in principle

Rudderless.... Hoist on his own Gillard

2010-06-23T23:19:00.000-07:00

Listened to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0fsWZRc-Ek and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdIIB9rT8Ng above.
Haven’t experienced such intense and shameful Schadenfreude before........
He not only speaks mandarin, but is the quintessential mandarin. He needs subtitles even when speaking English.
I heard the following as he moved his lips.....

“You ungrateful bastards. You will look back and weep ! Listen to all that I am proud of. Note that "I" am proud. I only use "we" in the "royal" sense.
Look how smart am I. You wouldn't have the faintest idea of what I know.
Let me make myself cry over the wonderful memories of my “we” achievements. See I cry therefore I am human !
I now demonstrated incontestably that this is the best government you'll ever get ! How ? By reiterating my facts... not just anyone’s fact’s .... MY facts !!
Small (very small) PS. Thanks to everyone who has been blessed with the opportunity to work themselves into an early grave for “we”. They are the best.... if only in retrospect.
Look at my family. God blessed me with the best and, god knows, I deserve it.
Thinks: At the moment, I am not the leader of the labor party but I AM THE PRIMEMINISTER.... pity I am not Commander in Chief .... ”

Watch the video and see if I am wrong....

Why be so hard on Rudd ?

Rudd embodies many of what I considered to be the worst attributes in a politician:

extremely autocratic personal style of government that belies any sincere commitment to real democracy
disregard for the welfare of those who work directly for and with him that belies any sincere commitment to the welfare and rights of “working families”
barely disguised contempt for the people that he seeks to rule
lack of commitment to a coherent value set. Merely an intellectual ability to justify policy within the shallow confines of public debate

Of less importance

Smug, supercilious personality

Along with many of the “Rusted on Labor Voters” that we know well, this opposition does not extend to all policies that he espoused. I voted for him because of his industrial relations promises and got at least some of what I wanted.

I am also very supportive of milking any “excessive” profits from any industry.... and especially one that already get huge governmental support through infrastructure etc etc etc. BUT that does not mean that the mining tax was proposed to actually benefit the Australian people.

I think that this objective was merely a side benefit to the main objective of creating a bogeyman that might unite the pro labor forces again under white knight Kevin. Far better economic results could have been obtained with steady incremental taxation increases and other techniques that would not have enabled the mining sector to raise a ripple of support from the Australian community.

Heads of government in Australian culture carry little prestige and much contempt – truly “Hollow Men”.

To change one is a frequent occurrence in opposition and quite frequent in government... just not usually in a first term. No great social instability is likely to result.

Gillard has started well for me in cancelling the government propaganda and making some declarations about population etc. Whether she lasts beyond the next election will of course depend on the result. I think that she is almost certain to win (and may even get my vote !) and hope that she may develop into a true leader despite the years of experience in the Victorian and national spin industry.

Stephen Digby

Uluru sensitivies virtual

2010-05-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

To respond to the sensitivities of the aboriginal population at Uluru, let’s seek ways to reduce the demand for the “climb the rock” experience.

Google Earth has significantly enhanced the quality of it’s 3D imagery of the rock over the last year or so. Panadia provides a fragmented virtual tour around the base, but omites the crucial climb. Why not use some of the funds already collected from tourists to further improve a virtual experience of the rock as an alternative ?

A library of high quality 3D panoramas linked together could allow tourists to explore the rock “virtually” at their own pace and by any path. Depending on how generous the custodians feel, such an experience could be shared with the world over the internet, or restricted to a theatre at the rock itself.

Let’s not make restrictive laws the first response to every issue.

Stephen Digby

Google Books

2010-05-30T16:02:00.000-07:00

Opposing Google Books is like oppositing traditional local Libraries. Libraries provide access to books without the authors consent and payment for this access is acheived by distributing money to authors from a fund. Unlike local libraries, there will be little need to throw away the past when shelves fill; most books on the planet will be on one database; users can search inside books for the information they want; there can be a direct link to purchase. What more do publishers want ???

Stephen Digby

Q: Insulated safely ? Ans: Only insulated from the truth.

2010-05-29T18:29:00.000-07:00

The free insulation debacle continues for so many with no end in sight.....

I accepted the freebie like so many thousands with the view that the government was splashing about my money so freely that I would be fool not to accept a bit of it back.
I foolishly assumed that “Insulation Victoria” was working under the supervision of the government, I was at work the day they installed, and my wife did not feel competent to climb a the ladder and judge their work.
I did not get around to looking in the roof until I got cold enough to want the gas central heating. I noticed the loose insulation had been sprayed all over the ceiling gas heating unit, which gets very hot, and wondered if I was looking at the next house fire to hit the news.

Phone calls to the company merely revealed that the lines were dead and that they had decided to close the business down. Phone calls to the government hotline allowed me to register 3 or 4 times for an inspection over the last 5 weeks.

The first time I rang, an inspection was going to be arranged within days. On second and subsequent calls this timeline was now “indefinite”. As the weather is getting colder and, knowing that squeaky wheels get more oil, I ring every week or so.

Last week, I got sick of waiting and merely asked for the name of an insulation installer that I could pay for myself. The poor girl on the phone had been given the bare minimum of information (probably a deliberate ploy so that the caller would be sorry for her and accept the stonewalling).

Politely persisting, I was told that there was no list of recommended installers and that I should ring a number of installers and ask them directly if they were any good ! I was told that there was a list of deregistered installers – not really much good as they would presumably not be taking calls ! I checked this list online as we spoke and found that even this list did not exist.

At the end of the call, I expressed my sympathy that the poor girl had to work for such a shonky operator and asked her to confirm that:

There is no indication of how long I will need to wait for inspection i.e. how many people require more urgent inspections ahead of me and how many are being done each week.
There is no list of deregistered insulation installers available
There is no list of registered insulation installers available.
There is no list of insulation installers with complaints registered against them.
I am advised to make my own private investigations before trusting a registered installer as they may have complaints against them.

Of course the only thing I got from her was the same embarrassed silence that we are all getting from most of Rudd’s Ruinous Rorts.

Stephen Digby

The Downfall of Parody ?

2010-04-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

Just noticed the news story Hitler Downfall Videos Being Pulled From YouTube.

Of course that inspired me to have a look....

Love the one about taking down the rants: Hitler finds out about the Downfall Parodies

Commercialism - A Glogal Hegemony

Most behaviours with biological or cultural value are treated as commodities, so they can be regulated as “trade” e.g. the commodity of sex is controlled via laws of marriage/ prostitution/ incest/ paedophilia/ bestiality/ etc etc etc.

The global triumph of “commercialism” as a shallow but all pervading “philosophy” has been aggressively widening the definition of commodities to include all expressions of thought (speaking, writing, singing, painting etc). Their audience thus needs to be regulated at any original performance (e.g. did you realise it was illegal to sing a song that you heard at concert at the restaurant later that night ? (See Happy Birthday). Any subsequent expression made by any person exposed to this original performance is also subject to regulation if a court can be convinced that the expression is derivative from the exposure (e.g. your tune sounds similar, your book has similar lines, your film has similar scene etc etc ad nauseam).

As all language meanings are infinitely plastic, the law of copyright has expanded to truly ludicrous dimensions and is treated with contempt by a huge and growing number of the world’s population. Such threats to commercialism’s global hegemony are treated with campaigns of fear – random severe punishment targeted specifically at “ordinary” people.

Silencing Parody is no joke

The above attempts to remove the Hitler “Downfall” parodies from the global community is particularly pernicious.

Satire (unlike copyright) (involving techniques such as parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre) is a social activity crucial to free open society. It is a key point of difference between us and countries that we consider to be oppressive such as the Muslim theocracies, and other tyrannical regimes such as China, Russia, Korea, Sudan etc.
Parody is immensely powerful in highlighting the development of “sacred cows” and forcing justification of things considered "beyond question".

The right to parody all memes should be protected - especially when the parody offends, as this indicates that the parody actually has some power. In our culture, Hitler is perhaps the ONLY remaining universal symbol of evil and this elevates the importance of allowing parody in this specific instance.

Stephen Digby

On Liberty - Chapter 1 - Commentary

2009-08-13T00:12:00.000-07:00

Digby:

Mill asserts the freedom of individual action except where it harms others. Then realises that there are cases "which lie on the exact boundary line between two principles".

This problem is general to all principles. A key attribute of principles that render them all contingent is that as they are by their nature general, they can be extended ad absurdum and, in that extension, will inevitably conflict with other principles similarly extended.
Indeed in any "set" of principles used to guide a person or polity, there will be principles that contradict others held simultaneously.

Mill qualifies his core principle immediately, and again many times later in the essay, enabling people to claim respect for the principle while in practice curtailing freedom almost completely.

The counter principle that Mill immediately uses to limit freedom can be expressed as: Freedom of action should be granted only to those able to exercise it responsibly. In this way, those with power can curtail freedom by declaring any group or individual "require(s) being taken care of"; extending the years that define children to 21 - or more; defining whole populations as living in imature ("nonage") cultures.
The examples of abuse of these categorisations are legion. Psychiatric institutions of democratic and totalitarian regimes even today incarcerate large numbers and perpetrate horendous acts on those that they "take care of". For the same reason, the sick in mind or body are denied the right to end their own lives in most countries. Children at various ages have loss of freedom ranging from complete in the early years, to crucially restricted in later years: imposition of marraige; imposition of religious practice; forced military service; restriction on ingestion of drugs etc etc.

The assertion of a principle so immediately, widely and easily compromised would seem naive to anyone with passing knowledge of world history since 1859 and advances in our understanding of the heavy influence of biology on human culture.
Mills acheivement is not in establishing principles lead us on a specific path, but rather in painting landscape of competing and contradictory principles. In Mill's landscape we are more careful in the application of any principle as we now understand the likelihood that it will contradict another perhaps equally valued principle.

Stephen Digby

The Moral Instinct

2009-08-08T19:41:00.000-07:00

See: The Moral Instinct
I am betting that the moral sense (which is constantly being exploited in virtually every personal, social and political interaction) is fully explained by two factors:

genetic structures that promote survival of through group cooperation in pairs, immediate family and extended family
cultural memes that appropriate these genetic prejudices to generate commitment to a kaleidoscope of larger social groups from the sublime to the ridiculous – religions of all sorts, political parties of all sorts, groups self-defined by like views on a cluster of issues etc etc.

Rorty asserts “We have no pre-linguistic consciousness to which language needs to be adequate, no deep sense of how things are which it is the duty of philosophers to spell out in language. What is described as such a consciousness is simply a disposition to use the language of our ancestors, to worship the corpses of their metaphors... We try to get to the point where we no longer worship anything, where we treat nothing as a quasi-divinity, where we treat everything - our language, our conscience, our community – as a product of time and chance. (See Contingency Irony and Solidarity)

I would change the word “time and chance” to “physics”.....

Stephen Digby

Climate change mitigation that does not include population control is pointless

2009-08-08T19:39:00.001-07:00

In the Pinker article "The Moral Instinct", as well as in numerous articles in the Melbourne Age relating to housing needs, population control is never mentioned.
Regardless of what inventive technologies or cultural changes are developed, they will be completely meaningless if the population continues to increase.

It is fascinating that there is a deliberate combination of suppression and self-censorship in relation to this crucial part of the solution.

Attenborough: cut population by half : Surely this convinces you !!! Attenborough brings power to the argument ..... Trust him – just like you probably trust Bob Brown for the same reasons - they both carry referent and expert power.

Stephen Digby

The future of quality journalism

2009-04-10T16:42:00.000-07:00

The future of journalism is assured but it is an online Babel with a nearly indistinguishable continua from paid to unpaid; from objective to propagandistic; from balanced to fanatical; from truth to lies. We will not be losing quality journalism. Already, publically funded organizations like Wikipedia are attempting to provide facts on which to judge many “stories”, and a blogosphere provides us with unlimited editorial. What we have substantially lost already is quality editors. Editors should be the gatekeepers that shape and select the news that will be given the credibility of being printed below a masthead. Over past decades in Australian newspapers, we have seen these editors replaced again and again in a search for the most malleable, or the most likely to ensure a consistent “line” is followed. A captive culture had only 1,2 or 3 papers to choose from, and so they survived, not because they were great, but, like political parties, because they were the best of a bad lot, and whether you liked them or not, they defined discussion within the culture. Now the internet has opened the gates, and readers are voting with their clicks. The demise of newspapers is merely one aspect of the larger international trend towards cultural fragmentation. The internet is only one of many enabling forces that are amplifying this trend. Wikipedia is the most famous attempt to broker a new editorial internationalism – strictly limited to factual reporting. Perhaps, the ‘bad press”, it receives contains some jealousy that it may just be a model for the future of the press in Babel.

Stephen Digby

Outside 'play' reflects the game

2009-04-07T19:08:00.000-07:00

April 8, 2009

AFTER the father of an AFL player is assaulted [1] [2] [3], we need an "emergency summit" (The Age, 7/4) to appease the public. The fact that the AFL builds its popularity on an atmosphere of gladiatorial violence needs to be obscured once more.

No politician and few citizens dare to mention the fact that the culture of the game has become a "toxic asset". Drug abuse, violence and loyalty for sale to the highest bidder are the principles displayed off-field. Violence, verbal abuse and lack of respect for the spirit of the rules are the principles displayed on the field.

Is it any wonder that immature individuals do not understand that "playing the game" outside the arena may land them in jail?

Stephen Digby

Water: Where is the data !

2009-02-15T19:21:00.000-08:00

Our politicians and the organisations that are beholden to them publish millions of dollars worth of slick propaganda promoting personal political careers and selected actions.
The community is rarely provided with clear access to the key facts that inform the consideration of public policy options.

For instance, the following key data is not published on any Victorian Government or Water Authority website or publication.

Why ??????

What amount of water is reticulated in Victoria ? What is it used for ? How has the usage changed over the years ?

(See Melbourne Water Business 2006).

Why aren't these figures a prominent part of the public debate ???

This information is crucial for identifying the relative importance of and limits to water saving in various areas.
More data that the Victorian Government does not want you to see:

What savings have been achieved over the last decade in the huge volumes of water used for irrigation which dwarf all other uses ?
What savings have been achieved over the last decade by industry ?
What is the breakdown of consumption over the last 10 years of industrial consumption e.g. types of urban and rural use, including huge users like power generators ?

All the above data seems to be missing from the government websites and the public debate.

What Proportion of water is used for various purposes in a residential home ?

Source: Riverina Water County Council

Is this correct for Melbourne ? Why is there no available data on this issue on Government or Melbourne Water sites ?

Stephen Digby

Useful References:
ABS Water Account Australia 2004-5
Water Consumption in the Home
Melbourne Catchments
Our water Our Future
Melbourne Water Consumption

Camberwell Station High Rise - Here we go again !

2009-01-31T17:19:00.000-08:00

"All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"

Camberwell Station - Community Plan vs Goverment Plan from Marvellous Melbourne on Vimeo.
Since the 1970's the Camberwell and Boroondara community has been trying to gain some democratic control over the place where they live. Believing in peaceful democratic processes, despite so much evidence to the contrary, the community has communicated forcefully and repeatedly that it does not want the Camberwell community transformed from a leafy low density residential areas to a high density dormitory.
The government motivation for repeatedly attempting to override the community are clear:
Demonstrate that communities around the state are powerless to control their destiny and should be content to limit their decisions to selecting the colour of rubbish bins.
Enrich speculators on the proviso that they pack in more people in spots where the government has little support to lose.
Build to the skyline in communities that are affluent enough to pay for the infrastructure flow on that this population influx will cause (who do you think will be paying for the upgrade of the 100 year old sewerage system now that it has maxed out !).

Stephen Digby

Too many laws ossify culture

2009-01-07T03:10:00.000-08:00

Disapproval of values or practices is not a valid reason for banning them.
They are valid reasons for applying political pressure to curb what you light consider as unhealthy excesses.
For instance, social pressure from the community applied to media companies trying to get them to "self-regulate" or "self-censor"is a perfectly healthy dynamic.

These "intuitive" assessments of "the right thing to do" (and what happens culturally if I don't !) are far better methods of social control than through ossifying our culture with more and more laws.

Legal codes do provide some protection when brokering within cultures that have very high levels of diversity (or very low levels of tolerance) but, their complexity and the impossibility of defining all possible present and future circumstances make them increasingly oppressive, inefficient and ultimately counterproductive.

There are so many laws in Australia that literally no-one knows them all. To understand even one of them often requires professional assistance (e.g. paying your tax, seeking government benefit, starting a business etc).

Most people come to accept that daily life requires action that may or may not be legal and maximising life opportunities will often require disregard for one or more laws.

The more we rely on law alone, we strangle ourselves with complexity and encourage the amorality of merely obeying the law.

To remain healthy a society needs to continually maintain social consensus over "the right thing" to do.

Stephen Digby

Melbourne club Athenaeum in turmoil over women ban

2008-12-30T14:36:00.000-08:00

Can we please have some context for this story ?

Good reporters would explain:

How widespread and prestigious are single sex clubs in capital cities.
How many are restricted to men only ? women only ?
Do they have or need specific exemptions from Equal Opportunity Laws ?
Does the published charter of this club state that it was "founded to provide a venue for Melbourne's civic, business, academic and political leaders" ?
Was the decision to not consider admission of women made through normal and correct club procedures ?

Unfortunately, the time and expertise that reporters seem to dedicate to researching stories is continuing to decline.

Stephen Digby

No matter what a person does, it's society that is to blame.

2008-12-30T13:26:00.000-08:00

The news report, Disabled student takes state to court (31/12/2008) seems to be little more than a press release in direct support of complainants in a court case. The reporters make a lazy attempt at balance by declaring that the government told them it was "inappropriate to comment". Half a thought would have revealed that government officials would be completely hamstrung by the draconian privacy laws. Government officials might also have more sense of balance that those with material interest in obtaining a punitive payment i.e. the lawyers and the mother. In today's news cycle, it was probably far to hard for the reporters to collect "off the record" responses from school staff, other parents or students regarding what it was like to share a classroom or a bus with this student. Alex's swears in ways that could be "misconstrued" as bullying or controlling behaviour. How bad does this have to be before one is refused bus transport ! Make me wonder what it was like for the others. Who cares about the community when an individual's rights are threatened ? Not reporters at The Age it seems.

Stephen Digby

The Great Global Warming Swindle

2008-12-29T21:52:00.000-08:00

A document with the title: A Review Of 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' By S. Fred Singer, (Atmospheric Physicist) March 19, 2007 is making the rounds at the moment with an inference that it is written by Fred Singer himself.

It appears at http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/swindle.htm as written by Phillip Atkinson whose site contains an interesting but somewhat bitter and overconfident summary of the world’s knowledge.

The Great Global Warming Swindle is a very interesting movie (See it on Youtube).

Unfortunately, there have been a number of well documented rebuttals of key elements of the program (the best one I know is at http://www.climateofdenial.net/?q=node/7 ).

The program was nevertheless useful in pointing out by example the danger of half truth’s as used in quasi-religious fervour by climate change believers.

At least some climate change believers have since tried to temper their predictions and proposals with more supporting arguments and facts.

I am a climate change believer in the sense that I believe that climate has always been changing but that the variations are accelerating and that this is highly likely to be caused by human activity.

The interesting blind spot demonstrated by most climate change believers is that among all proposal for stopping planetary damage damaging, the most obvious proposal is rejected out of hand – i.e. a reduction in the growth of the number of humans, or even a reduction in absolute numbers.

In my view, this should be THE fundamental quid pro quo in negotiations re. carbon emission reduction by so called “developed” countries.

Stephen Digby

Schools - How much diversity can they take ?

2008-12-28T23:11:00.000-08:00

Cultural Diversity and multiculturalism are a stated goals of the Victorian Government. These are broad "feel good" policies with seemingly benign aims mainly limited to support for immigrant sub-cultures. Their effect has been a minor amplification of the general cultural fragmentation arising from a variety of other social and economic policies. Nevertheless, these policies provide a lens through which to view the growing stresses on government schools. The government exhortations to accommodate increasing social diversity of all kinds into school classrooms can be seen to be a key factor undermining public confidence in government schools.
Both cultural diversity and multiculturalism policies are generally considered to apply only to the support for immigrant sub-cultures. They seek to prevent integration or assimilation by funding and support for sub-cultures. The classroom strategies that are promoted to all government schools to help accommodate the diverse behaviours of many immigrant sub-cultures are increasingly exploited more generally and with more adverse effect by Australian born sub-cultures. Schools having difficulty with "student management" are advised by consultants to be more "understanding". In action, this means to seek appeasement both within the classroom and after the event. Schools are asked to accept that in a growing number of families violence is a common method for minor dispute resolution. It is just a cultural difference. Such "cultural differences" are completely independent of race or immigrant background. They more commonly relate to what used to be called "class" differences. Schools are exhorted to accept that verbal obscenity is now common in the home and in the media and "middle class" gentility in speech is just a form of "cultural insensitivity".
Policies flow from policies. "Restorative justice" and the further limiting of government school discipline powers are direct policy mechanisms designed to prevent school communities from attempting to resist the new requirements for diversity. The huge cost burdens that their implementation places on schools is only part of the problem.
Funds are depleted through the progressive yearly increase in staff release from teaching for duties titled "student management", "student well-being", "student welfare". Every new name masks a common technique - more investment in the "talking cure".
More important than the huge waste of money is the loss of time and energy from teaching. Many teachers who have fully accommodated to the new focus will talk of themselves as teachers of "the whole person" rather than of any subject or skill. Those with specific responsibility to manage the crises - especially principals and assistant principals develop a growing cynicism in parallel with their emotional exhaustion. The public rarely hears the reality due to the siege mentality of government schools where any admission of systemic problems is considered high treason.
Each classroom teacher's success is measured, NOT by the quality of their teaching program, but by the degree to which they can "engage" the students. When the fruits of diversity sit in a classroom, they show highly varied behaviours - some trivial (loud sniffing of nasal mucus, use of expletives, volume of voice, demand for variations to uniform requirements) and others more "challenging" (refusal to obey any simple request, contempt for female authority, use of physical size as implied threat).
Some readers will reveal their own prejudices by assuming that I refer to one or more immigrant groups. In my long experience teaching in a culturally diverse school, these behaviours are just as common among non-immigrant students.
The domino effect of policy development is now flowing strongly towards "engagement" as the key objective for all schools and teachers because it is the first and last resort.
To an effective teacher in an effective school, engagement refers to a range of tactics especially important at the start of each lesson and sequence of lessons. These tactics focus attention, stimulate curiosity, link the content to a variety of other areas of possible interest to students. They are part of a strategy that bears fruit in hard work and the satisfaction of high achievement.
Teachers in many schools are being told covertly and overtly that: engagement is not just a tactic but THE goal; that hard work is a relic of the past and any good teacher should be able to make every lesson "fun" (with all its connotations of transience and lack of enduring worth). This strategy bears fruit in a highly engaged class having fun - and learning something in the process. Learning is reduced (gradually but inexorably) to an accidental side effect of having a good time. As students come more and more to compare school fun with their other entertainments, the activities that "engage" them must emulate those amusements more and more. This approach results in computers being mainly used as a fun contemporary context for quite trivial educational objectives.
The caustic effect of these priorities on the teacher in the next classroom is immediate and powerful. The ability of a teacher to be effective depends in part on the school environment. In the last decade, I have seen many highly effective teachers become ineffective in this new environment. This is explained in terms of the age of the teacher and his or her inability to recognise that evolution has suddenly produced a generation of students irrevocably different to those of the past.
Appeasing any level of behavioural diversity by investing time in the talking cure; changing curriculum process and content so that engagement is the key goal. These are the practical outcomes of policies that continue to flow from the Victorian government - whether intended or not.
Under these stresses, it is no wonder that so many parents seek to choose schools whose diversity is filtered so that engagement is a tactic - but the goal is still education.

Stephen Digby

The Sense of Travelling with Mosquitos

2008-12-25T20:49:00.000-08:00

Travellers return with inanimate trinkets and pictures illustrating their experiences. These only bring visual information. Travellers weave words among the objects to animate them but an essential vagueness remains as the vocabulary of listeners only contains words that describe the familiar. The new vocabulary needed can only be understood by experience of the foreign - which only the traveller has - Catch 22 !
Technology has added "movies" to the travellers equipment which do provide animation and add the sense of sound to the vicarious experience. For the audience at home, movies also sometimes recreate the travellers sense of being trapped in time. Pictures or artefacts can be quickly perused and returned, but the movie forces us to endure a recount "in real time". Even then, sound from lounge room speakers does not communicate the constancy or the involuntary volume of life in foreign places.
Few tourists attempt to bring home smells (I am reminded of the soldier in the movie Saving Private Ryan who collected soil samples from each campaign). Smells like sounds are inescapable continuous companions of the traveller, but they are so much more evocative (I remember a reference in a biology lecture to this being due to the evolution of chemical receptors as the primordial sense)
But, for me, it is insects that are able to transform any place from one that delights all the senses - to a hell hole of fear and scratching. From sitting in a relaxing suburban back yard to enjoying a spectacular vista from a foreign cliff top. It only takes one or two bites from an insect - mite, tick, flea or march fly to degrade the pleasure. In the case of the mosquito, my pleasure at the scene can evaporate the instant I hear that tiny drill beat of it's wings. My mind then flies from the landscape to an image of it dribbling infection directly into my life blood as it extracts its meal.
Avagoodweegend ! Don't forget the Aeroguard !

