Item 2 - Discipline Model - the essential elements

I believe an adequate discipline model should encourage students to monitor their own behaviour and provide them with the opportunity to examine the reasons behind their misbehaviour. I believe every teacher's discipline model should be unique to them. Each individual has the ability to choose from a litany of educational and behavioural theorist's research. It is up to each individual teacher to choose elements that are best suited to their personality and personal values and beliefs.

AN ADEQUATE DISCIPLINE MODEL SHOULD:

• be implemented consistantly.
• make rules/expectations and consequences crystal clear.
• seek to identify the cause; as opposed to simply REACTING to the misbehaviour
• be based on kindness, thoughtfulness, dignity and mutual respect.
• be firmly and sensitively reinforced.
• take into account school discipline policies and proceedures - these often use stage development discipline models that can be very effective especially when dealing with common school issues such as bullying.

PREVENTION IS THE BEST STRATEGY...

• be organised.
• be an active role model.
• create a fun, positive, creative and safe learning environment.
• know your students - by getting to know your students you are providing them with the option to come and speak to you before there is a problem in the classroom. You also gain the added advantage of knowing what the real problem is if they ever do 'act out' in your class. And often a student will be more willing to moderate their behaviour if the teacher is taking some quality 'time out' to help FIX the problem rather than ignore the problem and continue to insist on a disciplinary REACTION.
• create a sense of community and belonging.
• have your class collectively develop and agree on a list of class rules/expectations.

This last point is particularly important because it gives the teacher something to fall back on if things do begin to unravel. Make sure the list is explicit, fair and that everybody in the class understands and agrees with the contents.

WHEN THINGS DO GO WRONG...

• avoid power struggles - you will never win and it will not fix the problem the student has.
• rather than attempt to control a students behaviour aim to manage/coach it - Glasser and Maslow both discuss the concept of satisfying the "basic needs" which I find an exceedingly practical place to begin!
• be consistant - as teachers we must create a discipline model that is compatable with our individual values so that we do not cause confusion in our students or personal conflict within ourselves.
• act immediately - there MUST be a clear association between the act and the punishment. It is no good watching a student misbehave one day only to punish them the next - they will very likely see this as unjust.
• try to make your lesson more relevent - this comes back to Glasser and Maslow; meeting the students needs.
• Sometimes words of encouragement are more effective (and unexpected) than words of reprimand. We all know the saying 'praise where praise is due' but the act of trying is just as important (perhaps even more so) than the act of achieving highly.

References:

Classroom Discipline & Management (an australian perspective) CH Edwards & V Watts Wiley

Education Psychology (Constructing Learning) McInerney & McInerney Pearson Education Australia

http://www.disciplinehelp.com/

http://www.virginiass.qld.edu.au/pp/Behaviour%20Management%20Plan.pdf page 9, 11, 12

Item 1 - Code of Conduct

The following is a 'Code of Conduct' for parents and care givers who wish to create a positive family environment for their children. I think it is important to note that many of the points established in the guidelines below can be applied generally to a range of relationships and indeed should not remain solely centred on the parent/carer/child dynamic. However some points specifically relate to dealing with school aged children.

• Actively show your son/daughter that you love them.
• Provide a physical home environment that is safe, warm, caring and supportive.
• Have clear boundaries and approriate expectations.
• Show a genuine interest in your son/daughter(s) lives - school, home, friends, work - but also allow them the right to privacy.
• Show a positive attitude towards school policy and expectations.
• Show respect, listen and be sensitive - seek to understand others point of view even if you don't agree with their point of view.
• Be honest in your communication.
• Seek to find positive and constructive outcomes from any conflicts that may arise.
• Challenge your son/daughter to do their best - encourage individual execellence and high self esteem.
• Be flexible and adaptive to the needs of your son/daughter.
• Be responsive to presesnt and future ideas, endevours and failings.
• Allow your son/daughter the opportunity to make choices for themselves.
• Allow your son/daughter room to learn from mistakes.
• Be an active role model - promote acceptable community behaviour.

References:

www.education.qld.gov.au/corporate/codeofconduct/respect_for_persons.html

www.readingtuition.edu.au/default.asp?id=724

http://www.virginiass.qld.edu.au/pp/Behaviour%20Management%20Plan.pdf

Teaching Styles

Click here to discover your classroom management style?

Authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and indulgent are four styles of teaching covered in ISU Physics Teacher Education Program a brief description of each is found below. (NB: these styles are extremes - most teachers will probably be a combination of some or all).

AUTHORITATIVE: based on behavioral principles, this teacher is likely to have high expectations of their students. The authoritative teacher expects appropriate levels of behavior to be demonstrated at all times. The authoritative teacher makes clear statements about why certain behaviors are acceptable and why others not. The authoritative teacher has warm relationships with their students.

AUTHORITARIAN: teacher regulates behaviour and is often seen as punitive and restrictive. Students do not have a say in their management, nor are they given explanations by an authoritative teacher. At times the authoritative teacher can be perceived as cold and even punishing.

PERMISSIVE: the permissive teacher lacks involvement, has few expectations of students and subsequently makes few demands. The permissive teacher gives students a lot of freedom.

INDULGENT: the indulgent teacher makes no demands of the student. This style of teaching actively supportes students in their efforts to seek their own ends using any reasonable means.

("Research has shown that the type of management style used results in characteristic behaviors. The authoritative style helps to produce students who are socially competent and responsible. The authoritarian style helps to produce students who are ineffective at social interaction, and somewhat inactive. Both indulgent and permissive styles help to produce students that are immature, show poor self-restraint, and who exhibit poor leadership skills" http://www.phy.ilstu.edu/pte/311content/classmgt/mgtstyle.html).

Item 3 - Glasser & Maslow - student motivation

Passionate, creative teachers = students who WANT to learn.

A motivated student = belief in the intrinsic value of learning.

According to Glasser and Maslow, fulfilling the needs of the student is what it all comes down too.

GLASSER...

...believes that student motivation, and indeed ability to learn, is based on satisfying the following five requirements for effective learning (which he also explores in Choice Therapy);

• survival
• love/belonging
• power
• freedom
• fun

In Control Theory in the Classroom (1986) and The Quality School (1990) Glasser suggests that for a person to succeed at life in general, they must have an initial experience of success in an important aspect of their life.

For the majority of people this initial success would be school related - specifically academic, or though many schools now acknowledge and reward different sporting, community, art and social achievements as well. Glasser argues that traditionally success (specifically academic success) in school was determined by comparative grading and suggests that this system, which only allows a minority of students to achieve A's and B's, effects feelings of successfulness in the majority of students who fail to recieve higher than average grades. According to Covington (1985) 'the self-worth of the remaining students (who may be quite capable) suffers, which depresses their motivation to achieve on subsequent classroom tasks'.

NSW schools have switched to outcomes based assessement which helps to promote self confidence and esteem in a more considered and practical way than past programs. The student can now see which outcomes he/she did not meet and work toward that goal, thereby recognising a personal achievement. This is in stark contrast to the numerically based system of old.

