Putting on the SIDE.

 

“What’s in a name?

That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Well, that was William Shakespeare’s opinion and it is true, a rose would smell as sweet no matter what we called it.

But what if we called roses, “Snottygobbles”?

Would my wife, the love of my life, feel delicious shivers to the core of her being if I sent her one dozen yellow snottygobbles? I think not. They may smell as sweet, but I will not expect her to rush to the phone to brag to her friends about it. So, despite Shakespeare’s poetic observations, names are important.

Big business spends big dollars paying marketing experts to devise catchy names and phrases for their products. Film stars, models and other public figures change their names to give themselves a more acceptable public persona. Let’s face it, nobody cared much for a lanky fellow called Marion Morrison until his name was changed and he became an American film star folk hero known as John Wayne. Bernard Schwartz was just a cheeky kid in the Bronx. He became a sex symbol of the 1950s and 60s as film star, tony Curtis. And Reginald Dwight didn’t get half as much fan male as he does now as Elton John.

Adolf Hitler’s father was an illegitimate child who took his mother’s maiden name, Huttler, which later transformed into Hitler. Adolph's father was actually sired by a man named Schiklegruber. So, if Adolf's  father had not been an illegitimate bastard, young Adolf (who we all know was an absolute bastard) would have been called Schicklegruber, too.

Political scientists are still arguing whether the German people would have marched off to war on a frenzied wave of Nationalism, shouting out, “Heil Schicklegruber” whenever their Fuhrer appeared. Maybe they would have just all fallen about laughing at him and World War 2 would never have happened.

Names are important, which is why it is a shame that whenever the Director-General of Education in Western Australia, or any other Department of Education Directors want to broadcast policy directions and planning initiatives they do so by using a teleconference video link from the School of Isolated and Distance Education. That’s S.I.D.E. for short. So,  official pronouncements from the very top could be said to be a SIDE SHOW!

Now, I am quite proud of education in Western Australia. I think it compares with the best in the world and we do so over a vast area. When our leaders tell us important policies via video link it is a very important event.

 It should not be a side show. What can we do about it? What can we do about S.I.D.E? Well, we could try to form a different acronym and switch the letter around a little bit.

Isolated and Distance Education is I.D.E.S. Considering what happened to a great Roman leader on the Ides of March, I doubt any DoE leaders would want to be associated with I.D.E.S. Distance and Isolated Education is D.I.E.S. Obviously and acronym much too terminal for advanced educational thinkers with dynamic policies.

The only real solution, Shakespeare not withstanding, is to change the name of S.I.D.E. completely. Trust me. It will still smell as sweet.

May I suggest that S.I.D.E. becomes the Technological Educational Regional Resources Institute For Improved Curriculum. That’s T.E.R.R.I.F.I.C for short.

Then, when the Director General of other Directors have a teleconference it won't be a SIDE Show it will be a TERRIFIC show.

Or as Shakespeare once almost said,                                                                                                           "What’s this video link Biz?                                                                                                                    That, which in the D-G shows,                                                                                                                      With a better name, how sweet it is?”

PS. I wrote this story in 2000, nearly a quarter of a century ago. I realise that video links may now be a thing of the distant and isolated past.                                                                                                            The story was published in WORDS, the quarterly magazine of the WA Primary Principal's Association, in  the August 2000 edition.                                                                                                      Recently, I heard that there is now a growing desire within SIDE to change its name.

What a TERRIFIC idea.