By Lowell Monke*

THOMAS EDISON WAS A GREAT INVENTOR but a lousy prognosticator. When he proclaimed in 1922 that the motion picture would replace textbooks in schools, he began a long string of [...]]]> The following originally appeared in Orion Magazine – well worth a read as a counter-balance to the all too common push towards extreme impulses.

By Lowell Monke*

THOMAS EDISON WAS A GREAT INVENTOR but a lousy prognosticator. When he proclaimed in 1922 that the motion picture would replace textbooks in schools, he began a long string of spectacularly wrong predictions regarding the capacity of various technologies to revolutionise teaching. To date, none of them—from film to television— has lived up to the hype. Even the computer has not been able to show a consistent record of improving education.

“There have been no advances over the past decade that can be confidently attributed to broader access to computers,” said Stanford University professor of education Larry Cuban in 2001, summarising the existing research on educational computing. “The link between test-score improvements and computer availability and use is even more contested.” Recent research, including a University of Munich study of 174,000 students in thirty-one countries, indicates that students who frequently use computers perform worse academically than those who use them rarely or not at all.

Whether or not these assessments are the last word, it is clear that the computer has not fulfilled the promises made for it. Promoters of instructional technology have reverted to a much more modest claim— that the computer is just another tool: “it’s what you do with it that counts.” But this response ignores the ecological impact of technologies. Far from being neutral, they reconstitute all of the relationships in an environment, some for better and some for worse. Computers tend to promote and support certain kinds of learning experiences, and devalue others. As technology critic Neil Postman has observed, “What we need to consider about computers has nothing to do with its efficiency as a teaching tool. We need to know in what ways it is altering our conception of learning.”

Several years ago I participated in a panel discussion on Iowa Public Television that focused on some “best practices” for computers in the classroom. Early in the program, a video showed how a fourth grade class in rural Iowa used computers to produce hypertext book reports on Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White’s classic children’s novel. In the video, students proudly demonstrated their work, which included a computer- generated “spider” jumping across the screen and an animated stick- figure boy swinging from a hayloft rope. Toward the end of the video, a student discussed the important lessons he had learned: always be nice to each other and help one another.

The teacher explained that her students were so enthusiastic about the project that they chose to go to the computer lab rather than outside for recess. While she seemed impressed by this dedication, it underscores the first troubling influence of computers. The medium is so compelling that it lures children away from the kind of activities through which they have always most effectively discovered themselves and their place in the world.

Ironically, students could best learn the lessons implicit in Charlotte’s Web —the need to negotiate relationships, the importance of all members of a community, even the rats—by engaging in the recess they missed. For recess is not just a break from intellectual demands or a chance to let off steam, but also a break from a closely supervised social and physical environment. It is when children are most free to negotiate their own relationships, at arm’s length from adult authority. Yet across the U.S., these opportunities are disappearing. By the year 2000, according to a 2001 report by University of New Orleans associate professor Judith Kieff, more than 40 percent of the elementary and middle schools in the U.S. had entirely eliminated recess. By contrast, U.S. Department of Education statistics indicate that spending on technology in schools increased by more than 300 percent from 1990 to 2000.

Structured learning certainly has its place. But if it crowds out direct, unmediated engagement with the world, it undercuts a child’s education. Children learn the fragility of flowers by touching their petals. They learn to cooperate by organising their own games. The computer cannot simulate the physical and emotional nuances of resolving a dispute during kickball, or the creativity of inventing new rhymes to the rhythm of jumping rope. These full-bodied, often deeply heartfelt experiences educate not just the intellect but also the soul of the child. When children are free to practice on their own, they can test their inner perceptions against the world around them, develop the qualities of care, self-discipline, courage, compassion, generosity, and tolerance— and gradually figure out how to be part of both social and biological communities.

If children do not dip their toes in the waters of unsupervised social activity, they likely will never be able to swim in the sea of civic responsibility. If they have no opportunities to dig in the soil, discover the spiders, bugs, birds, and plants that populate even the smallest unpaved playgrounds, they will be less likely to explore, appreciate, and protect nature as adults.
Computers not only divert students from recess and other unstructured experiences, but also replace those authentic experiences with virtual ones. According to surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and others, school-age children spend, on average, around five hours a day in front of screens for recreational purposes. All that screen time is supplemented by the hundreds of impressive computer projects now taking place in schools. Yet these projects—the steady diet of virtual trips to the Antarctic, virtual climbs to the summit of Mount Everest, and trips into cyber-orbit that represent one technological high after another—generate only vicarious thrills. The student doesn’t actually soar above the Earth, doesn’t trek across icy terrain, doesn’t climb a mountain. Increasingly, she isn’t even allowed to climb to the top of the jungle gym.

During the decade that I spent teaching a course called Advanced Computer Technology, I repeatedly found that after engaging in Internet projects, students came back down to the Earth of their immediate surroundings with boredom and disinterest—and a desire to get back online. Having watched Discovery Channel and worked with computer simulations that severely compress both time and space, children are typically disappointed when they first approach a pond or stream: the fish aren’t jumping, the frogs aren’t croaking, the deer aren’t drinking, the otters aren’t playing, and the raccoons (not to mention bears) aren’t fishing. Their electronic experiences have led them to expect to see these things happening—all at once and with no effort on their part. The result is that the child becomes less animated and less capable of appreciating what it means to be alive, what it means to belong in the world as a biological, social being.

WHEN I WAS GROWING UP IN RURAL IOWA, I certainly lacked for many things. I couldn’t tell a bagel from a burrito. But I always and in many ways belonged. For children, belonging is the most important function a community serves. Indeed, that is the message that lies at the heart of Charlotte’s Web. None of us—whether of barnyard or human society— thrives without a sense of belonging. In my case, belonging hinged most decisively on place. I knew our farm—where the snowdrifts would be the morning after a blizzard, where and when the spring runoff would create a temporary stream through the east pasture. I could tell you where I was by the smells alone. Watching a massive thunderstorm build in the west, or discovering a new litter of kittens in the barn, I would be awestruck, mesmerised by mysterious wonders I could not control. One of the few moments I remember from elementary school is watching a huge black- and-yellow garden spider climb out of Lee Anfinson’s pant cuff after we came back from a field trip picking wildflowers. It set the whole class in motion with lively conversation and completely flummoxed our crusty old teacher. Somehow that spider spoke to all of us wide-eyed third graders, and we couldn’t help but speak back.
Though the work of the students in the video doesn’t reflect it, this kind of experience plays a major role in E. B. White’s story. Charlotte’s Web beautifully draws a child’s attention to something that is increasingly rare in schools: the wonder of ordinary processes of nature, which grows mainly through direct contact with the real world. As Hannah Arendt and other observers have noted, we can only learn who we are as human beings by encountering what we are not. Substituting the excitement of virtual connections for the deep fulfilment of firsthand engagement is like mistaking a map of a country for the land itself.
Rather than attempt to compensate for a growing disconnect from nature, schools seem more and more committed to reinforcing it, a problem that began long before the use of computers. Even relying on books too much or too early inhibits the ability of children to develop direct relationships with the subjects they are studying. But because of their power, computers drastically exacerbate this tendency, leading us to believe that vivid images, massive amounts of information, and even online conversations with experts provide an adequate substitute for conversing with the things themselves.