School should be a place that satisfies all of Glasser's five requirements for effective learning because school should be about the development of the whole person not simply about that person's academic ability. There are, so far, nine different types of intelligence. Why then should we, as teachers, ONLY acknowledge and cater for the high achieving academic student. By acknowleding individual differences and allowing for creative expression we are able to foster self efficacy and increase the self esteem of our students. As a student, having the support to discover your talent and the self confidence to achieve is certainly a lesson worth learning and according to Glasser one that is often left unmotivated because often too much emphasis is placed on academic ability alone.

MASLOW...

...believes meaningful learning occurs based on a physiological and psychological heirarchy of needs - he stresses the importance of meeting basic needs before embarking towards the pinacle of self actualisation.

I find Maslow to be more structured than Glasser. Glasser seems to suggest that his five requirements for effective learning are altogether collectively and simlutaneously essential in the effective development and motivatation of student learning. Maslow on the other hand suggests that one stage cannot be met without the stages beneath being satisfied. Maslow's theory takes the form of a pyramid because he considers the first and most basic need is also the greatest. The aim is for the student to develop towards self actualisation. While Maslow's structure makes more sense to me personally, I see the value in Glasser's theory because he seems more in touch with the idea of educating the whole person. The sum of the parts don't necessarily make up the whole - so it is with trying to psychologically deconstruct a person. We only come in 'wholes'.

The journey towards self actualisation shows there is a vast difference between learning because you HAVE to and learning because you WANT to. Maslow argues the importance of making learning relative. As teachers we have to find within ourselves the creativity and inspiration to convey a genuine passion for our subject and inspire our students to WANT to learn. It is not just our subject that will inspire a student it is the way we, as teachers teach them to learn, as well as a whole range of other factors in a students life that also act as important contributers. As teachers we must continually reassess how we relate to our students. By continuing to redefine our expectations and attitudes towards each student we can help them to become well rounded, self actualising individuals.

References:

Classroom Discipline & Management (an australian perspective) CH Edwards & V Watts Wiley

Education Psychology (Constructing Learning) McInerney & McInerney Pearson Education Australia

http://college.hmco.com/education/pbl/tc/motivate.html

Control Theory in the Classroom (1986) and The Quality School (1990)

Graham English - Catholic Religious Education in Australia

Catholic Religious Education in Australia
Graham English

http://www.catholica.com.au/lbol/001_ge_050607.php
Catholic Australia 6 June 2007

Catholic Education in Australia faced a major crisis in the 1960s to the point where the bishops of the time seriously considered having to close the entire system down because they simply did not have the resources to sustain it any longer. The new system that was established in the 1970s, thanks largely to government funding, is fundamentally different to the system of religious education that had existed in the past. In today's commentary, Dr Graham English, Senior Lecturer in Religious Education at ACU National, explores some of the other social and cultural factors that make Catholic Education today so much different to what it was in the past.

The changing nature of the Church is confusing for some...
Religious education in Australia has changed a great deal since Vatican II and there is therefore some confusion among Catholics and others. That is not surprising.
In the 1880s the Australian Catholic bishops made the decision to have a system of Catholic schools that was intended to be the primary socialising influence to make children into Catholics and to form a particular kind of Catholic community based on the model set up by Cardinal Cullen in Ireland. By using religious sisters and brothers they were able to do this for about eighty years because they were working with a Catholic population that was mainly Irish-descended and in many ways socially homogeneous. Almost all the Catholics were working class, poorly educated and were prone to accept the bishops' will. The sisters and brothers who taught in the schools were also working class, poorly educated and trained to do as they were told. The bishops had societal and cultural pressure that they could bring to bear on Catholics to ensure that they sent their children to Catholic schools; especially fear, peer pressure and the need for identity and security. And so eventually, though not without some argument and resistance parents wanted to send their children to Catholic schools. They could see the physical and religious benefits of doing so.

For Australian Catholics the Church became part of or almost entirely their primary community. Whether this was all a good educational move for their children is open to debate but from about 1920 until the 1960s, Catholic schools, taught mostly by sisters and brothers became the main socialising agency for producing Catholics.
The social and cultural changes in the 1960s and 1970s...

Then in the 1960s and 1970s almost every advantage the bishops had in making the schools their main socialising agency disappeared and they disappeared quickly without anyone, bishops, priests or people being prepared for the changes or having any clear idea about what to do next.

Ever since there has been uncertainty and confusion among some Catholics.
Catholics became multi cultured before the rest of the Australian population. Italians, Dutch, Poles, Czechs etc became part of the church and did not necessarily follow the Irish line. Catholics moved class and voting patterns, ironically because of Catholic education and Mr Santamaria's and some of the bishops' attacks on the Labor Party. Ordinary Catholics became educated and no longer took the bishops' and priests' word as law. The church changed at Vatican II. God's love for us became crucial to most Catholics' belief. Fear dissipated as a motive for church practice. Humanae Vitae and other church decisions convinced Catholics that they could make their own decisions and take responsibility for them, and the sacrament of confession died, thus depriving priests of the power to influence people's decisions especially about sexuality. Then quite quickly the teachers in Catholic schools became lay people and most significantly they had not done a strict novitiate and were not trained to do as they were told.

By 2007 almost all executives and almost all teachers in Catholic schools are not trained in novitiates and most teachers have not experienced religious sisters or brothers as teachers. For many the church has ceased being their primary community. It has become just one community among others that Catholics are part of.
Catholic schools adapted to the new circumstances. Catholic education offices and thoughtful educators realised that in the light of the new circumstances and the teachings of Vatican II the role of the school could no longer be a primary socialising agency as it had been. They realised that it was a place of evangelisation, social justice, a sacramental approach to life, and a way of introducing children to a Catholic way of being. Religious education took scripture and theology more seriously and devotion became much less prominent.
Research showed that parents no longer wanted the school to be the primary socialising agent of the Church. Parents stressed pastoral care, discipline, good quality education, and other aims for schools and consistently put religion towards the end of their top ten requirements for Catholic schools. Parents do not come to the religion teacher on parent teacher nights to ask how their child is going in religion now because they never did. They were always most interested in how the child was going in examinable subjects and they still are.

Now if parents do not send their children to Catholic schools primarily to be socialised as Catholics no number of teachers or anyone else wanting the schools to be primarily socialising agents for the church will make them that. The time for that has passed. Not because anyone chose it. It just did. The way blacksmiths' shops became redundant.

As most Catholic school teachers are themselves parents of children in Catholic schools we can presume that they want what most parents want. We also have to presume that the teachers' way of being Catholic is roughly the same as all other Australian Catholics way of being Catholic. We also have to presume that when Catholic school teachers use the word 'vocation' they mean something different from when 'vocation' meant being a priest, brother or nun. For example I have a vocation to be married as well as a vocation to be a teacher. And lots of us use 'professional' instead of 'vocation' but we mean the same thing. Our profession is that which we profess, like 'I am here to profess to you that the Kingdom of God is at hand.'

