 or 3 days a month I do a kind of teaching in my work and I can say without fear of contradiction I am more exhausted after those days than in any other job I have done and that's been 12 to 14 hour days in various retail roles...it is not an easy job. Back to those oh so balanced debates not once did I hear a mention of the most important people affected by this...here's a clue...schools are full of them and they will be in our place in a generations time...yes! Children!! Governments of all colours look on these young folk as pawns in their ideology...a child is not a commodity it's a person and we cannot treat them as such, they are all different have different strengths, weaknesses and all could offer something, if allowed to, or rather if those public sector slackers were allowed to do the job they are so good at...maybe our governments have seen Another Brick In The Wall by Pink Floyd too many times!