As the computer has amplified our youths’ ability to virtually “go anywhere, at any time,” it has eroded their sense of belonging anywhere, at any time, to anybody, or for any reason. How does a child growing up in Kansas gain a sense of belonging when her school encourages virtual learning about Afghanistan more than firsthand learning about her hometown? How does she relate to the world while spending most of her time engaging with computer-mediated text, images, and sounds that are oddly devoid of place, texture, depth, weight, odour, or taste—empty of life? Can she still cultivate the qualities of responsibility and reverence that are the foundation of belonging to real human or biological communities?

During the years that I worked with young people on Internet tele- collaboration projects, I was constantly frustrated by individuals and even entire groups of students who would suddenly disappear from cyber-conversations related to the projects. My own students indicated that they understood the departures to be a way of controlling relationships that develop online. If they get too intense, too nasty, too boring, too demanding, just stop communicating and the relationship goes away. This avoidance of potentially difficult interaction also surfaced in a group of students in the “Talented and Gifted” class at my school. They preferred discussing cultural diversity with students on the other side of the world through the Internet rather than conversing with the school’s own ESL students, many of whom came from the very same parts of the world as the online correspondents. These bright high school students feared the uncertain consequences of engaging the immigrants face-to-face. Would they want to be friends? Would they ask for favours? Would they embarrass them in front of others? Would these beginning English speakers try to engage them in frustrating conversations? Better to stay online, where they could control when and how they related to strange people—without much of the work and uncertainty involved with creating and maintaining a caring relationship with a community.

To develop normally, any child needs to learn to exert some control over her environment. But the control computers offer children is deceptive, and ultimately dangerous. In the first place, any control children obtain comes at a price: relinquishing the uniquely imaginative and often irrational thought processes that mark childhood. Keep in mind that a computer always has a hidden pedagogue—the programmer—who designed the software and invisibly controls the options available to students at every step of the way. If they try to think “outside the box,” the box either refuses to respond or replies with an error message. The students must first surrender to the computer’s hyper-rational form of “thinking” before they are awarded any control at all.
And then what exactly is awarded? The child pushes a button and the computer draws an X on the screen. The child didn’t draw that X, she essentially “ordered” the computer to do it, and the computer employed an enormous amount of embedded adult skill to complete the task. Most of the time a user forgets this distinction because the machine so quickly and precisely processes commands. But the intensity of the frustration that we experience when the computer suddenly stops following orders (and our tendency to curse at, beg, or sweet talk it) confirms that the subtle difference is not lost on the psyche. This shift toward remote control is akin to taking the child out of the role of actor and turning her into the director. This is a very different way of engaging the world than hitting a ball, building a fort, setting a table, climbing a tree, sorting coins, speaking and listening to another person, acting in a play. In an important sense, the child gains control over a vast array of complex abstract activities by giving up or eroding her capacity to actually do them herself.

The computer environment attracts children exactly because it strips away the very resistance to their will that so frustrates them in their concrete existence. Yet in the real world, it is precisely an object’s resistance to unlimited manipulation that forces a child (or anyone) to acknowledge the physical limitations of the natural world, the limits of one’s power over it, and the need to respect the will of others living in it. To develop normally, a child needs to learn that she cannot force the family cat to sit on her lap, make a rosebud bloom, or hurt a friend and expect to just start over again with everything just as it was before.
We hand even our smallest children enormously powerful machines long before they have the moral capacities to use them properly. Then to assure that our children don’t slip past the electronic fences we erect around them, we rely on yet other technologies or fear of draconian punishments. This is not the way to prepare youth for membership in a democratic society that eschews authoritarian control.

That lesson hit home with particular force when I had to handle a trio of very bright high school students in one of the last computer classes I taught. These otherwise nice young men lobbied me so hard to approve their major project proposal—breaking through the school’s network security—that I finally relented to see if they intended to follow through. When I told them it was up to them, they trotted off to the lab without a second thought and went right to work—until I hauled them back and reasserted my authority. Once the external controls were lifted, these teens possessed no internal controls to take over. This is something those who want to “empower” young children by handing them computers have tended to ignore: that internal moral and ethical development must precede the acquisition of power—political, economic, or technical—if it is to be employed responsibly.

Technology can provide enormous assistance in figuring out how to do things, but it turns mute when it comes to determining what we should do. Without any such moral grounding, the dependence on computers encourages a manipulative, “whatever works” attitude toward others. It also reinforces the exploitative relationship to the environment that has plagued Western society since Descartes first expressed his desire to “seize nature by the throat.” Even sophisticated “environmental” simulations, which show how eco-systems respond to changes, reinforce the mistaken idea that the natural world conforms to our abstract representations of it. Such reductionism reinforces the kind of faulty thinking that is destroying the planet: we can dam riparian systems if models show an “acceptable” level of damage, treat human beings simply as units of productivity to be discarded when inconvenient or useless, and reduce all things, even those living, to mere data. The message of the medium—abstraction, manipulation, control, and power—inevitably influences those who use it.

Our technological age requires a new definition maturity: coming to terms with the proper limits of one’s own power in relation to nature, society, and one’s own desires. Developing those limits may be the most crucial goal of twenty-first-century education. It is not necessary or sensible to teach children to reject computers (although I found that students need just one year of high school to learn enough computer skills to enter the workplace or college). What is necessary is to confront the challenges the technology poses with wisdom and great care. A number of organisations are attempting to do just that. The Alliance for Childhood, for one, has recently published a set of curriculum guidelines that promotes an ecological understanding of the relationship between humans and technology. But that’s just a beginning.

In the preface to his thoughtful book, The Whale and the Reactor, Langdon Winner writes, “I am convinced that any philosophy of technology worth its salt must eventually ask, ‘How can we limit modern technology to match our best sense of who we are and the kind of world we would like to build?’” Unfortunately, our schools too often default to the inverse of that question: “How can we limit human beings to match the best use of what our technology can do and the kind of world it will build?” As a consequence, our children are likely to sustain this process of alienation—in which they treat themselves, other people, and the Earth instrumentally—in a vain attempt to materially fill up lives crippled by internal emptiness. We should not be surprised when they “solve” personal and social problems by turning to drugs, guns, hateful Web logs, or other powerful “tools,” rather than digging deep within themselves or searching out others in the community for strength and support. After all, this is what we have taught them to do.

Part of the problem with tweets is that one is restricted to 140 characters: whether or not this can genuinely be called ‘micro-blogging’ or not, it certainly encourages depth of neither reflection nor intelligent [...]]]> Of late given the Australian elections, I’ve engaged in something that I otherwise on the whole consider a waste of time: tweets.

Part of the problem with tweets is that one is restricted to 140 characters: whether or not this can genuinely be called ‘micro-blogging’ or not, it certainly encourages depth of neither reflection nor intelligent participation – yet it has its own merit, in that it allows some encapsulation of core ideas that, as long as there is a shared vocabulary, can be (very) succinctly expressed.

The greatest difficulties arise when the vocabulary is not truly shared.