Catholic schools are no longer primarily about socialisation into a particular way of being Catholic because Catholic parents do not want them to be and as Vatican II says, parents are the primary educators of their children. Another reason that Catholic schools are no longer primarily about socialising the young into a particular way of being Catholic is that that particular way of being Catholic died during the 1960s and 1970s.

Catholic religious education today is about evangelisation and, when possible, catechesis rather than primarily about socialisation…

Now in line with the Vatican and other Church documents since Vatican II Catholic religious education is about evangelisation and, when possible, catechesis. It is about handing on a tradition in ways that children now can take part in. It is also about teaching children to read and value scripture, to know the religions of their fellow Australians, to take part as Catholics in the wider community. In addition it helps young people learn how to identify and negotiate spiritual and moral issues in life. It helps them develop values and meaning in life.

This does not satisfy some Catholics despite the clear will of the majority of the parents of Catholic children now in the schools. Part of the difficulty for these dissatisfied and often confused people is that they want Catholic schools to be what they were in the 1950s. This is no longer possible. Some bishops and priests and some Catholics want to restore what happened in the 1950s. They want an obedient, devout, uniform Catholic community. Even if this were a good idea it is not possible.
Religious education of Catholic teachers then exists in this atmosphere where the Australian society and its needs and desires have changed, where the Catholic population and its needs and desires have changed, and where education has changed. All educators in the current climate are working in a changing society and we are working in a changing Church as well. So educating teachers for Catholic schools now is about enabling them to know and teach the tradition but in ways in which they learn how to think, interpret, read, make sense of, and take part in the Catholic tradition if they choose. It is surprising how many, once they are really educated in scripture and theology choose to be active in the Church. It is also about evangelisation. That is it is about announcing and living by the good news that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

I have been around for a relatively long time. I grew up thoroughly Catholic in the old way. In our house the fights were not if we would say the rosary but at what time. I was finished my teacher education before Vatican II finished. So I was formed in the old church. I am still here, though I am so glad the old church has gone. Many who were formed in the same way left it all when they had the chance, or now hang loosely from it all even though like me they are getting old. Many who were formed in Catholic novitiates and seminaries then have now given it all up, or hang quite loosely from it. This seems especially so among women.

Before The Council is not 'the good old days'. And now is not 'the bad old days'. 'That was then, this is now.' Our task as religious educators in a Catholic setting is to live in the now. The Kingdom of God is at hand and all the raw material for holiness is here in the now, just as it is.


Graham English is a senior lecturer in the School of Religious Education at the Strathfield campus of ACU National. His specialist areas of interest are the theory and practice of school Religious Education; Hermeneutics and Religious Education; Religious Education and cultural changes in the Church; the history of Religious Education; as well as the primary and secondary school religion curriculum. Further details about his research interests and contact details can be found on the ACU National website at rel-ed.acu.edu.au/ren2/staff.html.

Margaret Somerville - Fundamentalism

Somerville fundamentalism The Age May 07

Fundamentalism, religious or secular, gets us nowhere

Margaret Somerville
The Age May 28, 2007

Other related coverage
• Compass: The Root of All Evil
• CHERYL LAWRIE With God on side
• Heaven-sent for the non-believers
• The Root of All Evil - The Virus of Faith

Some critics of religious faith share the bigotry of those they criticise.
RICHARD Dawkins has done more than all religious people together, to put God on the current public agenda. He is on a highly publicised, international campaign to convince the world that "religion is the root of all evil". I think he's seriously misguided, at best, and that his campaign is dangerous.

Terry Eagleton, an eminent literary scholar, reviewing Dawkins' book The God Delusion in the London Review of Books, says that Dawkins' writing on theology and philosophy is equivalent to someone writing on science whose sole familiarity with science is The Book of British Birds. That's also an apt description of Dawkins' limited discussion of ethics in his book.

Dawkins confuses religion and the use of religion in order to promote his thesis that religion is evil. Religion itself is not evil — just as science is not evil — but it can be used for evil purposes, just as science can.

Basic presumptions are of great importance in decision making, although often they are unidentified. They allocate the burden of proof. When there is equal doubt about an issue the basic presumption prevails. Richard Dawkins' basic presumption is that there is no God and, therefore, that those who believe there is must prove it. But the equally valid basic presumption is that there is a God and those who don't believe that must prove it. Because both are tenable basic presumptions, both must be accommodated in a secular society.

In contrast, and, ironically, both Dawkins and religious fundamentalists want to impose their choice between these basic presumptions on everyone else. Where they differ is only with respect to their choice of basic presumption.

In short, Dawkins — who is a fundamentalist atheist (atheism is a secular religion) — and religious fundamentalists are similar in an important respect. They take an either/or approach to everything: my beliefs or yours; religion or science; reason or faith; and so on. They then seek to reconcile what they see as the conflicts between these pairings by dropping one or the other of them. Dawkins' call for the elimination of religion demonstrates such a choice on his part. But it is an extremely dangerous proposal, likely to escalate the culture clashes and "religious wars" we are seeing.

What we need to do is search for a shared ethics that can accommodate as many people of goodwill as possible. We will never be able to accommodate fanatics at either end of the spectrum of human beliefs, but we can articulate and develop an approach that will accommodate many more people in a big ethical tent than is now the case.
To achieve that will require us to change in some ways. Instead of starting from our differences, we should start from where we agree.

We should stop automatically associating having liberal values with being open minded and having conservative values with being closed minded. We also have to stop assuming that all change in values is progress and to be welcomed, and revalue wise ethical restraint.The correct question is not whether religion can be used for evil purposes — it can. And the correct response to religion being used in evil ways is not to eliminate religion as Dawkins proposes. The correct question is: How can we best reduce, to the minimum possible, the likelihood that religion will be used for evil purposes and prevent its evil use? As an aside, as a person working on how to prevent bioterrorism, I'd add that this is the same question we are rightly asking in relation to science.

I believe that spirituality is innate to being human — possibly new research will show us that the capacity for spirituality has a genetic base, although spirituality itself is not just a genetic phenomenon. Religion is one way people experience their spirituality.

The search for meaning and the desire to belong to something larger than ourselves is of the essence of being human. And humans have also always searched for morality. Religion is one way — I agree with Dawkins that there are other ways — in which, over vast periods of time, across all kinds of societies and cultures, humans have sought meaning, belonging and morality. Who knows, might Richard Dawkins and I agree on that, even though we strongly disagree about the role and value of religion in our contemporary societies?

Margaret Somerville is the author of The Ethical Canary: Science and the Human Spirit (MUP).

She delivered Canada’s 2006 Massey lectures which are available as The Ethical Imagination Journeys of the Human Spirit, Melbourne University Press, 2006.

An Australian, originally a lawyer, Dr Somerville is foundation Director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, Canada.

Pamela Bone: Ask questions and atheism shall make you free

Pamela Bone: Ask questions and atheism shall make you free
The world might be a little safer if people stopped leaning on God

The Australian June 01, 2007

"ALL of the things all the religions teach us may be nonsense, yet some kind of god might still exist. If we can't prove God doesn't exist, shouldn't we be calling ourselves agnostics rather than atheists?" a member of a Melbourne audience asked French philosopher Michel Onfray this week.

