KEY POINTS:
May all your little ones be troubles," as the Bishop said to the parent, and, like as not, by the end of January they were.
After seven uncorseted weeks, every member of the urchin army would've been totally troppo. Pinging off the wall and making mischief like they'd secured the manufacturing rights from Old Nick hisself.
But not any more. Because those interminable weeks of mooching around the house/mall/friends' place/swimming pool/TV/other location are over. Finally, and fortunately - for there is only so much provocation the homicidal impulse can endure - the fruit of our loins are back in the packing case of education.
You'd have to say the chaps and chapesses in Wellington have picked the perfect time for it.
The weather's better. The sun's out. The rest of the world's been back at work for nearly a month. This is the ideal moment to smother the small fry in sunblock and shove 'em back in class.
Alas, we won't know whether it's an underclass or an overclass until we find out what Decile the school is - or until we find out what Decile means and which imbecile originally decided that Decile 1 or 10 or 3.7 was the perfect euphemism for poor.
Oh, no! Don't mention the "p" word. There's bound to be a law against it. Which probably explains why we're stuck with those bleedin' Decile thingumabobs.
If the secular missionaries can't abolish poverty then the obvious thing to do is disguise it so thoroughly that everybody talks about something else.
Like whether we should have a new flag or become a republic. Well, two out of three people don't want the latter so let's have a President immediately.
The People's Republic of Decilia - now there's a name to conjure with!
As for the flag, heck, get a new one! Now! Or, more precisely, as soon as we've demolished every old building in the country.
Look, they're part of our history too. So if we're going to pull down one ancient relic let's go totally Pol Potty and pull down the lot.
Oddly enough, although such issues have preoccupied us this week, we'd arguably be much better-served by a rigorous education debate than we ever would by heated wrangling about what to run up the pole at the $12-a-head Treaty grounds in Waitangi.
Heck, if the flag's a bit moth-eaten then so's our education system, the difference being it has a much greater influence on many more people, as evidenced by this week's long-overdue return to work in the schools.
An age after last year's near-forgotten Break-up, our educators have finally deigned to get back to basics ... or something culturally similar.
Yet no one in authority is asking the obvious question, "Does this make sense?"
Six or seven weeks off at the height of summer (ha! ha!) may have been appropriate 100 years ago when 80 per cent of us worked on the land and the kids had to help with the harvest, but it's nonsense now.
It doesn't fit how we live. Blimey, if schools were restaurants, they'd be closed all weekend and only open Monday to Thursday from 11pm.
And woe betide any customer foolish enough to ask for something that wasn't on the menu. They'd very quickly be told to learn what was put in front of them and be grateful.
See, it's not just when schools operate that's beyond our control, it's everything about them.
We're told when we must send our children to school, we're told how long they must stay there, we're told where they'll be taught and what they'll be taught and how they'll be assessed.
And should any plaintive parent dare to ask if their child is on the Pill or having an abortion, they'll promptly be told, "That's none of your business! But don't forget, you're breaking the law if your child isn't schooled!"
So that's the deal. CMT (Compulsory Military Training) may be gone but CET (Compulsory Educational Training) certainly isn't.
We have no choice about sending the kids into barracks or which barracks they attend and if, after 11 years of CET, 25 per cent of them can't read or write then that's the luck of the educational draw, sunshine.
Factories with an equally dismal record might have to close - or change - but the good folk in the learning workshops simply get more money.
And those obliged to supply their conscripts get no say in the matter at all. We can choose our doctor, our lawyer, our supermarket, our partner and our job.
In fact, just about the only things we can't choose are which side of the road to drive on, whether we pay taxes and the school we send our kids to - unless we want to make some real estate agent very, very wealthy.
Anyone seeking a system perfectly designed to perpetuate incompetence, a system where the customer is always wrong and the retailer can supply what they wish, need look no further than the nearest school.
It may be "impossible to believe" as the Bishop said to the agnostic (well, some of them do talk to themselves) but it's true.
And, like those incredulous Bishops, any dissatisfied parents will find they're talking to themselves as well.
Because, short of saying, "You must write out 'Do it our way' 500 times", the complacent officers in the securely zoned pedagogical barracks aren't sitting up and paying any attention at all.
