A little girl asked her mother for a dollar to give to an old lady in the park. Her mother was touched by the child’s kindness, and gave her the dollar. “There you are, my dear,” said the mother. “But, tell me, isn’t the lady able to work anymore?”<\/p>\n
“Oh yes,” came the reply. “She sells candy.”<\/p>\n
A man was sitting on the lawn sunning and reading, when he was startled by a fairly late model car crashing through a hedge and coming to rest on his lawn. He helped the elderly driver out and sat her on a lawn chair.<\/p>\n
“My goodness,” he exclaimed, “you are quite old to be driving!”<\/p>\n
“Yes,” she replied, “I am old enough that I don’t need a license anymore. The last time I went to my doctor he examined me and asked if I had a driver’s license.<\/p>\n
“I told him yes and handed it to him. He took scissors out of a drawer, cut the license into pieces, and threw them in the wastebasket.<\/p>\n
“‘You won’t be needing this anymore,’ he said. So I thanked him and left.”<\/p>\n
This was sent to me by my friend Julie in Australia. The version she sent was set in an Australian context but it translates perfectly well to a UK (or, indeed, a US) context:<\/p>\n
A school inspector is sent to assess a Year 4 class in a local school.<\/p>\n
He is introduced to the class by the teacher. She says to the class, “Let’s show the inspector just how clever you are by allowing him to ask you a question”.<\/p>\n
The inspector reasons that normally class starts with religious instruction, so he will ask a biblical question. He asks: “Class, who broke down the walls of Jericho ?”<\/p>\n
For a full minute there is absolute silence. Eventually, little Billy raises his hand.<\/p>\n
Billy stands up and replies: “Sir, I do not know who broke down the walls of Jericho,\u00a0 but I can assure you it wasn’t me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course the inspector is shocked by the answer and the lack of knowledge of the famous bible story and he looks at the teacher for an explanation.<\/p>\n
Realising that he is perturbed, the teacher says: “Well, I’ve known Billy since the start of the year, and I believe that if he says that he didn’t do it then he didn’t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The inspector is even more shocked at this and storms down to the headteacher\u2019s office and tells him what happened, to which the headteacher replies: “I don’t know the boy, but I believe his teacher. If she feels that the boy is innocent, then he must be innocent”.\u201d<\/p>\n
The inspector can’t believe what he is hearing.<\/p>\n
He grabs the phone on the headteacher\u2019s desk and in a rage, dials Michael Gove and rattles off the entire occurrence to him and asks him what he thinks of the education standard in the country.<\/p>\n
The Secretary of State for Education sighs heavily and replies:<\/p>\n
“I don’t know the boy, the teacher or the headteacher, and never heard of the school, but just get three quotes and have the bloody wall fixed!!”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A little girl asked her mother for a dollar to give to an old lady in the park. Her mother was touched by the child’s kindness, and gave her the dollar. “There you are, my dear,” said the mother. “But, tell me, isn’t the lady able to work anymore?” “Oh yes,” came the reply. “She … <\/p>\n