"Non", replied the author of The Atheist Manifesto (Melbourne University Press). "We do not have to prove that God doesn't exist. It is people who affirm that God does exist who must prove it."

In any case, he added, philosophers have proved God doesn't exist.
Well, that's a relief (I should declare the questioner was me). Nevertheless, I insist on my point. Anyone prepared to give it serious thought must suspect that the God of the Bible or the Koran, whose words contradict each other all over the place, here teaching kindness and mercy, there preaching cruelty and vengeance, is man-made.
Just consider how would someone be greeted today who stood up on a box in the street and said God had authorised him to tell men they could have four wives, or as many slave-girls as they might own.

But this does not prove no God exists. Perhaps all the religions have got him wrong? I am unable to believe that the physical body of Jesus rose up into the spiritual place of heaven. Yet I know that millions of people more intelligent than I am do believe this. And that a virgin gave birth; and that the body and blood of Jesus Christ is really present in the Eucharist. Faith has little to do with IQ. What has it to do with then? Studies of identical twins adopted at birth by different parents provide useful clues as to what is inherited and what is learned.

The studies - of which there are now many - indicate that a tendency to religiosity is genetically determined; if one twin is very religious the other nearly always is too, no matter how they were brought up. For believers, such studies should raise a confronting question: why would an all-loving God create some of his people without the capacity for believing in him, and then, according to scriptures, send them to eternal hellfire for not believing in him?

Yet genetics do not explain why about 70 per cent of Swedes and 48 per cent of French are unbelievers, but only 25 per cent of Australians, 15 per cent of Spaniards and 4 per cent of Irish. Or what makes religious belief surge and wane across populations and over time. Or even fully explain what makes some people react to an event such as September 11 by becoming more religious and some to conclude that religion is just too dangerous to be tolerated.

These are questions people are thinking about. Onfray, who is also a guest of the Sydney Writers Festival, spoke to a capacity crowd in Melbourne. The Atheist Manifesto is an international bestseller. So is Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion; and Sam Harris's The End of Faith; and Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel, a piercingly brave denunciation of Islam's treatment of women. And so is Christopher Hitchens's engaging and reasoned God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Dawkins's two-part series on ABC-TV's Compass program provided some of the most thought-provoking television seen in years.

But while people are buying the books and watching the television and flocking to live audiences, the reaction of most Australian reviewers and commentators has been critical or dismissive. The God Delusion has scarcely received one positive review in this country. Even the hip panellists of ABC-TV's Tuesday Book Club canned it. Reviews of The Atheist Manifesto have been similarly scornful.

Some commentators have gone so far as to label the current crop of atheist books as "dangerous", which seems to me in itself to be a somewhat dangerous attempt to stifle debate. A book promoting atheism could only be dangerous if atheists were calling for religious believers to be put to death, or even discriminated against; and no atheist is calling for that.

Part of the reason may be the curious habit books editors have of giving a book opposing religion to a religious person to review. Do they really expect someone whose world view is being challenged to praise it?

Or it may be the great reluctance that still exists, even in a secular society, to criticise religious beliefs.

One wonders what there is about belief in a supernatural being that sets it apart from, for example, political beliefs. Why is a firm conviction held without proof seen as a sign of virtue?

Surprisingly, American reviewers have been much more positive. Apparently, in that home of religious certainty it is more permissible to have a conversation about unbelief than it is here.

It is a conversation the human race needs to have with itself. The uses to which religion is being put around the world dictate this. Intelligence may have little to do with faith, but culture does. I don't think it is an accident that Sweden, The Netherlands and France, the least religious of Western countries, are also the healthiest, wealthiest, freest and most educated.

Religion is not going to die out soon no matter how educated people become, or how many books explaining it away are written.

Billions of people derive comfort from religious belief, and they should not be denied this. Millions of people also are motivated by their religion to do good works (others find it odd that some people think they need religion in order to be good).

Learned philosophers might disagree, but agnosticism seems to me a sensible enough position. If the existence of God can neither be proved nor disproved, it follows that it is no more moral to believe than not to believe, and there is no reason why religious schools and religious organisations should be preferred over others, or given special status or tax exemptions.

If more of us could simply admit that we don't know - which is not at all the same as saying we should stop asking the questions - this world, the only one we can know for certain exists, might just be a little safer and happier for all.
Pamela Bone is a Melbourne writer.

Brennan atheism Dawkins

The athiest manifesto
• There can be no peace unless believers and atheists share an equal place in the public square of a free and democratic society, argues Frank Brennan
________________________________________
• The Australian June 02, 2007
BEFORE the publication of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, I had presumed that in Western intellectual circles the atheists were ahead on points and that they were little troubled by the doings of those they regarded as well meaning, slightly befuddled religious people. Like them, I had strong concerns about fundamentalists who used their simplistic religious beliefs to buttress their commitment to violent or undemocratic action.

I now realise that Dawkins and his ilk are upset even by religious people such as me, perhaps especially by religious people such as me. Dawkins claims that moderation in faith fosters fanaticism: "Even mild and moderate religion helps to provide the climate of faith in which extremism naturally flourishes."
Dawkins's "take home message" is that we should blame "religion itself, not religious extremism, as though that were some kind of perversion of real, decent religion".

The same argument would not be made for scientific inquiry. Imagine a call to ban all scientific inquiry because those who engage in responsible scientific inquiry may be providing the opportunity for fanatics to harness science for their own purposes. Dawkins and his ilk think religious belief of any kind is meaningless, infantile and demeaning so nothing is lost by agitating in the most illiberal way for the suppression of all religion, and not just religious extremism that causes harm to others.

The successful marketing of The God Delusion has unleashed a steady flow of anti-religious rantings from intelligent authors who have thrown respect for the other and careful argument to the wind. Instead of proposing strategies for weeding out religious fundamentalists who pose a threat to the freedom, dignity and rights of others, these authors are proposing a scorched-earth policy of killing off all religion.

Christopher Hitchens has visited most of the trouble spots of the world. He is an acute journalistic critic of warring parties in any dispute. But in God is Not Great he is not the bystander adjudicating between the fundamentalist Muslim suicide bombers and the conservative Christian backers of the Bush White House. He is a belligerent, unyielding disputant asserting that religion ought to have no place at the table of public deliberation.

While he, who is not Irish, thinks Mother Teresa had no right to express her opinion about divorce law reform in Ireland, he has no hesitation in telling Australians about what we should be doing in Iraq. Why not the same rule for political intervention by outsiders, whether or not they are religious?

In the wake of death threats for having offered shelter to his friend Salman Rushdie, he concludes with one of his many universal judgments against all religions and religious persons: "The true believer cannot rest until the whole world bows the knee. Is it not obvious to all, say the pious, that religious authority is paramount, and that those who decline to recognise it have forfeited their right to exist?" It is not obvious to me.

