Hello world. This is my first blog post. I've kept two blogs before. The first one was a private blog when I was in the neo-natal intensive care unit with my extreme premie. The second one is public and follows the story of what happened to us when we moved to New Zealand and went to a Steiner school. Oh no! It was a horrible experience of bullying, mismanagement, dishonesty and mobbing and we're still, believe it or not, dealing with the fallout years later.
You can see the whole story here:
http://www.titirangisteinermessenger.com
After nearly three years, we are currently in mediation with the Human Rights Commission of New Zealand. Not at liberty to talk about that at the moment, but will be able to report on outcome once there is one.
Meanwhile this situation has led to lots of other projects which doubtless I'll be talking about here on my blog. Indeed.
So as my profile says, I'm a film-maker and again there are lots of pieces of my work on the internet and I"ll try and link them all up. This blog will be reachable by it's own address and also through my social media palace at www.amazonnewsmedia.com where I live on twitter, publish stuff and try and aggregate bits of news that I find interesting in my favorite areas of health and education.
I'm also a longtime student of Ki-Aikido, and a trained self-defence and assertiveness teacher. People find me very assertive (that's a good thing) and this also involves trying to maintain a democratic approach to communications. Sadly I've had to document many situations online where others have fallen into the trap of backing away from democracy to use more underhand means, especially when trying to discredit people.
Having been a whistleblower in education, I can testify that a LOT of people get irksome and want to do you down, and in Steiner education, that isn't just the Steiner lot but also those who've carved out a very cozy niche as 'critics', who seem to be some of the most impolite, hypocritical and illogically competitive people I've certainly ever met.
For example, last week I documented an exchange with a Steiner 'critic' on ANM from a site called Waldorf Critics, concerning disability, specifically my own walking impairment - http://www.amazonnewsmedia.com/ANM/ANM/Entries/2012/5/16_Cheap_shot_anyone.html
That sounds awful doesn't it and it is extremely unpleasant, but if you look into whistle blowing even a little, you'll find that it's also par for the course. Whistle blowers simply make others uncomfortable. It appears to be a lonely and difficult path as a matter of course, and there's very little in it for individuals, but that's not why people do it, but because things need to change and they won't unless people stand up.
I'd like to share lots of stuff on my blog, have been wanting to set one up for a long time, but am concerned at the amount of time it will take to curate if I open comments. I'm thinking about this one as I'm in the middle of a relocation, working, and have three children under 12, so it might not be fair to me or others to take on a comment situation I haven't really got time for. I guess I'll just say that I'm intending to have comments, time allowing.
Well, there we go, that's my first post. I'm going to enjoy this. Angel.
