Religious Curriculum needs to be reviewed at Australian schools

I read an article on The Age this morning. It has reflected a priest's idea from InterAction, a multi-faith youth network that includes most religious, atheists and agnostics as well, about a review of current religious curriculum at Australian schools.


His first point is that at schools religious education should be broader than instruction in one belief system. He argues that there ought to be general religious curriculum that introduce children to the ideas, motivations and rituals of the ethos of all religious. The current approach to religious study is that primary students at government schools must attend special religious instruction classes which run by volunteers for half-an-hour a week. Although other religions including Judaism, Islam, Baha'i are also accredited to run courses, the majority of courses, almost 96 per cent, is provided by Christian education provider. That is one side of the argument that Catholic priest Father Bob has pointed out.

Further more, Father Bob also has emphasized religious instructors should lead open-ended discussions that drew no conclusions. He believes that parents can help children to find it instead. The problem with proselytizers is that they try to convince students to believe in God. Given an example of an army chaplain during the Vietnam War, he said the importance of teaching soldiers about honesty and truthfulness, without infusing religion into character training, had been impressed on all chaplains. Overall, Father Bob suggets that a "jolly good idea" for Australia to have community schools rather than denomination specific schools.

To summary, Australian religious eduction requires to be reviewed to teach the ethos of all the religions in its curriculum and avoid giving students a clear opinion that they must believe in one. I agree with this view. In my opinion, that is a general rule in life that can also apply for this controversial topic. It states that you have to get to learn about one another before you can live with one another.

Australia's systems of teacher appraisal

Today I am going to summary the feature article, published on The Age newspaper in April, 18th on "Push for teacher testing changes".

The recent survey of lower-secondary teachers conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has found the old system of teacher appraisal had a little impact on teachers' methods. More than 90 percent of Australian teachers believe that the most effective teachers did not receive the greatest recognition and teachers with sustained poor performance are still working.

Grattan Institute recently has released a report of new changes on Australia's systems of teacher appraisal and claims that the changes would increase teacher effectiveness by 20-30 per cent and as a result it will boost economic growth by about 0.4 per cent a year.

The report examines eight methods of assessing teaching quality, including student test scores, peer observation and student surveys. It suggests schools should use student test scores and three other methods to produce a "balanced scorecard" of a teacher performance. It also argues for a decentralised approach with individuals schools given the power to define effective teaching and how it should be measured. Using this approach, schools would need to be given greater autonomy over teach pay to reward the most effective teachers, says Dr. Jensen.


Finally, Australian Education Union federal president acknowledged the report that professional development was bureaucratic and managerial was counterproductive. In my view, Australia should be positive about the new strategy and awaits to see promising results in the education system in the future.

To honor a memory: ANZAC Day

Today was Anzac day. Unfortunately, I missed the morning's Anzac Day dawn service due to sickness and cold weather. But I attended the marches from CBD to the Shrine of Remembrance.


It was such an event. The media was boardcasted surprisingly up to 42,000 attendances, although the lingering mist was a barrier early in the morning. The large public crowd in Melbourne was beyond the expectations of servicing and ex-service men and women "while those gathered in Canberra heard that services this year were to remember the ordinary person" the Age reported.

To me this event carries Australian pure history that can not be touched by its multicultural
cultures living here. I, as a non-Australian, was impressed by the respect that they have for those who scarified their lives 96 years ago at the down of the anniversary day.

Which type of writer I am?

Today, I read four pieces of text written by University students about their styles of writing.It made me thought which type I am? The judge this, I probably need to analyze each method and look at the similarities and differences with my style.

1. The architect writer: This student first writes down some notes about the given topic. The activity also includes focusing on important content and possible headings that can be added to the column on one side to note. He uses a whole page to leave some space blank. While he tries to develop an argument, some notes are related and some are irrelevant. He also benefit from visual diagrams for the planning.

2. The grand plan writer: This student has difficulty to make a plan for writing. He starts to write heaps of writing before knowing where it is going. So, he had to cut a lot and redraft the writing. He approaches the task eventually and might complete it in the middle of other tasks, such as assignments! The overall plan is to build up the whole thing slowly.

3. The patchwork writer: The other student first writes down some headings related to the question. Although he is uncertain about the argument, he writes under each heading. The next step is joining different parts together. He plays with the material here, remove some, replace the others. The patching continues until the idea gets clear and he is satisfied.

4. The driver writer: The last student believe in totally different approach. "No writing until you are ready" is his opinion. So he develop the topic in his mind by reading related materials and eventually he sits and writes out in longhand. He also adds the introduction onces he finishes. That would be his final draft then without planning and rewriting.


Interestingly, I found myself not be categorized exactly under any of them, I have my own mix of methods. However my style is more like to the architecture one. I am not a driver writer for sure! But I needs to read a lot before sitting and writing...that can be the only common thing between me and a driver writer!

That was an interesting analysis! Which type of writer are you? :-)

Replay

I must restart writing. I have stopped this for almost three years...and this is the time for me to replay my melody!

Two things drew my attention today:

1. I heard a nice comment today while attending a workshop on time management for PhD.

"Getting things done is not about making more time, it is about how to use the time more effectively".

When I think about this, it is actually true for everything in life that has time constrain.

2. Another point is if we look at things from other side, we may feel different about them. For example, my conversation with a friend kept a part of my mind busy and I thought I should not said those things. But when I rechecked our chat tonight, it was a very normal conversation. Those thoughts were from the way of my thinking not the real identity of things.