WItness this exchange (I’m ‘ME’, the other ‘OT’ I have not used the correct name as I did not ask for permission, but trust that no misrepresentation results – for that is certainly not my intent):

ME: “people … can’t tell them apart, hence 50/50 result” Disagreed. Some PREFER LAB central control, others opt for LNP freedom

I here quoted another tweet and wanted to point out that it’s not so much that people cannot tell the major parties apart, but rather that there appears to be a real division (roughly equally divided) between those who prefer what Labor [henceforth 'LAB'] has on offer, and others who prefer what the Coalition [henceforth 'LNP'] has on offer and that, furthermore, LAB tends to favour greater centralised control and overseeing, and the LNP a more decentralised and less bureaucratic approach. Of course, in practice, there’s quite a lot of overlap!

OT: The LNP were going to repeal govt, rescind taxation, unwind the Parl and leave it up to the Transcendent Market? lol

Only a most ungenerous interpretation of my mention of ‘opt for freedom’ could elicit an outlandish caricatured response such as that – especially in the tweeting context of time. So I further responded:

ME: not sure what you’ve been smoking, but your reading seems affected.

I mention this not for the comments that follow, but more to show that herein I am not pulling back from comments I wrote that may also seem ungenerous. Response:

OT: The parties are much closer than you paint them. RT @ME: “Some PREFER LAB central control, others opt for LNP freedom”

OK – so now I accepted an engaged conversation…

ME: “The parties are much closer” AGREED, in policies, but NOT in impulse behind policies, where it matters more

This is the part which really lies at the root of my first point: one and the other political party may have general policies that appear very similar (example: roughly equivalent financing of independent schools; or roughly equivalent, in practice, of military engagement in Afghanistan), but not only will their motivation be distinct one from the other, but also, as a result, both the wording – ie, the fine print – as well as the likely ways in which the policy interpretations by numerous ‘stake-holders’ will unfold: how the government itself further develops these; how the public service interprets these, especially in light of further instructions by memos; as well as ‘interpretations’ by those at the coal-face who will, depending on their own preferences, will work with various leeway that one or the other political party will give to possibilities of understanding the policies.

…and that was my real point.

anyhow, let’s go on:

OT: That is GIBBERISH. Policies are less important than ideology?! Policies are what govts DO and determine their EFFECT.

Here shows in large part the difference not only of a common vocabulary, but also that alternate worldviews may place different importance on various parts of the social fabric. To be honest, I tend to consider any ‘policy’ to which I may be subject with probably as much contempt as some bureaucrats appear to sanctify the same [this does not mean that I won't go along with a sensible suggestion: rather, it means that if the 'policy' is sensible, it will simply already reflect what I strive to undertake with others in community, and if not, will only 'tow the line' to the absolute minimal 'letter of the law' to which I may be subject]. Anyhow… my response tried to clarify this a little… but obviously it was going to prove difficult:

ME: HOW policies are interpreted & implemented have lasting results.

Given the longer explanation above, it may now be far easier to understand what I meant…

OT: No, you’re just covering because you said a silly thing. Ideology of govt means more to you than what govt actually does.

I’m not sure if given the existing exchange it already proved more difficult to see that instead of ‘covering’, I was simply and indeed doing what I exclaimed next:

ME: Not at all: I tried to explain to you what I said. But good to see you must have agreed with my point, then!

…and of course acknowledge that I was being a little cheeky with my second sentence!

OT: You made no point. “HOW policies are interpreted & implemented” is still what govts DO, not the “impulse behind policies”

I suppose that here we do have to fundamentally disagree if the statement means that only governments interpret and implement. Of course, as I acknowledge for myself the limitations of 140 characters, I do so also for OT – hence in part my reply:

ME: policies interpreted & implemented based on wording created by impulse behind policies – 140 chtrs not enough

But of course, there was no way that I could therein go on to explain the point I previously explained in this post!

Firstly, we are a Federated Commonwealth of States. In some ways, this is somewhat akin [...]]]> Given the 2010 Federal election results (still pending), I’ve received (from both local and o/s) queries about how our Australian system of government works, so I thought I’d try and give a very brief overview, with inevitable small ‘errors of exception’.

Firstly, we are a Federated Commonwealth of States. In some ways, this is somewhat akin (though with vast differences) to, for example, the USA, in which numerous responsibilities remain the prerogative of individual States, rather than the Federal or national parliament.

The national parliament consists of two houses:

• the Senate, which effectively represents the member States, and hence each State has an equal number of electors (12 each + 2 for each of the two territories which do not have ‘state’ status); and
• the house of Representatives, which numbers 150, each representing their respective electorates of approximately equal number of citizens (hence the reason for electoral boundary alterations as population numbers change over time ).

Senate (Upper House)

The voting system for the Senate stems from a modification of proportional representation, but within each State. As each State has vastly different numbers of residents, smaller states are more heavily represented (ie, Tasmania, having approximately only one tenth of the population of NSW, still has the same number of Senators: 12).

Representatives (Lower House)

The Government, however, is selected from the lower house. In theory, any person or small group of individuals who has the support of more than 50% (ie, 76 seats or more) could form government. In practice, only the major political parties are likely to gain that kind of support. In a hung parliament such as we currently have, with both the LNP (Libs+Nats) & LAB (Labor) having less than 74 seats, the remaining elected representatives will need to indicate which side they intend supporting in order for either to be able to form an effective executive, or, as we generally call it, Government.

Once this executive is nominated, individuals gaining ministerial portfolios need not be from the lower house (Representatives), but have in the past been from a combination of upper (Senate) and lower (Representative) houses, and neither need they be from the major parties (hence the Libs often allocate some ministerial cabinet position to a member of a smaller party within their coalition).

Executive Government or Cabinet

Now also gets the other ‘tricky’ bit: the responsibility of deciding on who will in fact form the executive, ie, effectively form government, rests not on either the elected Representatives nor on the elected Senate, but rather on the government-appointed Governor-General [GG]. In the past, this has not proved a problem as convention dictates that the GG will follow the obvious choice of appointing the leader of whichever party has gained at least 76 seats.

Hence the reason for why the four independent candidates are discussing various options with the two major parties, in the latter’s respective hope that they will gain the support of a sufficient number of independents and thus become able to form government… but

…now comes the very tricky situation we face, and that the GG herself faces:

• Firstly, our current GG was not only appointed by the Labor party, but her daughter is married to a Labor MP [member of Parliament]. Though her independence and professionalism will undoubtedly be maintained, it is also inevitable that whichever side she ‘favours’ will be in part seen or portrayed in light of this (whether as an influence for, or against, the choice made);
• Secondly, though the tally for 2PP (two-party-preferred) votes in the house of Representatives is not yet complete, it appears likely that the final figures will be quite close to where they now stand: just over (less than half a percentage point) 50% towards LAB, and hence just under 50% towards LNP; BUT
• Thirdly, and again though the tally is not complete, with a far greater preference of primary votes towards LNP (44%) than towards LAB (37%); as well as
• Fourthly, a greater number of seats likely won by LNP (73) than LAB (72) – of these, one of the LNP is of an ‘independent’ National Party seat, and another seat, currently considered a LAB seat, is in fact way too close to even now definitely call;
• Fifthly, the upper (Senate) house will continue to have a higher LNP number of senators… only until next July, after which some senator changes will take effect. This is due to the fact that Senate positions change at a specified time, rather than at election time. In effect, this means that whoever forms government will need to effectively deal, for part of its time in office, with a Senate that is at odds with the lower (Representative) house.