Stephen Digby

Indian Beggars and Bargainers - The Right Attitude

2008-12-24T11:48:00.000-08:00

The right attitude.... Remember, a fundamental aspect of the mindset during the British Raj was a respect for culture above all - British culture, of course. This commitment was so powerful that it was sometimes "good form" to sacrifice one's life in defence of it.
The requirement to prop up the "status quo", whatever it is, evolves in all cultures as one of the defining attributes of culture itself.
To an Indian street vendor, the expectation will be a mix of behaviours: here I may improve my next meal; there I may highlight the inferiority of another caste, religious or political group; here I may build a relationship that may bear fruit later (in this life or the next !) etc etc.
For a foreigner to appear jaded or refuse to participate in the "play" is to pull down the theatre's curtain and expose the game. This can only be met with a new play - sometimes plaintive, sometimes abusive - sometimes violent.
The most effective learning stance for the visitor is to play the game as far as a wallet or conscience will allow - to taste as a participant - but lightly, to avoid changing what you observe or becoming lost in it.

Stephen Digby

Little girl. Big symbol

2008-08-14T17:53:00.000-07:00

THE revelation that the singer in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was hidden from view because a politician considered her face was not in the "national interest" is a powerful metaphor for this Olympics. China is undergoing huge change, substantially for the better — in economic freedoms, political freedoms, and even some tiny recognitions of limits to growth. What cultural practice do they continue to fear most? Honesty.

Stephen Digby

What makes you happy ?

2008-07-08T01:19:00.000-07:00

Happiness, like any word, has so many meanings in different contexts that without agreeing on a limited starting definition we would argue forever about what it was, let alone how much of it we have. Common usage often qualifies it as long-term, fleeting, deferred, the happiest moment or day etc.
When the US Declaration of Independence mentions the "pursuit of happiness", it was with a strong sense that this would be up to each individual to define. Individuals work out their own definitions within a context of inextricably entwined biological and social influences. Individual happiness will be influenced by just knowing how childlessness is viewed by whatever culture dominates in our lives. Individual happiness of parents is also heavily influenced by this cultural lens - are they regarded as the valued engine house of the culture or just a resource hungry nuisance.
Biology is also playing with us at so many levels - from hormonal cycles over months, years or our lifetime - to hard wired responses to the sights, sounds and smells of children. Some of this hard wiring has of course been short circuited within individuals in a myriad of ways - some commonplace: My girlfriend is a "my baby" - some less common but even more dangerous: I want to "have" children - sexually.
The relative strength of these two main super systems - biology and culture - are endlessly debated, although the strength of the influence of biology is growing steadily since the denial phase of the late 20th century.
When we say that we are pursuing happiness, we are not much more informed that a child with $20. Will I buy lollies or a movie ticket ? If I eat all the lollies will I feel sick afterwards ? Will it matter if they tasted good ? Should I save some for next week ? If I don't like the movie, I will say it was cool anyway so that others envy me. etc. etc. etc. All these dilemmas are enacted daily at the new car yard, the house auction and the bottle shop - by adults.
Happiness is worth studying because it is so important to us. But, being important to a complex social and biological system, also usually means that it is infinitely arguable. The relative failure of social sciences such as philosophy and sociology as guides to action compared to the "hard' sciences is because the matter that they work with is essentially impossible to define in any defensible way.
We need to take the results from each survey more as work of art than a piece of science. I might get you to respond to words in the context of a novel about the agony and ecstasy of parenting; or I might get you to respond to words in the context of a survey and then to the responses of many others to those same words.
The surveys on what provides happiness are interesting to us all because happiness is important to us. But we need to decide how to spend our $20 ourselves.

Stephen Digby

Links:

What makes you happy? - ABC Life Matters Download Audio
Daniel Gilbert (psychologist), Harvard professor of psychology
Happiness and Its Causes
Daniel Gilbert

Communities have a right to be informed of criminals in their midst

2008-07-07T17:07:00.000-07:00

The offender has "done his time" and "paid his debt to society" and "that's how our legal syatem works". These common sayings are a common but ridiculous distortion of the operation of todays legal system.
One of the key reasons for the public loss of trust in our legal system is the almost total absence of this sense that criminals have a debt to pay. The frustration of citizens at the lenient treatment of child molesters is partly fueled by the fact that our legal system treats them much more as victims that need support for the rest of their lives rather than people who owe a moral debt to their society.
Additionally, there are a huge range of situations where a criminal conviction must be communicated to the criminal's "local community". Teachers, lawyers, policemen and anyone who volunteers for any community service where children are present, must reveal their criminal record (not restricted to child sex offences) and be subject to official discrimination for the rest of their lives.
It does not seem in any way inconsistent to ensure that a community is informed of the presence of a criminal from a group where repeat offences are statistically very common.
This latest case is merely an expression of extreme public frustration over the latest mishandling by the legal system of their responsibility to protect the public.

Stephen Digby

Burning to Read

2007-12-01T03:54:00.000-08:00

Highly recommend this fascinating book. Only half way through Chapter 4 and have 30 bookmarks !

Some favourite excerpts...

P48 English Royal proclamation of 1530...by [...well-learned ... in divinity].. it is thought hat it is not necessary the said Scriptures to be in the English tongue and in the hands of the common people, but that the distribution of of he said Scripture, and he premitting or denying thereof, dependeth only upon the discretion of the superiors, as they shall think it convenient.

Thinks: As a public servant, I recognise this view as unchanged from that day to this i.e. i see this approach implemented at every level of our government from school administration, to government minister. The truism "Information is power" (Robert Morgan) has always been known to successful rulers. This example is only one of a billion. The key issue is the evaluation of why this particular meme

p.76 From the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, annual confession for each Christian...became compulsory. That legislation marked a decisive new step in the history of both self-analysis and ethics.... This is the basis of the three parts of the sacrament as listed by More: contrition of the heart, confession of the mouth, and satisfaction, or repayment for sins committed.

p.78 The premis of the sacrament is that the Christian's works can, within the gracefully mediated terms of gods justice, change the sinners situation: One can persuade God through verbally articulated contrition for sin committed and social repayment for that sin, to readmit one into the compny of the absolved. The institution of the church is the indispensable channel through which the negotiation is made, via a priest.

P83 Late medieval Christian theologians had constructed a theology that gave full recognition to two opposing traditions: the positivist, hebraic tradition of God's absolute justice, and the Graeco-Roman notion of a divine reliability and rationality, perceptible to humans.

P81 The soul imagined by Luther ... confronts the terror of God's judgement alone ....

P84 [In Luther's schema].. a sense of individuality rises dramatically in profile precisely because ... it confronts a single and menacing source of absolute power [i.e. God]

p85 In Western cultural history, writing is usually opposed to faith, or at least is a compensation for want of faith: one writes the contract down precisely because there's a shortfall in faith. Oral culture relies primarily on witnesses, while literate culture gives primacy to documents.

P85 In the Lutheran system, ...the book has become the repository of faith, unsustained by any surrounding structure.

Thinks: How many of the followers of Luther actually considered these arguments ? The leadership groups in political parties are tortured by semantic detail while the mass of voters and even supporters merely mouth the current orthodoxy as passed onto them. The Bible could therefore stand merely as an artefact whose interpretation is infinitely malleable according to the dominant orthodoxy. The interpretation at any time evolves as political buttons are pushed and the cultural response measured - 1000 peasants and 1 prince might like one interpretation; 50 princes and no peasants might like another. Luther picks an interpretation that fits the time and his purpose.

In a thousand years, scholars may analyse the sectarian debates in the "Middle East" seeking answers to the conflagrations that occurred. I would suggest that the real causes and controls on the paths of history could be the smell of burning flesh and the propaganda screamed in a temple or school, rather than the written words. The intellectual arguments are for the leaders to dress themselves in when talking to other leaders. They are not leaders because of this one set of intellectual clothes. Leadership stems from the chameleon ability to be many things to many people through touch rather than text; through presence rather than print; through actions that rarely match words....

To be continued.....

Stephen Digby

Rigor may not be mortis in Labor education plans

2007-10-05T20:08:00.000-07:00

Many of the educational change promoters that occupy positions of influence and power in state education systems may be a little worried about Kevin's focus on rigor and standards. They will be hoping that this emphasis will be limited to the election campaign. For a long time, in these cosy "progressive" cliques, "change" has been synonymous with "improvement". A whole set of "old fashioned" terms have been exchanged: "character" by "self-esteem", "fail" by "not yet at expected standard", "discipline" by "restorative justice", "rigor" by "personal best". Others have been redefined, such as the attempt by Victorian Labor to redefine the common language descriptors A, B C etc after failing to eliminate their use in schools with their previous assessment scheme. For progressives, "rigor" should only be used with "mortis' and its definition of "precise and exacting standards" and "unrelenting strictness or toughness" are anathema. Government curricula encourages the trading of rigor wherever possible for “engagement” - the powerful government subtext encouraging the fun curriculum that chases down the slippery slope trying to ape the child’s preferred recreations regardless of how intellectually barren they may be. I hope that Rudd’s rigor signals the end of the state labor belief that fun on the internet can replace hard work. We might then have a chance that our own children will filling some hard jobs rather than importing workers – from the real world.

Stephen Digby

See: Rudd to raise the bar for schools - The Australian 2007-10-06

730 Report on Costello Dinner

2007-08-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

The details of the dinner were "reluctantly" agreed to be off the record by the reporters and treated as such for a considerable time.
The breach of this agreement by one of the journalists prior to an election could be reasonable construed as a self serving ("I need a headline story, so stuff the treasurer and the other journailsts").
The decision to join the pack by the 730 report could be reasonable construed as a mix of motives:

don't want to miss out on the story regardless of ethics;
don't want a politician to get away with denying a remark agreed to be "off the record" (short sighted if journalists want off the record remarks to continue to flow !);
implying bias in that the politician and the topic are ones that are grossly over represented and over-emphasised in ABC publications

Overall, another instance of the ABC considering itself as a "balance" to the government and the other media and thus inherently biased towards the opposition. The ABC has lost my support (and that of many I know) due to its drift into partisan stances on so many national/ internation politcal/ social/ scientific issues.
I want to pay taxes for an objective review of the issues NOT a counter attack on some perceived hegemony.

Stephen Digby

Porn Filters Ineffective at School or Home

2007-08-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

The Australian Government seems to be hell-bent on wasting money on an ineffective home and ISP filter systems which are very likely to be bypassed easily by simple strategies including the huge and growing number of "anonymous proxy" sites.
These sites provide a window within a window. The school, home or government computer registers that the user has gone to the proxy site..... and stayed there. The inner window then allows the user to go anywhere, look at anything without any trace.....
As in so many areas of law enforcement (in or outside school), the only real deterrent is a "climate of fear" regarding severe and public punishment for offenders caught by traditional methods - surveillance, informers, mistakes by the perp (e.g. storing images on local machines for later viewing).

Stephen Digby

"Edutainment"

2007-08-11T20:49:00.000-07:00

We have a responsibility to maintain the differentiation between school and an entertainment venue.
School attendance is imposed on students and parents by the state (I wish it wasn't) for a limited and specific purpose of changing students (even if they don't want to) in ways that benefit them and prepare them to contribute to the success of the state.
Entertainments are personal & optional activities with no necessary net benefit to either the individual of the state (i.e. they can be bad for everyone e.g., binge drinking, or good for everyone e.g. opera, or anything in between e.g. most computer games) As our society is going through a phase of increasing diversity (or fragmentation), "core values" are increasingly hard to find in schools or out of them.
In this haze, the danger is that anything that keeps the little blighters entertained can pass as education.
The perception that a school needs to offer "edutainment" to keep students from revolt is one reason parents cite in choosing a different school or school system).
Keep the focus on education.
Get students to list all the things that they find most boring and you will get a significant correlation with a list of civilisations greatest achievements.

Stephen Digby

The God Delusion

2007-07-20T01:24:00.000-07:00

Dawkin's has certainly published a polemic specifically designed to create argument. A tome with a more balanced viewpoint and less inflammatory language would not have energised the debate as much. His credibility rests on the clarity and persuasiveness of his vision that replicators are the fundamental active units of life - not organisms.
If all attributes of life are explicable in terms of replicators (genes and in the case of many higher species, memes), then explanatory myths are a cultural curiosity rather than a fundamental sphere of life i.e. religion is completely subsumed WITHIN cultural and philosophical studies.
What he principally rails against is :-
- the privileged participation of religion in social and political discussions (not participation per se, but the privilege and protection that goes with it)
-- which leads to
- the forcing of irrationality of thought on children along with sometimes brutal cultural practices (cf. with the wonderful and exciting cultural exploration of irrationality through myth, fantasy, father Christmas etc.)
-- which leads to
- the acceptance of coercion by religious forces of whole populations in relation to a wide range of aspects of everyday life

Secularism: I can't see how religion produced secularism except in the sense that as soon as something is "red", by definition something else is "not red".

Poetry: Dawkins raves about the poetry of the cosmos principally in Unweaving the Rainbow and has a much shorter and referring section in The God Delusion. I can't see how there is anything mystical about human relations. They are undoubtedly unique, possible more complex than any other animal relations, and certainly more powerful in influencing the living systems of this planet (although rather powerless so far in relation to the physical forces on the planet as we are experiencing at the moment). Many people (including myself) have spontaneously responded to cultural artefacts such as music by believing that the creativity reflected the presence of a "god" .... but these experiences can be replicated for others in a mountain (the razorback ?), looking at a flower - or even at a Nuremberg Rally or in the presence of Kevin Rudd. These experiences are "wonderful" but not supportive evidence for a God.

Dawkins deals with secularist regimes and the atheism of Stalin and possibly Hitler very briefly in the book. The later parts of the book are indeed fragmented and scrappy I think due to the fact that he is targeting the "everyman" particularly in the USA and wants to specifically address the common red herrings. this is the sense in which I agree with you about the "schoolboy" tone. Trouble is if we live in a democracy (cf a theocracy) then the "rabblement" votes, so you have to speak directly to them.
I certainly would like to see a more detailed analysis of the role of secularism in creating or exaggerating the brutality of these regimes. I think that there is likely to be a long line of religiously committed despots throughout history that numerically outweigh these people in number, victims and brutality.

A can't think of Dawkins as a totalitarian in any sense other than the idea that a rationalist is a totalitarian. To believe, with some extreme post-modernists, that thinking irrationally is a valid alternative to rationality is simply to accept every other thought pattern or belief system on equal merit. Numerology has had a profound effect on human history - as has astrology, etc etc. Why not include them ? What about systems that have less historical credibility - scientology etc Why not allow them equal time ?
Dawkin's makes the point that although we may esoterically defend the right to hold such views, when we are confronted with a situation in real life most will prefer rationality. I believe people should have the right to read/ publish/ believe in a clairvoyant's view of who was the murderer, but I think that the overwhelming majority of us want a society that decides who did it rationally.
The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989, 2006) ISBN 0-19-286092-5
The Extended Phenotype (1982, 1999) ISBN 0-19-288051-9
The Blind Watchmaker (1986, 1991, 2006) ISBN 0-393-31570-3
River Out of Eden (1995) ISBN 0-465-06990-8; Audio (2000) ISBN 0-7528-3985-3
Climbing Mount Improbable (1996) ISBN 0-393-31682-3
Unweaving the Rainbow (1998) ISBN 0-618-05673-4
A Devil's Chaplain (2003) ISBN 0-618-33540-4
The Ancestor's Tale (2004) ISBN 0-618-00583-8; Audio (2005) ISBN 0-7528-7321-0
The God Delusion (2006) ISBN 0-618-68000-4; Audio (2006) ISBN 1-84657-037-9
Interesting Article on Violence in one of my favourite online magazines - The Edge - See A History of Violence
I see what you mean about secularism. "Religiosity" is in fact the original state of the human mind. Other primates may be capable of at least some of the psychological manoeuvres needed for religious thought: the assumptions that acts are caused; that most (if not all) acts are the result of an agent of some kind; perhaps a primitive theory of mind - the agent thinks I should....). Secularism is a recent development arising from the development of rational explanations for an ever increasing proportion of acts ("enlightenment"). To exert social power, secularism aped powerful forms used for the same purpose by religions - building design, organisational hierarchies etc.
Perhaps, atheism needs to formally establish itself as a religion to really get of the ground - tax exempt status and immunity from vilification or discrimination would be a boon to membership....

I don't think Dawkins is supporting an "enlightenment project". He believes that rationalism is not a cultural product, like classical music, or one of many equally valid ways of thinking about the world, but rather a evolving compendium of what ever is demonstrable and repeatable in our world. i.e. no central doctrine, no unassailable truths - just a smooth scale of probabilities where the apple falling is very likely (colloquial expression = certain), the asteroid hitting earth is very unlikely, and the existence of god astronomically unlikely (colloquial expression = NOT true).

I think that your sense of "totalitarian" threat from rationality may overlook the fact that there is NO "text" which we can kill each other over. Demonstration trumps all. Darwinism (Like Newtonian physics) is almost certain to be overlaid with a more exact explanation which has greater explanatory and predictive power. As a rationalist, I would love to see this happen. The idea fills me NOT with defensive anger, but with delighted excitement. THIS is the crucial difference between reverence for an artefact (e.g. text) compare to a process ("whatever you can demonstrate").

Rationality IS. Rationality WORKS. All else is mind games (including Naturalism). Mind games are fun (Zeus, Jesus, fairies, terminator II) and were the starting state for human understanding of the world, but we need to grow up.

The Enlightenment is a fascinating historical period where rationality gained its most powerful foothold and the outcomes for our species have not all been good (just as the control of fire was not good for all people or species).

The central points that I was most intrigued by in your analysis were:
- the weakening of the social fabric in Western Civilisation by the idea of a personal morality (cf. a social morality) and the primacy of individual interest (cf. the centrality of the social benefit), and the fact that this may have been sparked by Luther.
- your idea that the centuries old and continuing move from intuitive social relations (based on intuitions about what the current ruling class would consider acceptable) to contractual social relations (based on the interpretation of a text by expert lawyers) has progressively robbed us of any faith in social relationships

Rationalism has certainly contributed by undermining one of the main forces (religion) that underpinned the philosophy of the state. This did not have to be so. The religions of the West got into an argument with science which was not necessary. Religion could have easily followed the view put by many scientists trying to avoid death or dishonour, that the mind of god is inscrutable, and rationality is the means to explore it and wonder at it. This would have lead to the immense strengthening of the church as a likely benefactor of scientific development (notable examples of this fostering of science within religion are easily found in Christian and Muslim history). the end point of this view would have gradually lead such a society to something like Einstein's God - “I have never imputed to nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”P15 Albert Einstein

Stephen Digby

El Laberinto del fauno (incorrectly translated to Pan's Labyrinth)

2007-07-14T22:54:00.000-07:00

Entwining reality and fantasy evoked the inherent "uses of enchantment" as ways that children modify and extend as well as interpret reality. They attempt to crystallise horror from the elusive fluid of moral and physical chaos and then construct a vision of coherent hope. Archetypes, like Pan, reverberate through human culture and provide powerful masks and amplifiers for ideas that may be too frightening to confront overtly.
The director interview on the DVD was fascinating. He mentioned the concern over the renaming of Laberinto del fauno, El as Pan's Labyrinth. He only wanted the faun to faintly allude to Pan and dressed him more as an relic of tree growth. He felt the sexuality that is embedded in any Pan character would distort the relationship in the film.
His vision of a pre-pubescent girl attempt to find meaning while embroiled at the front line of resistance to Franco's new regime is made especially poignant by the historical context. The resistance fighters also live in a horrible moral chaos and despite their sacrifices, temporary local successes and hope at the impending allied victory, we know that they were unaided by the victors of WWII and would have been exterminated sometime during the subsequent decades of Franco's dictatorship.
The dream sequence that the child constructs to add meaning to her own death is an interesting commentary on the contemporary rejection of heaven as seen by "established" churches (especially the Roman Catholic church of Spain). These orthodox heavens have been corrupted by association with the institutions that control them. More and more people are exploring "alternative" religious expressions often made up of a convenient pastiche of influences from anywhere.

Stephen Digby

Reviews:

Death - Is it sad ?

2007-06-16T17:25:00.000-07:00

Death can never be sad for the deceased as they do not exist.
The sadness in death comes from:

the time leading to the event (is the person in pain ? Is their consciousness dominated by the awareness of death over seconds, hours... years ?) and
the responses of other people starting with the innermost "circle of concern" and radiating outward depending on their fame/ infamy etc.

In relation to the death of the lawyer, Peter Hayes, I think that the evidence supports a pleasurable death in that he probably "came" a few times and then passed out, never to regain consciousness.
The sadness is therefore limited to immediate family and friends who selfishly (selfishness is a virtue when it is not dependent on depriving others) wanted the pleasure of his company for an indefinite future.
The loss to the community is more moot .... after all, we are always in need of more lawyers ?

Stephen Digby

Crisis in the Humanities

2007-06-14T01:50:00.000-07:00

Stephen Digby, Jun 2007 Reponding to Crisis in the Humanities? What Crisis?
"The teaching evaluations for courses in my university are made public" Great Idea ! Are they online ? Where ?
I don't think that "Biblical fundamentalism" "dismisses the need for interpretation altogether". It is merely an extremely dogmatic defence of a particular interpretation. Indeed, a comparatively mild case of the same intellectual disease that dominates the overwhelming majority of states that have a significant proportion of Muslim adherents.
Strongly agree with the tendency of youth to "(crunch) historical narrative into neatly packaged morsels" rather than expect to handle complex physical and moral causation with their inevitable imperfect solutions.
As a teacher, I would suggest some of the blame for this rests with the over representation of committed left wing among the teaching work force. Many of my colleagues are motivated by political certainties that they have developed over decades. They are impatient to get students to come to very specific conclusions about such complex issues as world poverty, acceptance of diversity of behaviour, morality etc. Who wants to end a 3 week unit, with no conclusions except that the issue needs more study ! Students detect that their teachers find it very hard to objectively mark an essay defending the war in Iraq on its merits, or a presentation arguing that pollution is more a by-product of the planetary plague of humans rather than over consumption by the greedy.
Another factor encouraging this “rush to judgement” mentality is the educational fad of “relevance” which has plagued curriculum development over the last few decades. There is no awareness of absurdity when the Grade 2 teacher introduces the topic of “global warming” as the project focus for the next few weeks. In later years, students are reluctant to revisit this issue as they have already “done” it. Teenagers get annoyed when older people don’t just get of their butts and do the obvious to ‘solve” these issues. Complexity is interpreted as obfuscation.
“Enlightenment persuasions” such as individual liberty, certainly do dominate the high ground. But to say that Iraq is a disaster in its failure to “(dissolve) identities produced by long histories”, we must also examine the lens that this view reveals. The chips in the “Great Game” in Iraq have been relatively few US lives and a large amount of money. But what if we also strip back the prejudice that overvalues the most overabundant and renewable resource on the planet – humans, and recognise that a political debt from an oil rich may repay, over a short period, the investment made in bringing it to power ?
It is when any argument is allowed on its merit that culture and philosophy are recognised as the essential context for understanding. It is when dogma, whether religious or political, shuts off debate that the humanities become merely decorative.

Stephen Digby

Merit Pay for teachers

2007-06-13T05:09:00.000-07:00

What a polarised debate ! Opponents froth at the mouth. Proponents make out it is all so clear and simple.
There is not much new about performance pay. It is built into any worthwhile career. Anything else is a "dead end" job by definition.
Over my 25 years, my pay increases have almost exclusively been according to performances outside the classroom. Each career restructure promises to value classroom performance, but ends up at a standoff between the union and the government - usually a place that suits no-one and has no logical coherence.
Today, to get better pay, staff must still go through paper shuffling and spruiking interviews for responsibilities outside the classroom. The message that the classroom is the last priority has remained clear and constant throughout my career.
How do we get out of this mess ? Who has the guts to cut the Gordian Knot rather than waste millions trying to untangle it ?
What we need is:

Payment for all non-teaching duties to be completely separate from teaching salary budget so that anyone can apply - teacher or non-teacher, young or old.
Payment for leadership roles to be completely separate from teaching salary budget and to continue to be for fixed terms.
Payment for teaching merit to be completely separate from the salary budget and based on assessment of parent satisfaction and student performance changes, both measured objectively by instruments designed independently of the school (and preferably of the state bureaucracy).

In this way, teachers (and schools) would try to give parents what they wanted, rather than tell them what the government wants.
Teachers (and schools) would also tend to follow educational approaches that produced real results, rather than the latest government fashion statement.

Stephen Digby

We are all superheroes ! We just need "training"

2007-06-09T16:45:00.000-07:00

The modern employers panacea for any dysfunction in the workplace is to propose some "training". The unchallenged and unstated assumption is that there is no limit to any one persons performance. Job expectations can be expanded without limit as long as "training" is provided. The mantra is most commonly espoused by governments that cannot seem to give up on trying to be "all things to all people". Yesterday the idiocy was repeated by a very frequent offender, the Victorian Education Department. "A Government spokeswoman rejected the need for new laws to protect teachers. She said the Government was taking action to reduce parent-rage incidents by providing training for teachers on how to defuse possibly violent situations." (Parent Rage pushing teachers to the edge 10/6). Teachers are being "trained" not to cope better before the police arrive, but to avoid the need to ring the police. The inference for teachers is that intimidating and violent behaviour is part of life and we must learn to handle it - not stop it. Similarly, despite the recent blustering about mandatory reporting of drug use in schools. The government's policy of "harm minimisation" is designed to "train" teachers to cope with and support drug using students in their classrooms. After all, drug use is part of life and we must learn to handle it - not stop it. But there's more... The government continues to push students with severe disabilities into "normal" classrooms maintaining that the teachers can be "trained up" to meet any parent's expectation about their child's special needs. There are many more examples of this dangerous fallacy in the way employers respond to when their policies create impossible situations in nursing, the police force, social welfare etc.
Training is seen as the cheap alternative to workable policy.

