The current federal government in Australia is attacking the wages and conditions of Commonwealth public servants. They are using the armed services as the wedge to win public support for these attacks.
A am an ex-serviceman. It was not until I left the navy that I discovered that we had to fight for any of rights, and you had to fight to defend them lest we forget that in the first instance it will be the first thing that the employers and politicians will try and grab back. The armed services are being used as an emotional weapon to press gang the rest of the commonwealth public service work force. That they would stoop so low to use a section of the workforce that is duty bound to relinquish many of our rights at work because laws prevent them from organising democratic unions. It is the true measure of the current federal government. No worker should take a pay cut, and the more so, be forced to trade in long held working conditions; in this case leave entitlements. One could add, that these workers in uniform literally put their lives on the line for the government’s policies. There are many aspects of the economy and society that could be addressed to re-mediate inequalities and injustices. Attacking workers is taking the easy way out. By using the need for wages as a carrot, they combine our economic and social relationships of our slavery to wages, with the stick of the law, to force us to accept unreasonable demands by our employers and their governments. What good is an economy that can only take away from us the means to a reasonable standard of living. What good is an economy that is unable to provide the passion necessary to meet our desire to live in a society that will provide for our children in an harmonious and peaceful world. What good is an economy and a democracy if it is unable to provide the where-with-all to make it an actuality by preventing the conditions that produce ill-health, underfunded schools, a lack of affordable public housing and next to no support for the homeless. I suspect the current political system and their arrangements are unlikely to ever address in a constructive and critical the issues and concerns that determine so much of what we do. My time in the navy left me believing it manifested many socialist principles of social organisation and relationships. It also taught me that there was power in a union.
Archive for the ‘rights and justice’ Category
Armed Services get negative wage increases and trading-off conditions
December 29, 2014Food, glorious food! Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Gardens
December 28, 2014
Reflection on my years teaching and learning through cooking and gardening in primary schools. I am currently a preschool teacher at Namadgi School (Australian Capital Territory). I also run the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program for Years Three, Four and Five.
Food, glorious food!
Running the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden at Namadgi School will probably be my teaching career highlight. Rarely does school-based learning involve doing. That is, physical activity and applying knowledge in any practical sense. Both of which, in my experience, are increasingly, and sadly, absent from primary-school activities. Cooking and gardening heighten and refine all our sensory perceptions, and the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation’s approach emphasises engagement through such sensory experiences. Actively engaging children in this way is a counter to the idea that our attitudes, and our experiences of food and eating can change by learning with pen and paper alone. It is importantly an antidote to the myopia infecting all of us who must contend with the narrow mindedness of NAPLAN and all the other coinciding efforts to corporatise and standardise life. I have long believed that if we are serious about meeting the diverse needs of our children, an entire curriculum, of real significance and rigour, could be built around the activities of growing and cooking food. Food, without exception is essential to all of us.
At every school where I have taught I have established some kind of a garden for children to be involved with. The purpose has been to make tangible the connections between literacy, maths, science and art. Witnessing the enthusiasm of enough young people told me that those projects were but a glimpse of what may be possible. Success, however, would not be the right word to describe my efforts. Generally, a significant handicap has been the principals’ unenviable preoccupation with the limits of school budgets, or perhaps the department’s latest pedagogical turn. Serious consideration of gardening and cooking providing for good learning did not ever get very far. So it is with a real sense of elation that my school’s leadership has embraced the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden project, and given me the opportunity to develop it.
Stephanie Alexander herself is best known in metro Melbourne as one of the eminent ‘foodies’ and has been owner and chef of that city’s finest restaurants. Ten years ago, however, her concerns about our society’s abuse of food, and the sensory harm it was inflicting on children and families, saw her create what has become the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation. I knew about Stephanie from my years as a cook in the industry, but it was later, as a teacher, that I observed the development of her ambition to see children involved in the growing, cooking, and the sharing of their delights at the table. It is an impressive achievement. I can only recommend that any teacher who wishes to undertake any kind of cooking and garden program in their school to give this program top-most consideration. Gardening and cooking experiences and activities from over four hundred schools have been synthesised to produce excellent set-up support, and curriculum materials that will assist teachers integrate literacy, maths, science and art. ICT curriculum demands are also met, by a website designed to upload and document activities and recipes which can then be shared with other participating schools.