So, in a nutshell, this remains our situation…

please do make a comment in case I’ve overlooked something that really should be included. I’ve tried and avoid political orientation in this post for the sake of explaining the situation, rather than commenting on my own preferences (which should be obvious from other posts I’ve made).

Like many other Australians, I stayed up last night watching the election counting result on the ABC. Like numerous other Australians, I was relieved to see the loss of so many seats previously held by the Labor Party. I write ‘relieved’ for the very reasons I outlined in a [...]]]> Date: Sunday, morning after 2010 Federal elections.

Like many other Australians, I stayed up last night watching the election counting result on the ABC. Like numerous other Australians, I was relieved to see the loss of so many seats previously held by the Labor Party. I write ‘relieved’ for the very reasons I outlined in a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago as to why I would not be voting Labor this election (Cf ‘Why I shall NOT be voting Labor this month‘).

So now, we are faced with a hung parliament. Unlike some, this is something I am personally not worried about as long as each and every elected individual strives to act in the interest of the Australian public – which may very well be somewhat different to the ‘National interest’ as perceived by various international affiliations.

So what would I like to see result and develop out of the current situation?

First and foremost, that decisions are made that work towards ensuring freedom to each and every Australian. There has been a progressive trend over the past thirty years (since 1983) to diminish individual freedoms and autonomy. Though this has mainly occurred under Labor governments, the previous Liberal government not only entrenched some of the Labor policies, but also introduced new measures under the supposed claims of ‘security’. Case in point: airport abuse of passengers.

It was J.G. Bennett, in his four volume The Dramatic Universe, who wrote that ‘security can only ever be achieved at the cost of freedom’, with the implication that this is not, of course, a desirable direction: rather, freedom has to continue to be viewed and considered as amongst the highest of ideals that underpins other important considerations such as justice, opportunity, and equitability.

So what are the specific changes in direction from the previous government that I am personally hoping to see?

On education, a move forward to enabling a diverse educational landscape, and providing opportunities for those who may not be able to really afford a genuine choice to so have that possibility. Foremost is the need to do away with the proposal of a so-called ‘National Curriculum’: such (first mooted under the Howard Liberal government and taken to extremes under Labor) is totally antithetical to the various philosophical underpinnings that permits the ongoing development of a broad range of pedagogical unfoldments. Under a so-called National Curriculum, the many positive alternatives that Australia has already taken up are simply no longer genuinely possible – or become so watered down as to only become ‘alternatives’ in name only, not substance. For example, not only would the vast and positive contributions that have been made by different States moving in different directions be nullified, but so would the many impulses to education be diminished (and would never have been able to even take place had the current trend been in place): genuine Steiner, Montessori, and a host of other, perhaps far lesser known alternatives, would cease to exist in their own right. Something like the International Baccalaureate would not even have been able to arise – or at least not in its infancy, and thus the specifically Australian situation would not have able to inform its progressive emergence.

With regards to the internet, I’m amongst the first to bemoan the relative slowness of not only the speeds to which we have access, but importantly also the proportionally very high prices we pay relative many EU and North American countries. Still, to roll out fibre-optics to each home is living beyond one’s means. I do not have ADSL2+ at home not because it remains unavailable, but because of its prohibitive price. Having fibre optics to my home, at the current price I pay for a relatively poor ADSL 512 connection would of course be nice, but I also know it’s economically unsound – and that on two counts: the first is that it places the next two generations having to repay the outlay, without them necessarily reaping the benefits (there are various technologies in development for ultra-fast connections); the second is that unless a within-Australian-borders ultra-high speed is supplemented by (even more expensive) ultra-high band-width reaching the rest of the world, the only ultra-high connections will be for sites remaining within the Australian continent – and let’s face it, most (even Australian sites) are hosted overseas.

This does not mean that infrastructure work should not be undertaken: of course it should, and a solid ‘backbone’ of fibre-optics should be slowly and progressively rolled out. On this the Liberals had, I must admit, what appears to be a far more sensible option.

Another point with regards to the internet is the last government’s proposed secretive filter. I totally fail to understand what motivated Labor to seek to implement such retrogressive legislation. It is obvious that not only would this not actually stop organised crime or the dissemination of materials that remains undesirable (as well as illegal and against human decency), but would bring into place the same kind of filter that has seen, in other nations in which this is in place, blocking of sites that are deemed ‘against the national interest’. Would, for example, a site highly critical of a future government be ‘blocked’ if deemed against the ‘national interest’?!? Unfortunately, this can be far more likely than most of us would prefer to even consider – yet the events of 11th September 2001 should remind us that we collectively too readily accepted diminishment of personal autonomy and freedom, and that the backward steps taken at that time are still in place and have, it seems, only been further entrenched over the past three years.

A third point, and one rather more difficult to articulate, is the autonomy of States. Unless we keep in mind that we are a Federation of States, we shall progressively slide ever more to greater and greater centralised government. This is in large part what not only the Labor government has already done (and I certainly do NOT call this ‘moving forward’), but similar steps were also taken by the Howard Liberal government (admittedly first used by the Hawke-Keating Labor govnmnts) by finding loopholes in the constitution and using the false call of ‘transparency and accountability’ to introduce so-called ‘benchmarks’ into areas that have naught to do with the Federal government. Instead, the Federal Government’s task needs to continue to be to certainly collect taxes, but then to also re-distribute these so that services are provided at State and local levels.

On another point, given the election likely outcome – hung parliament with the balance of power in the hands of a few, and in the Senate a relatively large number of Green party members – we should remind ourselves that we do NOT elect a centralised government, but rather a local representative. I have already heard, in the last 24 hours, all too many times a call for ‘proportional representation’. This assumes an entirely different political landscape: it forces a government that is not formed from local representatives, but rather from political parties. Certainly changing the voting to proportional representation would add the number of Green (and Democrat, for that matter) representatives in both houses, but that would really take Australia backwards in terms of how our democracy works. In a small country such as Liechtenstein, proportional representation may indeed be the best form of democratic representation, but it certainly is not when considering the great vastness of Australia and its diversity!

Then there are also climate change issues (which, in any case, are all too closely connected to population growth, which only few people, such as Suzuki, are willing to admit). What I’d like to see here is definitely not added taxes (i.e., no ‘carbon trading scheme’ – with all the additional bureaucratic levels this would add) nor cappings (however useful these may be), but rather the far more effective positive encouragement (and financial rebates) for broader usage of solar panels – subsidies to which the Labor government prematurely stopped! – double glazing, water tanks, added insulation, and other energy efficiency measures. There’s no doubt that the rapid rate of change as well as technological and engineering developments in this area are occurring more quickly than many perhaps even imagine: let’s further encourage this by providing support to those amongst us who wish to transform our own homes and workplaces. Another step which may significantly assist this (though this is a State, not a Federal, decision) would be for taxes and ‘duties’ (stamp duty and other associated costs) to be proportionately lowered according to the amount spent on rendering a house more energy efficient prior to, or within a specified time, of sale.