Stephen Digby

Banned for $15 pants

2007-06-08T05:14:00.000-07:00

In Melbourne Australia, a students defiance of her government school community dress code is aggressively backed up by her parents...

She said she had been offering the Palmers free school-issue pants for the past month, but the family had "rejected them on principle".

Says it all really......

1. Some think the only way to explain their problems is in the desperate search for others to blame.
2. Some think that they can benefit from community resources while refusing to support community values.

Here's hoping that the state supports the right of school communities to set ANY requirements on student dress or behaviour that they see fit.
The future for state education lies in removing the straitjacket of government micro-management and allowing schools to run in ways that their local community actually want.
If Karla and her mother don't like the community rules, then they should find another school community.

Stephen Digby

Student Search - Schools are not like CSI

2007-06-02T04:35:00.000-07:00

Teachers at Rowville did nothing wrong based on your article 2007-06-02 Teachers frisk pupil for drugs - Herald Sun. The Victorian Government School Reference Guide instructs teachers with a "cause for concern" to instruct students to "empty their pockets or open their bags for inspection and a failure to comply with such an instruction is a discipline offence." It is only if the teacher thinks the student will not "imminently use" that they should put off the search. You can imagine the hysteria (probably from the same parents) if a teacher assumed the use was not "about to happen, or threatening to happen" and it did happen ! If hysterically defensive parents make schools operate like CSI, then there will be even less staff time and energy left for actually teaching !

Stephen Digby

Narcissism and the Virginia Tech Massacre

2007-04-29T00:49:00.000-07:00

Christopher Lasch is reported to have said that narcissism as the signal disorder of contemporary American culture. The cult of celebrity, the marketing of instant gratification, scepticism toward moral codes and the politics of victimhood were signs of a society regressing toward the infant stage.
The more we dwell on rational causes outside the criminal, the more we feed the belief that the chain of events was built on people having "needs" that weren't met. The analysis can be read as absolution from guilt - who can be guilty when they are merely the end effect of a causal chain? The centrality of the criminal in the analysis can create an attraction to just the same type of criminal.
When a crowd is gawking at the mounds of human flesh left after a horrific event, there is a sense that they should be moved on - that their understandable fascination can so easily build into schadenfreude, or worse....
The media need a similar "move on" message. I would hate it to come from another law in a society that is already strangling itself in the fallacious belief that laws can fix every cultural conflict. It should come as an informal but public reaction by a wide range of community leaders and groups. Telling us a million details about the life of the criminal is unhealthy at least and deeply antisocial at worst.

Stephen Digby

Double Jeopardy

2007-04-21T01:43:00.000-07:00

Discussion arising from 2007-04-20 Double jeopardy principle in dock - Australian

Sounds entirely reasonable to me that, after either acquittal or conviction, the appearance of substantial new evidence should allow a reconsideration of the judgement. The fundamental principle should be that the facts should influence the evaluation of the jury and/or judges. If substantial new facts become available, then the judgement may be different. Surely, the same principles that determine whether a judge allows a reconsideration of a conviction could be used for the reconsideration of an acquittal.

"Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer," 2 says English jurist William Blackstone.

The story is told of a Chinese law professor, who was listening to a British lawyer explain that Britons were so enlightened, they believed it was better that ninety-nine guilty men go free than that one innocent man be executed. The Chinese professor thought for a second and asked, "Better for whom?"

See wonderful article on the number of guilty various people would let of.... the article asserts that current value is 59.72 ... http://digbyreferences.blogspot.com/2008/12/n-guilty-men.html

Stephen Digby

Education must stay the top priority in "one stop shop" schools

2007-03-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

The push for transforming schools into "one stop shops" has little to do with education, and more to do with child-minding for parents fixated on consuming and governments fixated on the economy. In the article ("Relief push for working parents, Herald Sun, Mar 18) the only mention of education was in the job titles. "One stop shop" schools as the centre of childcare, welfare and community resources (such a libraries) is a great idea - as long as it doesn't continue the trend where "real education" is a minor consideration among a range of social welfare purposes.

Stephen Digby

Population increases require environmental degradation

2007-03-17T14:36:00.000-07:00

Average Melbournian's are told they need to get used to: tolls on public roads; synthetic grass for children's playgrounds; recycled water for drinking; high density development shadowing every suburb; living in flats because land is made so expensive etc etc. Just remember that none of these restrictions will apply to those who can pay - such as the politicians and leaders that call for them. Just remember that all these problems are by-products of an addiction to growth. Just remember that our government encourages this degradation because growth is the only short term fix that will pay the interest on public, corporate and private debt. Just remember, that regardless of how much quality of life we sacrifice, growth is unsustainable. One day we may get leaders who will realise the need to plan for improvement instead of growth.

Stephen Digby

A-E grades will outlast Victorian government attempt at "Newspeak"

2007-03-15T05:01:00.000-07:00

The conceit of the Victorian Government is breathtaking ! A few years ago, it dismally failed in its attempt to ban A-E and replace it with “Established”, “Consolidating” and “Beginning”. Now it thinks it can use schools to change the common language meanings of A-E to suit its political agenda. It’s great to see the Catholic Education System opting out of this Big brother attempt at “newspeak”. The centuries old dictionary meanings will remain the same long after the Bracks government is forgotten.

Stephen Digby

Swinging Rudder ?

2007-03-04T13:44:00.000-08:00

As a swinging voter who has not voted Labour for a few elections, I am impressed by Rudds performance so far.
A few key issues will make the difference for me:
- Industrial relations (the climate of intimidation in the workplace has grown far faster than the letter of the law and is felt everyday)
- Nuclear power (I have no problem with nuclear power generation. It is the inseparable risks of waste and terror that make this tantalising industry so undesirable for our future)
- Education (as a teacher, I have voted against labor sometimes due to its slavish support for the "progressive" educational vision of teacher unions - of which I am a local branch president !! To save public education, we need real power for parents in determining most aspects of their local school policy and organisation. It is parents who are "voting with their feet". It is the perception and the reality, that the school is not organised in he best interests of their children that has o be changed.)

Stephen Digby

The Purposes of Punishment in Schools

2007-03-03T13:51:00.000-08:00

Education : Teaching students what IS right and wrong. It is high intellectual conceit to believe that a moral code can be so perfect that its mere explanation will ensure compliance. Actions against certain behaviour show them what the boundaries are.
Deterrence : Lowering the frequency of certain behaviours regardless of whether a student accepts the moral order. They merely wish to avoid the punishment they have seen meted out to others.
Rehabilitation : Behaviour modification works on any animal. Rehabilitation is a long term hope arising from deterrence: the student removes the behaviours from their repertoire, and absorbs them into their moral system.
Restoration : One technique of rehabilitation that focuses on moral teaching by attempting to repair the relationship or restore physical damage etc. It is an extreme view to believe that it can completely replace all other elements.
Honouring Values : Demonstrating that a system of codes is respected and actually implemented is crucial to the credibility of that system. e.g. disregard for the school uniform rules directly increases the frequency of a wide range of other misbehaviours as the "system" has lowered credibility.
Revenge, Retributive justice, or Retribution : If the system causes the wrongdoer pain, it is less likely that the victim (or the parent !) will try to exact their own retribution (e.g. "if he hits you, you bash him back !). Punishment systems act as a proxy for victim revenge so that individual vigilantism and revenge is reduced.
Incapacitation : Served by expulsion. If they are not present, they cannot break the rules. Necessary and underutilised strategy. Expulsion also has the advantage of powerfully complimenting deterrence. Only repeated and long term suspensions achieve this end. Usually suspension is directed at warning of the possibility of expulsion, encouraging parental reflection and action, and leading to an inquiry.

Stephen Digby

National curriculum materials needed - not vague objectives

2007-03-02T13:17:00.000-08:00

When teachers choose a curriculum to place on the school booklist, they look for a coherent sequence of activity descriptions that match a set of curriculum objectives and include a variety of student materials as well as teaching ideas and assessment tools. This curriculum often includes a printed text, a digital version of the text on a CD-ROM along with a wide variety of other support and stimulus material, a website updated with continuing support materials and ideas sometimes shared amongst a group of teachers using the same resources. When governments argue about curriculum, they mean a sequenced set of vague teaching objectives. For example, the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) at its most detailed provides “progression points” to guide teachers: ICT Level 4.5: “identification and analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of decisions made and actions taken when solving problems and developing understandings using ICT tools”. The statements in such curricula are so vague even in context that they of virtually no use to teachers. In Victoria, teachers and schools have been distracted from high quality curricula for decades by repeated government exhortation to rebuild around a fresh new “curriculum framework”. Publishers, who need to deliver materials useful in classrooms if they want to sell anything, end up rehashing rather than rewriting. They know that the next big change is probably only months away. If you really want to develop consistent high quality educational practice across Australia, just ask State Governments to provide lists of the published classroom curriculum materials that they recommended for their schools. If they can’t provide such a list, I would ask them why ! Then, continuously publish information on the number of schools using each such resource. If and when consensus grows across the nation through the choice of individual schools, it would be seen in these patterns of use. Such a consensus would have far faster and far more powerful effect on parents and teachers than the outcome of any meeting of national boffins and politicians. But please, please - don’t spend years, dollars and precious effort arguing over vague curriculum statements that may never significantly influence classrooms – as we continue to do in Victoria.

Stephen Digby

Stop the rot in government schools

2007-02-27T14:53:00.000-08:00

The drift to private schools will continue and probably accelerate in Australia. Government school classrooms face the disruption and distraction created by the continuing fragmentation of Australian culture and the increasing dysfunction of Australian families. The history and purpose of private schools substantially insulates and allows the maintenance of internal coherence – often called school “tone”. Nearly all government schools, rather than being nurtured, are continually reorganised, regulated, and standardised by ministers desperate to appease and appear active. A few government schools with selective entry or the right postcode have enough confidence and leadership to follow best practice as recognised by parents and mimic many private school practices. Government schools need many things – local flexibility in finance, organisation and curriculum organisation to match private schools; local community control of the school – not just the fete. Usually, instead of stopping the deep rot, politicians just want another paint job for their term.

Stephen Digby

Jesus loves child molesters

2007-02-25T00:02:00.000-08:00

The display of simple-minded and divisive posters saying “Jesus Loves Osama” outside the Glen Iris Uniting Church in Melbourne has caused some passerby to take direct action and remove them.
Rev Peter Whitaker is shown on the front page of the Progress Leader with his “script”. Thinking for himself ? I don’t think so. The script sheet he was presumably sent by the “Outreach” group shows some more lame attempts to get publicity for a church with rapidly diminishing relevance in the community.

Instead of using a real pariah, the church decides to use name that IS loved by some Muslim extremists in our community. The poster then encourages the community to believe the The Uniting Church sympathises with this extreme view. The choice of Osama is also likely to mislead because of the Church’s widely known opposition to the war in Iraq. Saying “Jesus loves Osama” in the context of this policy also invites belief that the church is on the side of the Terrorists.

A sincere sign of compassion would have been to extend jesus’ love to one of the very few truly universal pariahs. Let’s see if the church has th guts to replace the poster with the much clearer message: “Jesus loves Child Molesters”.

Stephen Digby

http://www.progressleader.com.au/article/2007/02/13/10336_ppv_news.html

Great need for selective secondary schools

2007-02-18T06:36:00.000-08:00

Feb 2007, Stephen Digby in response to: 2007-02-17 Elite schools dominate uni places
Elite schools dominate uni places (Age feb 17) seems a bit of "beatup". In the VTAC 2005-2006 report, 51% of the students who applied for tertiary entrance came from government schools and they made up 48% of the enrolments the following year. It should be no surprise to anyone that although government students make up 48% of enrolments overall, they only make up 35% at Melbourne University .
Government schools have to use a junior curriculum structure (VEL's) that is not academically focussed on preparing students for university entrance. As government students approach VCE, many of those who want to beat the competition to get the most hotly contested institutions move to catholic and independent schools where this preparation is more of the focus. Furthermore, government school students are encouraged to consider a range of tertiary options of which traditional universities, like Melbourne, are only one. The proportion of students in government schools graduating VCE is then much smaller and a more biased sample than it is over all the years of secondary schooling.
The real unmet demand is for many more selective entry government schools that teach towards successful tertiary entrance ranks at least for years 9-12.
The government rhetoric that endlessly repeats that all schools can be all things to all students on a shoestring budget just contributes to dissatisfaction with the government school system.

Stephen Digby

VCAA Statistics: http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vce/statistics/2006_statistics.html
VTAC Statistics: http://www.vtac.edu.au/pdf/stats/2005-2006/2005_2006_Section_G.pdf
(Extract: 2005-2006-VTAC-annual-report-extract-Section-G.pdf)

Teacher unions should concentrate on workload - not curriculum design

2007-02-13T13:41:00.000-08:00

As a Victorian teacher unionist for 25 years, I have seen the union lose membership over that period as it loses support by pushing a politically correct curriculum and social agenda to the detriment of its campaigns to actually improve industrial conditions for teachers.

A national curriculum does not need to make more work for teachers. It could make teachers’ jobs easier and more satisfying. The frequent turnarounds in state curricula do seriously distract teachers from teaching. The role of the union is to negotiate workload so that the employer realises that doing a "new" thing means not doing an "old" thing, and that planning "smart" work is better than paying for "more" work. Currently, teachers are continually being asked to work "more " to compensate for poor government planning. If we had an industrial agreement with any credibility, the government would have no alternative to being "smarter". As a Australian Teachers Union school branch president, I wish my union would represent the vast majority of its members and spend more time negotiating effective workload agreements. It seems to spend far to much time trying to further a wide range of socially "progressive" policies that are supported by a minority of teachers. The result is diminishing union membership and support in schools.

The fact is that there is NO state curriculum at all ! There are mountains of plans in "eduspeak" called guidelines and standards along with bits an pieces called "exemplars" - but NO approved courses of study in ANY subject at ANY year level that guides teachers lesson by lesson through a years instruction. The result is a "make it up as you go" smorgasbord.

National curriculum needed

2007-02-12T04:21:00.000-08:00

One problem in the debate on the proposal for a national curriculum is that people have such different ideas of what a curriculum is !
I have been teaching for nearly 25 years and every few years the Victorian Education Department trots out an amazing new ‘curriculum" that justifies the salaries of the Minister and the bureaucracy.
Most recently we have VELS ! Victorian Essential Learning Standards. Don’t get me wrong - this new plan is full of great ideas ! So was the last one – Frameworks II, and the one before that Framework I and the one before that etc. etc.
The trouble is that none of these curriculum standards or guidelines actually detail a course of study. They are just "standards", "guides", "support". The Department doesn’t work with publishers to produce approved courses of study. It’s senior officers openly express disapproval of any single published textbook or course.
Each school around the state is expected to cobble together a patchwork quilt curriculum that meets the new standards from a range of sources that don’t !
Teachers "at the chalkface", desperately need national courses of study so that we can begin to spend some more time on teaching, rather than continuously "re-inventing wheels".

Motivational Speaker: Far Worse than a waste of time

2007-02-11T06:39:00.000-08:00

Adolescents are very attracted to risks such as drugs, sex, violence that allow them to express their rebellion against the adult culture that has ruled them for so many years and which threatens to absorb them - they want to become adults with a bang, not a whimper.

The speaker we heard yesterday, held their attention because he had honed a performance that appealed to such an audience. Listen to the cool life of Bxxxxx who has done all the bad things that you only dream of - and is here as a happy and healthy adult survivor. The words tell them not to follow, but the subliminal message is far stronger - go to the limit because then you will feel that you have really lived before you settle into the adult straightjacket of famly responsibility.

The vast majority of the speech was his "How cool am I" life story. The occasional clichéd advice was thrown in. He lost his way in his own story (a by product he told the student of his cool drug addiction phase). He spoke of his first months in Pentridge as a wonderful time. He spoke of his time working with disturbed adolescent girls as the time when he learnt so much more than university. As he delivered the ultimate "Me generation" soliloquy, he predictably spat on selfishness and consumerism and any other issue that he felt might build some agreement with his audience.

The whole message was that society was crap. Traditional achievement paths were crap. I am fantastic BECAUSE I have violently rejected everything my parents, school and society offered me EVEN though I was such a success. AND it was all OK because I could blame the whole destructive adventure on my parents who didn't love me enough.

Too be truly "life experienced" you too can plum the depths of depravity and survive to be a successful adult.

Oh and by the way - get a "mentor" an she'll be right mate !

When are we going to stop hiring such trash to speak in schools !

Reducing school suspensions not always a sign of improvement

2007-02-08T04:30:00.000-08:00

Julie Bishop (Bishop targets school performance February 08, 2007) is on the right track when she calls for publication of key school performance measures. The opposition to the idea mainly stems from the fact that government schools, particulary in Victoria, have so little local control over where and how they improve. Take suspension data as an example. Suspension is a signal to parents that their child has temporarily lost their right to attend school due to misbehaviour. Some students, with problems way beyond the resposibility or power of the school, repeat highly disruptive behaviour again and again. In Victoria, schools belong to the government, not communities, and so are forced to keep such students virtually regardless of repeated misbehaviour. School leaders may be keen to reduce suspension rates, but as expulsion is virtually impossible, they see the only way as lowering standards and accepting an increasingly dysfuncional behavioural diversity.

"Growth" and "Develpment" - the twin evils

2007-02-04T14:41:00.000-08:00

The "inconvenient solution' to the planetary problems that beset us is of course "sustainability".

The planetary problem lies in the cross-cultural pervasiveness of the deadly enemies of sustainability - "growth" and "development".
Unfortunately, the "haves" in all human societies preserve their position only by encouraging the "have nots" to fantasise that they will benefit eventually from growth and development. The aspirations of the common people in China and India are likely to accelerate this planetary destruction. The "developed" world is still in denial thinking of more and more irresponsible ways to achieve the ludicrous goal of "sustainable growth".
Politicians get ever more strident as they want you to accept props to the continued insanity of growth such as nuclear power, recycled water, ever higher density housing, These "developments" are far more like a desperate fix for a addiction, than ecologically desirable and sustainable improvements for the planet.

Education – everyone’s had one so everyone’s an expert.

2007-02-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

Opinion pieces by John Roskam (The Age, Jan 31) proposes parents would make government schools better if they were paying for it, and John Keating (Jan 31) proposes to merge the last years of secondary schools with other institutions to make them more flexible. Neither are government school teachers. Indeed, current teachers contribute only a minority of letters. In my 25 years experience their opinions are never sincerely sought – much better to design questionnaires that provide options within policy, than find out what people real at the chalkface really think. My fictitious poll question would be “What is the major factor that prevents you and your school from performing better ?” 89% of teachers would say “Government regulation and policy” and the diminishing remainder would be found to be applying for promotion and thus too scared to comment on the nakedness of the emperor. Over my decades, governments have continued to pile more and more regulations and responsibilities on schools while providing less and less guidance. Take curriculum: we don’t one ! We have a new set of “standards” deliberately vague so that curriculum developers have flexibility (e.g. Maths - Working mathematically - Standard 3.75: “Knowledge of appropriate historical information”). Unfortunately, the government is not willing to approve any of the curricula developed by publishers and strongly implies that those published are against the spirit of the standards. Teachers are left to write a new curriculum from scratch. Only the old hands remember the educational disaster of the 1980’s “school based curriculum”. The alternative is to use the published curricula and mash it up into some form that will appease the government regulations. Needless to say most such experiments rob the curriculum of quality, coherence and, of course, rigor.
The central problem these vage standards are attempting to address is the increasingly dysfunctional levels of social diversity. “Diversity” is actually a government goal – “valuing diversity”. Unfortunately, diversity is only desirable in certain areas and degrees – alternative cuisine cf. inability to accept women in authority; alternative style of expression cf. using fists to solve problems. Over decades governments have been rewriting educational regulations and standards more and more frequently and desperately as the raw materials in government schools become more and more “diverse”. Students who don’t learn must be promoted from year to year (government regulation). Students who endanger the learning of others must have more time (= money) spent on them at the expense of other students
I am lucky to teach in a school that has developed a school ethos supported by a community that has its own standards which are only very slowly being eroded by government policy. If you are in the right enrolment area, you can get into a government school that has similar control of it’s “diversity”. An alternative increasingly chosen is to buy into a non-government school where diversity wonderfully encouraged – within very well defined limits !.
Oh! You heartless traitor ! Heartless: What do you propose to do with those for those that fall outside the limits of your local school definition of “diversity” ? Traitor: Don’t you understand that anything other than effusive praise of government schools is disloyalty ? Full answers to these and other questions just don’t fit into the letters column.
The simplest advice I can give is for parents to fight for local control of the school standards in curriculum and behaviour against a government that increasingly does more harm than good.

Motives for publishing - Citation vs Copyright

2006-12-03T23:52:00.000-08:00

I think that Ted Gannan (Publishing Studies, No.2) makes a serious and socially damaging mistake when he fails to acknowledge other motives than the "economic incentive to write and create".
Publishing is the final product of a series of human motivations.
I take as an axiom the desire to know. This is a instinct encouraged and guided to serve a culture. Many people express this only by seeking information of obvious relevance to their work-a-day lives. Others realise both the impossibility of predicting future utility, and the ability of the human brain to create new concepts seemingly greater than their knowledge base. The seed of many important discoveries has been in the ability of some person to put together many disparate pieces of knowledge in a new way. The breadth of knowledge of these individuals is often as important to sparking this discovery as the depth of knowledge about theis speciality.
Humans are a technological curiosity in part because we seem to have broken the evolutionary chain that links curiosity with obvious survival value and we desire to know everyone elses business as well as our own. We study the most esoteric subjects for the pure joy of speculation and the exercise of reason.
The desire to express one's view is a basic instinct born at the same moment we discover communication tools whether they be vocal cords or the internet. If you can grunt you grunt in a personal style using (or helping to create) some recognised system of meaning by which others can receive your message. If you can, you will grunt something new (or nearly always, something built on the work of others to which you have contributed some new element).
Some expressions become socially important by chance or design - immediatelly or in a hundred years. Examples abound in writing, painting, music and other modes of expression. In the same way, some expressions become ecomomically important by chance or design sooner or later.
Economics truly raelises its epithet as the "dismal science" when it attemps to discount the importance of all motivations other than profit. This is a philosophical hangover from the mechanistic beleifs of the key prophets of economics in the 1700's. In areas of the world where its hollow offers of rationalism and "world best practice" are heeded, it rapidly erodes any expressions of human culture that cannot be used to generate profit.
A corollary of the desire to express one's view is the desire to influence others and the world, and to be recognised for doing so. The desire to be remembered (for good or ill) becomes more and more addictive the closer the person comes to acheiveing it. More commonly, this motivation can appeal to anyoine whose life options may depend on recognition by others - that is, everyone ! Ted Gannan's career may be greatly assisted by large scale (illicit) copying of his article and its subsequent citation all over the world. The World Wide Web (WWW - a much more organic and poetic label than the "Internet") allows a huge number of people to attempt this, and thus it reads like a textual Babel, or as Hilary McPhee puts it "a gigantic slush pile in hyperspace".
The economic motivcation for creativity is a potent force indeed, but tertiary to the above human desires.
An analysis of the history of key published works in all fields would reveal this, as it does in mathematics and science.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) is a fascinating case showing how all three motives are usually competing within he same complex human (in contrast to the image of the simple mechanistivc economic animal). His work on the movement of planetary bodies was motivted by the religious desire to know the mind of his god more closely than through the reading of god's text (the Bible) alone.
He desired to celebrate this by communicating to the world. He knew that such important knowledge was dangerous, but the enduring laurel of "first to know" was worth the risk. He paid a heavy price.
He also knew that important publications in both cosmic and earthly subjects would improve his authority, his career and, yes, important, but last and least, his finances. He did take great pains to defend his authorship of good little earners like his miltary comapss and its instruction manual. Again his motives seemed to include both the outrage against plaigarism (i.e. absence of citation) as well as the effect on the sales of his own product. But he spent as much energy ensuring that he was accknowledged as the first to see the moons of Jupiter. Unfortunately for publishers, there is no copyright available on that type of vision.
The most important issue is not the republishing of digitally stored materials, but the need to ensure citation of those materials.
This seems like a minor issue because there is (currently) no charge for citation. It's importance lies in its human cultiral value. It acknowledges and usualy compliments the work of others. Imitation is a sincere for of flattery (Who said that first ?). It puts a social constraint on copying where the purpose may be turned to profit. It is good manners - and what are manners other than attempts to avoid unnecessary conflict - legal or otherwise ?
Most importantly, citation satisfies the human desire to communicate (the author experiences the delights of seeing his words, images, sounds etc. multiply and spread under their own power) as well as the desire to be recognised and remembered as an influence on the world.
Copyright may be the bread and butter of the publisher, but it is the icing on the cake for the author.
The Author: Stephen Digby, Bachelor of Science Degree (Monash University); Diploma in Education, (Victoria College), Graduate Diploma in Computer Education (Victoria College). Stephen has worked in primary, technical and high Schools in Victoria as a teacher, computer education, maths and science consultant for 16 years. His other career experiences include managing a Computer Education Teacher Training Centre, working as a writer for the Information Technology Study of the Victorian Certificate of Education, and teaching mathematics in the USA. He is currently Maths Co-ordinator of the Castlemaine Secondary College, Victoria.