Hitchens has dedicated his book to British novelist Ian McEwan, "whose body of fiction shows an extraordinary ability to elucidate the numinous without conceding anything to the supernatural". Hitchens had never been religious, but in his Marxist phase he admired Trotsky, who had a sense "of the unquenchable yearning of the poor and oppressed to rise above the strictly material world and to achieve something transcendent".

Now he sees no need for transcendence beyond the strictly material world; he is content with an elucidation of the numinous in the written word as from the pen of McEwan.

He does concede that "religious faith is ineradicable. It will never die out, or at least not until we get over our fear of death, and of the dark, and of the unknown, and of each other." He does see a place for conscience, "whatever it is that makes us behave well when nobody is looking". For him, "Ordinary conscience will do, without any heavenly wrath behind it."

Some of us do find that we can form and inform our conscience even better when we believe that a loving God is accompanying us in the lonely chambers of decision. Some of us stand tallest when we submit and surrender to death, darkness and the other with dignity, and love, with a religious sensibility.

Michel Onfray's The Atheist Manifesto is one of those books you can judge by its back cover. It depicts the French author against a blank wall with a vacuum cleaner at his feet. His book is the result of a flurried, philosophical spring-clean of history. He has swept up a potpourri of anti-religious content through the centuries and prefaced each collection of detritus with sweeping assertions such as: "monotheism loathes intelligence"; "in science, the church has always been wrong about everything: faced with epistemological truth it automatically persecutes the discoverer"; "monotheisms have no love for intelligence, books, knowledge, science". The Catholic Church "excels in the destruction of civilisations. It invented ethnocide"; and "monotheism is fatally fixated on death".

The argument for the last assertion is supported by the outrageous claim that John Paul II "actively defend(ed) the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi by the Catholic Hutu of Rwanda". There is no evidence for such a claim. Consider the former pope's address to the African bishops a few days after the killings began: "I feel the need to launch an appeal to stop that homicide of violence. Together with you, I raise my voice to tell all of you: stop these acts of violence! Stop these tragedies! Stop these fratricidal massacres!" Onfray begins the book with the stylistic flourish of a series of "mystical postcards" and assures the reader, "In none of those places did I feel superior to those who believed in spirits, in the immortal soul, in the breath of the gods, the presence of angels, the power of prayer, the effectiveness of ritual, the validity of incantations, communion with voodoo spirits, haemoglobin-based miracles, the Virgin's tears, the resurrection of a crucified man. Never." By the book's end, the reader realises that the answer was not "never" but "always". Onfray writes with a haughty and dismissive arrogance towards any person who has a religious sentiment.

He even denies equality of treatment in the public square to any religious believer.
"Equality between the believing Jew and the philosopher who proceeds according to the hypothetico-deductive model? Equality between the believer and the thinker who deconstructs the manufacture of belief, the building of a myth, the creation of a fable? Equality between the Muslim and the scrupulous analyst? If we say yes to these questions, then let's stop thinking."

What are we to do, start fighting? Do we not need to accord equality to all these people in the public square of a free and democratic society, applying the same rules to each of them whether or not they are religious? And is this not the real challenge for us in this post-September 11 world?

Tamas Pataki has contributed an Australian home-grown polemic, Against Religion. He is less shrill and more measured than the French and English pamphleteers, and adds local colour with attacks on Peter Costello, whose "appearances at Hillsong received an unusual degree of attention from the Australian media". The "mendacious John Howard" joins company with "the apocalyptic Tony Blair".

He argues that religion captures the mind when reinforced and held in place by unconscious needs and fantasies. According to Pataki, religious people are narcissistic individuals who want to be loved and to feel special. They find it difficult to accept that "there is nothing higher than earthly human love because the love of ordinary men and women is so fragile and incestuously tainted for them. So they must seek something 'higher', something transcendent."
All three authors find it inconceivable that a religious person can accord reason and science their due place, can live a balanced life without being sexually repressed and can welcome the insights of Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Bertrand Russell. Hitchens asserts, "Thanks to the telescope and microscope, (religion) no longer offers an explanation of anything important. It can now only impede or retard." Regardless of the knowledge provided us by the telescope and microscope, every person, generation and culture has to make existential sense of the abyss that will always lie beyond the reach of the telescope and the microscope.

The thinking, self-critical religious person parts company with these three authors at the edge of what can be known about the self and about the world. For these authors, there is nothing beyond that edge because it is not knowable. US liberal Ronald Dworkin has recently set down the only realistic choice for the modern nation-state: "A religious nation that tolerates non-belief? Or a secular nation that tolerates religion?"

In our globalised world, there will always be a Mother Teresa or a Hitchens wanting to make their contribution to public debate about law and policy even in those countries where they do not enjoy citizenship. We need rules of engagement that apply equally to people of religious faith and those with none. We need to distinguish the role of the individual citizen and the role of the person in a position of public trust. That public trust must be discharged faithfully whether or not the office holder is a religious person.

Religious beliefs and philosophical standpoints may well help to inform the discharge of that public trust. It is too simplistic to assert that engagement in the public square or in a position of public trust ought to be open only to those who have no religious beliefs or who leave their religious commitments at home.

Public intellectuals such as these three authors may relish the public expression of scorn and disdain for all religions. But they do nothing to assist the needed public discernment of the limits on personal opinions and preferences in the public square, and in law and public policy. Sadly, these three intelligent, gifted and illiberal authors have demonstrated that it is not only Islamic fundamentalists who fail to understand the rules for civil discourse and engagement in the post-September 11 public square.

Frank Brennan is a Jesuit priest. His latest book is Acting on Conscience. He appeared at the Sydney Writers Festival with Tamas Pataki and Michel Onfray yesterday.

Benedict XVI - against Relativism

Benedict XVI: Human Heart Longs for Christ
Speaks Out Against Relativism

VATICAN CITY, MAY 25, 2007 (ZENIT.org).- In the midst of secularism and relativism, it is necessary to teach people that "Christ, the human face of God, is our true and only savior," says Benedict XVI.

The Pope said this Thursday in an audience with participants at the 57th General Assembly of the Italian bishops' conference, who are holding a meeting in the Vatican on "Jesus Christ, the only Savior of the world: the Church in mission 'ad gentes' and among us."

During the meeting with Italy's prelates, the Holy Father said: "I rejoice in the fact that you have placed at the basis of the missionary effort the fundamental truth that Jesus Christ is the only savior of the world.

"The certainty of this truth has given, from the beginning, a decisive impulse to the Christian mission.

"Today too, as the declaration 'Dominus Iesus' reaffirmed, we must be fully aware that from the mystery of Jesus Christ, true God and true man living and present in the Church, comes the unique salvific and universal nature of Christian revelation and, consequently, the essential task of announcing Jesus Christ to everyone."

The answer

Benedict XVI said that amid the challenges of the world today, God is necessary for everyone.