Finally, it’s good to see that move is afoot to recognise the legitimacy of marriage following the intimacy that may develop between any two adults, irrespective of gender. Whilst acknowledging that churches may wish to restrict marriage ceremonies to their members, with or without conditions (such as gender), marriage itself is not something that a government should stipulate according to gender. To also be clear on this, and as may be rather obvious from various sections of my site, I am not only (Judeo-)Christian, but also heterosexual and happily married. To seek to present Judaism or Christianity as somehow being against homosexual marriages is to present the views of the egregore (or shadow) of various church bodies, rather than religion. My hope is that each elected representative will, when the time comes, vote according to his or her conscience on this matter (which, I suspect, will be up for parliamentary vote within two years).

…oh! and I haven’t talked about ‘border protection’ and immigration. There are many points therein that are rather difficult. First and foremost it should be apparent that the world is already over-populated. Apart from other factors, the main reason behind the over-fishing of our oceans, GMO developments in farming (to which I remain totally opposed), and water shortages in all too many parts of the world, should alert us to this. In the 1980s, Suzuki was already talking about this problem. Being politically charged, however, it seems to simply not make it in public discussion any longer. First and foremost, then, what I would like to see is a reduction in population. What this effectively means includes, indeed, a reduced immigration intake. This does not mean that people who are escaping impossible situations in other parts of the world should be further inhumanely treated. Nor does it mean, on the other hand, that the image projected across the world is that here – Australia – is where people may easily illegally get to. I’m frankly unsure as to how best balance these two apparently opposite impulses.

At the national level, one of the other major personal concerns I have (and I make no apology for that, on the contrary, it needs to be spoken more clearly), is the rise of islam in the western world (including our country) over the past decades. Islam, like other political streams (such as Nazism and Communism) that seek to work against the impulse to freedom, needs to be openly challenged, for it is a force that undermines all too many aspects of the freedoms our forebears have fought hard to either win or maintain!

…well, that’s it for now… though I’m sure I’ve missed much I’ll no doubt be discussing with various people at a local level!

2010 NAPLAN tests are due to be conducted between the 11th-14th of May this year (unless a school makes [...]]]> A reminder that any parent or guardian may WITHDRAW their CHILD from having to participate in the NAPLAN 2010 tests (at the bottom of this post, I also add some notes regarding other NAPs occurring this year).

2010 NAPLAN tests are due to be conducted between the 11th-14th of May this year (unless a school makes a request to vary the date).

False information on MySchool Website

I’m not sure why the MySchool website continues to misinform the Australian public. They have already been informed of this, and appear to simply avoid fixing their error (as of March).

The information pdf on their site, titled MySchool Fact Sheet about NAPLAN is only one of numerous places where the misinformation is promulgated on the site. Therein, it falsely states that:

Not only is it the case that quite a number of students do NOT participate, the document totally omits any reference to withdrawing a child. Instead, it makes sole mention of exemptions, thereby falsely implying that the only option for non-participation is for students with specific needs. This is, as will be obvious from what follows, simply not the case: ANY student may be WITHDRAWN from participating in NAPLAN by their parent or carer. Read on for details on how to withdraw from participating in NAPLAN. In 2009 in some schools, every student in 3, 5, 7 and 9 was withdrawn by their respective parent!

Withdrawing from NAPLAN 2010 – it really is quite simple

Withdrawal is different to exemption: for an exemption, rather strict conditions apply. For withdrawals, the process is simple (in most States and Territories at least – as long as the parent or carer is aware of the option which, unfortunately, is a little like the plans for an intergalactic bypass as described in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).

Basically, page 11 of the (Victorian, as typical example) Principal and NAPLAN Coordinator’s Guide 2010 states that:

Withdrawn students

In the event that a parent/carer wishes to withdraw their child from the NAPLAN 2010, signed parental consent using the Student Withdrawal Form (page 24) is required. This form is to be retained by the school.

…and so, for ease or use, attached below is a copy of that page 24 form (which is also available from the VCAA site).

For those interested, apart from my longish entry last year (Cf my blog-post NAPLAN – or the demise of pedagogical principles), the Age has claimed that Victoria has the highest rate of student withdrawals in the nation!

Given the many concerns surrounding the as-yet unknown potential uses of data collected and matched to each child in various computer databases (never mind known uses such as recently reported in the Age), it may be of value to carefully consider how our children are being ‘tagged’.

It seems that about 10% of Victorian students did NOT participate… some as a result of being exempted, others simply due to their parents or carers signing the withdrawal form. And that despite official documents and information to parents making it rather unknown that withdrawing is really that straightforward!

Well done Victoria – though there’s still quite a way to go before it is generally realised that ALL students may be withdrawn by their parents or guardians/carers!

Incidentally, of major concern is the Federal Government’s plan as reported in another Age article: “Ms Gillard also promised the government would introduce identification numbers for all school children, to help track the progress of individual students between different schools, school systems and states”.

ID numbers?!!!?? I suppose that this is a ‘natural progression’ from NAPLAN… and has ALREADY begun: Victorian 10 y.o. now have a VSN [Vic. Student Number] that schools have been required to participate in keying the information for!

Anyhow… here are the forms:

Victoria

PLEASE note that this year, unlike previous years, you’ll need to tick each box to ensure that your child is withdrawn. It seems that they’re making it increasingly confusing!

Tasmania & A.C.T.

I have received no information as to the whereabouts of the withdrawal form for schools in the ACT, but have been informally told that the Principal’s Administrative Handbook has the information therein. So it seems that the situation is a little similar to that of Tasmania, which follows.

It appears that Tasmania continues to present the same mis-information on their site: the Tasmanian Department of Education site claims (as of 4th March 2010) that:

In May, all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 across Australia will participate in national tests that will assess their performance in literacy and numeracy.

All students across Australia will be doing the same tests on the same days.

[their emphasis]

This is of course not factually correct, as no student that has been withdrawn, exempted or absent will do so (about 10% in Victoria last year). And, of course, various schools may also have applied for a variation of date as to when to submit the test to students who have not been withdrawn.

What is not clear is (again) WHERE the form to withdraw one’s child is located… so I’ll here assume that the situation is the same as last year from information I received from them (I have not asked for the same again):

“The form is located on the Department of Education staff intranet for government schools, non-government school principals should have a copy of this form at their school. The process is to discuss the withdrawal with the child’s school principal, completed forms are then sent back to Educational Performance Services and the student is formally withdrawn from the testing. [my emphasis]“.

For information only (as the forms appear to alter each year), last year’s form looked like the following:

Queensland

For Queensland, the form needs to be completed before the 30th April:

N.S.W.

NSW appears to be using the same form as last year (how reasonable and non confusing!) – at least according to their download site here. I therefore simply leave the information as as last year (N.B. that the correct box for withdrawing a student is ‘WITHDRAWN’, not ‘exempt’ – this latter is reserved for a specific category of students):

W.A. & N.T.