Copyright Law continues to be an ass

2006-11-15T23:48:00.000-08:00

"Singing Happy Birthday is illegal"

As Dicken's noted, the law has always been an ass.
When you sit down to Monopoly you sometimes renegotiate a rule or two by mutual agreement, but most of the rules are set by the manufacturer.
Society is a bit like that - we didn't get to make the vast complex web of rules that govern us, we just get to tinker democratically with a few things at the edge while the manufacturers continue to make most of the important decisions. Most people just ignore the rules that they do not agree with and hope that they do not get caught..... unfortunately, as with drug laws, if there is a significant minority that does not agree with the law, these people begin to collect to gether and separate from the mainstream in many other ways creating what we often call a "subculture". Thus the drug subcultures, the peer to peer subcultures etc. that danger for society is that many other influences and opportunists also work within these subcultures and the outcomes are often unpredictable and socially divisive and damaging(e.g. crime, lack of compliance and trust of police etc, lack of regard for other laws etc).
Thus the need to work to oppose laws that are flouted openly (and has socially accepted) OR to change the social acceptance (as has been done in my generation with drink driving).
I think that the possibly of changing the social acceptance of music sharing is very unlikely..... sounds more like alcohol prohibition than drink driving.

Punish or protect ? Councils that "protect" trees out of existence...

2006-10-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

The proposed control will serve the developers purpose perfectly. THEY will not be constrained as they will be merely get a paid arborists report that no council oficer would dare to negate (or spend our money repudiating). Failing this they will go to VCAT and get what they want. They will also win because the rest of the community will do the work of maintining the remaining leaves under close bureacratic supervision from an even more bloated and officious council.

The developers will also win as the community will again be lulled into a false sense of security (as we see from the letters columns and this discussion) that this regulation will actually affect the real plunderers...

This regulation is designed to make 2030 look more palatable ! There is no consideration of changing the site coverage back to reasonable percentage. There is no consideration of supporting trees with a council blanket cover for tree related damage or injury etc etc..

This proposal is the worst type of bureacracy - pointless, expensive and directed at all when the target should be the few.

Speech by Stephen Digby to Public Hearing by Camberwell Council regarding a proposed "Tree Protection" bylaw - Monday, 28 August 2006

Quick Guide on how to anger residents…..
· Step 1: draft a bylaw that appoints a council officer as arbiter of the aesthetics of our back yards while the council allows hideously inappropriate developments within and creeping out from our commercial zones. They can’t improve the taste of developers but they can supervise yours !
· Step 2: Draft a by-law that requires council officers to maintain registers; inspect pruning and lopping where they feel like it; write notices of instruction; keep records of their decisions
· hold meeting about their decisions (probably with lawyers !). All while council merrily increases our rates. “Public service” starts to stand for an empire of interference by an officious super nanny.
· Step 3: draft a by-law substantially similar to previous proposals that encountered great community opposition. Sir Humphrey Appleby certainly has remarkable patience and persistence in getting his way in the face of ignorant electors
· Step 4: draft a by-law knowing that, not only will if annoy, inconvenience and cost residents, but that it will NOT solve the real problem. Residents know that the real problem is the ability of developers to raze a home to the ground when it covers less than half the land, and profit from the 2030 law by covering the “lot” with buildings so that there is no change of a real garden with significant trees
In Summary, this law is bureaucratic in the extreme; ineffectual in that any developer will exploit its many escape clauses; anti-democratic in that Sir Humphrey proposes to propose it until we damn well give in
So what is the alternative ?
Let's accept that the council is impotent in addressing the real issues i.e. the Bracks Government taking over planning controls (like Kew, Tooronga, and soon the junction and even the Station), and the Bracks government stacking the VCAT board to make a joke of council planning decisions.
The Boroondara Action Group (BRAG) has many alternative suggestions for improving our leafy suburb. These have been collected from interested residents who take action for themselves as well as supporting us in many campaigns.
Alternatives to ineffectual bureaucracy are many - and include:
- tree protection triggered by any change in ownership or land use so that developers are targetted
If the council wants to acknowledge that trees grown by residents on private land have contributed to the community, then why not help the tree growing residents rather than penalising them:
- rate relief to reward and encourage those that maintain a significant canopy tree cover - sort of Camberwell Carbon credits !
- support for tree growers such as seedlings, tree management, tree pruning.

I recommend that you reject this costly window dressing that paints the Camberwell gardener as the culprit, and send a message to the council to get off the back of the responsible tree growing residents and do what they are paid for: Find a way to address the destruction of trees by overdevelopment all over Boroondara.

Change in education - IT and snake oil - Shift happens

2006-09-23T06:46:00.000-07:00

"Live with it" "Embrace it" This is often the mantra of educationa evangalists and deparetment hacks seeking to convinec more senior staff to put their effort into making the latest silly half baked idea work.
These same proselytizers suddenly blanch at other changes that they do not want to accept such as :
the community is voting with its feet for privatized (user pays) education - Shift happens. You can't deny it or legislate against it. Live with it. Embrace it.
the community and the national government want student progress reports expressed as a single index (A-F) in relation to objective benchmarks - Shift happens. You can't deny it or legislate against it. Live with it. Embrace it.
most school communities want their schools to exclude students who damage the opportunity or safety of other students. Schools who don't do this (esp. government schools) are not attractive to parents with choices - Shift happens. You can't deny it or legislate against it. Live with it. Embrace it.

I could go on......

Most experienced educators are very selective about embracing "change". The changes that they embrace are usually those that fit their personal values and their career aspirations.
The current line management of educational structures has created an atmosphere where to "talk the talk" is essential to getting promotion. Thus, the hegemony of ideas from the "authorities' has come to mean the employer.

IT is an obvious case where there is more money, and therefore more "snake oil" than most areas of the curriculum. To retain some intellectual credibility and autonomy, it is wise to ensure that the benefits of "change" are evaluated in an objective sense rather than accepted as articles of faith in the vision of the current politician.
All proposed changes need to be evaluated. Few changes are improvements.

Reasoning by analogy proves too complex for most.

2006-08-29T00:56:00.000-07:00

Analogy is a powerful tool in reasoning.
An analogy can nearly always be extended "ad absurdum" by an contrary listener. The purpose of analogy is thus misunderstood.
In some cases, the purpose is to allow a point of view to be considered without the emotional baggage and pre-judgement ("prejudice") that accompanies the original context.e.g. let's imagine that you come home and find another family in your lounge. Many people can honestly evaluate their reactions to this event because there is no learnt "politically correct" response. They can agree that feelings of anger may be felt, may indeed be justified. They may not agree to let the family stay despite hearing their sad story and hearing them threaten to take desperate measures. Indeed, the more desperate the story and the threats, the more frightening the prospect of allowing them to stay. Now, imagine that the family in your lounge were anglo-saxon Australians !Such analogies allow reflection on some aspects of a situation that otherwise would never be rationally considered. Of course, all analogies have limits.
Analogy, can of course be used to raise the emotional stakes and cloud rational judgement as well. One of the most frequently used contexts for this purpose is the Nazi party.e.g. So you want me to wear a uniform.... just like the Nazi's did. etc etc.
But there can be more subtle contexts which play on multiple emotions. E.g. when discussing educational funding analogies and examples can bechosen to build on the guilt people may feel for their own privileged education; the envy of those who were educated at poorer schools; the anger at governments that squander public monies on educational systems with so little reaching the schools and classrooms; the powerlessness parents feel in the face of schools that are responsive only to the governments that distribute public funds - but not to their local "public".
Multiple simultaneous analogy is also useful to highlight the complexity of a situation. This is frequently used in science where polemic is usually less acceptable and the only constant is uncertainty.e.g. the behaviour of light follows mathematically formulas based on an analogy with tiny imaginary particles. It also simultaneously obeys rules based on an analogy with waves.
Taking an analogy to absurd lengths does not illustrate its failure. It merely illustrates the reluctance of the listener to to stand outside the prejudice and explore another viewpoint.Decisions in politics, the courts, and in life are made on the balance obtained by giving different weight to a variety of rich analogies

Peace at last.. but will it last ?

2006-08-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

After the war, Israeli soldiers will now be attacked from civilian positions at close range as well as long range. Firing back will continue to be categorised as a war crime.

After the war, the self styled "Arab Countries", and self styled "Muslim World" will have renewed vigor in their claim that all the troubles in their oil rich dictatorships are the result of a Zionist conspiracy.

After the war, the "Arab street" will continue to be single minded on most issues where to speak an opposing view may result in immediate death from the mob. After the war, an unrepresentative but unopposed group of mosques within the "Free World" will continue to build the modern "culture of complaint" into a full blown psychosis within selected young Muslims.

If peace is merely the absence of war, then it will be short indeed.

Nuclear Power needed to feed the growth addiction

2006-08-08T15:18:00.000-07:00

The re-invention of the nuclear industry is being sold as the great hope for powering the third world into the same consumption patterns that we enjoy. They are hoping that we will feel that denying the third world this power (look at the religious nut, Ahmadinejad peddling this line, so he can get a bomb to hasten the return of Mohammed).
The best strategy to oppose the insanity of growth is to continue to oppose the nuclear power industry.

Global warming is (hopefully) the great key that will at last give the anti-growth component of the conservative green and anti-globalisation movements more power.

Turkey slapping - should Big Brother Australia be banned from TV

2006-08-05T15:20:00.000-07:00

See: 2006-07-05 Shun the crass, but why ban - The Age

I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, but disapproval of values or practices do not constitute valid reasons for banning.

They are valid reasons for political pressure on media companies to "self-regulate" or "self-censor". There is nothing unhealthy about self-censorship being "encouraged" by an estimate of the level of reaction from the community. It is far better to guide social practice through these "intuitive" assessments of "the right thing to do" (and what happens if I don't !) than through vain attempts to write laws. Legal codes do provide some protection when brokering within cultures that have very high levels of diversity (or very low levels of tolerance). But, their complexity and the impossibility of defining all possible present and future circumstances make them increasingly oppressive, inefficient and increasingly counterproductive.Annie knows, as most "right-minded" people, that Big Brother should never have been put to air - but it represents a drift along a continuum rather than clean break with the past. The law would fail to make a distinction.Just imagine the response to my plea:"The AFL's values undermine us all and are more dangerous that terrorism; The AFL's misguides the audience; The AFL's exploits the participants; The AFL's values are shallow and untrue and lead to unhappiness; The AFL inspires terrorists and me to despise our society; The AFL diverts attention away from important issues affecting peoples lives; The AFL is an insidious diversion from the real loss of freedom of speech in the proposed cross media law reform proposals; The AFL is a right wing diversion to confuse people about issues of freedom of speech and choice; I have a friend who works for the AFL is ashamed and wants it to stop; I don't know how to keep my spirits up when I think of the AFL; Howard appears to have moral fibre by attacking the AFL and that is good for John Howard, particularly now that Costello has confirmed that he is a liar and has no moral fibre"Not far off my real sentiments !! And most statements taken separately would be defensible. To me, Howard is right but far too faint-hearted. He should begin a debateShould Big Brother be censored ?
Issues:
Censorship: Should it occur at all ?
Every society on earth exercises formal or informal censorship. Those who profess to be against all censorship, merely wish to see censorship relaxed. When confronted with clear (and real) extremities, they resile (choose one or more from a list including: child pornography, extreme violence, incitement to treason/ terrorism/ racial violence). The total absence of censorship would mean that the representation, recording and communication of acts of evil would be sanctioned as long as the communicator had no part in the act itself e.g. I would be free to sell a movie of a child being sexually assaulted and killed as long as I had no part in its production, or it was a simulation. Western societies have already drifted quite close to this ludicrous situation due to the inability of any law to deal with any continuum - as there is no clear line in logic or language, the line is defined in terms of social acceptance. Commercialism ensures that social acceptance is continually widened (the boundary events are always the most profitable e.g. "turkey slapping" so they are given greatest exposure and thus create social acceptance in readiness for the next relaxation of standards). Countries dominated by Muslim rulers are rightly contemptuous of the degraded nature of our media where the word "freedom" is indeed nothing more than "license".
Answer: Most definitely !

If, yes under what circumstances ?
The kernel of the debate ! Again, we return to the two major deficiencies of democracy - that it is prone to populism (especially in Australia due to a strong anti-intellectual strain in our culture) and that it can lead to a dictatorship by a majority. A populist can argue that only "wowsers", the "stuck up" or "killjoys" would want to stop "Big Brother Uncut" or the film Baise-moi etc. The argument rests on the "common-sense" belief that "I could watch it and not be harmed". This argument neglects both the cumulative effect of small exposures as well as the social effect on the whole society when just one person is tipped into criminality by the exposure. The populist would use the principle that government should only interfere with freedom as an extreme last resort, while stressing the widespread perception that the law is steadily eroding basic freedoms. Thus the banning of a film would be yet another interference, and worth opposing in principle regardless of the merits of the film.
Answer: Censorship should only used where communication would result in significant demonstrable harm to the viewer or to the producer. The viewer may claim that no harm will arise, but if it can be demonstrated that significant harm results from the viewing, then censorship would be justified e.g. children viewing sex or violence may say that they are not harmed but if measurements of attitudes or actions reveal significant harm, then censorship from these viewers would be justified.

Does use of a limited public asset (TV broadcasting frequency) imply a public duty to do good (or at least do no harm) ?
Television is currently a special case because the public licenses to broadcast are currently limited, unlike the capacity to print newspapers or provide online content. Within the next decade, this distinction will disappear as the ability to offer video information to the world will available to nearly every individual (just as the ability to offer text and images to the world is now).In the meantime, there is a strong argument that these limited licenses should be used to contribute to the public good, and certainly should do no harm. It would seem unreasonable to argue that limited public assets should be given to those with no consideration to the public good - even though that is in fact the current situation.
Answer: Yes

Is Big Brother morally or socially good, bad or neutral ?
The central purpose of Big Brother is to create stress by: isolating them from their normal social support networks (people, work, recreations); by ordering them to complete meaningless tasks in a highly competitive environment with the powerful reward and punishment of large sums of money; to deliberately encourage them to act co-operatively while requiring them to be disloyal to win the game; to stress the importance of popularity over principle through the anonymous shallow judgment of public voting; to encourage voyeurism through the exposure of highly personal activities to the public; ... to name a few.
Big Brother is a classic example of the strong tendency of globalization (in this case, media globalization) to actively undermine cultural autonomy in order to promote globally consistent markets. It also demonstrates that commercialism has a strong tendency to lower any standards of practice (moral standards, safety standards, employment standards etc) due to the absence of any guide to action other than the one dimensional inhuman measure of profit.
Answer: Big Brother is unequivocally bad.

Does Big Brother fall under the general justification for censorship
Any free society must tolerate a very wide range of "bad" (e.g. risky motor bike rides, cigarettes, table top dancing) because so much of the "pursuit of happiness" involves them. All these "bad" activities are controlled (and often taxed !) by society to some extent in recognition and compensation for their "badness". Nevertheless, they are tolerated as essential ingredients of freedom. Big Brother is definitely in this category. There are already (totally ineffective) restrictions on the broadcast times of its worst aspects (Big Brother uncut).
Answer: No. The argument for demonstrable harm could be made in relation to many of the aspects mentioned above, but the relatively mild degree (in our debauched society) would ensure that any "average" or "reasonable" person would not ban the show.

Does Big Brother meet the higher duty implied by TV broadcast license ?
If governments asserted the novel view that public assets should contribute to the public good, then Big Brother would certainly be a case for a review of the broadcasting license. Unfortunately, the normal experience over the last few decades is that government only regulates for harm minimization rather than promotion of public good. The reason that governments rarely do this anymore is bound up in the retreat from any "shared values". To promote something is to reveal that it is valued. To value a something specific (even such as "motherhood") is anti-diverse, a slur on all "non-mothers". Governments much prefer to be thanked for fixing a hundred problems, rather than be blamed for planning a healthier happier society that does not provide a solution to every problem.
Answer: No. While TV is still broadcast using a restricted public asset, Big Brother contradicts the requirement to contribute to the public good and to do no harm. therefore it should not be broadcast on public television.

Are there other social control mechanisms which could prevent broadcasts that harm ?
"Just change the channel" is a common response from defenders of Big Brother. This is of course, an effective method of social control. In some countries it has been used to partial effect. Other strategies have included street protests. Other strategies could be tried (such as the successful lobbying against advertisers used by the US Moral Majority). The strategies commonly promoted by the "left" such as "direct action" could also be effective - e.g. physical invasion of the studio and disruption of the broadcast. I support such actions, in exactly the same way as I support most industrial action, as part of the variety pressure valves needed to maintain a healthy democratic society. All of these strategies require sacrifice by the citizens involved (e.g. pay, fines, freedom, amusing TV viewing). These sacrifices need to me made willingly without compensation if the society is to remain responsive and avoid extremes through complacency. I hope someone tries some of them in Australia.

Conclusions: Censorship is necessary in every society. Where to "draw the line" is always a matter for debate. The line is being actively and continuously redrawn by the forces of evil (globalization and commercialization). Use of public broadcast licenses require a higher duty of care than for print or internet. Big brother is definitely bad. Big Brother should not be censored. Big brother should not be shown on public TV. Direct action should be supported in order to discourage bad social tendencies such as Big Brother.

Growth addiction trumps democracy

2006-07-31T15:14:00.000-07:00

The Beattie government of the state of Queensland in Australia wasted no time in showing its contempt for democracy after the defeat of the proposal to feed Toowoomba residents recycled sewerage water.
In response to the local community rejection, the government immediately announced that it would arange a new poll involving a larger area to overrule the community vote.

This approach is symptomatic of the widespread trend to consider that the people are merely cyphers for the plans of their elected leaders. If the community rejects one of our propsals, we will use their money and resources to bring it up again and again until the opposition is exhausted.

Usually there is a decent interval to give the appearance that the proposal need to be revisited due to changed circumstances since the last vote. In this case, there is no such pretence. There is perceptible anger that the people dared to reject the well thought out plans for their future made by their betters.
This behaviour is repeated countless times in countless countries, states and municipalities around the world. As democracy is considered to be a poor guide to the solution of complex problems, managerialism becomes paramount. Managers will do anything to keep the business on course for growth. Democratic leaders would consider that their role is to give power to the voice of the people - not thwart it.
In your local area - in your state - in our country, are you governemed by "elected representatives" with your interests at heart or "managers" who decide what is best for you ?

Over Development Risks Tree Loss

2006-07-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

The Middle-East Buttons - Reverse, Endless Loop or Forward

2006-07-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

The flaring of the middle-east conflict developed as a classic escalating "tit-for-tat".

The Palestinian Government (lead by the Hamas organization) began the escalation after the economic isolation lead by Israel caused them to abandon the ceasefire and mount a tunnel attack on Israeli forced.
The Israelis responded with their own escalation to pressure for the return of the captured Israeli serviceman.
Hamas attempted responses but was literally outgunned in any open confrontation.
Hamas then enlisted Hezbollah which began attacks on Israeli military and civilian positions from Lebanon. The Lebanese government, only recently freed from Syrian control, was unable to spark confrontation with the Hezbollah forces along the Israeli border, and refused to accept responsibility for the acts of war mounted from their territory.
Israel was faced with acts of war on two fronts from forces that deliberately embedded themselves within the civilian population, thus ensuring civilian casualties would accompany any attacks on guerilla forces.
The attitude of the global press and most political leaders was motivated by a desire for the conflict to stop for humanitarian and economic reasons (e.g. oil price escalation).
As both Hezbollah and Hamas are recognized extremist organizations which encourage and celebrate suicidal missions, the only "rationale" power to plead with is Israel. Thus, the pressure is heavily weighted against Israel.
The rational and historical precendents for Israel's actions are innumerable - nations have always visited "collective" punishment on the populace of other hostile nations.
The complexity here is that the nations are waging war by proxy (in the case of the Palestinians through a variety of guerilla and terrorist subgroups) and by default (in the case of Lebanon through an inability to control the multiple guerilla armies within their borders).

What to do....

The criticism of Israel is often framed as "disproportionate" response. From my reading of the "tit-for-tat", Israel has made far more effort to target installation and people with military value than have the attacks from Palestinian or Lebanese land.
Israel needs to continue a "measured" destructive pressure until there is a change in attitudes of the opposing leaders or the Palestinian and Lebanese populace demand the guerrillas are brought under national control.
The UN should seek a unilateral ceasefire and then negotiate the release of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners. The key sticking point here is the difference between a guerilla and a terrorist.
In my view, a terrorist does not act on the instruction of a state, and targets civilians rather than military or infrastructure.
A guerilla acts on the instruction of a state OR political organization but DOES target military or infrastructure.
I believe that the term "state terrorism" is rhetoric in that it attempts to equate modern terrorism with actions taken by virtually all nations over the past millennia (e.g. acts of total war designed to sap the morale of an enemy nation by deliberately targeting the civilian population through the sword, disease, ground and air bombardment etc etc).
Israel should attempt to make this distinction when negotiating the release of its soldiers so as to prevent the distinction being lost.
History is showing us (in particular in the last decades of the 20 century up to the present) that attempts to mix significant percentages of radically different cultures within one society is doomed to failure UNLESS the society experiences change so rapid that the individual cultures are disrupted and mixed.
I would describe the endpoint as a mono-culture with different ethnic flavors.

The best option for the curing of the Middle-East epidemic is:

the physical isolation of the patients from each other for a half century or more (the Israeli wall may drawn unfairly, but it is the best strategy)
the reduction and cessation of cross border labor movement in & out of Israel, causing pain for both Palestinian and Israeli economy's but essential to the reduction of opportunities for terrorism, and the encouragement to refocusing and possible relocation towards neighboring states.
the economic development of each remaining territory using the resources of neighboring Arab states (e.g. citizenship and economic help should be given by Egypt to all Gaza residents; by Jordan to all West Bank residents)
the reduction in population density in high density poverty-stricken areas (birth rate reduction strategies, encouragement for within neighboring states.

We can only hope....

Recycled Sewerage to drink - growth demands a different solution !

2006-06-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

The heroin addict is so desperate to get a fix that responsible or even rational behaviour is forgotten. Only the presence of the drug can restore their sense of normality.

The growth addicts are the same. The trouble is that they are so numerous - possibly a majority of Australians. "Without continued growth, the world will fall apart !" "Growth = development = progress = ?"
The toxic effects of growth addiction take many forms. In Toowoomba, it is the desperate proposal to use recycled sewerage for drinking water. In Canberra, another desperate proposal is being developed to feed insatiable growth with irresponsible development of nuclear energy. In most local communities, there are a myriad of smaller issues where we are being given the same message - "There is no other way !" "Future development requires our sacrifice now !"
Ask yourself, why is it that so many modern "developments" are reluctantly accepted in "this day and age" rather than welcomed and celebrated. The reason is that most "development" is not progress at all. It is the addict's reluctant stooping - giving up that last assett to "feed the habit".
Toowoomba may accept the need to drink their own refined sewerage. We all should ask ourselves - what's the next sacrifice to the growth addiction

IT, ICT, LT - Where do they fit in education ?

2006-06-20T02:42:00.000-07:00

"Information Technology (IT)" and "Information and Communications Technology (ICT)" refer to a "discipline". i.e. a coherent section of the taxonomy of human knowledge mirrored by separate university departments and dedicated sections of many businesses as well as being the focus of a rather large industry.
"Learning Technology (LT)" refers to a service provided to disciplines (like the library or does anyone remember the AVRB ?) where skills and knowledge are provided to students and teachers so that they can achieve higher standards. The skills and knowledge themselves are usually NOT the core business.
The problem/ confusion/ angst etc. arise from the fact that being both continuously novel and ubiquitous, technology BECOMES part of core business in all subjects. We are talking about "information" technologies (which automatically include the unnecessary fashionable "C" tag) for the past 50 years. We may well be talking about biotech in the next 100 (Would we still call them computers if they lived inside us ?)
In maths, computer solution of algebra is not only an accepted part of modern academic proofs, but also required for students to be competitive. Just as effective use of the Kay & Laby Log Tables, or a slide rule, or a compass and rule were in olden times.
The problem/ confusion/ angst etc. arise from the fact that the technology is so new that it is only partly differentiated. Currently, a very large number of applications is served by a single type of physical machine. This encouraged centralization of resources as the most efficient way of serving multiple needs (central shared computer rooms are cheaper than duplication and specialization around the school).
As equipment differentiates to meet special needs AND becomes more and more frequently required in each study, we have had a management move to "pods" as a more efficient way of getting technology close to the learner as well as attempting to force teachers to allow more student autonomy (movement and self-directed study).
This trend will increase until computers are in high numbers in all classrooms and/or in personal possession of all students.