"It seems to me," he said, "that, if we look at the situation of the world today, we can understand -- I would say in a human way, almost without having recourse to faith -- that God who gave himself a human face, the God who was incarnated, who is called Jesus Christ and suffered for us, this God is necessary for everyone, and the only answer to all of the challenges of this age."

While giving "respect to other religions and cultures, with the seeds of truth and goodness they contain and that represent a preparation for the Gospel," the Pope continued, "we cannot diminish the awareness of the originality, fullness and unique nature of the revelation of the true God who in Christ was definitively given to us, nor can we diminish or weaken the Church's missionary vocation."

"The cultural climate of relativism that surrounds us makes it more important and urgent" to instill in the Church "the certainty that Christ, the human face of God, is our true and only Savior," he affirmed.

Benedict XVI mentioned his book "Jesus of Nazareth," calling it "a very personal book, not of the Pope but of this man" written so that "we can see -- with the heart and with reason -- that Christ is really he whom the human heart longs for."

ZE07052501

Outcomes of Info Tech Course

1. Understand ways in which ICT can enhance active and collaborative learning
3. Produce effective text and screen-based materials
4. Access and use the Internet as a research tool
5. Understand the diversity of students’ learning styles and the principles of higher order learning (Gardener and Blooms Taxonomy)
6. Create simple web-based teaching resources

JS 423 e-journal Part 3

In Part 2 of this journal we got God 'off the hook' by discussing varying views of the Passion Project. We came to the conclusion that God gave us free will, therefore making redundant the notion of "atonement". God is not a puppeteer who planned the death of his Son. Jesus' death was a reaction to the time in which he lived. We put the death of Jesus into context by reading the signs of the time. I found the discussion about the intrinsic value particularly interesting; there is nothing intrinsically holy about the cross for example, and if Jesus was stoned to death we'd probably have a different motif. This again highlights the importance of the relativist face of the Church. There seems to be so much emphasis on tradition and at times this muffles the real message, the spirit, of Christianity. In Part 3 we deal specifically with terrorism and the varying dialogues. It appears to me that a lot of the time this notion of 'tolerance' is bought up in relation to social justice issues. Tolerance for each other, or in other words those who are not the same as you. This is not necessarily a healthy concept. The word "tolerance" indicates that something or someone is merely being 'put up with' there is no effort and no sense of understanding or inclusion. In such a capitalist society we are constantly bombarded with advertising; images of the 'ideal'. We are indoctrinated, in a sense, so that we automatically know what is 'best for us'.

The 'War on Terror' throws our sense of self into stark relief. A political campaign of FEAR forces us to make the 'them' and 'us' distinction. Suddenly we are not thinking, we are just reacting. In doing this we are supporting a system that supports violence, and we are perpetuating the cycle.

Arguably the majority of people in Sydney would AUTOMATICALLY equate terrorism with Islam ... but not all ... a prominent Sydney businessman (also a Muslim) was quoted as saying "Islam was responsible for the destruction of the Twin Towers about as much as Christianity was responsible for the Oklahoma bombings". When viewed like this we receive a rude dose of reality. It is so important to be capable of reading the signs of the time. It is even more vital however that we are critical of the context in which we read these signs. Sometimes the distinctions are not clear. For example; what is the difference between an Al Quida attack and a National Security assault? A guy on a push bike with a rocket launcher or a B52 drop bomb? We must question these results. We must question the answers we produce.

Politicians, economists and others couch their words to evoke the 'best for you and me' sentiment. We spoke briefly about the defence of the American Dream and how ironic it was that the majority of American's who were fighting the "War on Terror" come from such a low socio-economic background that the American Dream has and (if they make it home alive) will always be beyond them.

We must be aware and be able to 'deconstruct the text'. Patriotism is no good when the poorer half - the 80% majority - decide to stand up and say, "Move over, we're going to have some of that too"! Governments specifically fuel the fear that 'the dream' is going to be undone by terrorist activity to keep this in check. If we are serious about stopping Terrorism we must stop contributing to this notion of fear; the 'them' and 'us' mentality. We have to start talking the same language; with deaths on both sides - Christian ethics make no distinction - all death in circumstances such as war is horrific.

The concept of solidarity must remain strong. It must be a consistent movement towards equality, freedom and peace. These just concepts are heavily supported in the Catholic and Christian traditions; and in many other religions as well. Christianity provides a solid structure, that although at times is a little too out of touch, it is necessary for it to remain apart from other world structures, political, economic etc. Reading the signs of the time and being a consistent, understanding, loving entity give many people the faith, courage and support to continue in what is predominately a struggle for equality of self, family and way of life.

JS 423 e-journal Part 2

In part 1 of this journal we discussed the potential of Liberation Theology in encouraging actions implemented from the bottom up. The importance of this theology is that it looks at the world from the perspective of the poor. In part 2 we will look at the concept of getting God "off the hook". The background theology - the 'prophetic and purity projects' looked at in light of the Passion project - proves a useful basis for discussions about questions of belief and God's intentions (i.e. "what sort of a God would let bad things happen"?)

We discussed the pro's and con's of both the Prophetic Project (book of Exodus) and the Purity Project (Mosaic Law + 10 Commandments) and briefly analysed the inadequacies that surface when both projects are expressed in their extreme form. We basically decided that the Prophetic Project had the capacity to be too obtuse and the Purity Project too rigid.

Common sense would recommend that we find a middle ground (arguably this is what Jesus was attempting to do in the Prophetic Project) and given our individual capacity for free will this is entirely possible and does not rely on us unwaveringly following advice from Rome. In searching for this middle ground we come to realise that at times the Church leans too much towards the "Purity Project" getting caught up in rules and regulations. In the film Romero the Cardinal weighs up the concerns of the populace against the sanctions of the Church. This is a fitting example of the importance of good leadership - a grey area of social justice (which reiterates the importance of the debate in Part 1 of this journal about whether to view situations from the top down OR bottom up). Is it always feasible to take a bottom up perspective or do we need also to see from the top down?. One can't help but assume that the reason the Church, as an institution, has survived for so long is because of its political savvy. But the Church is not its own point. It is meant to serve those under it. The institution must survive for the sake of its people’s faith. This brings us back to the idea of solidarity and what the Church represents.

There was a fascinating program on SBS recently - you no doubt know of Richard Dawkins; 'infamous scientist and atheist who questions the existence of God, arguing that there is no scientific proof. He also half-heartedly takes on the battle of evolution versus creation theory - vehemently arguing that it is impossible to believe in both because, in his mind, science and religion are impervious to one another. My impression of Dawkins is that he was attacking all religions. He was defensive of his own position and because of this completely failed to see what the true nature and essence of religious belief was all about (or perhaps he didn't want to go down this route because science is unable to accurately account for intangible understandings such as religion). Sadly for him, he comes across as being just another fundamentalist - in this case a fundamentalist Atheist (atheism is a secular religion - according to Margaret Somerville of The Age)! At any rate, this notion of the Purity and Prophetic projects was highlighted for me in Dawkins' mini series.