N.B. date for withdrawal in NT: 1st April!!!
N.B. date for WA: 4th May

(The reason for both WA and NT being together is that the administrative handbook is for both these regions)

In brief: The WA form is further below. For the NT no specified form is required: instead a simple letter from the parent/carer is sufficient. Should you have problems writing such a letter, simply use the one below, inserting the student’s name:

Simple letter suggestion for the Northern Territory:

I quote here from the Administrator’s Handbook available from the WA Department of Education site (page 10) [my emphasis]:

Withdrawn students

Parents or caregivers may withdraw their children from the tests. This is a matter for consideration by individual parents in consultation with the principal. Withdrawals are intended to address issues such as religious beliefs and philosophical objections to testing.

Parent/caregiver withdrawal does not constitute exemption. Withdrawn students will be considered as being absent from the testing.

The principal is responsible for registering all parent/caregiver withdrawals. Western Australian schools use the form available on their state‘s website. In the Northern Territory, letters from the parent/caregiver should be provided to the principal and then forwarded to the Assessment and Reporting Manager by 1 April.

It’s also interesting that should the school not have provided information to parents about the option to withdraw a student, there may even be legal grounds against the person responsible for overlooking such should a parent or carer pass the date by which this would need to be legally completed.

It’s also rather incredible to reflect that some funding for needy students is being tied to participation in NAPLAN!

Form for Western Australia:

SA

The South Australian’s Principals Handbook states that (page 11, my bold emphasis re. date):

Student withdrawal Parents/caregivers may withdraw their child from the NAPLAN tests for philosophical or for
personal reasons.

A pro forma is provided on page 25 and must be endorsed by the parent/caregiver who withdraws his/her child from the NAPLAN tests. The pro forma must be kept at the school and may be required for future reference.

The principal must finalise all student withdrawals by Friday 30 April.

A copy of page 25 follows

Other NAPs in 2010

(Perhaps the abbreviation ‘NAP’ points to our need to awaken to the ongoing march against healthy pedagogical practices!)

One can only read with concern an ACT Dpt Newsletter stating with apparent glee the following:

Once upon a time, Victoria (Australia) had a simple register that provided an easy means for schools to ascertain whether or not a teacher had appropriate qualifications. Actually, there were a number of such registers: one [...]]]> The above titular expansion of the acronym I have increasingly heard used by teachers (retired and active) and other educators…

Once upon a time, Victoria (Australia) had a simple register that provided an easy means for schools to ascertain whether or not a teacher had appropriate qualifications. Actually, there were a number of such registers: one for state schools, another for independent schools, and a third for Catholic schools.

In the 1990s, the then Victorian government considered that the register for state schools was redundant, as the same information was being collected by the Department of Education as part of employment. I’m not sure what happened to the Catholic register.

The independent register remained intact.

The registration bodies were efficient and straightforward for most of teachers: if a person had graduated with an appropriate teaching qualification from a university, it was pretty much a straightforward process of providing copies of the same, paying a processing fee and, subject to no court order effectively prohibiting one from teaching, the qualified individual would remain on the register. After all, one doesn’t suddenly become less qualified with time.

For people that did not have a degree from an Australian university, the registration body provided a means by which to ascertain and determine parity or, in the case where there was no exact equivalent, in consultation and given the needs of various schools, provided a provisional or ‘reduced’ (for ease of this blog entry) registration – reduced in that certain constraints of time or levels or subjects were specified.

A quite sensible system, really.

When that government was voted out, I do not think that anyone could have foreseen the draconian system that was to be introduced in its place.

Orwellian educational doublethink newspeak

Part of the rationale was a twisted thinking that incorrectly claims that teachers wanted such a body: some teachers had been surveyed about whether or not they thought a registration body was an idea they would support. Having previously (or contemporaneously) had the experience of the registration bodies mentioned above, there was of course an overwhelming support for the same. Then what can only be surmised to be extreme left-wing bureaucrats came into the picture.

Firstly, a ‘two-fold’ aspect was being promulgated by the then proposed Victorian Institute of Teaching: on the one hand to ‘promote’ teaching; on the other to ‘regulate’ it. Only here a quick twist came from its organising committee once the legislation had been passed, and a claim that ‘the best way to promote teaching is by regulation’ (I was there at the time of the meeting in which this was spoken, and could not that believe such explicit Orwellian Newspeak Doublethink could be so easily spoken in educational circles!).

added tax with no value

If that was not bad enough, an ANNUAL FEE for registration was now required – effectively an indirect tax collected by the state of Victoria, rather than the Federal government.

At that time, the Federal Government had passed anti-compulsory membership legislation (section 180 of the [Federal] Workplace Relations Act 1996), which allowed for Conscientious Objection to Membership of an Organisation. Unfortunately, the Industrial Relations body considered (without further evidence at that time – something that neither I nor other teachers had the time or money to argue) that the VIT ‘is not a ‘registered organisation of employees’ (given that only teachers employed by schools require to be registered with the VIT, I personally, of course, disagree, and there MAY have been a lost window of opportunity).

retirement

Effectively, and in practice, this has had a number of ramifications. The first is that a number of teachers opted for early retirement rather than have to engage in such nonsense… with unexpected consequences:

In the past, when a school (especially, I suspect, independent schools) had an experienced teacher take leave (whether long service, sick, or visiting interstate or overseas for ‘short’ or expended periods), it would be able to call in a relatively recently retired teacher to fill in the gap. This provided part income for the willing teacher, as well as providing the school with a teacher who had experience and was already quite familiar with the tone of the school. Needless to say, this was now an impossible option: a retired teacher living in the same street as I last year described to me the impossibility of doing such without having to begin a process for re-registration with the VIT; other examples of immediate experience also include another recently retired teacher who’s book is used for VCE classes in the subject being in the same situation with regards to the school at which he had previously taught for decades.

teachers – not nurses, architects nor doctors

One of the arguments for the VIT that has been repeated by some of its employees are that it is comparable to the ‘equivalent’ body for architects, nurses or medical doctors. I cannot (nor will I) comment on whether or not there is a need for registration bodies in those professions: they are best situated to make such assessment.

One clear distinction, however, is that unlike in each of those professions where dangerous materials are used, teaching (except in very specific circumstances in some of the sciences) does not. Also, unlike, for example, doctors or psychologists who often work on a one-to-one situations with patients, teachers generally work with healthy groups (classes). And finally and most importantly, unlike those professions, teachers, working as teachers registered with the VIT, are employees of a school (if they were not, they would not need to be registered with the VIT). Therefore, there are rather significant differences.

This does not mean that I do not favour a sensible registration body as described in the opening section of this blog entry.

cart before the horse

Part of the claims of the VIT is the ‘valuing of education’. Frankly, their actions have shown the opposite.

It is not up to the bureaucrats in that body to determine whether or not an Australian University has an adequate teaching degree. Rather, a fundamental respect for the integrity of tertiary institutions needs to be maintained: by all means it is acceptable for the registration body to request of universities curricula outlines for their education degrees and graduate diplomas – but this to enable the body to ascertain parity with someone’s presentation of a foreign ‘equivalent’, NOT to ‘approve’ or not something that the University has already internally approved!

The way it is at the moment, it’s simply a further insult to education in general.

If a person has completed appropriate teaching qualifications, then they have. To have to effectively re-submit to similar criteria to the VIT in their first (and/or second) year of teaching is nonsense and undervalues tertiary education. If a person does not seem to be adequately prepared, then it is certainly the role of supervising teachers (during a teaching round by a student) to so inform the tertiary institution. Similarly, if a course provided by a tertiary institution is not quite sufficient for the expectation of a school, then there needs to be appropriate feedback mechanisms put in place (by the tertiary institution, not the VIT) whereby adequate communication of the type is possible and welcome.