Where does this leave "IT teachers" ? As IT resources grow, there will be an increasing need for teachers to be encouraged and assisted to use them effectively. There is "technical coaching" (efficient use regardless of purpose) and "educational coaching" (effective use for education). These coaching approaches should always be combined. Otherwise techs can end up as teachers aides actually slowing skill development ("why learn how to use the projector, when I can get a tech anytime I need one ?").
Thus IT teachers should fulfill roles like many other curriculum specialists in trailblazing, providing on site formal PD, but MOST importantly, providing on site assistance at the point of readiness to any teacher needing help and guidance in effective educational use of the technology. Without this approach, we will continue down the path of abuse that has virtually killed the reputation of the "video" as an educational aide. Remember, technological power has no relationship to application - I remember the TV being introduced to Australia as a wonderful medium for the education of all Australians ! The internet has already duplicated this level of intellectual corruption. i.e. "IT specialist" should become an extra "tag" in schools that recognizes (and rewards ?) teachers who can provide on site advice and PD in particular educational techniques and technologies.

VELs has placed "ICT" very firmly as "Interdisciplinary" i.e. NOT a discipline. VEL's has merged the 1980's tags of "Learning With" (open ended learning tool); "Learning About" (study of IT as a formal discipline) and "Learning From" (computer based learning packages - mainly sold privately to parents these days). Thus, the subject looks intellectually vague and subservient to "real" disciplines. Even at VCE, the subject continues to be a mix of historical demands to provide training for the workforce cf. education for the citizen (these are VERY different concepts still hard fought even after the demise of Tech schools, the rise of TAFE and VET and now CAL).

I believe that IT teachers should continue to promote the study of IT as a discipline. But, here the current courses are far more problematic. Many of them have been justifiably criticized as vehicles for the promotion of teacher skill sets. Courses are often constructed on the basis of "what am I expert in" rather than "what should student be taught". More innovative teachers have followed the course design maxim of "what do the students want to do ?" which is a basic course design question - among many.
IT course changes have been at the mercy of a number of factors: a sense of vulnerability; a growth in the desire to improve student engagement by sliding into the pit of "give them what they say they want"; the increase in middle school curriculum structures that decide on courses based on student enrolments (votes); increasing admin budgets for "tech toys" allowing courses with extreme costs per student to proceed in IT when they would not be considered in any other area; hype promoted from high levels of government that "if it is ICT, it is highly educational" (try this statement for logical comparison "if it is on TV, it is highly educational").

IT discipline courses have a CENTRAL focus on the science and technology of IT itself (see the contents list of any encyclopedia (e.g. Wikipedia). There are 100 ways to skin a cat, but an understanding of these concepts, fundamental science & technologies must be central. Otherwise, it is just learning Visual Basic for fun; or learning databases for ??; or learning PowerPoint for pretty presentations; or (more recently) learning how to make better home movies etc etc.
VCE IT is likely to survive as a useful subject for middle of the road students to get some IT skills and confidence prior to the workforce, or more able students to do a year ahead as a dry run for their year 12. Most informed teachers and careers counselors will encourage able students interested in tertiary IT qualifications to study higher maths and sciences at year 12.

The other alternative for IT teachers is in creating essential "interdisciplinary" skill sets and making the case that they are most efficiently and effectively delivered by IT teachers as a separate subject at some year level(s). I think that this may work for a short time (especially where it ties in with the needs of the timetable to maximally utilize all available staff). Sooner rather than later, the "disciplines" will want to integrate the special skills within the actual context of their use.

Culture of Complaint

2006-06-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

People are becoming less constrained by social convention, laws and morals. More and more behaviour deviates until checked by direct conflict with another person be it a representative of law such as police or of social convention such as a neighbour. The subtle but pervasive constraint of morals is constantly opposed by the forces of "progress". Consequently, the work of these other agents of social cohesion is increased to breaking point. The signs of this tendency can be seen in increasing resentment of government interference in life. They area also at the root of the victim mentality which expects the state to ensure that people are always safe, healthy, and even happy after engaging in any activity (illegal as well as legal). The patently absurd nature of this expectation leads to inevitable frustration displayed in alienation from society and even physical violence.

The View from the West

2006-05-19T02:46:00.000-07:00

Many periods of history could be characterised by the sort of conflict, lack of clear vision and pessimism that dominates the "West" at the moment. If I had to characterise this period in history, I would hope that it will be remembered positively as the "death of growth" rather than the "end of nature".

We all oscillate between various priorities.

The preservation of desirable cultural relationships (some are using distasteful terms such as "social capital") is a similar priority to preservation of diversity and counterbalances in ecology.

I see the need to assist Africa is a more function of the need to pre-empt a "trouble spot" that may destabilise our world rather than a moral imperative. Individuals and states behaviour as if they believe this even if their cultures demand that they speak differently. Contributions to these countries are minuscule and tokenistic compared to the resources that would be available if we really felt that people in a far lands were actually our brothers, sisters or children.

Biological "Circles of concern" insulate us from feeling, in any real sense, the literally unimaginable tragedies that unfold there every day. We oscillate in our concern depending on the latest news story, fundraising angle, or "natural" catastrophe.

The capacity of humans to be motivated "high in the head" is evident in a small minority of people a small minority of the time. Most people, if threats begin to penetrate their "circles of concern", quickly become "energised" by the "furnaces".

The challenge of civilisation lies in pleasing and appeasing all (easier the more monoculture the civilisation or the more powerful the hegemony) to avoid the furnace igniting.

This is "the way the world is". The history of this "crooked timber" is evidence of this throughout the ages. The Catholics have it right - we are all sinners. Optimism comes not from a belief in a future utopia run by "straight timber" - but from personal transcendental experiences such as faith (political, religious, etc), love (of children, music) and charity (gifts without expectation of thanks OR transformational effect).

To see the world in term of enlightenment" and "reaction" is to believe in the possibility of a "true" direction. This is the "root of all evil" - in fact money (= development) is often proposed as the new "true direction" for the planet as though this will solve more problems that it will create.

Even though this has been the truth in the past, I believe it to be false for the future .

Iran - a young punk with a gun ?

2006-04-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

Some say: All this focus on Iran's potential bomb is counter-productive if it results in a US bombing campaign

I say:
All this focus on Iran's potential bomb is productive if it slows or prevents the development of nuclear weapons by any "immature" government. One option would be a limited focussed bombing campaign. On the other hand, sanctions will result in prolonged negative impact on the people of Iran and extended exacerbation of anti-western feeling.

Some say: Improving the political maturity of Iran (i.e. its government). This would turn moderate, pro-Western Iranians, who are many, old and young, into nationalists supporting a bad government they didn't particularly like in the first place

I say:
Bombing would result in a short term extreme reaction (more than the mohammed cartoons !), BUT (as shown in 1981 Operation Babylon, it could remove the threat for an indeterminate time and loosen North Korea's intransigence. Hopefully, the US military is preparing the options regardless of whether they will be exercised.
I believe that moderate Muslims are as silenced in most "Muslim" states as the intelligentsia were in Nazi Germany. Just look at their treatment in free societies of Western Europe and even Australia. If they exist in significant numbers geographically concentraed, they are certainly mute or intimidated. I don't believe that moderate Muslims exist in sufficient numbers in Iran (and believe that by failing to intervene earlier in Iraq, we allowed a generation of moderates to be murdered)

Some say: I believe that settled political situations and peace ultimately come from internal evolution
I say:
The hoary old concept of "culture" determines whether a society is "mature" in its response to any given situation. As culture is remade each generation, and generations are continua, it is hard to control. Currently, the west is allowing rampant capitalism to overrun national cultures, legitimately earning the contempt of Muslim nations.
Countries that have reverted to defining themselves by a first millennium interpretation of a religion, will take "generations" to develop a mature culture.
Attaturk took decades to remake Turkey, and his achievements in secularising and moderating it are even now being challenged as brutal (remember the Armenians !).

Some say:
We must take the RISK of trusting Iran, because it's worth more than its present government. At a time when Pakistan has the bomb, you cannot argue that Iran cannot have it. Iran cannot be seen as a rogue state, given its long history and its human and cultural potential.

I say:
Fine to wait for internal evolution IF you accept the risks.... Imagine... Ahmadinejad believes in hastening the return of Allah and explodes a (primitive?) nuclear weapon to Israel (by suicide mission, plane or missile). Israel responds with "exemplary" force by eliminating Tehran ..... Arabs states mobilise to eliminate Israel in retaliation .... West has to choose sides ..... Ahhhhhh Bin Laden's dream !
I think a plebiscite in the "west" would not accept these risks. Thus, UN and US etc are trying to get Iran and North Korea to stop. ("C'mon Kid, just put down the gun. I don't wanna have to shoot you"). Pakistan and Israel are examples of how powerless we are when the kid does get the gun. That doesn't lead us to say "Oh, well. All the kids better have them".

Some say: "Wooing" Middle Eastern and particularly Iranian youth would not be difficult. That is the road to take, I feel, but it means speaking to people. The US government attitude is the very contrary, at the moment, because it wants to accelerate history, and not through dialogue! It is heading for the opposite results.

I say:
Youth is impressed by power. Youth is programmed to search for a cultural "imprint" that will guide their adulthood. Moderation is the least attractive path. The best way to harness the youth of Iran is to redirect their immoderation towards another enemy - possibly the elders that have oppressed and betrayed them (a la the 1979 revolution all over again ?!); possibly towards environmental degradation and developmental corruption of their land in the name of military power and international oil influence etc. etc;
We will get their support when they believe their elders have led them militarily, economically, socially and religiously into a destructive dead end.
The best we can do is to ensure they feel the "logical consequences" of their behaviour. History tells us again and again that appeasement is an invitation; and that the "people " often get no say.

Indigenous rights in Melbourne Parks

2006-04-07T01:48:00.000-07:00

Re the aborigines in particular: I think any sort of political action these days is pretty good, even if it does end in tears
Ummmmm.... What about camping in St Kilda Rd... that would bring traffic to a stand still !! What about a bombing ?? That would be good.... NOT !
If we want to keep out of the extremes of politically motivated violence we see embedded in other societies around the world, we need people to assess the social acceptability of their protest methods, whether they are peaceful or not !
Get people too excited and they will react with violence to even peaceful protests.
imagine the potentially violent reaction against someone peacefully arguing that AIDS is a good way of getting people to self reflect on their sexual morality .... or that Bird Flu is a just Gaia trying to fight the plague of humans on its surface... etc etc
Don't lawyers cite the act of yelling "fire" in a crowd as a limit to free speech.... etc etc

I would love them to have a bit of parkland, maybe in front of the casino or one of those Major Events sites, except it wouldn't be so nice for them.
Don't they have plenty of parkland elsewhere ?? I can't even light a fire when I camp in the bush let alone in an urban park ! Can we start treating aborigines as equal citizens some time this century ? - rather than perpetual victims of a past few of them even know.

Sad when what looks like a group of losers play on the collective guilt of the privileged bleeding hearts.

Perhaps their "spin advisers" believe that all publicity is good publicity. I think that the whole circus is very counterproductive in terms of dissipating sympathy with the "general public".

The longer it stays and attracts a more diverse group of hangers on, the more likely it is that "incidents" will occur that bring even more public disapproval.

Israel Lobby - So What ?

2006-03-23T19:07:00.000-08:00

My comments on extracts from the article: The Israel Lobby - London Review of Books - 2006/3/23

Jews in Israel are a legacy of an historical injustice - just like Muslims in Europe [Muslim Emperial, Africans in France [French Colonialism] and England, Indians in Fiji [English Colonialism in Pacific], protestants in Northern Ireland [English Colonialism], whites in South Africa [English Colonialism], etc etc

The present has a responsibility to ensure that individuals that find themselves marginalised culturally due to race are integrated into the melting pot of their dominant culture through active intervention (both supportive and demanding).

We also have the responsibility to prevent more such problems developing in the future through growth of immigrant subcultures within existing nations

The Israeli state is legitimate morally, politically because a majority of people living within it's borders support it's continuation. This gives it more legitimacy than most others in the region who continue to oppress groups within their territory where there is a local geographic majority which deserves the right to determine it's own destiny (e.g. Kurds and Armenians in Turkey and Iraq, Some Sunni's in Egypt etc etc.)
The limits to this self determination can only be decided case by case - Singapore seperate from Malaysia ? Timor seperate from Indonesia ? West Papua ? Tasmania ?

As a state, Israel must seek the most support and negotiate the best deals that it can in relation to any issue, just as we all do...
The US has strategic interests in maintaining at least a kernel of western democracy in a region that may take a century to develop widespread support for this social concept.
The US feels a responsibility as the "leader of the free world" to continue the defence of a nation established by the west in an atmosphere of horror, shame and hope at the end of WWII.
The US has a large and powerful ethnic group that exerts influence on the US government through legitimate social influence.

The main points of the article The Israel Lobby are:

the strategic value of Israel is overstated (so we have less self interest in supporting it);
that the history and current behaviour of the Israeli state reduces or eliminates the moral justification for support;
that the exertion of social, political and economic influence within the US in favour of Israel is somehow sinister (I wonder how it compares to the suppression of free speech by Muslim intolerance in virtually every country in which Muslims form a significant proportion - witness the recent "cartoon riots".)
Everyone would be better off of the Israelis gave more concessions to the Palestinians

I argue that:

the US national interest should continue to be based on its own definition of balance in strategic, economic, moral AND social considerations
Israel should be pressured to allow a separate Palestinian nation state
Israel should not rely on or allow large scale daily movement of non-citizens across its borders - until such time (50 years ?) as this movement can occur without extreme security risk on one hand, or oppressive surveillance on the other.
The development of the wall, the removal of outlying settlements and the restriction of cross border family contact could all reduce the danger and tension over the next decade.
Palestine should be encouraged to develop with strategic, economic, and social relations with states other than Israel (especially Egypt !). Otherwise, it will continue to define itself as a victim of "apartheid" rather than a nation responsible for its own fate.
Hostile acts between states are easier to identify and respond to than acts that purport to be carried out by unauthorised individuals or renegade groups.

Some comments embedded in excerpts of the article The Israel Lobby:

For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world."
[Embedded unstated implication:
Support for an ally and democracy is a dangerous policy - perhaps irresponsible - perhaps immoral ?
How would you react to "Unwavering support for Great Britain and democracy has inflamed Nazi Germany and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world"]

"This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.".
[Embedded unstated implication:
There are few shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, and these are the only considerations.
What about the following:

growth of western style democracy will not be served by the extinguishing of the only state in the region with a well developed western democracy;
the defence of a state against those that wish to eliminate it from the face of the earth is a direct moral imperatives esp considering the fact that that the west created it out of guilt for the previous attempt at genocide;
perhaps the most powerful reason is nneither strategic or moral but social/ religious i.e. the US has a prominent and powerful jewish sub-culture which will support governments that protect "its own"]

"Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew [loaded term] foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest [which is what ?], while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.

Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain.

Other recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and can thus earn interest on it. Most recipients of aid given for military purposes are required to spend all of it in the US, but Israel is allowed to use roughly 25 per cent of its allocation to subsidise its own defence industry. It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the US opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank. Moreover, the US has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16 jets. Finally, the US gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its Nato allies [Mossad, one of the best intelligence services in the world also shares intelligence back USA. i.e. not just one way support], and has turned a blind eye to Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
[As Jews including some Israelis were involved in US bomb development, it is hard to stop them. Also, possible sense that a "responsible western style government" should have the right to decide for itself re. atomic weapons cf. fundamentalist Iran]

Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the IAEA’s agenda. The US comes to the rescue in wartime and takes Israel’s side when negotiating peace. The Nixon administration protected it from the threat of Soviet intervention and resupplied it during the October War. Washington was deeply involved in the negotiations that ended that war, as well as in the lengthy ‘step-by-step’ process that followed, just as it played a key role in the negotiations that preceded and followed the 1993 Oslo Accords. In each case there was occasional friction between US and Israeli officials, but the US consistently supported the Israeli position. One American participant at Camp David in 2000 later said: ‘Far too often, we functioned . . . as Israel’s lawyer.’ Finally, the Bush administration’s ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed at improving Israel’s strategic situation.

This extraordinary generosity might be understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset or if there were a compelling moral case for US backing. But neither explanation is convincing
[Does the following argument support this assertion ? Also ignores the most powerful and common reason for support - e.g. social/ religious / racial relationship]

One might argue that Israel was an asset during the Cold War. By serving as America’s proxy after 1967, it helped contain Soviet expansion in the region and inflicted humiliating defeats on Soviet clients like Egypt and Syria. It occasionally helped protect other US allies (like King Hussein of Jordan) and its military prowess forced Moscow to spend more on backing its own client states. It also provided useful intelligence about Soviet capabilities.

Backing Israel was not cheap, however, and it complicated America’s relations with the Arab world. For example, the decision to give $2.2 billion in emergency military aid during the October War triggered an Opec oil embargo that inflicted considerable damage on Western economies. For all that, Israel’s armed forces were not in a position to protect US interests in the region. The US could not, for example, rely on Israel when the Iranian Revolution in 1979 raised concerns about the security of oil supplies, and had to create its own Rapid Deployment Force instead.

The first Gulf War revealed the extent to which Israel was becoming a strategic burden. The US could not use Israeli bases without rupturing the anti-Iraq coalition, and had to divert resources (e.g. Patriot missile batteries) to prevent Tel Aviv doing anything that might harm the alliance against Saddam Hussein. History repeated itself in 2003: although Israel was eager for the US to attack Iraq, Bush could not ask it to help without triggering Arab opposition. So Israel stayed on the sidelines once again.

Beginning in the 1990s, and even more after 9/11, US support has been justified by the claim that both states are threatened by terrorist groups originating in the Arab and Muslim world, and by ‘rogue states’ that back these groups and seek weapons of mass destruction. This is taken to mean not only that Washington should give Israel a free hand in dealing with the Palestinians and not press it to make concessions until all Palestinian terrorists are imprisoned or dead, but that the US should go after countries like Iran and Syria. Israel is thus seen as a crucial ally in the war on terror, because its enemies are America’s enemies. In fact, Israel is a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.

‘Terrorism’ is not a single adversary, but a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups
[True and interesting statement. Esp give the interesting and successful invention of the suicide bombing tactic by Sri Lankans.]

The terrorist organisations that threaten Israel do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or ‘the West’; it is largely a response to Israel’s prolonged campaign to colonise the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

More important, saying that Israel and the US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult
[Easier if we ditch any ally or group that is a terrorist target ? Is this a legitimate strategy for making ourselves safe ? Look at the case re Nigerian Miss World or Rushdie or slaughter of Christians in Indonesia or North Africa etc etc]

There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel’s presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and to attract recruits.

As for so-called rogue states in the Middle East, they are not a dire threat to vital US interests, except inasmuch as they are a threat to Israel. Even if these states acquire nuclear weapons – which is obviously undesirable – neither America nor Israel could be blackmailed, because the blackmailer could not carry out the threat without suffering overwhelming retaliation
[Now we ARE talking rubbish.
The KEY aspect of terrorism is to wage war outside of a responsible political structure THUS gaining the political benefit of terror while denying culpability BUT reminding those that are being terrorised that THEY are contributing to the "conditions" that create terrorism by their failure to capitulate.
See Sinn Fein, Palestinians, Tamils, Kashmiri's, Jemaah Islamiyah etc etc]

The danger of a nuclear handover to terrorists is equally remote, because a rogue state could not be sure the transfer would go undetected or that it would not be blamed and punished afterwards. The relationship with Israel actually makes it harder for the US to deal with these states. Israel’s nuclear arsenal is one reason some of its neighbours want nuclear weapons, and threatening them with regime change merely increases that desire.

A final reason to question Israel’s strategic value is that it does not behave like a loyal ally. Israeli officials frequently ignore US requests and renege on promises (including pledges to stop building settlements and to refrain from ‘targeted assassinations’ of Palestinian leaders)
[So what.. so does any independent state. "Ally" does not mean "subject"]

Israel has provided sensitive military technology to potential rivals like China, in what the State Department inspector-general called ‘a systematic and growing pattern of unauthorised transfers’. According to the General Accounting Office, Israel also ‘conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the US of any ally’. In addition to the case of Jonathan Pollard, who gave Israel large quantities of classified material in the early 1980s (which it reportedly passed on to the Soviet Union in return for more exit visas for Soviet Jews), a new controversy erupted in 2004 when it was revealed that a key Pentagon official called Larry Franklin had passed classified information to an Israeli diplomat. Israel is hardly the only country that spies on the US, but its willingness to spy on its principal patron casts further doubt on its strategic value.

Israel’s strategic value isn’t the only issue. Its backers also argue that it deserves unqualified support because it is weak and surrounded by enemies; it is a democracy; the Jewish people have suffered from past crimes and therefore deserve special treatment; and Israel’s conduct has been morally superior to that of its adversaries. On close inspection, none of these arguments is persuasive. There is a strong moral case for supporting Israel’s existence, but that is not in jeopardy [Rubbish - 1948, 1967, 1973... Future nuclear Iran, etc] . Viewed objectively, its past and present conduct offers no moral basis for privileging it over the Palestinians.

Israel is often portrayed as David confronted by Goliath, but the converse is closer to the truth. Contrary to popular belief, the Zionists [Perjorative term, not inclusive of the national aspiration] had larger, better equipped and better led forces during the 1947-49 War of Independence, and the Israel Defence Forces won quick and easy victories against Egypt in 1956 and against Egypt, Jordan and Syria in 1967 – all of this before large-scale US aid began flowing. Today, Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East. Its conventional forces are far superior to those of its neighbours and it is the only state in the region with nuclear weapons. Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with it, and Saudi Arabia has offered to do so. Syria has lost its Soviet patron, Iraq has been devastated by three disastrous wars and Iran is hundreds of miles away
[Trying to develop long range delivery systems with nuclear weapons as fast as possible to fulfil the apocalyptic vision of its current president and who knows how many citizens.]

The Palestinians barely have an effective police force, let alone an army that could pose a threat to Israel
[Do you mean take over or terror ? Plenty of resources for terror].

According to a 2005 assessment by Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies, ‘the strategic balance decidedly favours Israel, which has continued to widen the qualitative gap between its own military capability and deterrence powers and those of its neighbours.’ If backing the underdog were a compelling motive, the United States would be supporting Israel’s opponents.

That Israel is a fellow democracy surrounded by hostile dictatorships cannot account for the current level of aid: there are many democracies around the world, but none receives the same lavish support. The US has overthrown democratic governments in the past and supported dictators when this was thought to advance its interests – it has good relations with a number of dictatorships today.

Some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens, or that a recent Israeli government commission found that Israel behaves in a ‘neglectful and discriminatory’ manner towards them. Its democratic status is also undermined by its refusal to grant the Palestinians a viable state of their own or full political rights.
[US shares this divisive issue with many many countries. e.g. democratic status of the US is undermined by the failure to allow Utah to continue as a separate state; or the Spanish to allow the Basques; etc.
I am usually in favour of partition as a strategy fro reducing long term conflict. I would suggest this policy for Israel (Palestine & Israel), Iraq (Sunni, Kurd, Shia), Yugoslavia (Muslim, Christian), Northern Ireland (Catholic, Protestant), Spain (Basque, Spanish) etc ...]

What if…One Vision for Education - Looking back from 2020

2006-03-05T05:56:00.000-08:00

Open publication The Australian Teacher, March 2006

Students mix school and work from Grade 7

It’s hard to remember that brief time in history when all students were assumed to benefit from spending time in an institution which required them to move from one place to another on the command of a bell, and sit down and absorb or practice skills in subjects for which they were often disinterested and ill prepared.

In 2020, Victorian students have a very different experience.

From Year 7 they have the opportunity to mix work and study. The low rates of minimum pay, scaled by age, offered to students combined with the automatic “no fault” insurance for workplaces have lead to a big increase in jobs offered. Every young person is guaranteed access to 6 years income support during their life to assist them to complete secondary education regardless of when they choose to take it. Primary education is still mandatory, but some are beginning to develop flexible systems involving a merger of school teachers’ expertise and what used to be called “home schooling”.

If students are not enrolled in full time secondary education (6 units), they must either win a job by application or make themselves available for any job that may be offered in their area. Most students continue to do the full 6 units - focusing on completing their secondary qualification while exploring the intellectual, social and recreational experiences of adolescence to the full. Many of these apply for and win a part-time job as well. The level of “educational guarantee” income support is not so attractive that students will postpone it as a future “holiday”. Nevertheless, many are also attracted to the higher financial rewards of full time work during the sometimes turbulent teenage years. The army of school welfare teachers, social workers and therapists that operated in the past never produced the personal growth these children gain from full time productive work.

All secondary school study is part of a coherent Victorian Certificate of Education

The VCE requires passes in 72 units over 6 years. All units are expected to take about 6 months, depending on student ability and commitment. About half the units are mandatory. Many of the mandatory subjects are arranged in a sequence where success at a prior level is required before enrolment in the next. Students can study any combination of subjects at any time if they can fit them into their week ! Attendance is not a requirement of enrolment. Students can choose whether they learn more in person, on-line or with student study groups. Students enrol in schools so that they can obtain feedback and guidance on their progress, and be admitted to the examinations (some pen & paper, others practical skill tests or performances).

"I went to 3 schools in the same year !"

More and more students choose to enrol in classes from a variety of schools depending on their subject choices, their perception of the quality of the program offered at a particular school, and whether their results in preparatory subjects win them a place at that school. Schools receive funding based on the total number of number of student in all their subjects. All VCE subject content, activities and materials are provided free to students online. Commercial publishers compete and co-operate as they think best to sell updated and improved courses to the Education Department. The market influence of being chosen has been so great that other states are beginning to seek cooperative ventures with Victoria creating a defacto national curriculum. This contrasts sharply with a past where school were at the mercy of frequently changing “blueprints” but were given no “building materials” that coherently fitted together.

EduLibrary – a free gift to the world that has really paid off !

The Victorian government decided early against providing only general guidelines and relying on the hope that publishers would write quality materials for the small Victorian market. They took the approach that “Recipes are a strategy to ensure that the average chef can make an excellent meal”. No teaching “recipe” could smother the creativity of teachers when presented with the vibrant mix inherent in any student group. The government commissioned publishers to work in cooperation with its curriculum writers to prove that the government guidelines could be translated into day-to-day reality. Before the project had got underway, a range of groups tried to join and broaden the task to global dimensions. The government stayed firm, believing that experience of building a real bridge is better than the experience of planning a thousand theoretical bridges.

In the face of Ministerial insistence that all EduLibrary material would be copyright free for all non-commercial use, gifted materials began to flood in from individuals and non-profit educational publishers as well as commercial sources willing to sell materials for a once only fee.

Within 2 years, the EduLibrary has grown to enormous proportions and was beginning to influence the course of educational publishing worldwide. The problems of selecting and sequencing the activities that would be recommended for a course took another 2 years as the public debate raged as to what should be learnt in school. In the past, this debate was always avoided because guidelines could be continually re-interpreted to appease each audience.

Today, the EduLibrary site provides not just one learning pathway, but a rich set of alternate sequences. Each sequence provides detailed activity scripts and final teaching materials for use with students or by students. Individual teachers publish their own materials to the Ministry Website as additional resources for the subject so students can browse the core material as well as the additional materials provided by any teacher in the state. Secondary teachers now emulate the long-standing practice of primary teachers in maintaining a “daily work program record” – only now it is “on-line”. Ministry curriculum writers comb the teacher’s materials regularly, obtaining much new and creative additional materials for the EduLibrary. Attribution is carefully managed and highly valued. Copyright for any future non-commercial use (including the Ministry) is surrendered as soon as the materials are submitted to EduLibrary.

Schools are smaller and leaner

Secondary schools are far smaller than previously required. Class schedules for all schools with the lesson objectives are on the internet. As “classes” may have up to 50 students, students need to book admission when they decide to learn “in person”. The teacher places class size limits from 10-50 depending on the needs of the lesson objective. Depending on student requests, more classes are scheduled. The total number of students taught by any one teacher is decided by workload agreements, which include a range of other duties. The teachers in highest demand by students can shift their teaching load into the subject at which they are most successful. They also receive various rewards for the Ministry. The administrative load on schools is greatly reduced due to the reduced number of students and teachers on site at any one time. They require fewer site resources and a much leaner management. Discipline problems and student management are enormously reduced. Other reasons for reduced number of bodies (rather than minds) at school include the increase in students who enrol in at least some subjects accredited for the VCE at Technical and Further Education Colleges, industry training courses (such as Cisco computers, Microsoft Engineers, McDonald Catering) and tertiary institutions (a small but growing number of very capable students).

The competition between schools has disappeared in place of competition for a place in the class of the best teachers. Access is controlled by academic results and by preference to students studying more subjects at the school.

Incentives to learn

To obtain the tax-free income support, students must be certified as either attending minimum hours of work and/or successfully completing 6 units every half year. Students passing only 5 units receive 70% income support for the next semester of their study, or (if they do not return to study) have the equivalent payment taken from their pay. Support drops to 60% for 4 units and 50% for 3 units etc. Most students work as hard as they can to ensure that they gain at least a pass in 6 units every semester. There are still some that leave school after failure. Many return to study after a year or two with full support and perhaps a newfound maturity. No students can access unemployment benefits until they have either completed the VCE OR they are over 21.

Students on the streets !

Students are on the streets more than previously, both because they have more flexibility in the amount and timing of their attendance and because so many learning programs encourage and sometimes require students to travel to get information or learning materials. It was this issue above all that drew out the core of the debate on school reform. Students on the street meant crime. Jobs for teachers are threatened if they we take away baby minding as a key role. Who can the parent sue when Jane falls over at the station and breaks her leg ? Unemployment will rise unless you keep students in schools and away from real jobs. Employers will exploit them in dead-end jobs at low pay.

All these eventualities came true to some extent, but were addressed by a range of approaches unrelated to education.

Juvenile crime was shown to be a product of alienation caused by factors such as poor parenting leading to poor behavioural training leading to poor educational outcomes leading to no job and no interest in study. Strategies to address this previously had hoped that schools could be converted from their obsession with education and reoriented to be “one-stop-shops” for parenting and social service provision for an increasingly diverse and troubled clientele. This strategy was at the heart of the enrolment flight to schools that were “independent” of this policy. Once the focus returned to actually addressing the core concerns, great progress began to occur in a wide range of creative approaches:Active parenting guidance programs began with an educational focus; Government funds channelled into encouraging extending opening hours for local libraries as well as their expanded involvement in quality educational video loan; Tightening of video loan and display systems in commercial outlets; Increased funding to local sporting and recreational bodies to lower the financial cost for parents of involvement; Curfews for unaccompanied children of various ages in public places involving police and community service visits to homes to provide strong advice; Mandatory involvement of parents and students involved in crime in parenting and relationship courses; Guaranteed employment for all children up till the age of 18 considered as an educational and social health policy rather than an employment policy etc.

Similarly, reduction in teaching workforce was achieved with less pain that thought possible. A large number of teachers were approaching retirement during this period anyway. This, combined with increased power and responsibility of principals for staff selection and effective strategies for dealing with poor teachers, made plenty of room for rigorous selection of the best teaching applicants – not all of whom were young graduates. Many gifted teachers who had left due to their “temperamental unsuitability” during the roughhouse classrooms of the 80’s and 90’s, applied to return as they saw the changes to the day-to-day working climate in schools. Many teachers discovered that they were interested in a range of new tasks that were created by the changes such as supervising student work placements and working with small groups of struggling students who wanted to achieve a clearly defined goal. Others gained recognition, sometimes from an international audience for their skill in curriculum development. As always most contributed unsung to the most important outcomes within classrooms, where they were able to add power to learning through building a personal relationship with learners and responding flexibly to their achievements and difficulties.

Laws did have to be changed removing the state responsibility for children while they were not physically present at a school such as when they were completing tasks that contributed to their studies.

Schools also have far less “co-curricular” activity to organise in competition with or duplication of other community groups. Government support, and much time from many teachers voluntarily, has poured instead into revitalising community groups such as sporting clubs, dramatic societies, scouts, adventurers etc. All enrolled students are physically assessed by the health (not education) department each year for physical fitness. If they fall outside healthy measurement and performance criteria they are compulsorily required to attend physical training programs often involving paid teachers, sport professionals and/ or health workers. “Fit and trim” classes are offered on Saturday mornings at a range of venues with suitable equipment including schools.

Juvenile employment has reduced some employment opportunities for older workers. Most people nevertheless consider that employment experiences for youth are such an obviously beneficial social investment that the opposition has been comparatively muted. Unions have begun to move the debate towards a universal employment guarantee, which in some ways has the potential to merge with calls for “work for the dole” as long as suitable socially productive (if not economically productive) work can be identified.

Teachers do more preparation, teaching and correction than ever before
With reduced student management responsibilities and distractions, the teacher’s role has refocused around time spent on preparation for class (getting materials together, refining the script, planning activities that will involve and illuminate the objective). They have on balance a slightly greater teaching load than in the past, because many tasks that reduced their teaching allotment have been reduced or eliminated. They are encouraged to work creatively to arrange class sizes according to the needs of the program. They can decide whether to present a lesson to 50 students as a demonstration and therefore gain time that can be used to provide small group tuition on another task. Their load is based on the number of students enrolled in their classes even if many do not attend every lesson. If the course involves assessment of practical skills or performances, students will be required to demonstrate them in person.All examinations are conducted in person even in this online world because of the need to authenticate the work as the students own. Work completed outside the teacher’s supervision cannot be considered as part of final assessments in the VCE. Therefore teachers tend to also spend more time on assessment, supervising students while they complete more extended assignments or practical projects.

Fast and accurate correction has become one of the criteria most valued by students in their evaluations. Because students make a preference list of classes with a particular teacher as part of their enrolment process, teachers are far more sensitive to their evaluations than in the past. Student enrolment requests are one component of annual evaluation meetings with principals (where staff receive feedback on their performance and are invited to provide frank and confidential feedback on any other staff, the principal and school effectiveness). Teachers do not “dumb down” their courses to try to win student favour because all assessment tasks are the set state-wide and marked blind (i.e. students do not name the assessments and they are randomly allocated to teachers for marking). Assessment tasks used within the one school are the same although they may differ from another school that has chosen another curriculum pathway from EduLibrary to achieve the same objectives.

Falling through the gaps

With no school taking full responsibility for the “complete” student, the chance that students would just disappear from the system into an underworld was predicted early. Some teachers (especially those with interest in student welfare and careers etc) have transferred to the “Education Guarantee” branch of the government, which has workers in schools, Employment and Social Service Centres. This branch tracks all students for involvement in classes, assessments and job involvement. Action is considered if students are: not attending classes (as seen by the on-line class booking and attendance system), for a week or so; not working (as reported by employers); failing the subjects that they are enrolled in (as seen by performance at assessment tasks occurring at least monthly in all courses). Actions include home visits; interviews with student and family; additional assistance and/ or advice to families (government and non-government agencies); raising or lowering government support to the family; intervention orders etc. etc.

This process is in fact proving far more effectively now that it is integrated into the social service structure and has a mandate to intervene and change the outcomes for the student and the family.

Particularly successful have been the options of employment and extra-curricular social involvements rather than education as change agents for fighting alienation. In the past, these agencies had been mainly concerned with pressuring schools to keep such students regardless of the quality of outcome because they had so few options to intervene in any other way.

Variety is the spice of life

Local students no longer have a right to enrolment at the closest school although this continues to be a strong enrolment pattern. Secondary schools must offer all mandatory subjects but can choose which other subjects to specialise in. In the early years, excessive specialisation in some schools led to large variations in enrolments from year to year. Schools tend to offer a balance across all major traditional optional subject categories (e.g. arts, technology, social education etc). Nevertheless, most schools have also chosen one or more areas where they attempt to shine. This can arise from chance grouping of teaching excellence or be seeded by a school funding grant to kick-start a particular learning area. Such specialisation has been shown to give schools a generalised sense of achievement across all areas without unbalancing the whole school structure. Schools are often able to create specialisations because, with an approx 30% reduction in student presence, there is more physical space available that can be made exclusive to a particular curriculum specialty.

The disappearance of the standard classroom

In most schools the standard classroom with about 25 chairs is now the minority. Most classrooms accommodate only about 10-15 students and are used exclusively by a particular teacher who has filled them with teaching resources that enable rich and flexible teaching approaches. In older schools this has been achieved easily at very low cost through the splitting of older existing classrooms. At various times, a larger or specialised space is needed either due to equipment requirements of the activity, or the teacher’s decision to hold a lecture or demonstration lesson of up to 50 students. A range of larger and more specialised rooms are available for the teacher to book. Some hold large numbers of computers, and/ or have large screen multimedia displays, or lab equipment etc.

Money makes the world go around

Facilities development and maintenance are some of the many decisions made at the local level as part of the total annual budget allocation to the school. The principal is the principal decision-maker after being required to listen to formal advisory bodies (staff council & community council).

The local school budget does not include any component for staffing as staff are provided based on enrolments average over the current and previous years. The principal has discretionary staffing funds available to provide rewards to teachers based on their performance, and in a very limited range of cases to hire external staff to provide special programs.

Virtually all the additional tasks that used to detract from the teaching load (and professional focus) of teachers have disappeared or are completed by ancillary staff – Lockers, Timetable, Bus Maintenance, Drama Production, Camps Program, Student Discipline/ Welfare (previously a huge and growing staffing commitment).

Principals, Teachers and Education Guarantee staff encourage students to become involved in a range of community “extra-curricula” activities in the sure knowledge that they contribute to better socialisation, skill development and mental and physical health. In many cases, staff are involved to some extend in a voluntary capacity in these programs. Teachers have always enjoyed working with students in spheres of sport, drama, music, camping etc. In some, cases these are now paid positions funded by the education Guarantee, or a sporting club, or a charity.

Reality is more challenging than rhetoric

Many “boffins” who railed against the current system of schools either had no coherent vision to back their criticism – or were too timid to share it. Without a vision of “what success will look like”, we would never have been able to make the paradigm shift required to rethink schools as smaller and eventually fewer, but more vibrant as educational institutions, contributing to a common good rather than competing for fewer and fewer students at any cost.

Eventually, the school might merge into other learning institutions such as public libraries, Universities/ Training etc. This will be a minor change compared to our achievement so far which has been to disconnect schools from the industrial task of keeping students out of the way, and to re-establish the primacy of learning.

Stephen Digby has taught for 20 years in primary, technical and high schools in Victoria, Australia. His roles include administrator, teacher, consultant in computer education, maths and science. Career highlights include developing a Computer Education Teacher Training Centre; working as a curriculum writer for the Information Technology Study of the Victorian Certificate of Education; and working in Ohio as a Maths Teacher during and International Teaching Fellowship. Stephen currently teaches mathematics and manages the Learning Technologies at Cheltenham Secondary College, Melbourne, Australia.

BEAREly Coherent: - How we envisage schooling in the 21st century- Applying the new ‘imaginary

2006-01-07T02:24:00.000-08:00

Hedley Beare, iNet Paper originally published in 2006 at: http://www.sst-inet.com.au/files/BEARE_A5_BOOKLET.pdf

Main Points and Annotations

The paper has a truly global breadth and paints a coherent picture of a quasi utopian world where global networks support a wide variety of educational interactions.
The central thesis seems to be that “home schools” will still have a role in this world, but that they will serve as mentors and brokers for students who access a wide range of educational services at various times and locations that suit their aspirations and needs.
Teachers will be contract workers acting for specific purposes according to their s\kills when and where they are needed.
Apart from many differences in interpretation or inference, and a few disputes over facts, the vision is coherent.
Implications:
The paper does not overtly articulate privatisation, but the description of flexible and varied contractual arrangements with a variety of providers would be impossible to deliver within a government regulated bureaucracy.
The paper valiantly attempts to carve out a residual role for organisations called “schools” but the continued existence of schools as a mandated and universal concept is plainly at odds with the thrust of the paper towards diversity, flexibility and autonomy of both learners and teachers.
In a multi-cultural “global” society (i.e. one with no shared culture), parents and students should be free to choose the components of their education whether this is a fulltime single site school aimed at transmission of a single world view e.g. “religious education”, or a range of experiences from separate sources and sites.
The key social and governmental consideration would have to be whether diversification of educational experiences would lead to increased social fragmentation and stratification rather than healthy diversity - as some groups exercised their freedom to make consistently poor choices in the market, and others chose to group their children exclusively.

