tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-198218212024-03-13T23:05:56.557-07:00Motherhuggermotherhood activism Australia, maternal feminismMotherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.comBlogger514125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-54016331239041648252023-08-05T18:12:00.003-07:002023-09-26T19:20:06.829-07:00 How Generative AI is Like Classical Reception<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9QQfOytVEJQf1YuY7qN5byWgss1TCZLAHDHNZC06-j2WrGdgAbhnpgKt7lrjGXZJQ5lJ69NmhohyQ4AyI-M2Bn7idFTXB_G_T3YYanPAZedOlGXM-9C1fdB4KR4wLTUmHiBvt8U1hF0OqIRnwkTv1UXTWsMfhFtcN_MQGcrJGIid13wd0cc3UXQ/s1024/Ideogram%20scrap%20book%20tree.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9QQfOytVEJQf1YuY7qN5byWgss1TCZLAHDHNZC06-j2WrGdgAbhnpgKt7lrjGXZJQ5lJ69NmhohyQ4AyI-M2Bn7idFTXB_G_T3YYanPAZedOlGXM-9C1fdB4KR4wLTUmHiBvt8U1hF0OqIRnwkTv1UXTWsMfhFtcN_MQGcrJGIid13wd0cc3UXQ/s320/Ideogram%20scrap%20book%20tree.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image created using Ideogram. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: 11pt;">In a conversation with a work colleague, we discussed analogies to how generative AI impacts how we teach students to learn and how we assess student learning outcomes. What does it mean for scholarship?</span></span><p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-99be226a-7fff-5c3f-964c-7a4284925d8f"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Comparisons were offered with the introduction of the calculator, or Wikipedia, or talking to a well-read friend, or an actor, or the role Leonardo DiCaprio played in </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Catch Me if You Can</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. I pondered the new problem that after two and half thousand years of literary theory, we still can't measure what it is to write as a human. We have no basis for collecting data on the distinction between human writing and writing by a bot that mimics human writing. The first attempt was based on perplexity and burstiness. These are not normally regarded as literary terms. We can collect data to determine how to write in the style of Ernest Hemingway or Agatha Christie, measuring the occurrence of adverbs, exclamation marks, and distinctive words, as well as sentence length, for example. These are distant readings; the opposite of close readings (see Ben Blatt’s 2017 </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Nabokov’s Favourite Colour is Mauve </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">on statistics on the craft of writing). </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">My colleague said that a producer creates an artifact which is the boundary between the producer and the responder. The responder assumes a human made the product. The text. This is a boundary - the artifact stands between the writer and the reader - but the reader understands that the text was created by a human. Now the human creator is unknown. With generative AI, that boundary is blurred. We think of this as something new, but I suspect we have been here before. I suggested that the blurred boundary already exists in the field of Classics. Generative AI is like the reception of texts from ancient literature; the passed down received meaning of texts that are lost, found, fragmented, translated with bias, and compiled with bias. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I said that my analogy would be the corpus of extant ancient literature and explained why: fragments lost and found, references from other texts, fluid oral stories transcribed into an artifact, translations retranslated, the whole provenance over millennia, all the accidents of history; yet the claim is that these texts survived due to their value and their meanings as they have been passed down through generations of scholarship. We have no autograph copies of any ancient texts. We don’t know if Homer was an actual person; we only know that hymns, epic poems, and a comedy were assigned to him, if he existed. As for the known writers in ancient history, there is no assurance that a person we identify wrote these exactly as the texts have come to us. They do have value, but as tools to think with (as does everything) and we need to check our assumptions. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This is what Chat GPT says about the reception of ancient classical texts: Classical texts have been revered and preserved over centuries due to their cultural and historical significance. They often reflect the values, beliefs, and ideas of the time in which they were written. They have been studied, analyzed, and interpreted by scholars, and their influence has been acknowledged and passed down through generations. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But that’s not exactly true. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The texts that have survived from ancient times did not necessarily survive because they were the best. If that were true then the Roman graffiti that survives does so because it is excellent and important, rather than because it was written on stone walls rather than papyrus. Most texts that have survived are due to accidents of history. Socio-religious or geo-political factors may play their roles in specific times and places but generally the survival of most, perhaps all, texts are purely by chance. We know about some texts that did not survive because they are recorded in texts that did survive, but, with fragments, it is difficult to identify what the text was: it could be a joke, satirical, critical, and the references are to people and characters we can only speculate about. There is no way to discern the significance. Ask Classicists what texts they most want to be found and responses might include: Homer’s lost comedy; Aristotle’s second book of </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Poetics</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> which covered comedy; Euclid’s book of logical fallacies; Ovid’s </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Medea;</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> the plays that beat the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides in competition; and Longinus’ works on Homer. And, of course, the whole Library of Alexandria, which, if it had survived, would have altered the course of human history. Sigh. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 12pt 0pt 1pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #202122; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Texts have been lost because they were deliberately destroyed but also due to fire, corruption, neglect, reuse as another text or reuse as toilet paper. Texts have been found when used as packing paper, in sealed storage containers, among debris, or written over which come to us as palimpsests. The stories of these texts’ survival are mostly an ongoing process spanning millennia. (See Josephine Balmer’s 2017 </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Paths of Survival,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> for a poetic </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #202122; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">exploration of the provenance of an ancient text.)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">When you read ancient classical texts you need to adjust yourself to becoming comfortable with ‘the rest is lost’. For good translations of fragments the translator aims to replicate the source, not just translating words and mimicking the sounds, wordplay, and other literary devices, but also the gaps in the text, indicated by brackets or the layout on the page. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In 2014 US Professor of Classics, Diane Rayor, was about to publish her translations of the ‘complete’ works of Sappho when new fragments were found. She needed to re-evaluate what she thought she knew to incorporate these new pieces of the puzzle. She says that fragments offer intriguing possibilities, echoing broken conversations, trailing voices. Australian Professor of Classics, Marguerite Johnson, agrees there is a pleasure in working with fragments: ‘I really don't want them ever to be completed, filled in, finalised. Their fragmentary condition makes them special, unique, and I really can't image Sappho actually composing anything complete.’ (This quote is from personal correspondence. You can check all other references in books or online academic journals written by experts, who became experts due to scholarship).</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We need to challenge assumptions and check the facts and check the sources for the facts. What do we know and how do we know it? What is the provenance? Not just in the light of generative AI, but for everything. And when we talk about bias, we need to consider the audience, purpose, and context of the producer. What was their agenda? What were they aiming to do? What do they value? What do they disregard? This is more difficult when applied to texts generated by AI. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">And when we observe that history can be rewritten, texts can be rewritten, and that news reports of current events can be inaccurate, biased, and just wrong, then how do we check that we understand the events of history and the development of ideas? In my own lifetime I have witnessed how the music of the 1980s has been misrepresented; the nostalgia radio stations playing ‘the best’ music of that decade is certainly not the music that was valued at the time and was actively despised in the share houses I lived in during the 1980s. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Generative AI writes the commonly held ideas from all sources. Those sources are not consistent, not authorised, not experts, and not challenged. It is like the passed down received meaning of texts that are lost, found, fragmented, translated, and compiled with bias. It mimics human writing but is not human. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Humans bring their whole selves, influenced by all the factors that make that person an individual. We share a collective humanity. We want to engage with scholarship; we want to pursue our intellectual curiosity; we want to use texts as tools to think with; we want to share our thinking and test our thinking. We want to engage as humans, and we want students to engage as humans. And we know that people are more valuable than bots for doing this thinking together. So long as we check our sources, this is what scholarship is. </span></p><br /></span>Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-70415918844287342832022-04-01T17:25:00.005-07:002022-04-01T18:17:09.576-07:00What is Intersectionality?<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Intersectionality is a matrix of power structures where people plot themselves and other people on the matrix to show where they sit within hierarchies of power on the basis of identity markers.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-5cac6226-7fff-ea36-b70f-428e97e49ede"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The hierarchies are power spectrums according to race, sexuality, religion, gender (which also includes gender identity) and physical ability. Class is sometimes included. The spectrum puts white people as high, and black people as low; heterosexual as high and homosexual as low; men as high and women as low (but trans people as lower); Christians as high and all other religions as low; able bodied people as high and disabled people as low. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The assumption is that the people at one end of the spectrum, according to binaries, are privileged and the people on the other end are oppressed. Intersectionality assigns feelings to those they declare to be privileged, saying they ought to feel guilt and shame, and that the oppressed ought to feel victimised. This is regardless of the lived experience of those people. It assumes that anybody who is privileged within this framework holds unconscious bias against others, regardless of their experience or actions. So, a white heterosexual man who is able bodied but has had a terrible life in poverty is told he is priviliged on the basis of the matrix, and that he should feel guilty for his privilege. Or a white man who is married to a black women and has black children is assumed to hold unconscious bias against black people because all white people are racist. Understandably, such men would be angry at this representation. A black lesbian who has had a successful and happy life would be surprised to be told she is a victim. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Intersectionality pigeon-holes people according to factors mostly beyond their control which are due to accidents of birth. It is illiberal. It denies the experience of the individual. It reinforces stereotypes. It dictates how people should feel about themselves and others. In a liberal democracy people have the right to feel however they feel, without compulsion or coercion. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Confusingly, lived experience is an element within critical social justice theory. Alongside intersectionality is the idea that a person’s lived experience holds greater value than the work of researchers or academics or experts in their field. Within critical justice theory, experts are only permitted to speak about power issues if they have lived experience. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Within the intersectionality framework the power spectrum is flipped, so that the voices of the people at the lower scale are amplified and the voices of the people at the higher scale are silenced. In order to be heard, people must identify as powerless, in order to gain power. It values oppression as a virtue, even if that oppression is not due to accidents of birth but as a selected identity (which is possibly unproven). </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The term comes from the US Law academic Kimberlé Crenshaw, and applies postmodernist theory. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Within feminism this is third wave intersectional feminism. It dilutes feminism, because it fractures the basis for women's rights which is biological sex. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Universities are now teaching this as doctrine. The arguments against these theories are not taught. It is now the dominant lens for viewing social construction and morality and has spawned ideas of trigger warnings, microaggressions, safe spaces, and political correctness, which are not evidenced to have value. The proponents of the ideology do not defend their position. They have created their own canon and created their own high priests. While the moral impulse to help others is to be applauded, the structures of the application are a problem. Do we all need to know everything about each other? No. In the workplace and professional organisations it is not necessary, in fact, it is a breach of privacy. In these situations we need to simply do our work and behave professionally. Why create means to divide people into smaller and smaller categories when we could, instead, emphasise the commonalities which draw people together? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Philosopher Peter Boghossian has called Intersectionality a new religion. He quotes US Law professor and writer, Alan Dershowitz, calling it `the phoniest academic doctrine I have encountered in 53 years”. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-1741506301369328932021-01-15T16:55:00.008-08:002021-01-25T16:22:55.578-08:00Why teaching that all texts are problematic is a bad idea<p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">This essay argues that approaching all texts as problematic, according to identity politics and systems of power, is a bad idea. Two years ago I would have argued the opposite, and I did.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-545b545e-7fff-7c60-845e-e187fa5d9cfe"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In my essay </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Homer, Paul Ramsay and Me: Rewriting the mythology of Western civilisation</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, published in </span><a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/homer-paul-ramsay-and-me/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meanjin</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I tracked the development of the idea that we teach to defend western civilization and how classics and feminism might be positioned within this. My academic field is feminist classical receptions. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the paragraph I would now retract.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #2b2c2e; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve been following the arguments made by John Howard, Tony Abbott, Kevin Donnelly, Christopher Pyne and Barry Spurr regarding education for some years. My summary is that they are afraid of postmodernism, critical theory, multimodal texts, identity politics, multiculturalism, feminism and cultural relativism. In 2010 John Howard described senior school English courses as embracing ‘gobbledygook’. Clearly, he dismisses ideas he doesn’t understand.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I now understand why, and I join them in their fears, although not in their politics. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not surprising that politicians call for defunding the humanities when </span><a href="https://lithub.com/what-happened-in-the-80s-on-the-rise-of-literary-theory-in-american-academia/?fbclid=IwAR06PpSauvyEeSKRli-VCPZflfVgpLUbISsC4DqIAalUdejdTGWJHJ1Df2k" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">literary theory sounds as incomprehensible as this</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This professor of English and Comparative Literature is making no sense. All theories should be tested and reviewed, and they should be explainable; they shouldn’t be taught as ideological indoctrination. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are writers from the right who are critiquing what is happening in educational institutions and in politics, and it is worthwhile to listen to them and engage with their ideas. However, my reference will come from some writers from the left, three thinkers who work together and separately. They are: </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, who wrote </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cynical Theories: How Universities Made Everything about Race, Gender and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Helen Pluckrose runs </span><a href="https://areomagazine.com/about/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Areo magazine</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. James Lindsay runs </span><a href="https://newdiscourses.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New Discourses</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Together with philosophy lecturer Peter Boghossian, who wrote </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How to Make Atheists</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, they wrote articles submitted to academic journals now known as the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grievance Paper Hoax</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Lindsay and Boghossian also wrote </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. They all participate in </span><a href="https://letter.wiki/conversations" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wiki Letters</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. You can hear an interview with Lindsay on </span><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/religionandethicsreport/james-lindsay-universities-race-gender-and-identity-politics/12896018" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ABC radio here</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. And here is Helen Pluckrose's</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/19821821/174150630136932893#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">article in The Australian</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> where she explains why they embarked on the Grievance Studies hoax. Pluckrose has launched a website, <a href="https://counterweightsupport.com/" target="_blank">Counterweight</a>, to provide support for people who need assistance. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cynical Theories</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Pluckrose and Lindsay define the problem in terms of two principles and four themes. The Postmodern Knowledge Principle (radical skepticism as to whether objective knowledge or truth is obtainable and a commitment to cultural constructivism) and The Postmodern Political Principle (a belief that society is formed of systems of power and hierarchies, which decide what can be known and how). The four themes they observe are: The blurring of boundaries; The power of language; Cultural relativism; and The loss of the individual and the universal. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They argue for the maintenance of liberal democracy. We need a diversity of voices, not just people who write about their own experience - we want to open up rather than shut down - and add ideas to be publicly challenged and reviewed. This is what academic or scientific rigour is. This is a process, both in the academic circles and in the democratic process, that works for incremental and careful improvements to our systems of knowledge and our systems of power. They want us to see people firstly as individuals, and as individuals sharing our common humanity. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is their definition of liberalism:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Liberalism is perhaps best understood as a desire to gradually make society fairer, freer, and less cruel, one practical goal after another. This is because liberalism is a system of conflict resolution, not a solution to human conflicts. In being a system that works through the inputs of its participants, it offers up no one in particular in whom to place our trust, which violates our deepest human intuitions. It is not revolutionary, but neither is it reactionary: its impulse is neither to turn society on its head nor to keep it from changing. Instead, liberalism is always a work in progress.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">….Liberalism’s success can be put down to a few key points. It is intrinsically goal-oriented, problem-solving, self-correcting, and - despite what postmodernists think - genuinely progressive. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By citing them and their works here, I’m not endorsing all their tweets. These people are not gurus. They are thinking things through. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The field of education attracts people who care about social issues and who regard education as a means of making social change for the better. While this is admirable, the means of doing this needs to be carefully monitored.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So long as educational institutions teach for ideological and political purposes, we will see resources such as this: </span><a href="https://disrupttexts.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Disrupt Texts</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This US site, run by teachers for teachers, argues that all texts are problematic and that we teach for social justice outcomes. It shares approaches to texts, suggestions and resources which apply this principle. Some quotes from the website:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘It is part of our mission to aid and develop teachers committed to anti-racist/anti-bias teaching pedagogy and practices.’</span></p><br /><h2 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 19pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #137438; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘Apply a critical literacy lens to our teaching practices.’</span></h2><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 26pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘While text-dependent analysis and close reading are important skills for students to develop, teachers should also support students in asking questions about the way that such texts are constructed. Ask: How does this text support or challenge issues of representation, fairness, or justice? How does this text perpetuate or subvert dominant power dynamics and ideologies? And how can we ask students to wrestle with these tensions? ‘</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 26pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">About Teaching Shakespeare:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 26pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is about an ingrained and internalized elevation of Shakespeare in a way that excludes other voices. This is about white supremacy and colonization.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 26pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">About teaching To Kill a Mockingbird</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 26pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘So, I use the feelings it engenders for them and then introduce anti-racist ideas and critical race theory to help them see the racism in the text and in their own lives.’</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 26pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">……...We lift it up, look under its pages, between its characters, and expose its gaps.’ </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Critical thinking means asking who is absent, about representations and biases within systems of power. This is the opposite of close reading of text. This skips the basic questions we ask when we engage with and judge the success of a text: how do the component parts of the text, from the word choice and sound effects, use of repetitions, literal and figurative language, form and features, and the use of any literary devices, contribute to textual cohesion and the meaning of the whole text? Does the writer achieve an impact on the reader, that is either conveying a situation effectively or bringing the reader along a process of thinking, according to purpose and context? Then we can use the text as a tool to think with, consider representations, characterisations, narrative choices, and explore how that story could be told differently. We can relate the text to our own context, knowledge and understandings about the world. We can create new texts in response. But we should not judge a text as problematic for what it is not. No text can be a celebration of all minority groups in every place at all times. Texts exist within their own contexts, and we can consider how they were received then and how we might value them differently now. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We should not criticise a cat for not being a dog.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In our classrooms we should not be asking:</span></p><ul style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">According to identity politics, how do I problematise the text, because all texts are about systems of power in which there are the privileged and the oppressed?</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How do I bring my indignation to the text?</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How do I take offence at the text for what it is not?</span></p></li></ul><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the approach of critical race theory, and all critical grievance theories. This approach teaches students to engage combatively, and encourages the same approach to social interactions, such as use of social media. It presumes racism, even where none is present. It emphasises rather than dispels stereotypes. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In teaching literature with an approach that every text is problematic we </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">teach that all white people are racist and there is nothing they can do about it. </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">That all men are sexist and if they don’t admit it then they can’t see their privilege. That all heterosexual people benefit from their privilege and that their biases are unconscious. What do we expect children to do with those messages about systems of power and their places within them? It is akin to telling children that they are born in sin. It encourages guilt, and it encourages victimhood and resentment. How does this impact student mental health in terms of their anxiety and depression? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And where, in this approach, is the pleasure in reading and writing? There is none, except as a ‘gotcha’ moment, which is the basis for many viral tweets, posts, comments, Tik Toks and interviews. Critiquing should not just be about dragging down. Where is the room for building up? There should be room for joy. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With this approach no text can be good. What does this mean for students when we read the texts that they have created? It means that no text a student can create can be good. So, this approach does not empower students to create successful texts. It demoralises students. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead, we could ask for good thinking, applying logic supported by evidence. We can apply the principles of textual analysis and intertextuality, which are already core to the study of literature. Yes, we can read and teach a broader range of texts. Yes, we can regard these texts as talking to each other. We can ask: What does the writer do? What do the characters do? What does the text do? What do readers do? But applying critical race theory, or any critical grievance theory, is not helping the study of literature. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I fear that teaching for social justice using applied postmodernism is akin to teaching religious indoctrination. If we endorse teaching for Social Justice then we endorse teaching for any ideology and ideological for political outcomes. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In NSW Department of Education there is a policy called The Controversial Issues in Schools policy. Under this policy teachers and visitors to schools are not to coerce students to political views. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1.3.1 Schools are neutral places for rational discourse and objective study.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1.3.2 Discussion of controversial issues in schools should allow students to explore a range of viewpoints and not advance the interest of any particular group.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few years ago this policy did not apply to Scripture classes. The instruction during the Scripture timeslot, delivered by private providers, was exempt. Now it is included in the policy. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2.2 </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This policy applies to visitors and external providers including approved special religious education providers or ethics education providers, conducting activities outside the provisions in the </span><a href="https://education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/policies/religious-education-policy" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Religious Education Policy</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="https://education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/policies/special-education-in-ethics-policy" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Special Education in Ethics Policy</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Teachers are not to recruit students into religious or ideological groups. Teaching through a lens of identity politics for a social justice outcome is an ideological position. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.3 Attempting to recruit students or staff into non-school approved groups for religious or ideological reasons is not permitted in schools, nor are aggressive, persistent or unwanted approaches to staff and students. Staff and students may advocate for issues or activities that are important to them in a manner consistent with expectations outlined in the department’s </span><a href="https://education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/policies/code-of-conduct-policy" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Code of Conduct</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for staff and </span><a href="https://education.nsw.gov.au/student-wellbeing/attendance-behaviour-and-engagement/student-behaviour/behaviour-code" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Behaviour code for students</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #041e42; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Teaching through a lens of critical race theory, or any critical grievance theory, is in breach of this policy. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is currently a case in the US where a parent and student are suing the school due to a civics module being compulsory at the high school. The civics module requires students to accept critical race theory. The US government has banned professional development workshops teaching critical race theory. These programs may think that this approach teaches anti-racism; it doesn’t. It divides people by reinforcing their differences and stereotyping them according to race. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We welcome the diversity of human experience, yes - but as individuals and as universal themes - not simply as members of identity groups, which is limiting. Most identity groups are unchangeable. If we see people firstly according to their identity group, we are judging them, paraphrasing Martin Luther King, not according to the content of their character but by the colour of their skin. We would do better to judge people according to what they do rather than who they are by accident of birth or some other self-declared identity. We could empower students not on the basis of their identity but on the basis of their actions. It is likely parents in Australia will also complain to schools or withdraw their children from public schools if they see this kind of indoctrination occurring. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The trio of thinkers, Pluckrose, Lindsay and Boghossian, have some suggestions: Challenge new definitions. Apply science and reason in categorisations. Apply logic. Ask for evidence. Acknowledge facts. Apply Socratic enquiry. Ask what is true and what is objectively, materially, concretely real. Keep conversations respectful and open. Listen and consider. Individuals should not be compelled to represent their identity groups. We think better collaboratively so no idea should be taboo or censored but should be tested amongst others. Don’t be cynical. Support liberalism. Liberalism has provided us with real progress through the civil rights movement, gay pride, and second wave feminism.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My own research aims to create resources to support the teaching of English without applying identity politics. I aim to create an Ovarian Poetics - looking to ancient literature to draw threads currently ignored or forgotten that refocus how we can understand and appreciate texts, arguing that we don't need to apply postmodern theories based upon French Philosophy, as we can find permissions and frameworks for literary creation, appreciation and analysis from the ancient Greeks and Romans. We can consider ancient ways of knowing and understanding, including ancient memory devices, and how we can use these to teach and learn today. We can reference texts written by a range of people over time and place. We can teach based on our shared humanity and freedom of the individual within a secular liberal democracy. We would do well to return to the principles of primary school debates and high school essays: define your terms, present a logical argument supported by evidence, and be respectful. We can be empathetic and use our imaginations. Yes, texts are tools to think with, but we need more utensils than grievance studies approaches to do literature well. We may need to agree that ‘critical thinking’ has been defined under these theories and should be renamed, as for our use in teaching English, perhaps simply as good reading and good thinking. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We all want to make the world a better place, however we need to be careful how we go about it. We already have equal rights under the law. I’m not suggesting that there are no problems in our society; of course there are. But the means of addressing these problems should not be such that they embed more problems. The means are the end. How we get there is what we get. War begets war. Peace begets peace. In the English classroom we can grow cynicism or we can grow joy. </span></p><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-940dfbd6-7fff-0fa9-a159-4cdd17e535a4"><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-50553569096945732122018-12-23T14:35:00.001-08:002018-12-23T14:35:36.713-08:00Let's apply some critical thinking to ChristmasNow that we have critical thinking embedded in every educational institution, we should expect that our traditions will be challenged. Is doing something on the basis of tradition a good enough reason?<br /><br />Let’s ask some questions about Christmas.<br /><br />Is December 25 Jesus’ birthday? Some will say that Jesus is the reason for the season, and that celebrating him is the ‘true meaning of Christmas’. This doesn’t hold up to examination. There is nothing in the gospels about Jesus being born in December. In the early Christian communities the birth of Jesus was not celebrated because the story of Jesus’ birth hadn’t started yet. Emperor Constantine, who declared Christianity the official religion for the Roman Empire, declared in 336 AD that December 25 would be celebrated as the birth of Jesus. This was reinforced by Pope Julius I a few years later. The first recorded use of the word Christmas was in Old English in 1038 CE. The words ‘true meaning of Christmas’ were first used on the blurb for Dickens’ book ‘A Christmas Carol’.