As it is, the VIT tertiary ‘involvement’ is just another insult to education in general, and teachers in particular.

qualified… then less so???

Part of the problem with making inappropriate comparisons with other professions is that what may indeed be appropriate for them (and that’s really for those professions to decide) is taken on by the VIT and ‘adapted’ to teaching. A case in point is the recent (as of last year) further requirement that a teacher undertakes a certain number of hours of ‘professional development’ within a 5-year period.

In other words, what the VIT is effectively stating is that a teacher who is currently qualified (and who may be a very experienced and highly effective teacher) and registered as such will be deemed unqualified five years hence.

This also takes no account of the different needs for different individuals: some, in their early teaching career, may be better focussing on their classes and familiarising themselves with their school; others, in their 30s and 40s (for example), may highly benefit from ‘professional development courses’ (all teachers involve themselves in professional development by the mere fact of teaching!); finally, for those nearing retirement, it may be that their acquired wisdom is best cherished by their peers – and such may in fact be of best value. To require of any group to undertake so-called professional development hours is senseless.

How can a qualified teacher, currently teaching and further developing their teaching by teaching, suddenly be less qualified to teach!?

The VIT’s requirements are becoming oxymoronic.

above the law

A sensitive issue (because of both its destruction on lives and its emotive impact) is whether or not the VIT should be able to require a police profile provided to them.

This is rather quite unacceptable, and moves Victoria ever closer to a closed police state (and inadvertently decreases public view of the profession). Having both my grandfather and a cousin in the police force (the first a former Commissioner of Police in Europe), I am certainly aware of the types of information that can be collected and stored in both formal and informal files.

There is something else at stake here.

IF a court decides that a convicted person is to have a life-long exclusion from some forms of participation (such as teaching), then it is of course for the courts to make that determination (and they should have the power, for some crimes, to so do). However, there is another side to this, and that if a person has been convicted and served their sentence for the same, then the VIT has no business in requesting past records.

The slow increased usage of ‘police checks’ in a whole range of employment is something that is likely to have ramifications for society as a whole that really needs to be carefully held in check.

Of concern is also, of course, the close contact between the VIT and law-makers: it seems that when the VIT wants something that it considers is a good idea (even when it’s terrible), direct access to the Minister’s office, and amendments to the legislation, follows all too quickly.

fine on tax

This year, yet another development has occurred: charging a 43% fee on payments made ‘late’!

As if it’s not insulting enough to have to pay an annual $70, SOME who have paid late are being charged an additional $30 for a computer generated invoice.

To be frank, there’s not much I can add to this…

The requirement to have to pay by December in the year prior to teaching is already not right: for some teachers, it may not be until January or even February whether then know whether or not they’ll have a teaching contract. Additionally, December is normally rather busy with the writing of student reports.

What would be the problem with making March the due date for what is, in any case, an inappropriate registration charge?

only do what you have permission to do

There’s an old joke that goes something like the following:

In the UK, you’re allowed to do it unless a law prevents you from doing so;
In Germany, you’re NOT allowed to do it unless you’re permitted to do so;
In France, you’re allowed to do it even if you’re not permitted;
in Russia, you’re NOT allowed to do it even if you’re permitted to.

It seems that we’re increasingly moving from the UK model to the German, and all too rapidly to the Russian one.

If a person has appropriate tertiary qualifications or experience, a school should be able to employ them to teach. It should be obvious that no school would want to keep someone on staff who is inappropriate.

In terms of teaching, as for most things, the move to ‘permission to do x’ rather than ‘prohibited to do x’ demonstrates how a major shift has occurred since the 1960s: one that radically shifts from the struggles from liberty towards one with an over-riding concern reflecting inherent fear.

register yes, VIT no

Over the years, I have had numerous occasions to discuss various aspects of education with teachers in the State, Catholic and Independent sectors. I have yet to meet a single teacher who supports the VIT. Of the thousands of teachers registered, there probably are quite a few who do… but frankly doubt it’s even a small minority: it’s more likely to be, at most, an insignificant minority.

I look forward to the day when the State Government alters the legislation and makes VIT an option (or simply makes it obsolete). If an option, I’m certain that voting with our feet will quickly show the support the VIT has amongst the teaching profession.

communication

On a personal note, when I received the invoice for registration at the end of last year, I simply (and without noticing the threat of a FINE set at 43% of the invoice amount) left it in my pigeon hole. After all, that is what I have done over the past few years, and something that I look at on my return a few days prior to teaching the ensuing year… except that this year, a FINE was issued for ‘late payment’.

Not everyone who paid in January had to pay that fine, incidentally.

As soon as I received the invoice for the fine, I looked up on the VIT’s website information about how to contact them. Being repeatedly placed in a queue on hold (and not being able to hold, of course, as I have classes to teach), I instead sent them a facsimile (16th Feb). A few days later, not having heard from them, I called, the person I spoke with not having a copy of my facs, I again sent it.

Again no response.

Over a week later (1st March), I again call, and as the person to whom I spoke did not work on that day, and again my letter not being available to the person on the other end of the phone, and with threats from them to suspend my registration (even though I paid the necessary annual amount), I opted to simply pay the fine.

But really – enough is enough, and this will be but my first entry into the public realm to reflect what are (not only my own) frustrations with the VIT’s insulting existence.

I note, of late, that the VIT advertised for a few days for a ‘Communications Officer’. Personally, I remain sceptical as to what this means: one would HOPE that this position will be someone who is willing to LISTEN to what teachers are saying (communication includes, after all, listening). Frankly, however, I rather suspect that the position would have been better titled ‘Propaganda Officer’.

Only time will tell…

It only reflects how strange US society has become, and how its pre-eminence in the world of online downloads leads to quite weird decisions. Cf Need Marijuana? Your iPhone Can Help.

It’s OK to have a listing of where to obtain marihuana even in locations where it is not legal, but an application [...]]]> What can I say!?

It only reflects how strange US society has become, and how its pre-eminence in the world of online downloads leads to quite weird decisions. Cf Need Marijuana? Your iPhone Can Help.

It’s OK to have a listing of where to obtain marihuana even in locations where it is not legal, but an application that uses mediæval and renaissance imagery as part of a tarot deck gets the can if some of its images depict paintings of women with bare breasts!

The case in point is Kat Black’s wonderful application for her new Touchstone Tarot… have a look at the following, the left-hand image from her deck, the right-hand one the same card ‘rectified’ for the purposes of avoiding censorship on Apple’s iTunes store (perhaps renamable to iSore):

[ps - a note on the slang used in the title: "she's apples" is an Australian colloquial expression for "it's fine/it's good/it's approved". I'll leave the purposeful reference to Apple Macs in the ambiguity thereof]

Let’s begin with the last of these first: the flu ‘pandemic’ and the reaction to it by officialdom.

I accept that when the first outbreak of this new influenza virus began to make its [...]]]> Quite a mouthful, that heading… and considering I also wanted to include something on synæsthesia, I’ve rather narrowed somewhat my ‘focus’!