Summary of Annotations

pp5. As our view of the world alters, so also does our view of the component pieces that make up that worldview.
worldview = view of the world n. new word not in most dictionaries. Use of so many new words (worldview, cred), words in new uses (vision as a verb; visionary and futurist as nouns) or uncommon words or usage (e.g. assimilable, involuted) in a document often indicate an attempt to create self reinforcing language sets that are less amenable to challenge from conventional language users e.g. Orwell's "newspeak" or "unspeak" a new term in itself.i.e. "if you disagree with me it is just because you don't understand the new language that is needed"
pp6. Diversity and resilience now rule; the days of one-best-way solutions have gone.
"Straw man" - a technique used a lot in this paper. Infer an exaggerated attribute of the past e.g. "one-best-way solutions" and propose a single alternative. In this case, the past was never a "one-best-way" world. History and common culture created relatively widespread similarities in educational organisations (well explained in this paper). Indeed, this paper proposes a movement towards an alternative "one-best-way" solution. Within this new "one-best-way" there is room for diversity and
pp7. Step aside from the mainstream traffic for a moment, take a good look at it, a helicopter-view as it were, and you will notice that there is a revolution in public thinking and behaving – one might almost say in believing – taking place before our eyes.
To say that the myriad of changes occurring throughout the world is an "it" - a single revolution - something with a new coherence ¬is a wildly contestable conjecture.Another view - equally valid in my view - is the disintegration of human cultures where they clash with the individualism and relativism that is essential for an open global market. Opposition to "parochialism" is then far more problematic. It is "parochial" for asian or aboriginal parishes to oppose open access to drugs (e.g. alcohol), sex (e.g. marketing of sexual services) and rock and roll. It is parochial for Australian "parishes" to oppose the increasing worldwide trend towards completely privatised education (with extensive involvement of religious bodies e.g. madrasah, catholic school)
pp8. For centuries, to take an obvious example, people thought that the earth was flat, a kind of disc with water enclosing the land. The evidence of one’s senses seemed to confirm the flatness.
"Straw man" - "Because intuitively the world seems flat, but is not so, you should beleive me even if my assertions are also counter intuitive." Inference: This paper is as earth shaking as the Copernican Theory.
pp9. A more recent example, discussed by Taylor, has been the transplanting of monarchy, of power residing in a king, with the idea of democracy
The success of democracy is a much more pertinent example as it has had a very slow, chequered and variegated. Over more than 2500 years, it has spread slowly with many retreats and re-interpretations. Perhaps iNet needs to consider a similar timeframe for widespread changes to education systems ?
pp11. So beware! Management terms like ‘restructuring’ and ‘reengineering’ are images which depict the organization as an inanimate thing, as a building or a machine consisting of lifeless component parts or building blocks. You dare not run a school that way.
Sports analogies are even more frequent and have an extremely corrosive effect on school visions from administrators to the youngest children.Sports values in common global culture (compared to "parochial sports values") are deeply anti-social: individual advancement at the expense of the team; adherence to group rules always balanced against personal cost of breaking them; team loyalty always above justice; the end (i.e. winning) justifies any means that you can afford; pre-emptive violence and abuse are legitimate tactics etc etc.
Moving from analysis to instruction without any supporting argument.If this is true, and supported in Chap 7, then this bald assertion should have been left to that point.
pp14. It explains the continuing association between the rich private schools and universities, the intellectual favouritism in the curriculum,…..
Straw man: "Selecting some knowledge as the most important to teach or learn is favouritism."If we can't cover all knowledge then we need to select. If we select, then we are favouring our selection (or themes assuggested later in the text). If we do not select, then we leave the selection to chance or (even worse) to children.Logically, there is no other alternatives.
pp15. The new generation of schools for the masses (particularly the government-supported schools) was housed in buildings designed on the logic of the modern factory, and was often like a factory in appearance, in the way they were organized and run, and in the way they treated their staff and students.
This is not history. This is now ! Clear and accurate description of the current practice. Just look at the type of new school buildings constructed in schools. they are neat replicas of modern office blocks and factories.
pp16. Concentration: especially the efficiencies in concentrating people in one place.
I believe that this is the crux of a new vision of education that recognises the fatal straitjacket caused by compulsory "concentration"and its accompanying brutal social side effects.In societies that have lost social coherence, we need to free education from this crucial limitation.We need to "de-school" society.
pp16. The metaphors, so hackneyed that they are not even seen for what they really are, merely metaphors, are now out-of-date and the formats which they produced now need to be thrown away or radically redesigned.
Evangalism ? Envy is such a contemporary motivator for action. Indeed, it is the main motivator for the increasing numbers of students leaving government schools.....
pp17 Globalism, or the planet seen as a unitary, interconnected, living system.
Before the cultural disintegration of nation states and "commonwealths", there were other "unitary, interconnected, living systems". The reason that so many "think globally" these days is their inability to believe in anything more local ("parochial") than the planet as a whole.Indeed, global terrorism is an extreme example of this sense of "think global act local" where there is no "connectedness" with a local culture; a heightened sensitivity to global justice and responsibility; and a "thematic" study of history, economics, religion and culture through a "network".
pp18. The advanced economies of the 21st century, however, are overwhelmingly dependent on information and telecommunication.
And they are losing ground on every measure to the "developing" world.....Behind this reliance on the "information society" is an embeded heirarchical assumption that the "advanced economies" will be able to control those who actually build the physical world by being best at the "information economy". Trouble is, these developing economies are beating the "advanced economies" at this nearly as fast as they have replaced the "physical economy". "Advanced economy" is becoming synonymous with "Senile economy".
pp18 (1) that learning is the act of systematically acquiring authorised knowledge which experts have earlier generated, and (2) that learning is a conveyor belt which constructs knowledge by fabricating pre-existing simple components together into complex and finished pieces, and which likens schooling to a mass-production exercise.
In other words, effective learning involves synthesis of facts and information from credible sources through understanding intoknowledge (and hopefully wisdom).This is extant truth !Indeed, the basis of the most respected technique for knowledge creation, the "scientific method" involves this very process.If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants - Isaac Newton - letter to Robert Hooke, 1676
pp19 Networks consist of links (the connected threads), nodes (the knots which tie the threads together) and hubs
"Truth by association" Fallacy: Because these terms are closely related to the pervasive and successful structure of computer networks, then they must work in this new context.
pp19 Morgan makes it clear that we must get beyond regarding organizations (especially schools) as hierarchies and structures. We must now re-image managerial styles….
Evangelism ! An argument would explain the benefits of adoption. An evangelist will assume compliance of the believer."Slaves to fashion" will adopt the assertion in their enthusiasm to follow a guru.
pp20. big organizations must learn to behave as though they are small; they must be continuously innovative to stay alive;
Inference from the marketplace: Schools exist in competetive marketplace. They will lose students unles they continuously innovate in ways that please their clients. Clients are parents (to the extent that they control enrolments).Trouble with this market driven motivator is that the clients want a school that is subject driven, content driven, test driven, compulsion driven etc etc
pp20. Come down hard on anyone – staff member, student, board member, or parent – who uses machine analogies to describe the school, its learning programmes, or its students. That kind of thinking has to be erased from the school’s psyche.
True Colors: So much for debate, discussion, attraction by self-evident truth or succesful experimentation - let's "come down hard !". "That kind of thinking has to be erased". Not the first time an evangelist was found to be wearing jackboots !
pp21. We now realise that building new knowledge does not necessarily proceed hierarchically through neatly branching specialisation....
Confusion between the creation of new knowledge cf. the creation of understanding of existing knowledge. Students cannot create significant knowledge - except in an extreme "post-modern" sense where all "new knowledge" is equally valued.
pp21. … that learning is often chunky, it has its ups and downs, there are plateaus interspersed with explosive spurts,…
Just like body growth. We maintain a steady healthy diet for students, even though we realise that biology determinses that growthis in "spurts".Likewise, we teach (= create learning opportunities) continuously even though social and intellectual readiness is very varied.
p22. Thus rote learning tends to shrink to that core of knowings which is essential to negotiating one’s way through the available data.
There is no shrinking !!! The available data is growing exponentially !! Therefore, as a constant proportion, the "knowings" that are essential is also growing exponentially !!
p22. how to judge its significance and veracity may be a more productive use of learners’ time
i.e. judging its "authority". This is where the essential knowings are protective and truly educative.It is crucial that parents, teachers, librarians, editors (paper and web based) "direct" students to learn what the "parish" has agreedas its selection of "knowings".This is the basis on which the student "judges" future information.
p22. understanding underlying principles more than on committing information to memory,
Principles (like concepts) are the most difficult thing to communicate to students as they are based on the ability to generalise fromthe many "knowings" provided during education, and apply in totally new contexts in the future.The more examples that student knows the more resiliant and powerful the principle will be to them in the future.
p22 The team of educatormentors and the students involved can assess at the end what skills have been acquired and what knowledge has been gained which is basic to the whole learning regimen. It requires professional insight to make summative assessments like this, but teachers around the world have their own maps of the learning terrain in the form of syllabuses, core curricula or essential knowings, and curriculum frameworks. They know what can be expected of the normal child at specified stages of his or her growth, and they are quite capable of placing any learner in their care within a matrix which identifies what has been learned and where gaps exist
A team of teachers (where there used to be one, discusses everything and documents each student individually against a huge atomised list of objectives across all disciplines, so that the next "direction" will fill in the "gaps".Basically, write a course for each individual student on the fly in concert with a few others, and ensure coherent coverage as well as accountability and justifiable comparative assessment !!!
Just search publishers or google for courses that do this..... there are none.
Oh so easy to say !!! This is the Achilles heel of many of the new curriculum changes. Behind these easy sentences lies an assumption of a vastly increased accountability workload for every topic taught.As each student studies different aspects of the volcano and learns different skills, and knowledge to different degrees - some general some specific to traditional disciplines. The accounting for what is learnt and what needs to be learnt becomes an overwhelmingly bureacratic and distracting exercise for the teacher.
Teachers who attempt this in my experience (e.g. school based curriculum development in the 1980's; many primary school teachers) hopelessly exaggerate the significance and persistence of the student acheivement (self defense; self justification; self-congratulation).
"normal" - a very depressing reference point i.e. normative and probably self-fulfilling expectation defined only within the "parochial" environment.Far better to have criterion referenced standards.
p23 What causes a pothole?
In the real world, one of the first questions students would forcefully ask would be "who cares ?".Students also ask this question about the need to explain the significance of Macbeth, Beethoven's Fifth, the steamengine and Pythagoras' Theorem. Luckily, we answer the question but we do not accept the implied judgement.Are potholes so much more significant ? Are students capable of understanding the role of harmonic motion in thecreation of potholes without knowing their tables ?The selection of investigations that students are "directed" to shouldvery carefully reflect their importance in communication key "knowings". I don't think potholes are a good example.
p23 A person who learns in this mode will become increasingly sophisticated about the tactics of learning, about learning how to learn. In the summation to any learning exercise, the learner will be inclined to ask herself four questions: The knowledge question: What knowledge is essential to my understanding of this exercise?
Fallacious inference: (problem solving is a generic skill useful regardless of context) therefore (problem solving skills canreplace detailed contextual knowledge).The stories are legion of those who have found the fallacy of this assumption after hiring "consultants".Year 11 Maths students regularly experience its limitations when they find that the answer to the knowledge and skillsquestions is: You need 3 years of "scaffolding" knowledge and essential skills before you can succeed at this level. Pity,all you have really learnt in detail is generic problem solving...
p23 Where can I apply and use….
Extreme utilitarian view of the purpose of learning. The arts would fare very poorly on htis question.Question should be:How does this improve my ability to live, work understand and contribute to the "parish" ?
p24. Indeed, a fellow learner has in many respects been considered a competitor
Nature is competitive "by nature". Most key life experiences are competitive - attracting a lover; gaining a job or promotion; gettingIN a team; etc etc.Co-operation is effective as part of a group competitive strategy - i.e. students will subjugate their self-interest where they realise itwill help their team to win.Group competition is an excellent and effective motivator as well as a key life preparation.
Both group and individual learning are essential preparation for a successful life.
p24 which essential learnings are age-appropriate,….
Inconsistent and fallacious: The spread of "learning readiness" is widely acknowledged to be enormous. The only reasons for the outmoded age-grade learning practiced in schools is
(1) individual learning is less important than social conditioning i.e. get on with your peers even if they are comparative idiots
(2) schools are flat out protecting students that deviate from the norm (physical difference NOT arising from age; social behaviour;cultural difference etc etc).They can't/ won't cope with protecting high and low achievers with exactly the same differences.In summary, a crucial change in vision must eliminate the forced "centralisation" of immature humans in schools.
p24 good educational facility ought to be readily available, probably on a round-the-clock basis,
We don't need schools to do this. These services can be provided through libraries, internet cafes, drop in centres, private homes,study groups etc.Why try to develop new uses for an outmoded institution ? Protect the current workforce ?The crucial point should be to recognise that lass and less education needs to be delivered through school programs, by schoolstaff or on school property.Parents and students should be free to select parts of their child's education from a diversity of organisations offering a dicersity ofmodes (full time, part time, after school, online etc) that offer different styles, components of a full education.
p25 Those divisions were produced by the medieval imaginary, were extended by the industrial imaginary, and look like surviving.
The reason is simply because they work ! Just like biological taxonomy, there are real efficiencies in conceptual thinking, research organisation, and increasing the efficiency of mutually supportive knowledge and skills. At the forefront of any of the existing disciplines, hybrids are always developing. Students rarely work at the complexity levels that require this hybrisation. Over centuries, these disciplines change. It is a gross exaggeration to imply that nothing has changed since medieval times.
p25 What can schools do in such a structured and entrenched context to travel by a different roadmap?
Is it the role of schools to travel by a different roadmap in an area ("subjects-based imaginary") where the social consensus is quite clearly different ? What gives schools that right or mandate ?
p26 At the very least, the school can encourage incidental cross-referencing.
Totally agree:The best way of achieving this is to purchase/ develop/ systematise a week by week scope and sequence available online to allteachers as well as students and parents. This is a form of accountability that actually serves good curriculum development as wellas many other initiatives such as "connectivity", curriculum auditing etc etc.
p26 A hybridised project can be a whole-school, year-level, or classgroup exercise.
Cross curriculum thematic approaches must be designed very carefully (i.e. by professional curriculum developers, not by teachers "on the fly". As they limit the curriculum breath of each individual subject, they must be chosen very carefully. They must not be repetitive. They needn to deal with the response of students and parents who feel that each theme is "done to death".Badly done, they are anti-diverse, unbalanced, patchy etc.
Is there any better rationale ? "seems sensible" - NOT a great basis for radical change.
p27 This has been a long section. It needed to be,
What about assessment ?Assessment is the key driver of curriculum change in the real world of school systems. It is also the choke point for curriculuminitiatives - "If you can't explain, implement the assessment then forget it !"The only way to get curriculum change as proposed is to structurally remove external or system assessment from the responsibilityof the classroom program.An approach similar to the way governments are increasingly removing data collection for school assessment from the control ofthe school.
Courses should contain assessment designed to inform the course by guiding learning and giving feedback to students & parents.This assessment will mirror the diversity of course approaches and be radically different from school to school, from course tocourse within a school, and between different implementations of the same course within a school.
System-wide summative assessment should be handled separately, independently and objectively (e.g. independent externalassessment which measures the attainment of key system valued goals.).Teachers have no role in its design or implementation, but their practice and curriculum is informed by its data.
p28 Certainly the physical configuration of the school’s learning premises
Implication: If they are not classrooms, there are no classes (Otherwise to change the term would be facile faddism.)Freedom without responsibility is anti-social and anti-educational.If there are no classes, then most compulsory organisational regimens of schools (such as attendance in room 4A at 10:15) areirrelevant.As we give students more freedom, we need to take care to ensure that parents and the community realise that schools no longeraccount for student attendance.Implications of small organisational changes can have profound effects !
p28 The emergence of teacher professionalism:
Professionalism: Much abused term. Merely means skill, competence, or character expected of a member of a highly trainedprofession. What's new ?Often the term is a "container" term for increased workload as "professionals" are supposed to work "as long as it takes" to do aprofessional job cf. wage earner who will knock off at 38 hrs.What it means here is anyone's guess...
pp29 'New’ organizations: A fourth factor is that the kind of advanced, globally connected and information-rich firms
The evidence on successful organisation structures is very complex and varied. Walmart operates on a very different organisationalmodel to google, but both are astonishing new success stories. the success of the approach is closely ties to the product/ serviceoffered, the character of employees etc etc.No clear evidence of what "new" organisations will be like, let alone whether schools should follow them.
pp29 'based on the mobile knowledge worker’.
Aspects of a truth being expanded to being the whole truth....Mobile knowledge workers in the information economy are similar to the factory workers in the industrial revolution - low bargainingpower, no collective organisation, no reciprical obligations from their employer etc etc.This is why so many of the knowledge work is being "out sourced" to India and China.We have accepted the loss of the competition to maintain a manufacturing industry, there is no evidence to show that we have achance of retaining a competitive edge in the information economy.
pp30 Their learnings may not be acquired through one particular school,
Why persist with the idea of a home school ?Using the term "home" implies a role for the school which is poorly defined.The student has a home. There is no need for a "home school". The parent and student can navigate between differenteducational offerings for themselves without the support (interference) of a "home school".
pp29 The student (like other knowledge-workers) understands that she herself is responsible for her own learning career,
Moving responsibility to the student is directly against the international trend of increasing freedom for individuals (especially children) and removing any responsibility from them for their actions. As long as we retain a "home school", the implication is likely to remain that that some-one other than the parent and student is responsible for their learning. If we move to a diverse and responsive educational services market, then each component can negotiate clear responsibility withthe parent and student.
Are we so politically correct now that "she" is the new "he" ? "he/she" is a surely a small price to pay for equality cf. discrimination.
pp31 for mentoring a group of learners, a kind of homestead group, directing them sequentially into projects or modules of activities, and keeping track of progress and outcomes.
An excellent idea !As long as the role of the teacher is clearly redefined as a mentor rather then a teacher.
pp31 integrating the components it supplies with those of other providers.
This job is unnecessary, limiting and impossible. Unnecessary, when parents and students can choose their own "components" according to their interests, life plans andcapabilites.Limiting in that the parent or students should be free to choose from a global range of services rather than those preferred or knowsto the "home school"Impossible because the organisation would have little or no power and presumably retain some responsibility for uncooperative orirresponsible students or parents. For the "good" student it is unnecessary. For the "bad" student, it is irrelevant.
pp32 (treachers) behave as private operators
This is completely erroneous description of the highly centralized and regulated education employment
pp32 The nature of the teacher’s work is now far more sophisticated than mere instruction
High quality instruction is no "mere" feat.Indeed, there is likely to be more instruction embedded in the actual experience of a self-selecting learner than was allowed in thedays of a "broad and general curriculum".Give students the freedom and they will be getting instruction in Microsoft Certification rather than education in AustralianHistory.
p32 Working hours have become more flexible, and are no longer a standard day
"Piece Work" is now often dressed up as "Contract Work".Technololgy (e.g. podcast)allows for the centralised delivery of a single instance of an excellent teachers work.This is not ALL teachers are needed for, but it is likely to be a substantial proportion.Another reason to dispense with the school altogether.
p33 comparable with what is paid to knowledge workers in other industries.
"Knowledge workers" range from VERY lowly paid call centre operators in India to VERY highly paid System Analysts etc. i.e. here is NO certainty of continued high levels of remuneration.
p33 Professionalised workers want ‘to do whatever needs to be done...
This is fine where the employment market gives the contractor good bargaining power.In the knowledge economy (like the industrial revolution) there many in this position - but most are likely to be at the mercy of"market forces"
p33 They do not think of themselves as employees but as partners,
Partners share the profit of the enterprise.More and more of this model is only workable within the concept of a fully proivatised education system.
p35 Parents may not have the continuity of knowledge and engagement with each student formerly assumed.
One completely consistent outcome of the current policy support for "social diversity" is this increase in the extremes.Many students come from homes which will provide more and more of the support for a varied education using different modes and"components".Others will exercise their freedom to fail.
p38 The network organization has a centre or core which retains ‘tight control over technical quality, research and development, major investment decisions, planning, training, and coordinative activities’
Educational Leadership has long hidden its responsibility behind a curtain of consensus, democracy and central dictate.the idea of a central core taking responsibility for clear planning goals will be very welcome to teachers whose main interest is inbeing given practical guidelines and practical support to deliver to students.The problem is the long history of educational leaders delivering totally impractical curriculum and organisational arrangements andthen bemoaning the lack of quality implementation.
p38 rest of the organization’s activities can be turned into separable functions, capable of being contracted out or franchised to satellite or subsidiary units
The school should design and offer ONE or MORE of the optional "components" of a successful education according to itscapabilities.There is no need or rational for the continued existence of the school as an overarching co-ordinating body for the totality of astudent's education.
p39 … displacing the assumption that learning needs to take place in geographically bound spaces and in a stereotyped set of facilities called schools and classrooms.
At last.these structures only need to continue where and if students and parents choose them compared to other styles of educational"component".
p41 A team works on the principle that unless everyone pulls his or her weight, it can’t win.
Team co-operation exists because it makes the team more effective in achieving the goals of the individual members.
p44 We now use language about collegiality (equal power but varying capabilities), co-operation (literally, the means of acting together), teamwork (the notion of each member playing a part and of all being responsible for the outcome, for winning), and of coordination (of every member willingly harmonising with others’ efforts).
Most education leaders in government schools only give lip service to these terms.The combination of strict line management above them and the lack of power to actually control those below them means that mostof the possibilities inherent in these operating styles are sterile rhetoric.
p46 A system which enforces conformity, uniformity, and orthodoxy is on the road to death, but a system which breeds diversity is on the way to vibrant growth.
NOTE: the system is robust but no specific element within it is essential.The enforced "biodiversity" in government schools is proving dangerous to the system due to the schools' inability to rid themselvesof environmental toxins in the form of ineducable students and incompetent teachers.
p48 interactions within living systems; a live, energetic, interdependent environment of which we as individuals, learners, and the school itself are integral components; the openness of a living system where mutual support guarantees survival,
Biological metaphor also leads to many Darwinian concepts such as:
-"survival of the fittest" (closure of poor performing schools; duplication of school types that have increasing enrolments such as selective entry and single sex)
-natural diversity (enabling schools to be creative make their own mistakes and live or die by their ability to attract students.
p50 the (planetary) crisis was in part created by the traditional academic disciplines themselves
Talk about a long bow !!!Blaming the global ecosystem crisis on Western academic disciplines is a very convenient (and common) whipping horse !The greenhouse contribution form the Asian and Indian subcontinents is by far the greatest contribution to global meltdown - due totheir "centre of gravity" position in world population.The planetary crisis cannot be fixed by any amount of ecological responsibility on the part of the "Free World" (although we canobviously research and model the way forward).
p51 ‘every modern economic system…is anthropocentric and exploitative in its programmes; the natural world is considered a resource for human utility.’ He argued that economists ‘were caught in a mechanistic world…derived from Newtonian cosmology’
Ockham's Razor: Humans population growth displays the dynamics commonly seen when environmental limits such as food andpredators have been removed from an ecosystem.When food or water run out or predators (almost certainly viral) discover the opportunity, population models suggest an extremelyrapid "over-correction" possibly to near extinction.This is all very "natural".We are not so much ruining our planet, as changing it in ways that may not favour our species survival.
pp51 destined to become truly global citizens, iterally citizens of the world.
This is an unsupported assertion.As explained earlier, humans only co-operate to achieve personal goals through groups more efficiently.A reading of ancient and recent history would suggest that it is far more likely that as resources (esp. water and food) run out orpredator pressures (e.g. virus) arrive, human conflict will rapidly escalate.
p53 nation-states’ influence is being supplanted by the activity of regional trade centres. Silicon Valley outside of San Francisco is the prototype, and the city of Singapore is another.
Untrue of Singapore: This country has a very well developed sense of national destiny. It sees itself surrounded by hostile nations. Nationality is far from a non-issue.
p54 there is not a ‘brain drain’ so much as a ‘brain circulation’
Again Singapore and many developing nations would disagree most strongly with this wild assertion. They lose many of theirhighly educated citizens to countries which can afford to reward skills and knowledge and provide a better lifestyle.This is a serious and continued retardant to improvement in these countries.
p54 student body borderless, technologically adept, unencumbered by distance, and at ease with being a global citizen; and how well does the school’s curriculum foster such globalism?
Unless these features emerge from a social consensus of the school community or the wider society, the school has no right toencourage them.Aspects of these values are commendable, but unless put in the perspective of the prime duty of loyalty to the nation, then they aredangerously destabilizing.
p55 The social imaginary being considered here is based also on the shift from a Newtonian (mechanistic) view of the cosmos to an Einsteinian
This differentiation between Einsteinian and Newtonian is fallacious but illuminating.Einstein was highly mechanistic in his conception of the world to the extent of resisting the role of an uncertainty principle.The reason that such a tiny proportion of humans understand Einstein's work compared with Newton's is an example of the need tolimit educational topics to the capacity of students and the time available. It is simply NOT possible to get students studying queuetheory in year 7 without trivialising the content or leaving the vast majority out !Most thematic topics that include maths either deal with trivial maths or complex maths in a trvial way.
p55 Every one of those (Newtonian) descriptors is wrong!
Extremely simplistic and unfair to describe these models as "wrong". they not only derive from one of the greatest minds of history, but are still in daily use today and provide perfectly acceptable approximations for everyday events.
p56 Avoid saying things like ‘the moon comes up.’
A simplistic notion again that it is better for a child NOT to learn that descriptions differ from different view points, but rather to try to avoid plain descriptions in favour of the cosmically correct.
p61 People who are fit, alert, interested in life, and thirsty for learning will insist on having specialist educational institutions geared to their needs.
This is a VERY optimistic assessment that ignores the proportional decline in support for intellectual engagement and creativity in favour of anti-intellectual consumerism. This can be seen in the massive growth in passive recreation (even if we define reading as "active"). The proportion of our population engaged in recreation that requires active physical or intellectual engagement shown no sign of increase.
p62 In such a context, ‘school’ is no longer imprisoned geographically on an island site, but interacts with clusters of compatible enterprises, shares its facilities, and leases its physical space. Its teachers are no longer employed by a single school, nor need they work entirely in education.
As the paper develops the vision of a school as a unitary organisation makes less and less sense. Educational services can bedeilivered by a wide reange of people and organisations of a variety of types in a range of loactions at a range of times.Any (or none) of them could be called "schools".The school as we know it - compulsory, controlling, accountable for the totality of a child's education - will have no reason to exist.

Gridlock: new push on city car tax

2005-12-31T18:46:00.000-08:00

Let's pay millions of public tax dollars on some consultants and then more on some probably foreign sourced technology to scan every car and bill every city visitor so that the preferred visitors to the city are not encumbered by cars driven by the common people ! Anyone who matters, will have either an absolute exemption (government workers of all shades of course !) or tax exemption (legitimate business cost - for the family car as well, of course !). Much simpler to limit the capacity of roads leading to the city ? What a backward thought ! We don't really want fewer, we just want better visitors - those who can pay (or have someone to pay for them !) Anyway, we want more of "them" to use the private mass transport systems that they are already paying for ! Don' t they get it ! Limos in the city ! Losers on the trains & trams !

Conservation & Conservatism

2005-12-29T01:01:00.000-08:00

Both conservationists and conservatives have a problem in defining what they wish to conserve and what change, if any, they can support. Extreme conservatives act as if they believe that any cultural, social, political or economic traits that existed at some point in the past should be retained or reinstated. The historical point taken for reference is usually in the lifetime of the conservative of his/ her parents. The priorities are also wildly variable .... family structure, racial composition, social service levels, dress, speech, etc. Conservationism is a subgroup of conservatism that focuses on ecology. It is historically separate Extremist conservationists act as if they believe that any ecological systems that were in existence before the great expansion of influence of the west in modern times e.g. from about the 1500's should be protected against further change or even restored. More moderate conservationists believe that we should strive at any time to maintain remaining enclaves and restrict as much as possible further degradation. The priorities that are applied to various issue vary wildly depending on what group is speaking... global warming, overpopulation, deforestation, pollution, extinction etc. My brand of conservatism includes elements of both the above. I would ask therefore, what type and most importantly what speed of "development" can the farmers in developing nations undergo before they find that: a.. they are no longer farmers (e.g. they are workers for an international agribusiness.) b.. their community relationships are disrupted (e.g. inefficient "enclaves" of "traditional" family or village farms hold back "development") c.. their life choices are greater but do not include many of the social relationships by which they used to define themselves. (e.g. better to offer more "life choices" by aggregating the population into larger towns. No more villages - or just the geriatrics left.) d.. their lifespan is increased but they are less content, less fulfilled and less responsible (e.g. disparity of income without cultural explanation leads to increased discontent regardless of absolute level of comfort - witness the increasing dissatisfaction and irresponsibility in Aust despite the poor being extremely comfortable in international terms). What is the purpose of human life ? What do humans want ? Even the simplest interventions can produce as much harm as good. Take health (and the related outcome that you mention - increased lifespan) I do accept that change should usually be accepted where it produces a gradual improvement in health standards. But look at how many countries have had great improvements in reduction in child mortality over the last century only to have huge consequential problems in population growth, poverty, environmental degradation and political instability. If we look at the "globe" as a collection of "suburbs", then the most important planetary goal should be zero population growth in those suburbs where humans are breeding like rabbits. The secondary goal would be to rid the world of the addiction to growth as a good in its own right. It is THIS addiction that makes economics the dismal lens that through which all development and conservation must be viewed. I do consider myself a global citizen - but only after I consider my family, local community, and nation. After these have been considered, I support equally the conservation of the rice farmers in Japan, and the improvement in health of the Thais. In Australia, I want to conserve remaining elements of the "social fabric" that I believe existed in the 1950-1980's in Australia. But "fabrics" are unchanging after manufacture. Straitjackets are made from fabric. I better analogy would be to conserve the social ecology because ecologies are not static. They are defined by relationships between different living creatures and by relationships between living creatures and the physical environment. An ecology can accommodate change and still be the same ecology. The key attribute is the rate of change. There are some rates of change that alter the ecology to the extent that most observers would agree that it is not the same ecology. Some extreme "development" proponents would argue that rabbits (and cane toads for that matter) don't destroy the ecology - they just change it. I think they are disingenuous. Unfortunately, it seems that many people (particularly those of the "left") argue that change in Australia will just change our culture - not damage it. I think that they are naive at best (e.g. Natasha the Democrat and Bob the Greenie), and liars at worst (e.g. Latham the sycophant). I think that that, in general, the French government has got its priorities right ............ for the French. And isn't that what a government should do ?

Edutainment: Engage me !

2005-10-28T05:04:00.000-07:00

As if it is hard to see what Marc Prensky is pushing ! (author of Digital Game-Based Learning and the founder and CEO of Games2train, a game-based learning company whose clients include IBM Bank of America, Nokia, and the Department of Defense.)

"Those kids’ (in the past) lives were a lot less rich—and not just in money: less rich in media, less rich in communication, much less rich in creative opportunities for students outside of school."

What a load of %$#@% . Humans exist in a sea of information. Our senses don't stop collecting just becasue there is no digital transmission nearby.
IT evangalists often forget their biology, and forget is that the IT revolution has tranformed the selection of information available to students not the quantity e.g. students absorb information more commonly from digital displays whereas in the past they would be absorbing from the outside environment, or a book, or each other. The environments in the past were far more selective. Parents, teachers, local cultures could influence the information fed to children to a far greater extent.
Think of the diet of a child roaming with little supervision around a enormous unscrupulous fast food bar compared to a child that sits down closely supervised by a loving parent at a healthy family meal.
Our role as educators, is to inoculate students against the paralysing excess of options by giving them culturally specific feedback on type of creativity and knowledge is worthwhile. Without this guidance, they often assume that the highest kill count in Halo2 is a valid goal.

"All the students we teach have something in their lives that’s really engaging—something that they do and that they are good at, something that has an engaging, creative component to it. ...Another commented: “Every day after school, I go home and download music—it’s all I do.”

It is instructive to read about objective measures of comparative happiness across cultures, and measures of personal dysfunction such as depression, self-harm etc. These point out the shallowness of the above analysis (and the example of creative engagement !). Students of today have a measurably reduced chance to find meaning in a world dominated by "post-modern" nihilistic self-centred relativistic dollar-worship.
Our role as educators is to entrance them with the beauty of the highest human acheivements. If you collect a list of the most boring topics imaginable fro children, then many of these achievenments will be high on the hit list. People like Prensky try to assert that you can deliver it in a computer game format. Others say that you can make it all "fun". This attitude has delivered our nation into a its most dangerous drought - a drought of high skill/ high commitment workers in so many areas. The solution for the next couple of generations is likey to be to continue to import these workers from other cultures - cultures that have a clearer idea of the necessity of failure in both building character and setting levels of comparative acheivement.

"And what they are being served is, for the most part, stale, bland, and almost entirely stuff from the past. Yesterday’s education for tomorrow’s kids. Where is the programming, the genomics, the bioethics, the nanotech—the stuff of their time? It’s not there. Not even once a week on Fridays. That’s one more reason the kids are so enraged—they know their stuff is missing!"
"The kids will master systems ten times more complex than algebra, understand systems ten times more complex than the simple economics we require of them, and read far above their grade level—when the goals are worth it to them. On a recent BBC show Child of Our Time, a four-year old who was a master of the complex video game Halo 2 was being offered socalled “learning games” that were lightyears below his level, to his total frustration and rage."

It is true that the most effective educational software categories are tools and simulations. The game format is but one specialised subsection of simulations. I am all for games as education. All higher animals use games as means of simulating and refining social, intellectual and physical tools for life in a controlled envioronment.
The only limiting factors is the availability of games that have worthwhile learning targets. So many have worthwhile content merely as a small side-dish in a "shoot em up". So many others, while of high quality, have such small educational targets that we would need anothe rdecade of ganing to cover a fraction of the current curriculum.
Our role as educators is to schoose the most effective means of acheiving the most learning in the most students in the least time with the least resources. Games will form a small but important part in this process - but are not a major solution. (Simulations, on the other hand, show far more promise, but are not nearly so motivating - the more real they are, the more they require hard work to master)

“Their short attention spans,” as one professor put it, “are only? for the old ways of learning.” They certainly don’t have short attention spans for their games, movies, music, or Internet surfing."

"And if we educators don’t start coming up with some damned good curricular gameplay for our students—and soon— they’ll all come to school wearing (at least virtually in their minds) the T-shirt I recently saw a kid wearing in New York City: “It’s Not ADD—I’m Just Not Listening!” So hi there, I’m the tuned-out kid in the back row with the headphones. Are you going to engage me today or enrage me? The choice is yours."

More rubbish unsupported by fact. The biology of students does not change in few decades. What is decreasing is the competence of parents and the coherence of culture which directly relates (on a family by family basis) to great increases in behavioural variability. It is simply wrong to say that these students have long attention spans, or the ability to overcome the frustrations inherent in mastering any complex system. Indeed, we see that these very students are the least likely to acheive in their chosen interests despite lowering their sights repeatedly.

There is no substitute for key personality attributes that are best inculcated by a healthy family, but can be enhanced by schools. There is no substutute for an education that consciously selects the best human acheivement as the focus for the very limited time we have to influence and entice children.

Prensky is just playing us for a profit.

Tree Protection Laws - An exemplary case of good intentions making bad policy...

2005-10-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

In response to Boroondara Council proposals to control pruning and removal of trees.

A Leafy Middle Class Suburb in Melbourne Australia is following the international trend of punishing the innocent because of their own inability to control the guilty....