It is an age of paradox when the media becomes social; food, like porn is everywhere; and good cooking are competitions defined by TV advertisers. Many of us share Stephanie’s concerns one way or another, the discouragement of sensory refinement, our knowledge of nature, and the decline of conviviality. The pressures families face distorts our lives. Global food markets and corporate retailing leave us malnourished irrespective of our social class. Be it a life-style of over-indulging on the finest of everything, or alternatively, attempting to live on kitten fried Kentucky style, both are the consequence of corporate capitalists’ cultivating ignorance. Consciously engaging children and teachers in the sharing of knowledge about how, when, and why things grow, and cooking and eating together is what enriches us, and protects the world surrounding us.
We care about the things we love. Why then, even before our children can enjoy the natural world, do we emphasis everything that threatens it? So too it is with the food we eat. A pie in a classroom is more likely to be a healthy eating chart rather than a culinary and sensory delight that the children have made. The suggestion seems to be that our children’s ignorance will be remedied by a moralising that engenders species-loathing fear. In turn that approach denies the possibility of learning from hands-on effort and the pleasures that brings. Classroom culture tends to deny the importance of sensory experiences and the development of our capacities to think and talk about them. Rather, the argument seems to go, that to do so is not serious learning. Really? Conversely, I would argue, we do not take ourselves seriously enough.
Mal-nutrition
December 28, 2014A letter sent to the Canberra Times (Australian Capital Territory, Australia) in response to the Education Minister’s call to ‘crackdown’ on vending machines in schools.
Fat lot of good it’ll do
August 29, 2014
Vending machines and school canteens in public schools are once again the easy target in the ”war” on obesity (”Crackdown on school junk food: vending machines may go”, August 25, p3).
I do not know how many vending machines are left in schools but it cannot be so many as to be a significant contributor to the high sugar diets that too many people subject themselves to. The school canteen is another issue. They are expensive to run and there is a slim profit margin. The commercial imperative pushes canteen contractors down the junk food path. It would be a mistake to think that either of these is a significant causal contributor to the mal-nutrition that plagues Western diets. In fact it could be argued that it is obfuscation and avoidance of more significant issues.
The problem begins in the profit-driven corporate food manufacture and distribution, and the general anti-social character of our working lives.
Lunchboxes that come from home are loaded with disturbing amounts of high sugar and salt items. Chocolates and chips were once occasional treats but they have now become a lunchbox staple. Time-poor parents are attracted to these substitutes for good food because they are generally dressed up to appear healthy and are packaged to fit in a lunchbox.
If the Territory government were serious about addressing obesity and diet amongst our most vulnerable people, children, then it would need to initiate a campaign against all advertising of high sugar and salt ”food” in much the same way that tobacco has been dealt with. In the long run it will be only radical social change in the conduct of our daily lives and the manner of food production that can begin to address these multiple concerns.
Teacher stands up for what is right
March 13, 2010The Attack on Tenure and Teachers’ Job Security
March 10, 2010 by emmarosenthal
A recent L.A. Weekly article “addressed” the “problem” of getting rid of “bad” teachers. (see link below)
As someone who retired from LAUSD with disability retirement after trying to get the most minimal of accommodations for my dis-ability and facing incredible harassment for such a request;
As someone who requested basic accommodations, found ways to make the whole proposal cost free for the District while offering to fill high need hard to staff areas of education, (bilingual special ed) and fully aware that if I had merely kept my mouth shut, showed Disney movies, gave out busy work, and gave all my students C’s, then I would have had no problem with the same administration, but only had a problem when requesting the resources to do my job well.
As someone who NEVER had a bad evaluation, had several outstanding evaluations, and wrote and received several grants and coordinated several school wide programs;
As someone who filed and won approx 30 grievances against the district for collective and individual violations of the contract, never observing any consequences, reassignments, discipline etc against these principals for such wanton rights violations;
As someone who observed and confronted gross misuse of school funds and a crony system that favored mediocrity and obedience over dedication and commitment to teaching;
As someone who used tenure to defend and advocate for students and the community and teachers, against the will of the administration;
As someone who ONLY KNEW ONE ADMINISTRATOR who went after bad teachers– with the full support of the highly unionized faculty. (I consider her the best administrator I worked with);
As someone who observed administrators go after activists, whistle blowers, community, educator, worker and student advocates while perpetuating or ignoring sexual harassment, sexual abuse, hate speech, racism, sexism, dis-ability discrimination etc. both by staff and students;
As someone who graduated magna cum laude, is bilingual in English and Spanish, continues to study and to teach, is a life long activist and writer;
I find it hard to believe that:
1. Michael Kim, a man with cerebral palsy, who neurologically can’t control his hands, is the best example of the district trying to defend the rights of staff and students against sexual harassment and gropping!