Dawkins was focussing on fundamentalist concepts of religion or what we discussed in class; the Purity aspect of religion - the written words, facts and literal meanings. In class we focussed on the Christ Event and the Passion Project to help get God "off the hook" and in doing so saw how it is possible and necessary for everyone, not just those people who consider themselves religious, to read the signs of the time. I am talking here about relativism. It is arguably no longer appropriate to literally interpret the Bible (I doubt it was intended to be so interpreted in the first place) or any other religious writing. We must interpret within the CONTEXT of the present day.

When discussing the Christ Event and Atonement Theology - Adam and Eve and the birth of original sin, coupled with the Old Testament's 'language of sacrifice' - we can surely see how this version of a vengeful God to whom we owe a personal sacrifice might be a little 'old school' (a bit 'Paganish' even - offerings to appease the God(s) OR perhaps we have deliberately chosen to take things a bit easier in this century?!) Whatever the case, much of what we see of God in the Old Testament (specifically the concept of a vengeful God) is no longer in line with contemporary perceptions of God.

Fundamentalist (purity) misconceptions often fail to lend adequate weight in accounting for ideas such as those found in the Parable of the Prodigal Son; in which we see a forgiving, passionate and loving God. This is much more consistent with contemporary views about what God is like.

From our discussion of the Passion Project we see that God is not a puppeteer. It comes down to the concept of FREE WILL (getting God 'off the hook'). It is up to us - each individual - to choose what to do with the time given to us. It is important to note here that the 'old school' concept of the vengeful God in Atonement Theology fails to acknowledge moral agency. Because we are born 'owing God' there can be no real knowledge of free will for the individual.

The concept of free will is a vital ingredient in the Church reaching young people in today's society. Great emphasis is placed on the creation of the individual. This comes down to having the freedom of choice to create 'image'. We live in a capitalist society and Gen Y, in particular, want everything NOW. They are focused on the creation of image; the latest phone, music, mp3 player, cars, clothes, hair styles, bars, clubs, friends. Dawkins and humanists in general would argue that all humans have an innate ability to know what is right and wrong. We don't need a God or religion to spell it out for us. But what about this growing fascination with ourselves? What about the increasing capitalist values within the top 20% (some argue more like 10%) of the worlds population? These people who are most economically, politically and socially able to create equality for all people in the world are becoming increasingly more insular. The article The Alternative Community of Moses discusses some of the tasks the Church has to focus on in order to counteract aspects of capitalist society "The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us".

Understanding and acknowledging "signs of the time" was declared by Vatican II to be an essential connection between itself and the people. In the Passion Project we see how Jesus became a victim of his time. We see that he died because his version of life was different to what was surrounding him in Palestine at the time during which he lived. Jesus' faithfulness brought him into conflict with the Roman way of life and this happenstancely lead to his death. God did not plan Jesus' death. What would be the point of God creating the universe if he knows what’s going to happen?

Reading the signs of the time is relevant now but it is also relevant when we look back at history. Having a grasp of the dialogues that existed and what they discussed is vital if we are to learn from history. Perhaps the most obvious example of examining these dialogues would be the World Wars. The religious, political, economic, social and cultural observations that were being made at the time and that lead to the beginning of the War are to be analysed so that we know how to avoid such catastrophe today. Sources and Methods of Catholic Social Teaching attempts to simplify Catholic social teaching to extend thought while focusing on specific areas; be that the role of scripture, natural law, theological reflection or social analysis. Likewise, Nine Key Themes of Catholic Social Teaching would also have us categorise the many aspects of social justice. In truth, reading the signs of the time involves ALL these issues and more. We have to want to make a difference for equality to happen. We have to make change a way of life if we are to incorporate all these issues. For me, dividing these issues for discussion might be necessary, but it is not a feasible way to change the social justice (or lack of it) in our world.

Establishment of a Safe and Positive Learning Environment

STOP -> GO -> IDEAL

High emphasis on the importance that all students feel physically and emotionally safe when at school. Especially those students who have problems at home - coming to school can be a relief.

• Students will bring with them values and attitudes from outside – from home, from other friends and family, and their individual life experiences. As teachers we have to work WITH this and encourage positive values.
• BE CONSISTENT! - Students need to know that when they walk through the school gate certain rules and expectations apply TO THEM.
• Staff united – enforce various rules, uniform, language, respect for others etc. Good executive staff will BE SEEN and be accessible to students. This reinforces the fact that someone cares (for both students and regular staff members) it also helps enforce rules and expectations.
• General discipline – much of what is established in the classroom continues outside it. Having expectations of students increases their self aweness and monitoring skills.
• COMMENT! Too often we comment on the negative. Notice the positives as well - lead by example. It is all about attitude!
• Teachers support - general support for each other; personally, within departments, of executives and also support for the students.
• Reflection – personal, professional. Helps to maintain a positive environment within your own classroom - and this will extend to the wider school community. Students pick up on how teachers are feeling – stressed, angry, happy, uncomfortable etc. Students will quickly work out which teachers care and which don’t.
• Pastoral care for students, parents and teachers.

Focus on Student Learning

STOP -> GO -> IDEAL

• ICT – (Prensky's digital native)
• Sage on the Stage - with so much information available we need to focus on teaching students how to USE and APPLY information when and where it is NEEDED. (Loader, 2007).
• Loader says; “…another very important goal is to ensure that students are able to make sense of their learning experiences and thoughts, and of society. Learning is about personal growth, achieving a stable base from which individuals can function effectively with resilience in a testing, changing society. Hopefully it’s also about creating a better, sustainable world”. (Loader, 2007).
• Options for learning – different uses for ICT to support different learning styles.
• Opportunities to develop individual skills – make sure everyone is accommodated – and valued!
• Opportunities to follow and develop areas of interest – choice of curriculum electives.

Understanding of Physical Environmnet of Learning Space

STOP -> GO -> IDEAL

• Open, sunny, airy - rethink design of new schools to exploit natural energy use.
• Visually mentally stimulating - aesthetically pleasing, CLEAN environment.
• Each student connected to wireless.
• Individual space for each student (own workspace) as well as opportunity for group / collaborative work and social interaction.
• Physical arrangement of classroom – no longer teacher centred; ‘desks facing the blackboard’ etc. Circular, or cluster desks (Vygotsky; Zone of Proximal Development)
• Expand the use of resources - why confine learning to the classroom? Wireless is your blackboard – take lessons outside on a nice day. Go on virtual excursions.
• Ideal learning space would be environmentally sustainable. We need to rethink design for example; lights in the middle of the day are often not necessary. Solar power – schools are relatively large blocks of land – find somewhere for solar panels and storage of energy. Likewise with water collection and storage.

Understanding Classroom Dynamics

STOP -> GO -> IDEAL

• Catering for different learning styles (Gardner)
• Knowing your students
• Provide opportunities for students to use their talents and give everyone a chance to speak. GENERALLY BE AWARE of what happens in group dynamics.
• Bullying / peer group friction
• Pastoral care - being sensitive to students situations; personal, home, and school life. Be aware of how this affects their school work and friendship groups. Make allowances for bad days and different personalities (Same goes for teachers (peers) and parents)!
• Encouragement and recognition of efforts - praise when praise is due.
• Sharing and displaying students work

Understanding of Teaching Strategies

STOP -> GO -> IDEAL

• LESS 'Sage on the Stage' - too much readily accessible knowledge out there!
  