The Law sets out to protect the "Leafy Suburb" of Camberwell by bringing the management of all trees of certain size or character under the protective control of the council. Great Idea ? A superficial and simplistic reading would say "yes". I would say a resounding "NO !" for a range of reasons...

Council bureaucracy is already vastly overdeveloped and costing residents more and more for "non core" business - everything from international trips for the CEO to encouragement of cultural diversity. Who the hell do they think they are ? The UN ?
One strategy to ensure the bureaucracy grows (and thus broaden and raise the career possibilities for officers) is to create more and more regulations that require information collection, issuing of permits, site inspections, conflict resolution, fee collection, etc etc.
Tree registers and procedures are a glaring example of this type of self-serving over governance.
But what about the trees ? Tree loss is a real issue needing council action. But where are the trees being lost ? The overwhelming losses occur due to the council's inability to do its core job of preventing overdevelopment of house blocks. I f maximum site coverage was nearer 50% as it used to be, there would be plenty of room for trees !!! Now that council is allowing subdivision to cover around 80% of land, there is no room for large trees without compromising safety or building structures.
The most prevalent modern strategy for attacking community problems is to make everyone pay for the irresponsibility of the few. Think about graffiti, crime, family breakdown. Responses don't focus on correcting the deviant group, they focus on making everyone pay or change behaviour to cope in "this day and age". Tree laws are just the council's way of making everyone pay for the irresponsibility of a very few developers.
The tree laws are another example of council treating its residents like slow learners. This initiative was defeated last year through widespread community opposition. The career bureaucrat just bides his time. The proposal is reintroduced again and again. Eventually, opposing voices are literally exhausted by a process that only career bureaucrats have the time to sustain. Democracy dies. Managerialism rules.
Once again, we hope the exhausted citizen has the energy to rises from the armchair to prevent "public servants" from extending their self-serving empire.

Reporting: What do parents want ?

2005-08-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

As a parent, school reports should tell me:

How well my child is performing against national averages (not "standards" as they are currently so low !)
How well my child is performing against school and class averages (so I know what sort of acheivement level is typical of the class and school. This is one consideration in deciding whether the class and/or the school is the right one for my childs progress)
My child's "character" i.e. behaviour, persistence, creativity, honestly... not just whether he is a nuisiance or not !
The areas that I can work on at home - specific suggestions.

The passionate tenor of the debate on reporting reveals its power to influence curriculum development, school organisation and parent choices. The Age editorial "Plain English reports: Yes Rankings: No" is as one-eyed as Dr. Nelson. In my 25 years of teaching, parents have repeatedly asked one question during their child's education: "How is he/she going?". The meaning of this "plain English" emerges during discussion, as multiple questions merged into one. "How is he going (compared to last time) ?". This is the "developmental" progress that is especially emphasised in primary school. "How is he going (for his age) ?". This is the "criterion referenced" progress that is usually answered by reassuring parents that the textbooks and course materials embody a high standard. Recently, parents have also been given information from large scale testing programs. Unfortunately, their quality and reliability will continue to be in doubt while their grading and evaluation are done in secret. "How is he going (compared to the others)?". This "normative assessment" is the question which generates so much more tension than the others. In my experience, Australian parents are more often fearful of the answer and embarrassed by their desire to have a child better than the others. Nevertheless, they want the answer and Dr. Nelson wants to give it to them in plain English and in relation to their classmates. The Victorian Government, on the other hand wants to blur both the bouquet and the brickbat. Only one academic grade for most subjects. A grade scale that only moves when you get more than 6 months ahead or behind. A grade scaled across the whole state. A "normative" grade standard set by the government so that the number of B's and A's can be adjusted for maximum parent satisfaction.
Come on, children. Lets not sit in our corners and call each other names ! Over a century of Compulsory Victorian State Education. Can't you agree on a way to honestly tell parents "how he is going" in plain English ?

A successful education.....

2005-07-28T06:32:00.000-07:00

After a successful education a student would say . . . . .

" I can find out about, learn how to do, and understand most things when I need to - and I enjoy it ! "

Arrested deVELopment

2005-04-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

In response to he Victorian Government Release of the VELs (Victorian Essential Learning Standards)
Remember that friend or relative that planned their renovation or dream home for so long that you thought they enjoyed the plans more than the reality ? Well….meet the Victorian DE&T (Department of Education and Training). They love planning ! Plans for everything are sent out to schools as expensive glossy pamphlets, show bags, newspapers (lovingly called “Pravda” by teachers) and even as a stream of SPAM to their large captive audience of employees.

Their greatest love is planning curriculum. “Curriculum” may sound like a doctors description of something children vomit up, but really it is a description of what we are hoping children will swallow.

I have been teaching for nearly 25 years and every few years the Education Department brings out a new amazing plan that justifies the salaries of the Minister and the bureaucracy.

Most recently we have VELS ! Victorian Essential Learning Standards. Don’t get me wrong - this new plan is full of great ideas ! So was the last one – Frameworks II, and the one before that Framework I and the one before that etc. etc. I love them as much as the fantastic new circular house plan one of my students showed me. It has new curved sinks and an amazing curved TV screen to match the wall and give a “surround” feeling. Rubin (real name suppressed) is very creative and very mature. She knows that there is a world of work ahead if the plan is to be made real. Pity DE&T isn’t as smart.

What’s next Rubin ? Well, we need to develop some new technologies like curved screens. We need to get a curved sink made – that could cost ! We need to hire a draughtsman, then a builder, then pay for the materials…. All possible if we have the money, time and willpower.

If DE&T was planning Rubin’s house they would have paid the draughtsman alright, but then they just email a copy of the plan to each family member and sit back !

No, that is a bit unfair ! They would have asked a few different builders to make parts of wall, one great cupboard, an incredible toilet roll holder. Then they sit back and encourage everyone to live in the new house !

What a negative view from a conservative maths teacher ! Aha ! I thought so ! Too old to change !

Not true !! I, and many many other math teachers, would love to be freed from the discipline of the subject into a world of investigative fun. It’s just that no one has actually built a curriculum that we can use.

You see, most teachers can’t write high quality curriculum materials; few have the time and why duplicate effort in hundreds of schools to perpetually “reinvent the wheel”. Teachers are expert at selecting materials for their class; preparing them for use (often tweaking to taste); teaching 25 different individuals at a time; correcting work as often as possible; reporting to parents, administrators and to DE&T. Not enough ! You say ! Write the curriculum as well !

We tried that during the late 70’s and 80’s with another one of those great new ideas – “school-based curriculum development”. Trouble was that it encouraged teachers to have a bash at being curriculum writers. A plethora of low quality “units of work” were celebrated in so many schools. The philosophy is still so seductive – no need to buy expensive curriculum materials from publishers ! Just get the teachers to write them as they go ! Just look at the VELS plan. Lots of “exemplars” for teachers to follow. Lots of “seeding” activities and programs to get them started. Let them experiment on the children with “action research”. “Great”, Rubin would say. “But aren’t they going to get any proper builders ?”

Look at school booklists. Jam packed with expensive textbooks. Why ? Because they are a defacto state-wide standard in the absence of any state-provided curriculum materials. Because they provide a comprehensive sequence that ensures students are prepared for the harsh numerical ranking of the VCE. Because they are developed by respected teachers and publishers who have special expertise in curriculum development.

Many government and school planners wonder why all their planning efforts are so unappreciated, so quickly superceded and so ineffective in actually changing what goes on in the classrooms. Any clear thinking student could tell you that if you want people to move house you need more than plans. If only the planners would talk to publishers. They might be very interested in investing in a curriculum to match the VELS as long as the government gave it the stamp for use in all schools. Anyone can plan. Build it and they will come !

Report time, and not everyone happy

2004-12-13T06:24:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Buckingham 13dec04

THE imminent arrival of the end-of-year report card causes dread in millions of households across the country, for the parents as much as for the children.

Parents expect to receive multiple-page reports on their children's achievements, with often vague descriptive terms instead of grades, and with graphs instead of class rankings.

If simply reading and making sense of the reports is a headache for parents, it is even worse for the teachers who have to write dozens of them, says Stephen Digby, a government school teacher and father of two teenagers.

Digby, Learning Technology Manager at Cheltenham Secondary College in Melbourne, says guidelines set down by the Victorian Government make it difficult for teachers to provide an accurate statement to parents about a child's performance.

"Each key learning area covers two school years. Students are graded on a three-level gradation that covers two years. Teachers also find it difficult because the grades are not on the basis of a test, but a balanced assessment over the whole period."

The three grades are "beginning", "consolidated" and "established", which can lead parents to believe that students are performing better than they actually are, Digby says.

"The language seems to have been invented specifically to befuddle and confuse parents," Digby says. "I would love to see A,B,C grades come back. In the VCE (Victorian Certicate of Education), kids are marked on a brutal numeric system. Everyone understands it and few people complain because they know there's no choice."

Victoria is the only state that has detailed guidelines for student reports. Next year, all states will provide literacy and numeracy test results against national benchmarks, but Western Australia and Tasmania will also move to establish common reporting formats for the whole curriculum.

Other states, including NSW and Queensland, are reviewing policies on student reports, but currently leave both format and content to the discretion of the school.

Mother of three Nina Berry, from Point Clare on the central coast of NSW, says that school reports in NSW are a "motley bunch". "It depends on the school. Some are instructive but some leave parents at a loss," she says.

Berry says she has seen reports where all the outcomes have been "cut-and-pasted" from the NSW syllabus into the report, which is too hard for parents to understand. But Berry does not favour a return to the A,B,C,D,E letter-grades or class rankings, as advocated in federal legislation passed by parliament this week.

Under the legislation, states and territories will be required to commit to ensuring that student reports meet a number of "principles", including that they be written in "plain English" and use simple grading systems such as letter-grades, class rankings and performance against state averages and national benchmarks where available.

"Parents want to know that their children are meeting national literacy and numeracy standards. They want plain English reports of their child's progress. Parents also need assurance that children are taught within a framework that fosters values important to Australian," says federal education minister Brendan Nelson.

Berry would be glad to to have her child's abilities explained in plain language, but thinks letter-grades do not give enough information.

"Parents want to know what their child should have learnt, and whether they have learnt it. It is no good knowing if your child is 2nd out of 27 in a class, when the whole class could be failing."

This sentiment is echoed by Sharryn Brownlee, president of the Federation of P&C Assocations in NSW, adding that what parents really want is consistency and a basis for comparison, such as state averages.

"We don't want overkill on reporting like 27 pages of outcomes that are top-heavy with teacher-speak," Brownlee says. "There has to be some kind of standard about what grades mean. People want honest information, and to be told what is being done to help their child if they're struggling."

The move away from grades has created pressure on teachers to write lengthy student reports. Preparing reports has become increasingly stressful for teachers, who have to come up with individual comments for each student in dozens of areas. There are even websites that provide teachers with ready-made comments for each subject area.

Digby believes the move toward vague descriptions rather than grades can be traced back to the creation of the school-based curriculum in the 1980s. "It was designed to give kids the 'opportunity to succeed' – an idea that is still deeply embedded in curriculum documents.".

He says at the school level this means pressure on teachers to adjust work to meet the ability of students, rather than have students fail.

Both Digby and Berry raise the timing of reports as a problem. All states and the Northern Territory require at least one written report to parents each year (the ACT has no compulsory reporting other than for literacy and numeracy).

In NSW when the only report has usually been at the end of the year, it is too late, says Berry. "We need information at a time of the year when you can do something about it."

Motherhood: Only one qualification and you were born with it !

2004-10-20T00:55:00.000-07:00

Mating is easy and entertaining. Who needs a husband ? The state can be the other parent whether it wants to or not (If it doesn't fill the gap well then it can be accused of depriving the child. It has to act as a breadwinner and even care for the child for an increasing proportion of the day (child care).

Why are children attracted to this. Children naturally search through the tattered fabric of our society for alternatives. Isn't motherhood a job ?
You may need a part time job but while there, look out for more loopholes. The most intrepid look for an angle on their employer.

ALP Policy Announcement: Wealthy Private Hospitals and clinics to face the scalpel

2004-08-22T06:28:00.000-07:00

In response to Labors Education Policy announcement that money would be moved from wealthy non-jewish and non-catholic private schools to catholic schools.

In perfect consistency with the recently released education policy which takes public money away from the best resourced schools in Australia, the ALP has announced that all private hospitals and clinics that charge excessively, i.e. above the Medicare rebate, will lose government funding.

Mr. Latham explained today how this will allow money to be shifted back into the public health system in support of public hospitals and bulk billing clinics across the country. Indeed, he promised an immediate increase in the fee support set by Medicare to encourage what he hopes will be a huge increase in the level of bulk billing. "Why should some wealthy Australians be assisted by government dollars to enjoy medical care in five star hotel conditions when we are struggling to fund medical services for all those who need it." Mr Latham asked. A Private hospital spokesperson warned that there would definitely be a large increase in private health insurance rates to cover the lost government support. He also predicted that there could be increased strain on public health clinics and hospitals due to the increased number of people who would use them now that private health services were so much more expensive. There is great expectancy now over the imminent release of the public transport policy tipped to penalise any state government support for private transport operators and move the full costs of road maintenance to private car owners.

Economic rationalism and the world's "best practice"

2004-08-05T00:53:00.000-07:00

Jobs need to be kept in continual short supply so that desperate workers will embrace them. They will embody the "world's best practice" in productivity which can only be sustained by the worlds worst practices in pay and conditions.
A company makes cheaper running shoes than we do by the innovative use of child labour. The initiative is plainly good because it creates jobs and leads to the best product at the best price. This is economic rationalism unfettered by culture. Anyone opposed to this must put forward a powerful case for putting these poor children back on the street - poverty stricken, and for making us accept higher priced shoes !
If a company wants to remain open every hour of the week. The initiative is plainly good because it creates jobs and leads to the best service. Furthermore, because the company's market share increases (at the expense of other businesses who are open shorter hours) they can offer the best prices. Anyone opposed to this initiative must put forward a powerful case for the quality of service provided by small businesses open shorter hours.

Without a strong commitment to cultural rather than economic values, both these cases will be lost. Economic rationalism is fundamentally anti-culture. Culture places irrational constraints on the market. The intellectual commitment to culture is worn down with naive praise for a vague notion of "internationalism". It can also be directly attacked by renaming it as "nationalism" (nationalism is just cultural commitment that is linked to the place where the people live).
The practical commitment to culture is worn down simply by marketing any products globally. Fashion is the surface of culture. If you continually grind off any local allegiances with products from all over the globe you will weaken culture - thus weakening another constraint on free enterprise.

Cool rooms are NOT a good idea.

2004-04-25T06:19:00.000-07:00

In response to Cool rooms urged for kids, parents

Cool rooms are NOT a good idea. They create a presumption that the school has a role in managing violent, anti-social behaviour by adults and students. Schools are educational institutions. Cool down rooms are just another confused attempt to turn government schools into "youth training centres". Students who threaten the safety of other students or staff should not be permtted to return to the same school again - ever. The salutary effect of the inconvenience of travel or relocation would encourage them to regard their next school opportunity with a lot more care. Parents who threaten school staff or students should immediately be dealt with by police. There is already "manadatory reporting" of child abuse and even occupational health & safety issues to authorities. There should be mandatory reporting to police of all threats to staff or students. Police would then be in a responsible informed position regarding the possible threat.

Virtex - A Success Story

2004-04-16T04:55:00.001-07:00

How did this future unfold ? What could have lead to outcomes unthinkable before the 2004 election ?
The first indication that things in John Howard’s self-professed last term were not going to be just business as usual was his personal involvement in key decisions within the education portfolio. Close consultation with the minister of education was often followed by joint press conferences to emphasis the personal importance Mr. Howard placed on progress in this area.

The second surprise was in the federal control and concentration on key transformational projects rather than using state funding. These projects did not attempt to achieve change through the army or “Sir Humphrey’s” in state and even federal education bureaucracies as so many Commonwealth programs had before them. They created momentum centrally in a way that so challenged state governments, schools and teachers that nearly all realised that they needed to “get on board” to have some input. Within 18 months international bodies were either copying or joining some of the developments.

What were these projects ? How could so much rapid change come from projects remote from the classroom funding ?
For decades, commonwealth and state education authorities spent million upon million on curriculum development. Where did it go ? If you asked Australian teachers around the country in the fist years of this century, they would tell you about the mountains of guidelines, blue prints, exemplars, models, sample units that gathered dust even before they were distributed. If you asked them what they used in the classroom and they would have shown you a smorgasbord of commercial classroom materials.
The materials tried to pitch themselves somewhere near one states guidelines or another’s framework. Very few were recommended by any government. Many needed to be purchased by every school to meet the diverse needs. All came with strict legal guidelines preventing their improvement, alteration, and sharing among schools. Most publishers understandably structured their materials to prevent teachers extracting or even finding parts from within these courses. Most online materials were only accessible to those who bought access, even then, they were only designed to enhance not deliver.
If you stayed in those classrooms for more than a day, you would see that most programs were patched together “on the fly” with passionate but often chaotic creativity. In the hands of an expert in curriculum design as well classroom teaching, this worked until the teacher promoted or burnt out. These teachers were continually trumpeted as models for all. Most teachers were best at curriculum delivery and did not have the expertise, let alone the time, to develop or even select materials from the library or from the unlimited chaff left in the contracting free areas of the internet.

What did the many national projects do ? They nearly always focused on development of new resources (supposedly an easy daily task for the average teacher) with no attempt at comprehensive coverage of even one subject. Most projects aimed to create products to sell to schools as exemplars or units with consequent fame and return for the individuals and organisations that sold them. Just one more option to wade through before preparing tomorrow's lesson.

Sucked into the Virtex ! Boffins, State governments and unions agreed that a single national curriculum is too restrictive ! Perhaps fascist ! The national government was frustrated at the lack of any guarantee of classroom improvement even after with bucket loads of cash. Mr. Howard’s fourth term proved the circuit breaker when he announce the fast track development of Virtex as the mechanism of making his election promise of honest educational reporting a reality.
Virtex was going to make a national curriculum available to all students – not just guidelines, but sequenced courses of classroom activities with associated assessment and reporting standards.
The idea would incorporate any materials and their associated standards that State Governments wanted to put their name to. There was no restriction on diversity. Online storage allowed the “text” to be as large as the nation’s diversity. Yes - Sequences had to be recommended through the materials so that students and teachers knew how to cover skills, knowledge and attitude development required for the national standards - but alternatives can be easily stored for every unit of work or lesson. This would not be confusing if choice was limited to materials approved by at least one government.

State governments could produce guidelines in spades. Their problem was not wanting to be blamed for the hard choice every teacher makes every day – what lesson will I teach ! There was no problem with materials. Teachers were up to their eyeballs in curriculum resources. The problem was in choosing the materials to match the changing, vague and contradictory “guidelines”, “frameworks” and “standards”.

The Federal government took the lead. It quickly integrated all the materials under the control of a variety of QANGO’s into Virtex using EDNA as a basis. It then sought donated resources from all groups interested in quality national curricula such as subject associations and universities. Initial reluctance over loss of control (copyright on everything in Virtex is owned by the national Government) was overcome by the desire to be recognised as someone involved in setting the national standards. State governments were challenged – “Where are your materials ? Contribute them to the national database and actually help teachers. Are you sure that your imaginary state courses are better than the realities that that the federal government has openly shared ?”

Teachers and Parents voted with their mice ! As soon as the first courses of study and their associated national assessment & reporting standards were published, teachers rushed to try them out. Virtex provided real assessment instruments (e.g. tasks and tests and how to grade them) so that teachers around the nation could assess the curriculum. They couldn’t resist the desire to compare their student’s performance with the national data that was flowing in voluntarily at an increasing rate. Parents began to pressure their teachers and schools to use materials at the “national standard”. State governments found that they had to contribute to the standard or their schools would just end up following it.
Huge volumes of materials were submitted and incorporated. Courses were added more slowly as governments made the difficult decisions about what would fit and what had to be left out. Even within a single course, there were always a growing number of lesson contexts and approaches available to deliver the course objectives.

So what’s the difference ? All materials in courses must be recommended for inclusion by a government. The overwhelming bulk of materials in Virtex have yet to be integrated into any course. Many may never be. They stay there as examples of someone’s creativity - perhaps to be discovered as relevant to some future not yet visible. A much smaller price to pay than a library shelf !
Teachers are thus assured of the quality and appropriateness of any materials in courses and the acceptability of the assessment and reporting standards associated. They can concentrate on teaching to the best of their ability !!
International interest grew as commercial publishers realised that they needed to sell at least part of their materials to Virtex or lose credibility as standard bearers and money in lost sales. Indeed the government bought large collections of high quality content from publishers in part to compensate for the huge impact the initiative would have on the market for classroom materials.
Foreign governments began the process of negotiating such issues as access to the resources, the right to duplicate the database, information on the process of creation and management. Translation of materials began in some countries, local independent systems grew in most. The underlying assumption of access to accredited educational programs was recognised as a part of the international rights of the child. The United Nations became involved in the promotion of the approach and ….. the rest is history.

No one invented Virtex. It was an existing idea whose time had come. It was a demonstration of technological readiness as well as the continuing role for government in managing a liberal democracy rather than just being a passive victim of whatever product or service the market evolves.
It did take a person of power and vision to ensure that it was realised so quickly and implemented in a way that ensured more effectively than many aspects of direct school funding, that Australian children had equal access to the best educational materials in the world.

Redfern Riots: Pillocks Pillage Police

2004-03-27T01:13:00.000-08:00

In response to Redfern Riot Reporting

Although extreme this view does touch on the fact that the police were obviously under rules of engagement that actually exacerbated the situation. Children (and their inciters) presented with targets and no respone to their actions experienced an increasing "high" at their "power" (as reported by the girls interviewed). The police should have brought in some armoured vans and removed a number of "front line" offenders. The rest would have quickly been intimidated. Although attempting to deflect criticism of bias by at least interrogating police, the show was absurdly biased against the police (as usual for the ABC unfortunately). The interviews with aboriginals were sympathetic, credulous, extensive and involved many people with little credible information other than their own extreme predjudices (in particular the unfortunate girl who had a great night !). The interviews with police were adversarial and unsympathetic. The facts are that one youth with extensive history died an accidental death due to his fear of apprehension for his latest crimes. Even IF the police were pursuing him, they would not be to blame for his death. Unfortunately, there is a dynamic that all reporters seem to be addicted to: organisations are always wrong because they should be perfect in future and hindsight regardless of the extreme situations that their represetatives are in. Individuals (other than members or owners or organisations) on the other hand are always victims regardless of their extreme and irresponsible actions. Why ? Because it "runs" better with the "culture of complaint" that the press submits to and thus nurtures. The most extreme eaxample sof this culture of course were portrayed in your show. People, whose primary failure is their inability to maintain any coherent culture that could protect them from the predatory elements in any society. Yes, Aust history had a role in this a hundred years ago, but today.... ????

Redfern Riots & Parental responsibility

2004-03-25T01:10:00.000-08:00

In response to ABC discussion convened by John Faine after Redfern Riots

The key difference between the present and the past is the huge loss of parental guidance in the lives of these children. Parents should be WITH their parents on many evenings, on other evenings they should be at adult supervised activities such as clubs and sports. The acceptance by parents and our culture that youth should be able to congregate unsupervised in public places is a recipe for disaster. The idea that we can construct some new frail structures (mentoring etc) that can redirect this inherently unstable and immature groups is a fallacy. The apologists for failure can be readily identified by phrases such as "in this day and age". As well as returning to parental responsibility and adult supervision, we need to regard the antisocial media influences on music video and advertising in general as health risks in the same way as smoking and aggressively control them. The only suggestions coming from the apologists for cultural collapse are more money from government and more "tolerance" of the loss of public freedom in public spaces. In summary, the key practical actions that would make a difference are: - public campaign reinforcing parents responsibility to know where their children are and what they are doing. Similar style to TAC & drug ads. - public campaign and perhaps "curfew" legislation to ensure children of different ages are at home or under direct parental supervision at certain hours - legislative changes to make parents legally responsible for children's supervision (i.e. parents supervises or ensures that child is involved in supervised activity) - directed financial assistance from local/ state / federal govt towards activities such all sorts of healthy socially beneficial supervised sporting and special interest clubs. Provide supervision for skate ramps etc. (dispensers of support have responsibility to be careful that sick elements do not get into this funding e.g. rap group = violence antisocial misogyny etc) - community leaders actively challenging the pop culture as antisocial and in many cases "sick" by almost any index. Local/ state / federal leaders identifying the execs in pop culture (music clothes etc) and advertising and making them responsible for using their enormous creativity for positive socially uplifting messages embedded with their sales pitch. Threaten c legislation but hopefully avoid. Treat them like the irresponsible road speed encouragers, the tobacco pushers, the alcohol pushers, the gambling pushers etc. - more if you are interested ....... In summary, the key actions that are great BUT won't make much difference BUT will look good on a local/ state/ federal govt action plan are: - expensive highly supported high profile pilot programs in a range of great ideas that just cannot be scaled up to make any significant impact e.g. mentoring, big brother - more youthful youth officers employed by local govt to run tiny groups that make a few newsletters with the involvement of either the better behaved and educated do-gooders OR some worst offenders who have "seen the light" (possibly literally). - more attractions to congregate without adult supervision such as nooks and crannies, seating, skate parks, ramps, etc etc.