More to point, the District doesn’t WANT dis-abled teachers. This whole case was totally offensive and outrageous, and should be transparent; a perfect example of how dis-ability discrimination is used to take us all down, to set a pretext for greater rights violations.
2. the present administration is able to select the appropriate teachers for dismissal– which of course would explain why it is so hard to fire the teachers the district is trying to fire. It is quite possible that very few of these people should be fired and the ones that need to go are comfortably doing the principal’s bidding!!!
3 given that the City of Los Angeles decided NOT to fire a single cop for beating up press and community members for the May Day demonstration a few years back, wonders what city employees ARE doing that warrants (“the easy” removal from their positions.
4. there are only bad teachers and not bad administrators, who also need to be removed from their positions which the district can do, and doesn’t. It seems that a lot of bad teaching might be resolved by creating acceptable working conditions, starting with a supportive administration.
5. that the grievance process is the problem, The grievance process is a three step process: 1.A meeting with the principal, 2. A meeting with the area supt. And 3. Binding arbitration with an arbitrator chosen by both the union and the district. A principal looses a grievance against a teacher when either the District or the arbitrator chosen by the district says a violation of that teacher’s rights has occurred. In such a situation is it right to assume that it is the teacher that is failing to perform basic assigned duties?
6.that settlements of 40-100 thousand dollars for the removal of teachers the District wants to fire, are excessive and against whom no evidence exists, other than district say so, that these teachers deserve to lose their careers, which includes 5 years of university study, and often thousands of dollars each year for materials the District fails to provide and in a District that has bought out the contracts of several of its superintendants for over half a million dollars.
The entire premise of the Weekly article is that the District can’t fire the teachers it wants to fire because of the Union and tenure, and not that these constructs actually protect the academic freedom of teachers who should not have been brought under scrutiny in the first place.
There is no evidence IN THE ARTICLE, except the District’s say so, that the District is actually trying to fire the BAD teachers. That is an essential missing element of the article. Sure there are bad teachers. But if the district isn’t going after bad teachers, but is going after teachers who demand their rights or the rights of others, then the waste of resources is even more outrageous.
http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-11/news/lausd-s-dance-of-the-lemons/
Posted in Anatomy of a Blacklisting, Calling out neo-liberalism, Disability Rights, Education, Human Rights, Immigrant Rights, UTLA, this is what a police state looks like
VOTE for Teachers’ Alliance Elect practising classroom teachers
December 22, 2009VOTE for Teachers’ Alliance
Elect practising classroom teachers
Peter Curtis for Council
Hurstbridge Primary School
I am a classroom teacher and an active
representative of my sub-branch.
If elected as a Teachers Alliance candidate I will work to improve the conditions of all staff. By building sub-branches we can fully involve all members of the union to;
• Develop policy, stop divisive deals and further reduction of conditions
• Participate in negotiations and agreements prior to public acceptance
Ensure Branch Council participates in organising a united public education sector, and supports combined unions’ campaigns.
• Prioritise the defense of our Occupational Health & Safety laws
• Enact OHS Conference decisions by fully involving members in the VTHC campaign.
• Participation in our federal campaign to stop league tables and other policies detrimental to working conditions and quality education.
Invigorate Branch Conference with democratic discussion and debate on;
• The Government’s Blueprints and VELS
• Reducing workload
• Reducing contracts by reinstating Relieving Teachers
• Replacing the VIT
Teachers’ Alliance candidates will work to ensure officers stay in touch with members by receiving the salary of teachers, and
stand for no more than two consecutive terms.
