There has been much agonising about teacher training and recruitment. In the “blame the teacher” mentality that seems to rule in the big end of town, the growing inequality of our education system has been partly blamed on the low quality of teachers. Much has been made of their relatively low entry marks for university and the low numbers of men who go into the profession (…)
It seems those who bemoan the quality of teachers have forgotten how you attract anyone to any profession.
The rules are simple:
1. Treat teachers with respect and listen to their perspective.
2. Make sure that there is a clear career path available to teachers as they grow and learn on the job.
3. Give teachers opportunities to increase their skills and continuously gain access to formal professional development.
4. As teachers gain mastery in their practice, give them more autonomy over how they will operate in their classroom - make them accountable but not micro-managed.
5. Protect them from abuse and bullying - from staff, line management, senior management, politicians, media, students or parents.
It is the most recent example of Big History that I can think of.
But I was only two years old in 1989.
As do I; I would have been just shy of two years at the time. In fact, I was just thinking about this the other day. Thankfully, our national broadcaster is freakishly in-tune with my interests and there’s a programme on this Tuesday, “Where Is The Wall?” which looks to be an interesting take on the dismantling of the wall.
I can’t remember the fall itself, but I have a very strong memory of watching the news on Christmas ‘92, the last day of the Soviet Union. They had a lot of news footage from the fall of the wall in the report.
stuff like this makes me laugh SO MUCH, and then i remember that the boy i am crushing on doesn’t watch the simpsons and i get all sadfaced. 90% of my jokes are recycled from the simpsons, he’ll never get anything that i say! :((((((((((
Are you kidding? Do you know how many witty and “original” things you’ll have in your repetoire?
I’m quite convinced by everything Quiggin says here, but in particular the only point that the government is interested in is the regaining of the AAA credit rating from the same ratings agencies who Brought You The Global Financial Crisis.
Whenever any government privatises anything, they make the case that the funds raised from the sale will go towards increased social infrastructure spending. These predictions haven’t been meaningfully accurate in the past (think sale of Telstra being used to fund environmental initiatives…) and Quiggin makes the case that they won’t do so now. He also provocatively offers a number of alternatives that would in fact improve Queensland’s economic situation.
When Claude Lévi-Strauss was feted on his 100th birthday last year, the surprise for many was that he was still alive. The surprise on his death, 11 months later, is that, despite becoming the first centenarian among France’s immortels, his days had been numbered after all.
Lévi-Strauss was the quintessential man of his own culture and the global age. He was at once steeped in the ultra-rational intellectual tradition of France, while drawing universal rules from his myriad observations and experiences around the world.
Born in Belgium, persecuted in Vichy France and given refuge in the US until the war’s end, he won fame, and then reverance, as the father of structural anthropology. Structuralism has its critics; it may in time seem less revolutionary, and revelatory, than once it did. But as a great international man of letters, Lévi-Strauss bequeathes a legacy that transcends the narrow academic labels of his time.