Swine flu pandemic

Let’s begin with the last of these first: the flu ‘pandemic’ and the reaction to it by officialdom.

I accept that when the first outbreak of this new influenza virus began to make its round, health officialdom around the world followed the dictates of the virtually useless WHO and began to put in place restrictive measures in case the virus turned out to be another ‘Spanish’ flu on the world’s population (irrespective as to whether the number of deaths caused post WW-I had more to do with the lack of food, sanitation and post-war devastation that effectively left a large section of the world’s population severely weakened and at high risk of any viral spread).

Within two weeks, however, it was quite apparent that this new strain of H1N1 ‘swine’ flu was no more dangerous than a bad flu year. Yet here were so-called ‘Health’ departments in many regions (including Australia, sadly), reacting as though schools need to be closed, individuals isolated (effectively under ‘voluntary house gaol’), and fear-mongering encouraged. (… the whole episode ignites elements of cynicism as this coincides with government stockpiles of Tamiflu reaching their expiry dates, to which Europe has responded to by extending the previously agreed expiration by two years – so wait and see what happens over the next two years in Europe!). In fact, even the WHO is in its documents (the ones not as obvious) says: ‘Most people recover from infection without the need for hospitalization or medical care. Overall, national levels of severe illness from influenza A(H1N1) appear similar to levels seen during local seasonal influenza periods, although high levels of disease have occurred in some local areas and institutions.’ In other words, this is no different to normal annual flus.

What comes to mind is the story of the ‘Boy who Cried Wolf’… but then again, perhaps the paucity of stories encouraged has given rise to a lack of such knowledge amongst the ‘Health’ Departments. For their brief elucidation (in case anyone therefrom reads this – which I doubt), the story is rather simple: A boy (yes, the story has a boy doing such, not a gender-less youth) runs from a forested area back towards his village crying out ‘Wolf… there’s a wolf… hurry…’, at which the villagers hurry from their various tasks into the safety of their homes. The boy goes outside and laughs at everyone at how easily they had been duped. On another day, during another week, the boy is again seen to be running back in apparent panic yelling that this time there really was a wolf heading their way. Again the villagers rush their children and themselves into the safety of their homes, and again the boy goes outside and burst into hysterical laughter at their gullibility. Their credulousness hardened, when during a third time some months later that boy again ran towards the village yelling of a pack of wolves heading in their direction, the villagers only showed disdain at his poor sense of humour… only to be ripped to pieces by the pack that came some minutes later.

This is not the first time that WHO and various Health Departments are crying wolf. Of course the virus will spread, but the question that needs to be asked is whether or not it is of major concern. To begin with being cautious is one thing, to continue to respond as though death is coming when the figure in the distance is recognised for the normal annual migration of a caravan hearder, then the population needs to simply be thanked for its cautiousness and informed immediately that what was potentially a hazard had been rashly assumed to incorrectly be such, rather than encouraged to continue to respond as though we are each about to potentially become very very sick.

Of course, it could be argued that it’s really the media that is at fault in disseminating the information as though highly contagious and dangerous. Only problem is that official documents from government health organisations indicate a similar kind of thinking. Why, for example, would someone who is returning to Victoria receive the following ‘instructions’ from DHS (which all schools have also received) giving the impression that it is really not much of a ‘voluntary’ option:

From 25 May 2009, DHS is asking parents of children returning from USA, Canada, Japan, Mexico and Panama to voluntarily keep their children home for seven (7) days from arrival back in Australia. This is a further precautionary measure to assist in managing the spread of the virus.

Strange as it may seem, I never see such ‘precautionary measure’ suggested for children returning in other years from regions in which the flu is likely to have been picked up. Nor should they, as far as I’m concerned (lest this be interpreted that Nazi-like regimes ought to be implemented!).

So what does this have to do with play, stories and the brain’s plasticity?

Probably more than I am to immediately recognise, but that was not the reason for the combined blog entry. Rather, having recently read Norman Doidge’s The Brain that Changes Itself and having recently (a few days ago) attended a lecture during his Melbourne visit, the various happenings of the week: Obama’s extremely worrying speech; the ‘swine’ flu goings on; and stuff I have recently re-read or just read on play, stories, computers in education, and the brain’s plasticity are somehow making their combined entry…

…and after all, being a blog, it seems appropriate to allow such meanderings.

So, let’s move to play and stories for a second:

The importance of play and stories in healthy development

I was rather pleased to see in so many indirect ways the manner in which Doidge’s book supports in unintended ways the depth and breadth of subjects and ways of working to which students in Steiner/Waldorf schools are exposed and participate. It seems to me that, at the very least, this type of education encourages a healthy neuronal development.

But more on some of his comments later – for in some areas, he may be going further than is warranted.

With regards to play, it was heartening to read in New Scientist a review of The Playful Brain: venturing to the limits of neuroscience by Pellis & Pellis. Within that review is a real gem:

Preventing unstructured play is damaging – if you prevent an animal from playing when it is young, it will have serious social problems later

And so here again, we have further support (in addition to the previously released Play: How it Shapes the Brain [...] by Brown and Vaughan) of this all important element of what is really all about learning.

And really, stories, and the art of not only the telling of stories, but also the development of the imaginative ability to actively participate by listening and reading prolonged narrative, is also mentioned in another New Scientist book review. Therein, the art of story is argued to be culture-forming and have the ability to shape both individuals and history.

This has important consequences for, by providing a paucity of story, we would expect a paucity of cultural development within a community that limits story-telling, and for it to become prone to not only religious dogmatism, but also acting to its defence by perceiving that any difference of view constitutes an assault on safeguarding what is for them effectively all-encompassing (North Korea and Gaza appear to be extreme examples of this). Any community that encourages a rich narrative base – as indeed, again, found in Steiner education – is likely to also have its members able to develop far greater empathy and understanding of others, and contribute to a culture that progressively becomes enriched by the accepted contributions of the diversity of interest of its members.

… and this leads us to the recent worrying development in Obama’s speech.

Obama, the USA and imprisonment without fair trial

To be incredibly frank, I had not desired to travel to the USA from time Bush was elected to office. Apart from other considerations, the treatment of visitors apparently only become worse since I last went there in the early 1990s and, since the 11th Sept. 2001 New York attacks, fear of the foreign only appears (and I can only say ‘appears’ as I have not visited since) to have reached a pitch that is difficult to fathom. With Obama heading into the Oval office, many outside the USA had high hopes that this was about to change… yet, he appears to be effectively proposing the introduction of a parallel legal system that would allow individuals deemed potentially dangerous to the USA to be incarcerated without due trial, without legal representation, and without conviction for any wrong-doing. Effectively, what he’s saying is that Guantanamo Bay should never happen again: that was illegal… so let’s develop something that would make it legal (!!!) and not off-shore… and then Guantanamo Bay will instead become a legalised Holding Bay for non-convicted individuals who are considered, whether by misidentification or duly supposed to be potential criminals!

…and this coming from a US president that is seen as somehow motivated by liberalism? Either I am totally mis-understanding true liberalism, or those who have painted Obama with that brush have, unfortunately, rather severely misunderstood his provenance.

See, as a sad state of affairs, this rather insightful summary posted on YouTube: