How is it that the new “consensus-style” Government of Kevin Rudd, which has promoted itself as open and listening, got so close to the planned apology without letting the rest of us see the wording?
If community consultation and discussion was ever called for, it was for this. Most of us agree sorry needs to be said, but for sorry to mean anything, we must know what we are saying, and why and how we are doing so. The Government was not just frustrating the Opposition with its delaying tactics, it was snubbing the millions of non-indigenous Australians who also want this momentous occasion to speak for them.
Karin Wiese’s views on teachers (Letters, February 12) reek of snobbery. I have seen good, bad, intelligent and average teachers at every level of the education system. The best and brightest are not in it because they want money or social standing, but because they love children and learning. By all means pay teachers better, but money and social standing cannot buy altruism, and that is what underlies great teaching.
Gordon Cheng, Kingsford
I could have added that altruism is a work of the Holy Spirit, but they generally only allow one idea per letter.
Concerning letting people see the sorry statement first.
I think they did have consultation, but do not think they needed to consult with all 20 million of us before issuing a statement.
I think it would have been a huge anticlimax to see the statement several days or weeks in advance. And it would have led to endless suggestions and comments and criticisms and would not have been helpful.
Karin Wiese’s views on teachers (Letters, February 12) reek of snobbery. I have seen good, bad, intelligent and average teachers at every level of the education system.
Me too!
The best and brightest are not in it because they want money or social standing, but because they love children and learning. By all means pay teachers better, but money and social standing cannot buy altruism, and that is what underlies great teaching.
Gordon Cheng, Kingsford
I could have added that altruism is a work of the Holy Spirit, but they generally only allow one idea per letter.
The trouble with performance pay is that is supports a “one-size-fits-all” system.
In the school I’m at now, from K-2 the class sizes range from 22-26 children/class. There is one main teacher for each class, who receives:
* 2 hours’ release time (Religious education & community language)
* 1.5 hours additional release time (Library, Sport and Music - where I come in for 30 mins.)
On average the K-2 teacher of 22-26 gets 3.5 hours of release time from class teaching.
Add to this that one-on-one aiding and team-teaching is available and that special needs are well-diagnosed and catered for by learning support staff. In the classroom, the ratio of teachers to kids is 3:26.
Even if the 26-strong Kindy class a teacher has includes up to 6 children whose educational needs rate on the autism spectrum, the teacher still has a better, less stressful time than…
...me in May 2007.
In my school of May 2007 (before I called it quits), I had a Y3 class. 31 students. That was an average class size at my old school. As the main teacher of the class, I received:
* 1.5 hours’ release time (Science)
* 30 mins. additional release time
As a Y3 teacher of 31 I therefore got only 2 hours’ of release time.
And I had no one-on-one aiding - your average public school can’t afford that luxury.
And I had more than 10 kids with various extremes of learning difficulties whose educational needs were not adequately catered for.
No team-teaching was available as all colleagues (in the same boat) were too stressed and busy.
In my classroom back then, the ratio of teachers to students was 1:31.
TWO completely different situations.
You can’t compare these two teaching loads for a performance pay assessment!!
Of course the well-resourced Kindy teacher of 26 will seem to be a better teacher than the under-resourced Y3 teacher of 31!!
From a performance pay level, the 26 Kindy kids will be seen to achieve better results; BUT the 31 Y3s won’t - because all their needs are not as adequately met as the Kindies!!
Of course, no-one will really stop to look that closely at two classes in Bondi and Blacktown. They’ll no doubt base the pay on academic improvements, so the better-resourced teacher will end up getting a pay-rise, while the under-resourced one will have a pay-cut.
*sarcasm..*
Oh that’s such a FAIR and EQUITABLE system! Praise be to Performance Pay!!
On a day when big hearts were called for it was sad to see the reaction of some of the crowd to Dr Brendan Nelson’s speech. If we can’t put pettiness and politics aside it makes real reconciliation a bit harder to achieve.
Reconciliation is a great thing. It’s a shame that those who turned their backs on Dr Nelson and many who wrote letters yesterday don’t know what the word means.
All fair points, Tia, though I hope you don’t think I was advocating performance pay as such!
Of course not. I just felt like having a rant since I’ve noticed in the last 18 months that “performance pay” discussions in the public media are starting to increase in frequency…
Blowing own trumpet, but got good feedback and post this letter published in last Saturday’s Illawarra Mercury as first letter, as a reminder that local papers often give you a much better chance of being published, and often at a bit greater length...