<br /><br />Does the celebration have pagan roots, and is it about winter? We know that Christmas replaced a winter solstice celebration in the Northern Hemisphere. It makes sense to have a festival when winters are cold and long and people are prone to depression. The early Puritan settlers of America banned the celebration of Christmas because of its pagan roots. Why are we in Australia decorating everything in fake snow, eating plum pudding and singing about Jingle Bells? Why do we sing carols by candlelight in a heatwave during daylight savings? Celebrating a winter wonderland doesn’t make sense in Australia, where it is hot and we all go swimming.<br /><br />Is Santa real? The conspiracy about Santa is deep and broad. Adults behave as if he exists. They talk to children as if Santa really does know if they have been naughty or nice, and that he will sneak into their house at night and leave presents. Shopping malls and the post office are complicit with the lie. We can track the story of St Nicholas, through to the 1922 story of ‘The Night Before Christmas’ and the Coca Cola image of Santa as a jolly fat man wearing a red suit with white trim. The practice of exchanging gifts began in the late 1800s. Christmas became a national holiday in the US in 1870.<br /><br />Is Santa good for parents? Parents have the power to reward and punish children if they choose. They could accept that power rather than defer it to a fictional middle man. It would be honest and transparent and grow trust. As children grow, parents tell them they need to believe to receive, as if that is logical and a good philosophy for life. It is strange that parents lie to keep their children happy then children pretend to believe to keep their parents happy. Is this a good model for relationships?<br /><br />Is Christmas good for women? Christmas is run by women; they do all the work to keep it going. Women put toys on layby mid-year and keep track of gifts children might like. They organise the food and do the cooking. They organise the relatives and try to make sure everyone is happy for the big day. This brings into question the unpaid work women do. This is work women could just stop doing. We could give the work of Christmas to men and see what happens. We could let children know they are dealing with their mothers directly, and women could accept the credit for the work they do. It makes no sense for women to do the work of gathering gifts and giving the credit to a fictional fat man. It works against the goal of gender equality.<br /><br />Is Christmas good for the environment? The way we celebrate Christmas has an enormous environmental impact. We spend time shopping, buying gifts packaged in plastic, then wrap them in paper that is bought especially and used once. We buy gifts for people who need nothing new. We wrap the biggest thing we have, our houses, in Christmas lights. We buy more food than we can eat. It makes no sense to save energy, to reduce, reuse and recycle for eleven months of the year, and then create enormous amounts of waste in celebrating Christmas.<br /><br />We can celebrate when and how we like. Christmas does not have one true meaning. The meaning is constructed, contested, and evolving. We should be challenging ourselves to celebrate according to our values - our real values - not the ones we are told we should hold. This may be uncomfortable, as learning often is. No-one ever said that applying critical thinking makes a person popular. But asking questions should be acceptable, shouldn’t it?Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-22958957851276308372018-11-12T03:56:00.000-08:002018-12-14T02:55:58.865-08:00Managing FertilityI watched Exposed on ABC - the documentary investigating the case of Keli Lane, and I have some thoughts.<br /><br />Yes, the case was poorly investigated, and yes it was sexist. I don’t know what happened to baby Tegan. But here is my thinking. No man has ever been in a position that Keli Lane found herself in numerous times. She fell pregnant when she didn’t want to have babies, and has been criticised for not managing her fertility. She did not create these babies alone; they were the result of men not managing their own fertility. Each pregnancy could have been avoided with the use of condoms. <br /><br />Women manage their fertility all through their fertile years which encompass about thirty years of their lives. Most women would use a variety of contraceptive methods, and at various times in their lives experience some combination of an abortion, miscarriage, giving a child away for adoption, experience live birth, stillbirth, IVF, and may adopt or foster a child.<br /><br />Women are thinking of their fertility every time they bleed each month. Women may not speak to many men about how they control their fertility, so it seems that men don’t see the work that it involves.<br /><br />In contrast men can impregnate women and not even know. <br /><br />In the argument against Keli Lane’s defence that she gave baby Tegan to the child’s biological father many people said they found such a scenario unbelievable. Why? It is not at all unusual for women to raise a child alone. It is not at all unusual for a woman to have a child with a man who then leaves. It is not at all unusual for men to not contribute financially, or in any care role, for a child he helped create. If a woman can raise a child without a partner, why can’t a man? Surely in a world where men hold most of the positions of power, a man can raise a child. Of course he can. A man is just as capable of learning care work as a woman is. The assumption is, why would any man want to? And the response to that question should lead us to a major revision of the structural impediments to the experience of raising children and of care work. Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-41581879705012910132018-05-11T16:03:00.000-07:002018-05-13T04:13:32.735-07:00My Body Betrays Me<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
When my daughter asked me what transgender is, I answered that some people feel that they were born into the wrong body. That their bodies had betrayed them. So they change gender. She replied: I feel like I should have had a twin. </div>
<br />Of course, there was nothing I could do about that, but it did make me think about all the ways my own body had betrayed me. I am a woman and have always been female. My body has betrayed me in many ways. <br /><br />My body has betrayed me by bleeding at times when I wasn’t ready. Having a female body has attracted unwanted attention from men while I have gone about my own business. I have put on weight when I hadn’t expected to. My body has betrayed me by being short. At times my face has betrayed me by being not pretty enough. I am not particularly athletic. I have frizzy hair. I had crooked teeth and ears that stick out. I fell pregnant when I hadn’t planned to. I broke my tailbone in childbirth. I now have a sore hip from sitting unevenly for years due to the fractured tailbone. I had mastitis when breastfeeding. I had a psychotic reaction (Hoigne Syndrome) to an injection of procaine penicillin which was administered for said mastitis. I’ve had hot flushes from menopause.<br /><br />Some may feel being physically uncoordinated whilst dancing is a disappointment. Others may have serious diseases, lost a limb in an accident, suffer through a chronic illness or serious disabilities. Some people may feel like their body betrays them because they have a low tolerance to alcohol, or they have allergies. Women who have trouble conceiving, carrying to term or with childbirth, or breastfeeding, feel let down by their bodies. Others are disappointed by their skin colour, hair colour, eye shape or ingrown toenails. We all feel disappointed by our bodies when our plans are disrupted by having a cold or breaking a bone. <br /><br />At times we are all physically unable to do what we want to do, whether that be to function, to excel, or to have fun. The range is wide.<br /><br />For me, the biggest betrayal was having leukemia. I never gave my body permission to have a blood cancer. It was sneaky and pernicious. Nobody plans to get cancer and plans to devote time to treatment until it is necessary to do so. Any type of cancer is a betrayal of the body.<br /><br />People who live long enough to live through a process of aging are likely to experience sore knees, declining eyesight and hearing, general aches and pains, and incontinence. They feel their bodies have let them down.<br /><br />My experience is unremarkable.<br /><br />I had reason to think about this again on reading Cate McGregor’s article in which she apolgises to people who were hurt by her condemnation of the Safe Schools program. I appreciate that she is open to learning. What concerned me was this: <br /><br />'My concept of gender was forged by exposure to the showgirls of the 1970s and 1980s who were my heroines. I had a limited, arguably obsolescent view of how gender variance manifests among contemporary teens.' <br /><br />I believed that people who want to transition from one gender to another undergo counselling. I assumed this counselling included challenging stereotypes of what is it to be one gender or another, or non-binary. It seems incredible to me that a person could think that being a women in the world today is like being a showgirl. I would expect that some serious consideration would be given to how gender exists within a system of power and an understanding that in moving from one position of power to another a person either moves from a position of oppression to one of privilege, or visa versa. Whilst I’m interested in the experience of people who have navigated this transition and what we can learn from their experiences, surely it should be no shock to them that other people will have other views. Living in male, female or non-binary bodies all carry expectations we may not endorse.<br /><br />I wonder what percentage of people feel that their bodies betray them when they go through puberty. It is confronting when your body changes from one of a child to one of an adult. It can be a frightening transition, especially since it changes forever how you are perceived in the world and there is no turning back to the simplicities of childhood. No one decides if he or she is ready and no one gives permission for how it happens.<br /><br />Perhaps feeling betrayed by your body is a common human experience. Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect otherwise.<br /><br />While some people can afford to surgically and medically change their bodies, most people don’t. Meanwhile, other people are betrayed because they don’t have access to what they need to keep their bodies alive: clean water, enough food, safety, or medical treatment. Probably everyone feels like their bodies have betrayed them in one way or another. Nobody feels that their bodies are loyal and supportive to their will in every way. In the end we are all betrayed by our bodies because we can’t live without our bodies. Perhaps we could learn to appreciate them more, in all their many variations, try to keep them healthy, and be grateful for what they can do.<br /><br />And perhaps we could change our expectations about people based solely on their bodies.Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-2844756530643919302018-01-05T12:51:00.001-08:002018-01-08T20:35:20.528-08:00My article in SMH about volunteering <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had an article published in SMH yesterday.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/volunteering-doesnt-make-the-world-a-better-place-20180104-h0dd25.html"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">http://www.smh.com.au/comment/volunteering-doesnt-make-the-world-a-better-place-20180104-h0dd25.html</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I didn't write the headline - it is a little less nuanced than I would have written.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Following up on my article regarding volunteering, fundraising and charities I’ve created flowlines to help think through these ideas. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The ideas are about how volunteering, fundraising and charities work in interaction with connecting systems.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">. Is this my personal responsibility?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Eg.</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Raising money for Legacy, public schools, hospitals, medical research, the homeless, surf lifesaving, Careflight, international aid</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Action.</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">No - write to a politician. It is a collective responsibility.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Yes - keep thinking</span><span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c82d-fb05-dc82-76d8e97437e6"></span><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c82d-fb05-dc82-76d8e97437e6"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is my action causing harm?</span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c82d-fb05-dc82-76d8e97437e6"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Eg.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Making waste, unhealthy food, imposing on people, everything sold is ethically made</span></span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c82d-fb05-dc82-76d8e97437e6">
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c82d-fb05-dc82-76d8e97437e6"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Action. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes - do something else</span></span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c82d-fb05-dc82-76d8e97437e6">
</span><span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c82f-7ffb-51d0-24f0b4a80851"></span>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c82f-7ffb-51d0-24f0b4a80851"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> No - keep thinking</span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c82f-7ffb-51d0-24f0b4a80851"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c82f-7ffb-51d0-24f0b4a80851">
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is my action effective when considering all costs?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Eg.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">People’s time, investment, consequences, the money going to the most needy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Action.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">No - find something else</span></div>
<div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c832-3d7e-bae0-67ee32e4d727"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Yes - keep thinking</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Will it need to be repeated next year? </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Action. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes - find another solution</span></div>
</span><span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c834-4861-c154-25aae20aaf4e"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> No - keep thinking</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Should this be a paid job?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Eg. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Managing a group of workers, helping with reading at school, Meals on Wheels</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Action. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes - write to a politician</span></div>
</span><span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c835-cda3-d4bb-f4d5cc1e0a5c"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> No - keep thinking</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q.</b> Is this fair and does it build a fairer society?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Eg. </b>Fundraising for a wealthy group of school students to go overseas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Action. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes - keep thinking</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> No - find another solution</span><span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c85b-d2b7-bf7f-e787e79bfc4b"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Am I volunteering to build skills?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Action.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Make sure you are not being exploited and your skills are recognised and rewarded by moving into paid work</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Am I supporting a church run charity?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do I support everything about this group?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Action. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes - keep thinking</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> No - find another solution</span><br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c85b-d2b7-bf7f-e787e79bfc4b">
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c85b-d2b7-bf7f-e787e79bfc4b"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does this group have enough assets and money that they could solve a problem tomorrow if they sold some assets? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Action. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes - find another solution</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> No - keep thinking</span><span id="docs-internal-guid-4d794116-c85c-b328-71eb-981f7fbc2ac0"></span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Should I help in an emergency?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Action. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes - just do it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q.</b> Should I give blood?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Action.</b> Yes - just do it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">How should I be involved in my community?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Eg. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Community garden, choir, sport, political group, local events that aren’t fundraisers, parties, being kind, helping people in any way that doesn’t damage a system (may include bush regeneration, WIRES), organise Soup and Submissions evenings (writing to politicians together), mentoring, any club that shares resources</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Action. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes - do it </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am also including a link to The Story of Solutions </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpkRvc-sOKk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpkRvc-sOKk</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">and Naomi Klein at the Sydney Peace Prize </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20T46qub4VI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20T46qub4VI</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">From 25 mins to 104 mins.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">And Naomi Klein - This Changes Everything</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqw99rJYq8Q">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqw99rJYq8Q</a></span></div>
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</span>Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-43680425525541373652018-01-01T02:01:00.000-08:002018-05-13T04:15:55.565-07:002017 wrap upIt has been the year of overworking. I won’t talk about my paid job except to say that people make the difference, and that it is over. I’m looking for something else. Outside of my regular job I have done an enormous amount of work this year - reading, thinking, writing and making resources. I feel like I have learnt as much this year as I did studying full time.<br /><br />This has been the year I have re-engaged with classics (Ancient Greek and Roman Literature). 2017 has been a big year for classics and I want to be part of what happens next.<br /><br />2017 has been a year of funerals. I have lost two friends, one to blood cancer (we had the same specialist) and one to violence. I have lost my mother’s only surviving sister. <br /><br />I have been fairly well. I still have check ups and need to look after myself.<br /><br />It has been the year of yoga. There will be more. And swimming.<br /><br />I didn’t put on weight this year - something I now need to monitor.<br /><br />It has been a year of dancing (going out grooving with middle aged women - so freeing to be invisible!), musicals, theatre. <br /><br />Our campaign to get scripture out of public schools has had a good year. We are nearly at a point where it can roll on by itself, because the main stakeholders with power are now on board, and partly because church leaders have had enough of a platform to destroy their own brand.<br /><br />I took the family to Cairns and we swam with the fishes at the Great Barrier Reef. I went to Melbourne to a feminist conference, and went to Canberra. I can recommend the All the better to see you with: Fairy tales Transformed exhibition at the Ian Potter Centre in Melbourne, until 4 March 2018, and the Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters exhibition at the National Museum in Canberra until 25 Feb 2018.<br /><br />Anyhoo - back to work. I'm writing longer pieces and hope to publish some things in the new year.Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-67245589375245498282017-05-22T22:00:00.001-07:002018-10-23T17:36:49.282-07:00No Name Calling<b id="docs-internal-guid-625fb646-33ab-fe80-d979-4c74f30415c3" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 2016 I started working at a university. At this university (as at others) there are active student groups, including Socialist groups. I consider myself a socialist so one day at lunchtime I walked over to their stall. They were asking people to sign a petition against Pauline Hanson. I had noticed that since the federal election they had distributed posters against her all over the campus. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I read the petition statement but didn’t sign it - it wasn’t well written and included some assumptions I wasn’t on board with - and then I asked some questions. When I said I wasn’t going to sign the petition afterall they responded with aggression. I was told that petitions didn’t work anyway. ‘OK’, I said ‘what do you think will work?’ I then entered a strange conversation. I was told that the way to defeat Pauline Hanson and her followers was to shout at them that they are racist. I was told that this strategy had worked last time. I suggested that it was just bullying, and perhaps it would be better to build relationships with people and educate them and bring them along, so that they learn to not be afraid of people they don’t understand. The students told me that my suggestion wouldn’t work because: educated people are racists, in fact Malcolm Turnbull was the biggest racist because he held the highest position in the country; that if Pauline Hanson learnt not to be a racist there would be other people to take her place and it wasn’t about her - even though the posters and petition were all about her; that education doesn’t work and we need to just keep shouting at people that they are racist. I didn’t follow their logic about Malcolm Turnbull and Pauline Hanson, so I asked why they thought education doesn’t work. What did they think education was for if it didn’t lead to making a better society? Why were they at university? That’s where the conversation ended.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve thought of this conversation after Brexit and after the election of Donald Trump. I’ve thought about it in relation to a rule in ethics classes. In ethics classes there is a rule that you don’t call people names. I extended this in the classes I taught to include people outside the room: politicians, celebrities, sportspeople, and I would ask what happens when you call people names. The students would say you hurt people’s feelings. I would agree, and extend the answer to include this: you cut off an opportunity to understand other people. Instead of calling people names, we need to listen and engage. Respectfully. People we disagree with genuinely believe they are right and are good. Shouting in their faces does nothing to change that - usually it makes people dig in, giving them more reason to not listen to you. Calling people names misses an opportunity to increase understanding and to make progress. Let's not do that.</span>Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-81159563866714694252017-05-14T04:16:00.001-07:002017-05-22T22:02:17.112-07:00Crow, plough and wheel<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I haven’t posted anything personal for a while. Today is Mothers’ Day. I’m still holding out on celebrating until we have equal rights. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-2b9854d2-06ab-cec0-1e54-0e2ddbb3fd50" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am probably more busy and more productive than I have ever been, so, I guess that transplant is holding. The upside is that my intellectual life is fab. I’m having a lovely time exploring my academic interests, and doing lots of writing.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The downside is that my body is not happy. My hips hurt. I sit down too much. It is hard to attribute what causes which physical problem: ageing, the transplant, my medication, lack of physical activity.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have been watching Grace and Frankie. That these two wonderful women can be so physically strong and flexible in their 70s is something to aspire to. So I need to keep moving.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I do yoga twice a week, and I’m now having trouble getting into crow, plough, and wheel. I used to be able to just launch myself into positions, but now I don’t have the oomph. I need to work on the oomph. Otherwise, I’m doing fine with identifying as crow, plough and wheel, as I repeat my messages, dig into ideas, and work daily at looking at what is basic to our humanity and how it relates to our present and future. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-18088165094950283862017-04-20T05:34:00.001-07:002017-04-21T17:42:06.756-07:0013 Reasons Why - a Parent’s Perspective<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everybody has been talking about 13 Reasons Why. Here’s my take on it.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a story it is hard to suspend disbelief because:</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The make-up is distractingly bad</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Senoirs do not hang out with juniors in real life</span></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Clay does not listen to all tapes asap</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The gay Fonzi character is more like a guardian angel than a person</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are just too many secrets</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is no need for Jeff to die</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It makes no sense that Hannah needs to work in her parent’s shop when they have no customers.</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two boys are brutally bashed and walk away - they are not even taken to hospital, and their parents accept this (perhaps due to the unconvincing make-up)</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, it is irresponsible, but the teens I’ve talked to (or overhead at my 17 year old’s birthday party) think that the show is a failure because it is unbelievable. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are lots of ways you can look at the show - through the lens of class or gender and how schools are a melting pot that are supposed to teach children how to socialise. Are we teaching children that society is brutal, and that the biggest bullies win? Sometimes I think these USA high school shows teach toxic masculinity and toxic femininity. As well as teaching people how to commit a revenge suicide, leaving the bath running - which is the standard tv bath death - more dramatic (I don't know if it is true to life, because journalists have a code of conduct which means they don't report methods of suicide - unlike producers of tv shows).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it is concerning that Hannah repeatedly stands up for herself - she tells people to go away when she is uncomfortable, for example, and confronts people - and for that people consider her a bitch or crazy - but the message is that people should not have taken her at her word and should have persisted. So, damned if you do and damned if you don't. And reinforces the message that girls don't know what they want and can't speak for themselves. Even when they do. Which empowers the abusers and guilt trips the people who did take her at her word. Not a good message.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, what are parents to do?</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t send you kids to school early - size matters</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Talk to other parents</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Have your kids in shared bedrooms - siblings are insurance for knowing what is going on. (None of the teen shows - Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl, 13 Reasons Why - would have plots if the main characters shared a bedroom with younger siblings.)</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ethics classes for all (includes practising the no name calling policy - and that applies to everyone everywhere).</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you are a parent and want to think about the mental health of teenagers, watch this instead. This is probably what the next series will be about.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/sue_klebold_my_son_was_a_columbine_shooter_this_is_my_story" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.ted.com/talks/sue_klebold_my_son_was_a_columbine_shooter_this_is_my_story</span></a></div>
<br />Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-67981936280039337682016-12-16T11:14:00.002-08:002016-12-19T17:25:07.496-08:00Primary school ends on a disturbing note<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My daughter finished primary school yesterday, after a week of celebrations. There is a tradition at the school that after the last bell the year six group goes to a local park for a water fight. It has been raining this week so the park was muddy. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-9ed1ba38-0901-75db-ae40-59e688615f63" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It seems the water fight turned into a real fight, with swearing and aggression, and she was the target. She got angry, which the people who wanted to aggravate her seemed to enjoy, then she cleaned herself up, and was preparing to leave when she was turned on again by a girl who my daughter had already told repeatedly to stop. A group of boys yelled at her ‘Suck my dick, bitch' and 'Fuck off, bitch.’ She is twelve. She left the park.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These are the boys she has been with at school for the last seven years.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am so angry I don’t know what to do.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There were a few adults there but I don’t know what they saw and heard, or if they were paying attention.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The school has no course of action because the children had left. It wasn’t a school event. It seems to me the last semester of Year 6 is a free-for all. The children are disengaged in learning and given a free pass to spend their time being mean to each other. Perhaps hostilities had been brewing and were acted upon at the park. I can’t think of the school as without blame if this what happens when the students are together unsupervised. This is a school failure. A few children tried to intervene, but as a group, the rest permitted it. This is a failure of the anti-bullying program and the message that bystanders should stop the bullies. One boy told her as she left that he didn’t want to end primary school this way.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I knew that I would have to deal with my daughters being harassed and abused as they became teenagers and went out into the world, but I didn’t expect it to happen at the age of twelve, and from people in our community.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Again, I have to review everything I thought I knew. Perhaps there is no recourse for ingrained misogyny. Perhaps boys are predators and girls are victims and that’s never going to change - we should just keep our girls indoors. Perhaps there is no overcoming the subtle and overt disrespect for women and girls that is the wallpaper in our culture. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perhaps children are just mean and we shouldn’t expect otherwise.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or, perhaps we should run ethics classes for the last semester of Year 6 to teach them to think about their behaviour.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What do I tell my daughter? To get used to it? To make a smart-mouthed retort that only makes boys and men angrier? To walk away? To stand and fight? That she is lucky it wasn't worse? The lie that mean people never win in the end?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She's upset with herself that in her anger she said a word we don't use in our household.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She is twelve.</span>Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-12042214704504690542016-09-24T01:31:00.002-07:002018-10-23T17:34:45.907-07:00Let's ask more questions: Challenging cultural and moral absolutism<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While we are engaging in public arguments about marriage equality, immigration and cultural appropriation, lets take a few steps back and see where the ideas for these arguments come from. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-806a3ca5-5b39-a908-5538-d3f5c8936930" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the history of ideas we often hear that our culture is based on Judeo-Christian tradition, however it is also based on Greco-Roman civilisations, which informed the development of Judeo-Christian ideas (which should not be collapsed; Judeo-Christian is a term now used to elevate certain ideas and power structures and exclude others). </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What did ancient people believe? They believed in gods who existed in a hierarchy of deities, and that gods interacted with humans at times, by pretending to be people in order to test heroes, or to satisfy sexual desire and impregnate human women to make demigods, to take their favourites to be immortals on Mount Olympus, or to advise or protect people. The gods were petty, vain, jealous, and watched the actions of humans like they were barracking for sides of a sports team, but they did not need humans. The will of the gods was unknowable. Ancient people believed in the Great Chain of Being, an idea which continued with Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and influenced the art and literature of the western world. When Julius Caesar died he apotheosised (turned into a star) and his adopted son became a deity. They believed in making sacrifices to a series of gods. Mostly it didn’t matter what you believed; it mattered that you made the sacrifices. Xenophanes wrote in about 500 BCE</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black,</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<h1 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 11pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.</span></h1>
<h1 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 11pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,</span></h1>
<h1 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 11pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods</span></h1>
<h1 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 11pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape</span></h1>