Vote for a voice representing Primary Teachers
5 Gerritsen, Prue
6 Preston, Ella
4 Cohen, Daniel
3 McPherson, Hamish
1 Ghiotti, Beth
2 Curtis, Peter
7 Atkinson, Anthony
Bullies and Australian education counter reform
December 22, 2009Bullying is the topic of two articles in the Australian Education Union, Victoria Branch News, March 2009. The problem of bullying is a timely one as it is an issue that dominates many teachers’ concerns, both personally, and across whole school communities. Schools are microcosm of society and consequently the problems that beset our communities are also present within our schools.
Australian society’s political and economic system, like most, is based on the exploitation of many to profit the few. To do so inequality must be enforced to ensure ‘social cohesion’. This is most evident in the federal governments repressive industrial relations legislation that deliberates against any reasonable democratic action to defend wages and working conditions by workers generally, but especially those who are organised in trade unions.
In regard to education Julia ‘Gradgrind’ Gillard apparently must appreciate that many teachers strive to be the embodiment and promoters of democratic values. It is no accident her ministerial responsibilities are education, social cohesion and industrial relations. Let your own internal ‘Big Brother’ make the connections before the development of our imaginations and emotions are outlawed totally. The ‘Gradgrind’ view of education is one directed by bullying business managers manipulating data, and micromanaging the life out of teachers and teaching. Trevor Cobold, national spokesperson of Save Our Schools argues that this “toughness masks their ignorance of curriculum and teaching.”
June Factor (The Age 23/3) too makes a number of critical and salient points to challenge the ‘Gradgrind’ view.
“… this reductionist virus, as is evident from the Federal Government’s recent enthusiasm for a local variant of the No Child Left Behind approach. Every school must adopt a “performance reporting regime involving constant standardised testing and the naming (and shaming) of schools where the children don’t perform as required.
The Bush government’s Orwellian-titled No Child Left Behind policy has forced many schools, especially the poorest, now dependent on test results for their survival, to diminish or omit subjects such as music, drama and art.”
There are now whole school districts in the US where children’s play time is reduced, adult-directed or simply eliminated. This trend was visible even before George W. Bush. According to the superintendent of schools in Atlanta in 1998, “we are intent on improving academic performance. You don’t do that by having kids hanging on the monkey bars.”
Educators know that their student’s suffer when they are involved in bullying. We know that bullying is a complex of social behaviour that involves those who are perpetrators, victims, and as well the ‘innocent’ bystanders. The methods being proposed by the Federal Government are tantamount to bullying for the social and personal harm that they perpetrate on teachers and their students. The enforcement of Gradgrind’s system of joyless education can only work by making a Louisa of us all.
The shocking death of Mr Ward
August 9, 2009© AAP/Aleisha Preedy
What kind of government allows a person to be literally cooked to death in the searing heat of the Western Australian goldfields?
Well, that’s exactly what happened on a scorching summer’s day last year when Mr Ward, a respected Aboriginal community elder, died an unimaginable death as he was being unnecessarily and inhumanely transported more than 350km to Kalgoorlie jail.
Send your email to Attorney-General Robert McClelland urging him to prevent a recurrence of this human tragedy
The circumstances of Mr Ward’s death defy the imagination. After being arrested for allegedly drink-driving and locked in an overnight cell in Laverton, WA, the elder was driven four hours to Kalgoorlie in a van since deemed unfit for the purpose of transporting people over such long distances [1]
Please join us in calling on State and Federal governments to ensure such a situation never occurs anywhere in Australia again
Mr Ward, the youngest of seven children, was a well-known and respected community chairman, law-man, land manager and spokesperson. The condition of the van that contributed to his death makes stomach-churning reading: no natural airflow, broken air-conditioning, and a surface metal temperature of over 50°C.
After collapsing on the floor of the van, Mr Ward suffered serious burns when his skin came into contact with the metal surface. Leading up to the final moments of his life, his body temperature reached 41.7°C. Without a doubt, Mr Ward’s treatment is an affront to personal dignity and emblematic of a deep running disregard for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
We can never allow a fellow human being to die in this way again – please call on our Government to honour Australia’s human rights obligations
Thank you for standing up for what’s right.
Sarah Marland and the project team
Demand Dignity Campaign
Amnesty International Australia
Footnotes:
[1] Four Corners Program Transcript, ABCTV. Accessed 4.8.09. See the full Four Corners program online.
Critical Consciousness - Spirit of Paulo Friere 