It seems strange that some of your correspondents – following celebrity atheist, Richard Dawkins – like to define ‘faith’ their own way, as “belief without or even despite evidence” (Bryce York, February 5).
This is a definition most Christians would not recognise for a moment. Faith is dependence or trust in another.
And it may be based on more or less evidence of a variety of types.
For example, if I left my child to play with a new school friend, under the care of his or her parents – adults I had never met – one might justifiably suggest I was exercising ‘blind’ faith. Some people do this, of course, often without problems.
On the other hand, if I observed the positive way those parents behaved towards kids in the playground, and enjoyed several conversations with them, and perhaps also received positive comments from others, then most would agree that I was right to exercise faith in them and allow my child to play at their house.
This is not faith without evidence! In the same way, people who become Christians do so on the basis of various sorts of evidence. It may include recommendations from friends, or observing the positive effect following Christ has on believers they know.
Often it will include some investigation of the historical reliability of the New Testament.
For myself, I found the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus particularly persuasive. I refer to matters like the undeniably but surprisingly empty tomb, the multiple eyewitness claims to have seen Jesus alive post-mortem, and the changed lives of the disciples in the face of threats to desist.
On this matter, readers may find different strands of evidence more or less convincing. But please stop straw-manning believers by insisting that their faith must automatically be defined as belief without evidence.
Rev Sandy Grant
St Michael’s Anglican Cathedral, Wollongong
In his effort to bring equal opportunity to middle-aged married women, Paul Sheehan ("In praise of desire and infidelity”, February 18) peddles the very mistruth that has laid waste to marriages over the past four decades - that short-term emotion is more important than long-term trust. Sheehan’s defence for breaching the trust of marriage simply encourages an arms-race of individuality and selfishness that is the very antithesis of the marriage vow. And his portrayal of monogamy as a global religious conspiracy to constrain sensuality sounds suspiciously like the sophistry of short-term emotion, practised by teenage boys everywhere.
Jon’s excellently worded reply brought to mind the quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that marriage is not just a commitment to each other - but also it is commitment to the institution of marriage.
It also appears that “commitment” is a word that is not often used in our modern “me-me-me” culture - and is often misunderstood - and the concept of commitment to another is anathema to many. ( I like the illustration of the egg and bacon roll - where the chicken is ‘involved’ in the process - whereas the pig is ‘committed’ to the end product. )
Eva Cox is pleased Therese Rein doesn’t have to clean her oven but doesn’t appear to mind that the person (male or female) who is paid to clean the Lodge oven has to go home and clean their own ("Rudd ruckus a sign of lingering inequity”, February 20).
Why assume that in the Rudd household Therese would be the one cleaning the oven anyway? That seems a very dated gender stereotype. And why does Cox think working mothers are the only ones with paid and unpaid jobs? Most men I know have both.
Both parents are responsible for children. To make child care a “feminist” issue rather than a family issue is to perpetuate a gender stereotype that distracts from the policy questions, and that creates havoc in the home.
So, Robert MacGregor (Letters, February 22), I’m watching those blinkered pig-ignorant Buddhist monks lobbying the Government on the street, at risk of their lives, for democratic rule in Burma - ratbags.
And I’m raised in a country that takes the abolition of slavery, non-exploitation of children in the workplace, a justice system based on all people being equal, with a social welfare system and safety net for the poor, and where gay and lesbian citizens have a say (you might like to have a chat with the President of Iran about that) - all won by the unwanted, interfering and moronic lobbying of government by Christians - jerks!
I swear, these people who believe in stuff are nothing but a pain in the proverbial. I’m so glad that a man with absolutely no sense of history or a long-term memory could point that out to me. Thanks, Bobby, I really owe you one.
ROBERT Jovicic has got a permanent Australian visa ("Life in limbo ends as man told he can stay”, The Age, 23/2). One other “regrettable immigration matter left unresolved by the Howard government” is the Temporary Protection Visa, introduced in 1999 to provide three years’ residence for people who are found to be owed protection obligations by Australia.
Prior to 1999, refugees — such as wartime European exiles and 1970s Vietnamese boat arrivals — were spared uncertainty over continuing protection. TPV holders have to reapply for further protection before their visa expires. I urge the Government to overturn this and discontinue the cycle of suspense. Refugees should be given a new start, not kept in permanent limbo.
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