<h1 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 11pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.”</span></h1>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, they understood that people created gods in their own image.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However Socrates was prosecuted and executed for impiety (not honouring the gods) and corrupting the minds of the youth (by teaching them to think) - there may have been political reasons for his execution. We still use his thinking today.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Their societies were slave based, women had no rights, homosexuality was normal. They didn’t know about germs, or that the earth was round, or that the earth circled the sun. Stories were fluid, not sacred, and rewriting stories was standard practice. Their curiosity was real and well developed, leaving us with ideas about history, philosophy, natural science, comedy, tragedy and politics. They were interested in how other people had other beliefs and practices. Many ideas from the remaining Greco-Roman literature served in the formation of the old and new testaments: stories with moral lessons, heroes in rivers prior to a challenge, souls, halos, virgin births, three women lamenting the death of their hero, hymns, the fulfilment of prophesies and so on. Celebratory feasts consisted of meat and wine, and the rule of hospitality to strangers was key.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One could argue the problems began with monotheism, and with that, moral absolutism. Abraham discovered a god who was jealous, and claimed himself to be best. Abraham fathered a child to his slave and then to his ninety year old wife. His god told him to kill his child as a test. Judaism was born. Moses went on to free the Jews from Egypt (if they ever lived there), which could have happened sooner had his god accepted the permission of the Pharaoh after each plague, plagues we now have natural explanations for. Moses’ god gave him Judea as the promised land. Judea being no prize indicates that his god did not know about Hawai’i and didn’t even know that the French Riveria was not far away. The Jews wrote their beliefs and practices. According to believers, their god created the world, the devil, evil and used the idea of sin and redemption. God gave Moses the Ten Commandment, which he broke in anger, then returned up Mount Sinai to get another copy. The bible reports various versions. The first three commandments are about his god. The instruction to not kill was immediately followed by Moses encouraging killing. As a set of rules to live by, the Ten Commandments could have been better. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jesus was a Jew who fought for Jewish rights. His story was written years after his death:probably from 50 to 90 CE. In 70 CE the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and it must have seemed the Jews needed a hero. Saul, who became Paul, spread the word about Jesus to non-Jews, even though he never met Jesus, and the remaining disciplines wanted to keep the sect Jewish. Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus is thought to have been caused by an epileptic fit, or by seeing a falling meteor. The new testament was written to fulfil the ancient prophecies. Once collated, and rewritten, and translated, the earlier texts upon which parts were written were lost.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Jews didn’t claim Jesus as their messiah because he did not bring the Messianic Age of Peace. Apollonius of Tyana, a contemporary of Jesus whose story is similar, had followers who considered Jesus to be fraud.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Non-biblical ancient texts tell stories of gossip quickly received as truth. The Jesus stories grew as stories of ancient mythology grew. The stories of Jesus contain parables; it is possible the stories of Jesus themselves could be parables.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Christians look for historical evidence of Jesus. There is historical evidence of stories from Greek mythology: the fall of Troy, the golden fleece, the existence of Amazons. The historical evidence does not mean that we should accept these stories as literally true as written in one form or another, and it certainly doesn’t mean we should worship their gods.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The destruction of the Library of Alexandria in 3rd century CE, which housed up to 400,000 scrolls, and was also a university and a pagan temple, marked the end of antiquity. After the edict in 313 CE by Constantine that his kingdom was tolerant of all religions, the persecution of Christians ceased. However, his own support of Christianity (possibly for political reasons, his own faith being unknown), saw the beginning of the persecution of followers of traditional Roman religions. After this, history entered the dark ages. In 4th century CE both St Jerome and St Augustine struggled with reconciling their love of Greek and Roman literature, which had formed their thinking, with their Christian faith. Over time t</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">he moral absolutism of Christian ideology saw the destruction of pagan texts, including those by Sappho, the persecution of women, homosexuals, and anyone who questioned the right of Christian rule. Christians colonised other cultures, exploiting their lands and people for economic gain. Muslims had similar attitudes, although weren’t as successful colonisers.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During the movements of the Renaissance (inspired by works from ancient Greece and Rome), Neo-Classicism, and Romanticism, through the Reformation, Enlightenment and into the modern age the outcome of cultural absolutism and moral assurance continued in the persecution of those who challenged Christianity, the denial of women’s rights, the continuation of slavery and fear of foreigners, and colonisation. Why? Because of systems of power and privilege. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course other cultures had their own ancient texts and beliefs (particularly ancient Chinese and Indian literature, and, later, Arabic learning), their stories having some crossover with Western texts in terms of purpose and ideas. When these were translated by Western writers, often monks, they were written in terms familiar to Christians. Being able to see them objectively in their cultural context has partly been lost. We can look to Aboriginal Dreamtime stories for how ancient people in Australia thought.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We can see the way religions start, grow and spread in looking at more modern religions and sects: Scientology, Mormonism, and Pacific cargo cults like the Prince Philip Movement. We can see it in the history of celebrating Christmas, Halloween and Mother's Day, and in the development of Santa Claus. Traditionally men have become religious leaders to access power and position (even those who have been colonised recognise that religious leadership grants them a seat at the big table), and women join religious life to be left alone. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After the Holocaust’s genocide of the Jews, homosexuals and people with disabilities, caused by nationalism, racism, homophobia and moral absolutism, the world came together to form the United Nations and to write the Declaration of Human Rights. This states that our basic human rights are inherent and should be protected by law. We understand, now, the dangers of facism.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Living according to an ancient text is a dangerous idea, and one that is held consistently by believers. They say God wants marriage to be between a man and woman, yet they don’t turn to that text to find out how to fix their cars, or cure their illnesses, or what to make for dinner. As taught in high school English, texts are created within a context, for an audience and a purpose. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Faith can be defined as pretending to know things you don’t know. It is a failed epistemology rather than a virtue. It blocks openness to evidence and knowledge and changed beliefs. Religious faith is not a quality valued in the modern world. Yet, in Australia, we treat religious institutions as if they were virtuous, despite the evidence of the Royal Commission into systemic child abuse. We grant religious institutions tax exemptions, we publicly fund their schools (which are places of intellectual dishonesty, since they cannot be teaching critical and creative thinking, nor can they seriously believe the tenets of their faith - if they did they would instruct students to answer every HSC exam with ‘because it is God’s will’). We grant religious institutions exemption from discrimination law, so they are free to not employ people who are homosexual or non-believers. We pay religious institutions to run government services, which they can do cheaper than non-religious organisation since they don’t have a unionised workforce and don’t pay tax. We treat religious groups as if they are good because they run charities, when they could do much more. The Catholic Church could sell its properties today to solve world hunger tomorrow, but it doesn’t. Instead, they pray, which does nothing. We pay for chaplains to counsel children in public schools, where we suspend the curriculum and policies of public education to permit evangelical volunteers access to students for religious indoctrination. We listen to religious leaders as if they were academics; they are not. Academics have intellectual curiosity and are open to changing their views based on evidence while religious leaders aim to make everything fit into their conclusion that they will not revise. And all religious institutions are misogynistic. Women who value women’s rights should not be supporting religious institutions. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People who claim that there is one way to be an Australian, that Australia is a white country, based on Judeo-Christian values, have a lot of thinking to do. We need to ask them questions. The only monoculture that ever existed in Australia was indigenous. If they want to live a white Anglocentric life, they would find it very challenging: What would they wear? What can they eat? Can they communicate using only words based on Old English? What is their number system? It is an idea as flawed as trying to live according to an ancient text. Do they think it is OK for white people to colonise brown people but not OK for brown people to influence white culture (whatever that is)?</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Right wing conservative and fundamentalist Christians state we should be afraid of cultural relativism and moral relativism. In fact we should be very afraid of cultural absolutism and moral absolutism. These ideologies protect those in power (white, Christian, heterosexual men) and enable them to force their beliefs onto others. They think they rule the world, because they have. The differences between ISIS and fundamentalist Christians are ones of scale and concentration. Fundamentalist Christians believe non-believers burn in hell for eternity while members of ISIS will kill you. Members of ISIS are grouped together in the middle east, while fundamentalist Christians are scattered around the world, abusing children and killing people in their own communities (through neglect, exorcisms, enacting what their faith tells them). Cultural and moral relativism enables us to try to suspend our prejudices to understand other people. This is what anthropological studies do.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) grants religious groups an exemption from mental illness on the basis that the delusion is shared by other members of the culture or subculture. This definition should be revised: 'A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary' should not be waived based on popularity of that shared delusion. What this means is that the last people to hold on to the belief are deluded (have a mental illness) whereas, holding the same belief amongst many other believers does not constitute a mental illness. The definition of a delusion should not be altered based on appeal to the bandwagon.*</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Th UN Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18, states that people have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. These freedoms are restricted by laws and are not to impinge upon the protection of public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights of others. The fundamental rights of others. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Christians are challenged about their privilege they cry discrimination. Challenging privilege is not discrimination. In a globalised world, with real problems such as climate change and how to live sustainably, refugees, funding for education, health, and public transport, addressing racism and inequality, and providing safety nets for the most vulnerable people, we cannot afford to waste time debating the basic human rights of one set of people or another. People have the right to believe what they like, but they should be asked to think about and justify those beliefs when they use them as a basis for limiting the freedom of others. We need to challenge moral and cultural absolutism.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is time to move on. We know now that the world is round. We can explore space and nanoparticles. We understand about germs. We know it isn’t healthy to eat mostly meat and bread. We know how the world works and how social and economic systems operate. We understand it is healthy to create communities and perform rituals; they add meaning and purpose to our lives and help us process the events of our lives, and trying to make sense of the world, but we can do these without pretending to know things we don’t know.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, in our public discussions, let's ask a few more questions. Let's use good logic and not fall into bad arguments*. Lets ask why people believe what they do, and if that is a good basis for a belief. Let's ask what systems of power our beliefs support. Who is advantaged and who is disadvantaged under these power systems? Let's ask if ideas belong to a certain group of people, and what is served if they do. Let's ask for definitions of people’s beliefs and what the implication of those definitions mean. Let's ask more questions.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few years ago the BBC stopped giving media space to climate change deniers. We need to do the same with people who disavow people of their basic human rights. We certainly should not be funding their arguments, based on their lack of knowledge, experience and understanding. After two and half thousand years of philosophy, literature, art, history and politics, we are learning very slowly. Let's not return to the dark ages.</span></div>
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* An Illustrated Book of Bad ArgumentsMotherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-8172934887266830092016-05-02T17:14:00.002-07:002016-05-02T21:46:19.215-07:00The Blackboard Jungle<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m writing to try to make sense of things.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-e54693af-73f6-b01b-ced0-25f6c4739173" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve been doing casual work in a low socio economic school. I’m shocked that there are schools like this in Australia. I’m confronted by how sheltered I am. I know nothing.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some top classes and small electives seem to be functional. Most students are wildly disruptive or quietly on their phones and listening to music. There is little learning going on. They trash everything. Worksheets and pencils are missiles to fire at each other. There are food wrappers everywhere. Students come and go from classroom to classroom, roaming around the school. They have no manners or sense of respect. The teacher is ignored or invisible. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are things that can be done to turn this school around but it isn’t likely to happen (ban phones, halve class sizes, repeat students who don’t work, expel the most disruptive). The school needs a lot of welfare support it isn’t going to get. Some students are obviously depressed or worse. No-one would be there if they had the option to be somewhere else. I want politicians to come to the school to see how terrible it is and that the teachers are doing their best and still support the public system. Any of these teachers might be an example of storybook inspiration but it isn't likely to happen. My friends and I support public education but none of us would enrol our children in this school. And we've let this happen during years of economic prosperity.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can’t imagine the students being seated and quiet in class for a test.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But this is what has shocked me the most. The way they talk to each other. The talk is not just full of swearing but sexual insults. They talk dirtier than pornography. They talk about sex graphically. The girls dance in class and offer themselves to the boys. There is no respect in any way I’ve been taught to recognise respect. But there is a lot of laughing. Nothing is taken seriously until suddenly, it is, and then there is a fight. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yesterday there was a small group of girls in my class who were calling each other whores. I told them that a lot of women over a long time had been working for women’s rights and that by talking to each other like that they were setting us back, because they were making it OK for men to talk to women like that. Then in another class there were about a dozen students talking to each other so awfully I couldn’t say anything without feeling threatened. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is very little I can do to help them.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wonder how these students will be able to function when they leave school, having done years of schooling but no school work. How will they earn a living, fill in a form, rent a house, be able to live and work with other people if they believe their behaviour at school is acceptable?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve become a teacher because I want to teach, but really, I only want to teach people who want to learn. I want to teach students about big issues and logic and power structures and how stories work. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I support public schools and funding for public schools. I support women’s rights. I’m asking myself if I expect these students to be grateful for the work adults have done and are currently doing to help them. We work to make things better for the next generation. What if the next generation doesn’t care? I know that there are lots of students who do care and do take advantage of their opportunities. I understand that free education is part of why people want to come to Australia. The people in my circle talk about opportunities for their children that are so far beyond what these students can see - overseas trips for the band, drama workshops, tutoring, elite sport coaching. The gap is widening, when some students come to school yet do no school work. I want to be able to talk to these students, away from their peers who they are constantly performing for, and encourage them to take their own lives seriously. But that isn’t my place. The deputy principal would have spoken to them repeatedly, and I don’t know about what is happening at home that is serious. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is possible that they are fine within their culture and I just don't understand, and, worse, I'm imposing my white middle-class values onto them. I don't know.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And now John Kaye has died. I’ve been involved with his Greens Education group and know how he worked to gain funding for public schools and TAFE. We need many more people to get involved to work for the basic rights of the students who have nothing. We need many people to fill the gap he has left, and many more to help the next generation. We can’t just cut them loose. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m at the point where I want to help them, but I’m not sure that I want to be with them. Which, I know, says I'm not a very nice person. I'm not sure I'm equipped to help. I'm not sure who is.</span></div>
Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-59746929450465976902016-03-24T14:16:00.002-07:002016-03-24T15:51:47.798-07:00Campaigns and fundraisers<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -48px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In my paper about how volunteering is propping up a broken system I am also writing about fundraisers and campaigns. There are lots of things I don’t understand.</span></div>
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</ul>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I see lots of fundraisers that don’t account for all costs: time, health, environment. I see fundraisers where the people who make the stuff are the people who buy the stuff. That’s not efficient. I see people wearing rubber wrist bands that will take hundreds of years to degrade. I see people buying plastic stuff that will probably end up in the ocean. I see people sending Christmas boxes to children in the Pacific Islands, who then have to live with the wrapping and plastic on their island or in the ocean. I see cupcakes and donuts. A teacher I know was selling chocolates to raise money for a children’s hospital. At one school the students ran a campaign taking enviro-selfies. They declared it a success because they had 300 likes on Instagram. It made zero impact on the environment. </span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-160bf991-aa78-d03f-9f2c-5dbaf8b00570" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I see the RSPCA gives a tick to dead animal products.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I see people shaving their head for the Leukaemia Foundation. A girlfriend in Melbourne told me she was planning to do it. I asked her not to. </span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don't like the 'Shave for a Cause' campaign. There are a few reasons why. I understand that people want to raise money and to make cancer patients feel less alone, but shaving your head isn't a great way to go about it. At a school I was working at the students were doing it, and everyone was clapping and cheering, and a teacher who had just recovered from breast cancer was in the staff room sobbing. I couldn't participate. When you shave your head you don't lose your eyebrows and eyelashes. That's the weirder part than having a bald head. When you shave your head your hair grows back soft and normal. After chemo your hair grows back different and weird. My hair is very different now from what it was. It is coarse and weird. I had my head shaved because the hair on my head had died and was coming out in clumps. It was confronting and distressing. My main concern was hiding it from my kids. Having non-cancer patients walking around with bald heads makes it harder to identify the real patients (unless I'm at hospital). I don't know if people I meet have a shared experience or not. Helen Razer calls it 'cancer cosplay', and she's right. Traditionally shaving one's head symbolises a loss - mourning or a loss of identity - it reminds me of entering the army or a concentration camp - a way of stripping people of their individuality. It's punitive. That’s why patients who have chemotherapy (which makes you sick - it’s poison) feel the loss of their hair. Because I’ve had cancer treatment I’ll never be the same again. I’m on medication. My bone density is weakened. I take supplements. I need to stay out of the sun for the rest of my life. I’m always worried about relapsing. I understand people might not have thought of these things before, but it isn’t an act of solidarity. When I saw a child at my daughter’s primary school get his head shaven at school, I cried. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s another one: the White Ribbon Campaign. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Women have been telling men, forever, to stop hitting women. Men get the idea to say the same thing (because everybody knows that no-one listens to women). They name the campaign. They have ambassadors and advocates (some of whom have a record of violence against women). They buy billboards. They sell white ribbons. They are heroes. (Men who speak out about women's rights can even be Australian of the Year!)</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What are they doing? Do they provide funding for abused women? Help the campaign to provide women’s refuges? Organise counselling for violent men? Campaign against sexist advertising, the porn industry, gender equality in power positions on boards or in government, change the way violence against women is reported in the media? No. They are asking men to take an oath. They say 156,636 people have taken their oath and their reach is growing. That’s their aim and their product (although, you could argue their product is themselves). </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, lets follow the money. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">According to their professional, corporate looking website, their funds come from donations, merchandise, events, partners and philanthropic organisations, and receive 10% government funding. Their revenue in 2013/2014 was $2,697,261. They aren’t funding anything that helps women in a practical way, so what is their money spent on? Paying men to run their events and campaigns and show what great guys they are for telling men to stop hitting women. A swanky website doesn’t pay for itself. It is very corporate looking, with a mission statement and graphics. The money goes to paying themselves. They are a not for profit organisation.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></li>
</ul>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meanwhile I see the Coalition for Women's Refuges, made up of women who have worked in women's refuges and feminist groups for years or decades, campaign for the restoration of safe places for women and children to go when abused, working for free with no money, no website, no corporate sponsorship, no big media campaign. Why is that?</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I see welfare programs that were once run by government agencies now run by church based groups. The church based groups can afford to deliver services more cheaply because they use volunteer labour. They can access more volunteer labour by funnelling people into that labour through their programs. These groups own property, pay no tax, accept tax deductible donations, and, one could argue, have a vested interest in keeping people poor and uneducated in order to prop up their own institutions. These institutions have systematically abused children and covered it up. They are not ethical.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can see what I mean by fundraisers and campaigns being inefficient, damaging, or ineffective. They are propping up broken systems. The way to fix the broken systems is to campaign for proper use of taxpayers’ money. Children's hospitals should be funded. Animals should be protected. Victims of domestic violence should have safe refuge. Australia should give aid internationally. Guess which countries do these things rather than run stupid, time wasting campaigns and fundraisers? Nordic countries.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 38pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></li>
</ul>
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<br /></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; margin-left: -48px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, here's my suggestions. Whenever we are asked to donate or fund-raise or volunteer, say this: No, but I will send an email to a politician asking that your program be funded properly.</span></li>
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Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-3858332838221992512016-03-23T20:10:00.003-07:002016-03-24T12:57:09.344-07:00Mother advocacy 2016<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mamapalooza</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We have two events planned for Mamapalooza this year: a film showing and a comedy night.</span></div>
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You are invited to our Mamapalooza Film Showing</div>
WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS? by film maker Pamela Tanner Boll.</div>
This academy award winning documentary features five fierce women who refuse to choose between mothering and work. Through their lives we explore some of the most problematic intersections of our time: mothering and creativity, partnering and independence, economics and art.</div>
Where: The Women's Library, 8/10 Brown St. Newtown</div>
When: Saturday 14th May, 2pm to 5pm</div>
Discussion and refreshments after the film.</div>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/mamapaloozasydney/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>mamapaloozasydney/</a></div>
Please invite your friends.</div>
Part of the Mamapalooza Festival.</div>
Other events include: Mamapalooza Stand-Up </div>
and Mamapalooza Music Night</div>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/mamapaloozasydney/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>mamapaloozasydney/</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.mamapalooza.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: normal; white-space: normal;" target="_blank">www.mamapalooza.com</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: normal; white-space: normal;"> Celebrating Mothers in the Arts</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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MAMAPALOOZA STAND-UP</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: normal; white-space: normal;">SAT 14TH MAY 7.30PM</span></span></div>
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A spectacular night of hilarious mama-comedy like you've never seen before!<br />
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Lou Lou Pollard - Host<br />
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Amanda Gray<br />
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Dolores Lorette<br />
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Christina Van Look<br />
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Sallie J Don<br />
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Frida Deguise<br />
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Location Tap Gallery 1/259 Riley Street Surry Hills NSW 2010 Australia</div>
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Tix - $15 early bird - <a href="https://www.stickytickets.com.au/36619/mamapalooza_standup.aspx" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://www.stickytickets.com.<wbr></wbr>au/36619/mamapalooza_standup.<wbr></wbr>aspx</a></div>
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$20 at the door.</div>
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THE COMICS:</div>
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LOU LOU POLLARD - She’s wowed audiences at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival & Adelaide Fringe as well as supporting Arj Barker & appearing on TV shows including Playschool and the Today Show.<br />
AMANDA GRAY has a relentless assault that’s delivered with a deadpan, straight-faced style, packing a huge armoury of laughs. No topic is sacred, no taboo untouchable.<br />
DOLORES is sharp, blunt and a quick witted delight. With stage presence galore, Dolores has even been described by those in the industry as ..too Funny!<br />
"A very funny lady" - The Funny Tonne.<br />
With support act by Ana Key and the Bra Girls! </div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The AMIRICI conference is on in Melbourne in July. I am delivering a paper arguing that volunteering is propping up broken systems and we shouldn’t have to fundraise. It includes reference to this:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://storyofstuff.org/movies/the-story-of-solutions/</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Again, if you have any ideas to share, that would be welcome.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also, this blog is referenced in a book being published in the UK. Oh, and I was escorted from the Hilton whilst protesting to save women’s refuges.</span></div>
Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-5858259576946916522016-03-23T20:06:00.001-07:002016-03-24T12:56:23.929-07:00Autumn equinox 2016<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s Equinox break in Term 1, 2016, and what’s happening? It's been a while, so I have sub-headings.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-dcca8550-a68f-7e9a-1982-9ab9433aec88" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">WORK</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, I have been applying for jobs. </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most of the jobs have been part time or temporary at Catholic schools. The only jobs advertised within the Department of Education (my natural home, you would think) are rural or regional. My interview with the Department is a month away.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can't tell you how sick I am of reading the word 'passionate'.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have registered to do casual work and thought that once everything was set to ‘go’ that I would be getting a call each morning and running out the door to go wherever needed. But no. I have been getting up each morning and there have been no calls. Well, I’ve had two calls, but they were in the afternoons, and I didn’t see them in time to respond. So, I’ve probably fallen off those lists. (There are 40,000 casual teachers in NSW.) A bit sad, really.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve been doing professional development. I’ve been to two English Teachers’ professional development days, which I’ve paid for myself. I really am quite capable of doing the job my peers are currently doing. I’m doing a course on The State of Education in Australia, in which we have guest speakers who are politicians or professors. The group is small so we have good access to knowledgeable people and can ask questions. I did training to be an adjudicator of debating. What more could I do?</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have two students I tutor, which I enjoy, and I’m happy to take on more students. I put in a lot of preparation for my students. I’ve approached the coaching colleges, but they want teachers with three years experience. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m also applying for non-teaching jobs. I’m overqualified for these jobs but haven’t got an interview yet.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I’m looking at plans B, C, D, E, and F. </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m writing two books and preparing sessions I can present at schools (even though I don’t like the privatisation of education that is happening, little by little, in public schools, but what else can I do?) </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m thinking I’ll end up patching together some sort of part time and piecemeal work.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m open to any suggestions. However, I'm not prepared to pretend to be a Christian when I'm not. (There is lots of casual work available in Catholic primary schools, but I would need a priest or minister to endorse me to be able to work in that system. It's not going to happen.)</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wish me luck!</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">FAMILY</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The family is fine. The two teenagers are working at fast food outlets. One is a vegetarian and one is vegan - we are all compromised in one way or another. We are now a vegetarian household. The youngest still wants to eat meat, and is visiting friends and neighbours more regularly at mealtimes. She says she wants to marry a butcher. I’ve been telling friends she will work for meat.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’re thinking about how to rearrange the house to be more functional for older children. Does anyone want a free piano?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The youngest is unhappy at school, and truly, I would homeschool her if we could forego any potential earnings.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is coming up to a year since my mother died. We have celebrated the first Christmas without her, her birthday, now Easter, soon Mothers’ Day. Over the past few years I have been kind of steeling myself for when she goes. I’m not sure it helped. I’ve been more functional than I was when my sister died, but I can’t talk about it anymore than this.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">HEALTH</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I think I’ve already said, since the stem cell transplant I find it a bit difficult to know when I’m really sick. I don’t know if I should expect to ever be really energetic again, so I just plow on. It’s hard to know what is caused by side effects of the medication and what is simply ageing. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It may be that there is never anything wrong with me that can’t be helped with exercise. I do know that I’m not as strong or flexible as I once was, so I can work on that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The long, hot summer seemed endless. It was uncomfortably hot. I had a solstice party, which I’ll continue to do, but it seems a long time ago. I’m relieved it’s autumn.</span>Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-38806672966297496252015-10-05T03:36:00.001-07:002015-10-06T03:45:09.550-07:00A working life<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-a8dd55fe-378e-69d0-a60a-ddde9c68f5a4" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I have been working full time. I’m very fortunate to have been offered a job for a term, which has been extended to two terms. I have ten classes, which means I have about 230 comments to write on reports. I’ve had nineteen sets of class assessments tasks to mark. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-a8dd55fe-378e-69d0-a60a-ddde9c68f5a4" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-a8dd55fe-378e-69d0-a60a-ddde9c68f5a4" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I like teaching. I have realised that I do have a lot to offer, and there is a lot that I know and can share after years of study and workshops and exploring my own interests, although it has been challenging. I’ve been learning about staff and procedures, marking, parent/teacher interviews, writing reports, and working out when to be hard and when to be soft. I’ve come to the conclusion that soft is better. The more I get to know my students, their needs, interests and abilities, the better we all are. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My job is to deliver the programs, facilitate learning and fit in with the culture of the school. That’s what I’m doing. I’m enjoying the content and working. I’m coping, energywise. Although I did get sick and kind of miss the last week of school.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m finding a dissonance between what I hoped teaching would be and what it actually is. That’s to be expected. A wise friend told me that I’ve had the freedom to live according to my values for a long time. I haven’t needed to engage in anything terribly compromising. That’s true. There is compromise in any work situation. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I think a lot about my students. Another friend has told me that I could spend all my time working, but I need to set boundaries and know when to take a break. The job could be all consuming, but I can’t let it be.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Even though I’ve been marking and preparing during the holidays, there are still things about next term I haven’t been told yet. I just have to trust that I’ll be able to pull it together quickly as needed. That’s what I did last term. I can do it. I’m hoping this term won’t be as steep a learning curve as last term. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And nobody knows what will happen after this term. I hope to keep working.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This is what I've thinking about learning.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">'Critical thinking discourages ideas'</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_8n0gLmL9M</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 1.38;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This is what I've been thinking about teaching.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-greene/the-hardest-part-teaching_b_5554448.html?ir=Australia</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-25844286333986095592015-06-30T01:00:00.001-07:002016-01-10T13:55:21.052-08:00Christian Privilege<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-1a3d7571-5723-3c2b-c3c2-42c167424a6c" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As a society we are raising awareness about white privilege, male privilege and the privilege of heteronormative sexuality, and we are challenging these structures. In a structure of power and oppression, it is time to also look at Christian privilege.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s a list of how it works.</span></div>
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<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Christians can expect to have holidays on their holy days. They aren’t expected to justify it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Their celebrations are accepted at a communal level, from foods available in supermarkets to carols by candlelight. A mass singing in the Domain about Mohammed and Allah would not be televised.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">People talk about prayers without having to explain what it is or how it might work (or not).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Most members of parliament identify with the Christian faith.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Christian faith group organisations don’t pay taxes and members’ donations are tax deductible.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">People don’t try to convert Christians (generally speaking).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Christians can wear a crucifix around their necks without confrontation or explanation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Christian organisations are exempt from discrimination laws.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Christians can send their children to faith schools and, often, faith universities. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The government outsources services to Christian service providers, who then engage with people of all types, including those of other faiths or none, including those who Christians actively disapprove of. Under government policy people have no recourse but to use the Christian service providers. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Celebrities of faith can thank their deity on international broadcasts and not be questioned about it.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is an assumption in our culture that ‘Christian values’, whatever they are, should be everybody’s values. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Christianity is considered the norm and the default. A person of unknown faith will be given a Christian burial. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Language from Christianity is used in conversation every day - Oh my God!, thank God, I swear to God, God given right, gospel truth, set in stone, cast the first stone, road to Damascus moment, good Samaritan, a cross to bear, forbidden fruit, references to miracles, heaven and hell, etc </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Popular songs make references to God, Jesus and the church as if these things are part of everybody’s experience.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">People say ‘that’s not Christian’ as if there is a wrong and right way to be Christian, and as if being Christian means being a good person, or morally sound, and to follow an Iron Age Middle Eastern Jewish prophet whose life was recorded in an ancient book is a rational way to live your life. Christians do not own goodness and morality, or even own Jesus.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A Christian church and its leaders are respected, even though for many people who suffered abuse through the church these references would trigger memories of abuse.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-56e39aed-2d87-e7dc-515b-f06fd975290d" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">* Theology
is categorised as an academic subject, when, being the study of trying
to discern the will of god from a series of old, translated, transcribed
writings, and the existence of god being unproven, perhaps we could
more accurately categorise it with astrology and tarot card reading. </span></span></div>
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</ul>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the same way that acknowledging white privilege and male privilege is not persecution, acknowledging Christian privilege is not persecution. It will be confronting for those who have it. But it needs to be seen.</span></div>
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<br />Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-17840308773335798852015-05-07T18:15:00.002-07:002015-06-10T05:57:58.331-07:00Religion in public schools - what are the policies?<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-fff6d71a-dd89-9629-51e6-71e30b7fb158" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Religion in NSW Public Schools</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are a number of ways religion is present in NSW public schools. Here’s a</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">fact sheet.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In primary schools, a unit on Understanding our Communities, which covers religious diversity, can be taught by the class teacher in Human Society and its Environment (HSIE) in Stage 2 (Year 3-4).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In secondary schools, Studies of Religion is a Board developed course for the HSC. Aspects of religion may also be included in other Board approved HSC courses and Year 7-10 syllabuses (English, History, Society and Culture).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In all of these cases what children learn about religion is the responsibility of qualified teachers working from Board approved materials.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are three other avenues through which religious belief may be raised in public schools. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The first is through Special Religious Education (SRE), often referred to as Scripture. Scripture is delivered by volunteers in accordance with Department of Education and Communities' </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Religious Education Implementation Procedures</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (REIP) and related policy documents. SRE is offered when parents request it and authorised volunteers are available to deliver it at times when the school can timetable it. It is usually timetabled in weekly classes of 30-60 minutes and is limited to forty hours per year.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Volunteer SRE teachers must be the representatives of a religious organisation that is an approved provider. Approved providers use their own materials which don’t need to be approved or vetted by the DEC. SRE boards, associations and incorporations are not approved providers. The list of authorised providers is here: http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/religion/assets/approvedproviders19112014.pdf.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Students are placed in SRE classes by the school when there is a class available in the religion nominated by their parents/caregivers on their enrolment forms. Parents can make written requests to schools to change a child’s placement.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Students not approved by their parents to attend SRE attend non-scripture, supervised by qualified teachers during Scripture times, but students are not allowed to be taught anything by them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some primary schools offer Ethics Classes as an alternative to non-scripture. As with Scripture, Primary Ethics is taught by volunteer visitors to the school. Unlike Scripture, its curriculum is approved by the DEC and its teachers must complete a specified training program.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Controversial Issues in Schools Policy, which states that visitors to schools are not to recruit students into partisan groups, is suspended during the Scripture timeslot. However, all volunteers must comply with the DEC’s Code of Conduct. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The second avenue is voluntary student gatherings such as lunchtime clubs. REIP (updated 25 March 2015) states: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Voluntary religious activities and prayer groups are not part of special religious education, but may operate under the auspices and supervision of the principal. Scripture Union (NSW) coordinates Interschool Christian Fellowship (ISCF) groups in secondary schools and Scripture Union Primary Age (SUPA) groups in primary schools. Principals in their supervision of voluntary religious activities and prayer groups must ensure that:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- parental permission is obtained</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- appropriate child protection checks and practices in relation to any volunteers coming from outside the school</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- the content of the activities undertaken are monitored</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- students or members of religious persuasions do not engage in attempts to proselytise or convert non-adherents of their religion to their faith in the course of school authorised activities." </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Other programs, such as JOLT (Jesus Over Lunch Time), STIVE (Students Alive), RICE (Renewal & Inter-Church Evangelism), and ones run by Generate Ministries and local churches, may operate. Extra curricular religious groups and clubs may not be run by school staff. Neither may they offer food or other inducements to students to attend nor may they try to persuade other students to adopt their religious beliefs. Principals are to monitor the content and delivery of information for these groups.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The third avenue is the School Chaplaincy Program. The chaplain’s role is to offer pastoral support to students without proselytizing. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is no other avenue through which religious organisations can access students in public schools. No religious group is authorised to deliver religious instruction during regular class time. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Schools must inform parents and caregivers about all religious activities at school via enrolment forms and by providing information in newsletters and on their school website. No student may be allocated to an SRE class or admitted to a religious club unless informed prior parental/caregiver approval has been given. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Public schools have policies about inclusion, embracing diversity, and rejecting racism, homophobia and bullying. The core values are integrity, excellence, respect, responsibility, cooperation, participation, care, fairness and democracy. It is unclear whether these policies apply during SRE timeslot.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Australian curriculum’s general capabilities, which include critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability, intercultural understanding and ethical understanding, do not apply to SRE because SRE is not part of the Australian Curriculum. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">NSW DEC is currently undertaking a review about Scripture and Ethics in schools. Consultation closes 31 July 2015. Parents are invited to contribute.</span></div>
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<a href="http://artd.com.au/sre-see-review" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://artd.com.au/sre-see-review</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You can call the Department of Education and Communities about the SRE policy on 9244 5607. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Access the policy here: </span><a href="https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/policies/curriculum/schools/spec_religious/implementation_1_PD20020074.shtml?query=special+religious+education" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/policies/curriculum/schools/spec_religious/implementation_1_PD20020074.shtml?query=special+religious+education</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Under these policies parents have a right to information and have the right to complain to the principal. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If your child’s school is not compliant with DEC policies, speak to your school principal, or raise the matter at your P&C meeting. Principals can terminate agreements with visiting groups if they breach policies. According to the Controversial Issues in Schools Policy Implementation Procedures: If visiting speakers will not guarantee to respect this policy, access to the students must be declined. [3.32]</span>Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-81616106538895826002015-04-19T01:18:00.000-07:002015-04-30T02:29:06.808-07:00How to end faith in a generation<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d326bbed-d0be-b2c9-96ec-8b92a78fae75" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve been wondering for some time how it would be possible to end faith in a generation, and I’ve found some direction and hope.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve just read Peter Boghossian’s ‘A Manual for Creating Atheists’. He is a teacher of philosophy and critical thinking at Portland State University. His approach is one I can learn a lot from.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He defines faith as pretending to know something you don’t know. Faith is a failed epistemology (study of knowledge). An atheist is a person who does not think there is sufficient evidence to warrant a belief in God(s) who would believe if shown sufficient evidence, so does not pretend to know things he doesn’t know with regard to the creation of the universe, the purpose of life and so on. Being atheist is not an identity because if it is, then not believing in flying unicorns, or a teapot orbiting space would also be an identity. He uses Socratic questioning to talk to people of faith. He asks questions such as: what would it take for you to review what you think you know about your faith?+ He is not antagonistic - he is simply helping people to become better thinkers. His aim is not to win debates, but to lead people to question what they believe and why. He is respectful of people, but not of sloppy thinking. Like a parent, you can be respectful of the child, but criticise the child’s behaviour. He says we need to model openness and that it is important to maintain good relationships.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are lots of issues he raises. For example, the idea of identity politics. Faith is not to be regarded as a point of identity like other factors such as gender and race. He talks about relativism - epistemological (the idea that any way to come to knowledge is as good as any other) and cultural. He takes the academy to task, covering classical and social liberalism, multiculturalism, feminism, tolerance and Islam. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">His direction forward is multi pronged. It includes challenging people about their faith wherever possible. We need to call out claims that don’t deserve respect. We need to call out faulty thinking. He wants our culture to include resources for children and adults that send the message that good thinking is a good basis upon which to make decisions and that it is OK to say you don’t know something. We should be comfortable with not knowing rather than believing things we have no evidence for. We need to value reason and rationality. We need to divorce morality from faith. We need to stop pretending people of faith are more moral. We need to stop treating religious groups as special. We need to treat faith claims with the same condemnation we treat racism. People who want to participate in making policy decisions who claim to know things they cannot know don’t deserve a seat at the table. Religious groups need to pay tax like every other group. We need to stop allowing religious groups into schools and running their own ‘educational’ institutions. In Australia we need to stop outsourcing government agencies to church groups - this is my addition. We need to adjust our use of language so that the word ‘faith’ is only used in religious contexts, and not as a synonym for ‘trust’ or ‘hope’. We need to stop using language that elevates faith, such as referring to gospel truth, God bless you, acts of God, thank God, in good faith etc. And we need to change the Diagnostic and Statistical manual of mental Disorders (DSM), which is published by the American Psychiatric Association, to include religious delusion as a mental illness. At the moment there is an exception for religious faith*. These steps are all possible.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And, of course, many parents are raising their children to use reason rather than pretending to know things they don't know. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Surely this will be a big step towards world peace, gender equality, and basic human rights (so long as we also revise Article 18 of the Declaration of Human Rights regarding the right to freedom of religion and belief, and the right to manifest that religion and belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance - I’ll ask Peter about this when I meet him).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">+For example, what if the bones of Jesus were found? Would that change people’s knowledge that Jesus rose from the dead? (No resurrection = no Christianity) If that is a possibility, how strong can that knowledge be?</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0418_030418_jesusrelic.html</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And if the conversion of St Paul on the road to Damscus turns out to be caused by a falling meteorite, would that be cause to review belief in Jesus as saviour? </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630183.700-falling-meteor-may-have-changed-the-course-of-christianity.html#.VUHzq_DSmio </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">*DSM definition of delusion:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture (eg, it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgement, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility. (2000, p. 765) </span></div>
<br />Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-91849665852582686612015-04-19T00:06:00.000-07:002015-04-30T02:34:08.817-07:00On Volunteering<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I have been a stay at home mum for fifteen years. I have been on P&Cs (my tenth year at primary school), been on the management committee for the local community centre, been on the committee for the preschool and the child care centre, written newsletters, made cookbooks, worked at uniform shop, mended costumes, approached business for donations for a Trivia Night, read with students, taught ethics, helped with school sport and fetes and made crafts, baked, started a local babysitting club, visited a local nursing home, been active in causes I support including being involved in a political party, in contributing to feminist and atheist causes, run bookgroups, and helped organise Mamapalooza festivals (supporting and promoting mothers in the creative arts). Other volunteers run sporting clubs, band committees, charities and campaign for change.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Stay at home mothers volunteer at school and in the community. (Of course, other parents do too - bear with me.) Some do this to boost their resumes. Some do it to take a break from their families. Some do it to socialise. Some do it to be taken seriously amongst adults.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Volunteering can be beneficial to women at home with kids, but it can also turn into a double edged sword. Being away from the family in the evenings may cause resentment amongst the fathers (or co-parent) who don’t want the responsibility of cleaning up after dinner and putting children to bed. Voluntary work can put a strain on family relationships in the same way that paid work does. It means the parent is thinking of other things besides being with children and running the household. I’m not suggesting women should always be thinking about their care work in the home - I’m not. I’m just saying volunteer work is work that takes time and thought. I certainly spent a lot of time on the phone at home when I was president of the local community centre (even though I, and other members of the executive, didn't live in that community).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Part of the problem is that women’s work is not valued. A woman’s voluntary work may be building social capital, but it doesn’t bring in money. When women are doing voluntary work they are giving it away for free. Their skills aren’t acknowledged. They are working in a parallel, alternate economy. Just as child-care workers are underpaid because mothers do similar work for free, so it is in fundraising and organising for social groups.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What does this mean for feminist mothering? It means that women are contributing to the bigger community when they may not otherwise have a voice. But it also means that women, by doing voluntary work, and fulfilling their needs that might otherwise be fulfilled by paid work but without being paid, creates a problem. It has longterm implications for a woman’s lifetime income. It may mean paying rent out of her pension when she is older since she doesn’t earn an income to buy property and hasn’t worked long enough to accumulate superannuation. It means depending on a partner for economic security and, perhaps, compromising personal happiness in her relationship due to economic factors. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What does it mean in terms of feminism and social change? Volunteering has always been the way to make change happen. None of the great change movements would have happened without people volunteering their time and skills to make change happen. But there is a personal cost. It would probably be more effective to make change happen whilst employed and climbing the career ladder to hold positions of authority.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For me, volunteering has meant connection with people in my community. This is something that is important to me for its own sake, but has had unexpected consequences. When I started the babysitting club in 2004 I could not have foreseen how the members of that club would rally around by creating a dinner roster for my family when I was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2012.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Enforced volunteering is still used by government for people who are long term unemployed. What were once government services are now privatised and run by church groups. These church groups enforce the rule that people who have been unemployed for a year need to volunteer for fifteen hours a week in order to stay on Centrelink benefits. Guess where they ask people to volunteer? At their church run charities. Obviously, this is a rort and unethical. Does my fifteen years of volunteering count? No it doesn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When the UK introduced austerity measures a few years ago and shut down community programs for people in need, David Cameron announced that more people would have to do more volunteering the fill the gaps. No.That's too much to ask of people who already carers.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What I’m seeing now is volunteer burnout. Schools and community groups are set up to run on the availability of volunteers. Those volunteers are often no longer available, or, if available, concentrating on one group and not others. You can’t do everything. Just as school canteens were once run by volunteers but are now outsourced to businesses, other services are being outsourced, and maybe they should be. Schools can now employ people to run the uniform shop, or to apply for grants. These are jobs that suit people who would otherwise invest their time and skills without reward. What I’m seeing is the constant call for volunteers in all sorts of community groups. I really can’t do everything, and I don’t want to. I feel like I’ve done plenty of work for free and now I need to be paid.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Wouldn't it be great if everyone was expected to have a separate volunteering resume? Could this be recognised by government and contribute towards superannuation in some way? Wouldn’t it be good if people asked the question ‘where do you volunteer?’ as a matter of course rather than the usual status defining questions. Is there more of a culture of volunteering in countries where </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">work/life/family balance is more of a given. Wouldn’t it be healthy for everyone to contribute to community efforts. I see an impossible expectation placed on parents of school aged children. Wouldn’t it be good if people without care responsibilities could help out? Wouldn't it be good if volunteering gained credit that counted towards superannuation, or some other system of economics that counts in a capitalist society. Otherwise, we need to just wind everything down.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m turning the focus of my voluntary work to bigger issues. If we had proper funding and resourcing of services that matter, we would not need so much volunteering. You might remember the t shirt that went something like ‘If only the government funded schools properly and had a cake stall to buy fighter jets’.* Well I’m now concentrating on policy and politics. That’s where it’s at. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I'm certainly not helping raise funds for bands to go on overseas trips. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">*tea towel here http://www.annoyus.com/content/cake-stall-tea-towel</span></div>
Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-24950341895580548202015-04-06T02:15:00.001-07:002015-09-22T16:23:45.090-07:00Half Baked Ideas after Reading Helen Razor and Bernard Keanes’ 'A Short History of Stupid'<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-381f1b2a-8dff-062c-94d3-f5ff008d04a8" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Identity Politics</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At a conference I attended last year a guest speaker introduced herself by stating her identifying factors - she was cisgender, temporarily able bodied, mother to a gay son and so on. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This is the thing now, that we must declare ourselves so that we are clear we are only speaking for ourselves and not for anyone else. As a white women I can’t speak on behalf of a black woman. As a Catholic raised atheist I can’t speak on behalf of Muslim women. But our identifying factors can go on forever. Some of my identifying factors might overlap with other people’s. Others won’t.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Is this in any way helpful? Are we doing it to prevent the accusation that as a white feminist, educated, temporarily able-bodied but with a cancer experience, blah blah, I can’t speak for any other type of woman. I can’t speak for transgender women. It also means we need some new words to identify who transgender, intersex, gender fluid people have sex with because homo/hetero/bi isn’t very specific unless you are cigender. And what about asexuals? Do they need to declare themselves? I’m thinking it is all getting so silly we should drop identifying ourselves and just accept people as people and move along. What we want to talk about shouldn’t be defined by our identifying factors, or are our stories about ourselves the core thing about us, rather than what ideas we might have and how we might think?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Which leads into the problem I have with the idea that the personal is political in feminism and women’s studies. Yes, we need to hear women’s stories, but we also want women to think, to contribute, beyond their own experiences. It also ties into my problem with creative non-fiction - that the writer is core to the story. Frankly, I don’t care about Helen Garner’s dreams and what she ate for lunch when she is telling someone else’s story.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Then how do we define our common spaces and common experiences? If I start a Feminist Book Group should it be open to anyone who identifies as feminist, even though we might have different definitions? Are people who trans from female to male rejecting the feminine? Are people who trans from male to female autoeroticising? Are we all just performing our identifying factors because we’ve been socialised to anyway?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I can see it was useful some years ago - identifying which groups were not gaining access to power. Is there any value in this, identity politics, or is it all now wankery?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Postmodernism</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A little recap on Derrida. He’s the French philosopher and linguist who said ‘There is nothing outside the text’. From this, all meaning is relative so there is no dependable truth, morality or ethics. He invented deconstruction, which enables a reader/viewer to focus on an arbitrary thing, because there is no core meaning to a text and no foundation of meaning. And since language consists of binary opposites, one privileged over the other, to name something is to state what it is not. Something is absent. This provides an opportunity to challenge the assumptions of a text, which, I’ve been trained to think, is worthwhile. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">After these ideas school students can study texts which some people, such as Christopher Pyne and Kevin Donnelly, would deem unworthy of serious study. All this has fallen out of favour in recent years, but some basic ideas of Derrida’s survive. I think we now agree that some texts are more meaningful and worthy than others, generally speaking. But, Razor argues, we still try to find meaning where there is none, for example, in pastries created by contestants in cooking shows. And we now have many more texts and fewer shared meanings and ways of knowing what is important and what isn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So what? Well, this brings to mind conversations about studying the bible, a text Christians would say is meaningful and important. They study it as a closed text - there is nothing outside the text. I’ve done this in my studies of literature, which is fine, but it isn’t OK if you don’t talk about the purpose of the text, or if you treat it as an historical document or as an exclusive instruction for how to live. To use it to prove events in history would require corroboration from other sources. What is it? Because, following Derrida, if there is nothing outside the text (the bible) then there is no core meaning (in the bible). The same could be said of any sacred text treated the same way. In my experience it is religious followers, moral absolutists, who complain about moral relativism. If you read a sacred text as a closed system, you are a relativist.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My other issue is, as a teacher of literature, the syllabus focuses on studying texts within a concept, looking at purpose, context, tone, and literary techniques and how they shape meaning. We still assume there is meaning. I’m trying to encourage students to not just cruise along with the perceived meanings of texts, handed down over time, but to read them for themselves to find their own meanings. For example, on a recent reading of A Midsummer Night’s Dream I noticed Puck ends the play with a list of birth defects he hopes the lovers’ children won’t have. In terms of Bottoms’ ass-head being central to the play, what could you argue in a reading based on disability? This is how I’ve been trained to read. Such a reading from an HSC student would garner a decent mark, I suspect. But does it really change the meaning of a text, which could also be about the randomness of love, and that we aren’t in control of our own lives? We teach students that they can argue any thesis, the more original the better, so long as the thesis is supported by the text. And the text can be a closed system. Doesn’t mean the text is an instruction on how to live, or it could be, but it doesn’t purport to be an exclusive instruction. Different readings create different meanings. And how does this fit with intertextuality?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And, I’ll add, it irks me that ‘deconstruct’ is now used as a verb synonymous with ‘analyse’ in the English classroom. Confuses me. And will confuse students when they get to university and study critical theory.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anyone with more time, fewer interruptions or a bigger brain than mine - please help me make sense of all this. Or feel free to advise me to give up on sense and just have fun.</span>Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-36898490791862092462015-04-06T00:27:00.001-07:002015-04-06T00:27:55.171-07:00Adventures in War<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m interested in how the adventure of war will be given meaning for the commemoration of the landing of Gallipoli at a time when were are trying to stop young men from travelling to find adventures in war.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How do we reframe our story of Gallipoli?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In 1824 Lord Byran fought for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire and died. Should Byran have had his passport cancelled before he could fight overseas?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What of the Spanish Civil War, in which, it is estimated, 35,000 foreign volunteers fought? This was a cause supported by many mainstream writers between 1936 and 1939.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When I worked in the public service in 1984-5 I was friends with a man who had fought with the freedom fighters in Afghanistan. A lawyer, he was at the time campaigning for election as a Liberal candidate. I’m thinking this part of his background has since been expunged. He is a barrister. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Schools teach critical thinking (which I like to call ‘thinking’). Schools teach for social justice and encourage students to be active for change, by being good global citizens.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How do these fit with young Australians going off to fight in the Middle East? How do we redirect the energies of potential fighters, who may end up on the wrong side of history?</span></div>
Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19821821.post-39053791845474943232015-04-05T21:44:00.001-07:002015-04-05T21:44:15.285-07:00Mamapalooza 2015<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-4e75d8d2-8d08-a35a-92e7-d371baef0d39" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s what we’re doing for Mamapalooza 2015.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We are hosting an art show at ANU School of Art, called Intertwined, starting Monday 4 May. There are nine exhibiting artists, most of whom will be speaking to their works on Saturday 9 May. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We have a Mama Comedy Night, hosted by Lou Pollard, at Django Bar, Marrickville on Thursday 28 May, 7.30pm. I think I laugh loudest at our Comedy Nights.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And we are endorsing plays about domestic violence, called </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">RHYMES WITH SILENCE</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> A collection of plays about domestic violence.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #008a17;"><i><b> </b></i></span>These are produced by Joy Roberts, who put on the Mothers plays last year. The plays are running 15 May - 23 at Project 107 Redfern.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">See you there! </span></div>
Motherhuggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00049338293799598948noreply@blogger.com0