• Teacher becoming more of a background guiding figure - BUT - so we still have structured lesson but learning is about the student discovering for themselves rather than have the teacher tell them “this is how it is”.

• In my ideal learning environment ALL teachers would be competent and enthusiastic. Ideally teachers and students would be grouped together to exploit relationships that were most conducive effective to learning. (Logistical and testing problems with this).

1. Draw from the teacher pool of knowledge! - Share teaching ideas, resources and problems (i.e. This lesson worked well because... Trying to teach poetry this way was a total disaster because...). Teachers have different teaching styles, just like students have different learning styles.


2. Organisation (know your subject)! – At some point we will all teach a kid who is smarter than us! If you are not organised and go into a lesson unprepared, kids will collectively pick up on this … and play up!


3. Discipline in the classroom. BE CONSISTENT! HAVE EXPECTATIONS! Ask yourself..."how do you want the kids to see you?" (Brennan, 2007).
   
4. The world is NOT the same as in “my day”.


5. SNAPSHOT gives a clearer understanding of strengths and weaknesses. Can be used to snapshot a teacher, student, group of students, or a whole class.


6. BE ACCESSIBLE - a student should always feel they can ask when they need help.

ED 4236 Assessment 2 - Ideal Learning Environment

My ideal learning environment is ...

• a place for growth!
• about supporting ALL aspects of development for ALL members of the school community - students, staff, parents and carers!
• about developing and maintaining environmental sustainability.

In this mini 'lesson' we will be looking at five aspects that constitute my ideal learning environment these include:

• Teaching strategies
• Classroom dynamics
• Physical environment
• Focus on student learning
• Establishment of a safe and positive learning environment

NOTE: it is the sum of all parts that make this learning environment whole ... and successful!

Info Tech - What wiki's are about

Wiki's are a collaborative website where the public can submit information to be posted on the wiki. Wiki's are monitored / sensored. The information that ends up on them is assessed for 24hrs (in the case of wikipedia) before being posted. Wiki topics are ordered - much like a book would be. The information is linked to provide easy access to specific topic areas that are relevant to the user. A good wiki will contain many hyperlinks. The beauty of this is that it allows the user to follow their interests and gain access to a greater amount of knowledge in a much shorter space of time.

"Wiki's were designed to be the simplest online data base that could possibly work" Ward Cunningham - creator of the original Wiki program! Legend has it that the name Wiki was inspired by the name of the shuttle bus at the Honolulu Airport. "Wiki" is a Hawaiian word for "quick"!

ED 4134 Item 2 Slide Show

The slide show below is a graphic display of various Board of Studies 'texts' including novelists, playwrights, poets and films.

EXISTENTIAL learners can use this ICT to help them understand the big picture and overall course content. This ICT could be implemented as a good cognitive tool through use as a visual timeline so the student can put the text, film, poem, visual reference etc into an historical, social, cultural context.

VISUAL learners can use this ICT to "see" ideas. They are able to understand / contextualise the content by "seeing it in action". This ICT encourages the student to imaging the possibilies of litarary relationships. The visual display is aesthetically appealing and sympathetic to the student's mode of learning. In the case of the visual learner this ICT could be used as a screen saver on class computers (if available) or alternatively the teacher's computer. This is a step on from putting pictures on the wall of the classroom. Students in schools today are digital natives and as such expect to use ICT. DUe to the fact that digital natives are natural multi-taskers it stands to reason that the more stimulus we, as teachers, can supply the more information has the potential to be internalised.

LOGICAL learners will find this ICT a useful way of presenting course content. As an alternative to the timeline, the viusal stimuli could be arranged to visually display the order in which the 'texts' are to be studied. THe slideshow would therefore become a constant visual reminder to the students about where they've come from, where they are and where they're heading in the course.

Howard Gardner reiterates the importance of recognising and supporting different learning styles with ICT. He also states theat schools often focus on the logical and mathematical learner - perhaps a result of the 'sage on the stage' teaching method coupled with time restraints. In the past it has been assumed that students would learn by building on previous information and progressing in a linear fashion. Hattie and Vygotsky recognise the existance of more convergent forms of learning and place an emphsis on collective and social learning - a move away from the 'sage on the stage' routine. One of the great benefits of ICT is its ability to be interactive and fluid.

The possibilities of this ICT range from it being a stagnant display, its purpose dictated by the teacher (and in this sense it would sit on the knowledge level of the Bloom's Taxonomy heirarchy) to an online resource that can be manipulated by the students. It could be used as a social, historical, litarary timeline, or a course structure timeline or alternatively a front page for notes on each 'text' (Naturalist learners might prefer to manipulate it in this way).

To use this ICT to further the students comprehension in relation to Bloom's Taxonomy the slideshow could develop the student's comprehension of where these texts fit into an historical context. It could also be used as part of the student's analysis of an idea; for example the timeline might be used to explain Charles Dickens statement on class in Great Expectations in relation to other writers of his time.

This ICT could also support social learning as per Vygotsky. The images could be the beginning of a collaborative blog, to be used at the end of each unit for group presentations; for example; students could work in groups and present to the class using the blog to save, collate and share information. In this way students are active in the learning process and the collection of resouces. This develops self efficacy and opens up this ICT to support other learning styles.

Resources:

Blooms Taxonomy http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm

Gardner Multiple Intelligences http://surfaquarium.com/MI/

Hattie, J (2005) What is the Nature of Evidence that makes a Difference to Learning? www.acer.edu.au/workshop/documents/HattieSlides.pdf

Prensky, M (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Vygotsky Social Learning Theory http://chd.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledgebase/theorists/constructivism/vygotsky.htm

ED 4134 Item 2 Sound File

Mr President is a modern day anti war ballard. This stimulus can be used in the English classroom to compare the social messages and descriptions of authority to that of more Classic texts such as Chauser's Cantebury Tales. It couls also be used as support material when we study war poets.

This ICT appeals to the KINESTHETIC learner because of the sensory interaction. It would also appeal to the RHYTHMIC learner. The ICT is a good cognitive tool in relation to these two learning styles becasue both learners respond positively to sound. The patterns help the student to internalise skills, concepts and ideas. Auditory stimulus can be used in conjunction with almost any form of learning and is not limited to music. Auditory ICT could prove particuarly helpful to students with learning disabilities such as dylexia; written tasks, exam etc. could all be accompanied by a sound file, helping the students to avoid mistakes and encourage self efficacy in accordance with Vygotsky. Creating a diverse learning environment where collation of ICT becomes the social norm will potentially increase the learning potential of students.

The auditory ICT appeals to LINGUISTIC learners who appreciate the subtleties of grammar and meaning. Students are better able to internalise information through lecture (perhaps the teacher could record a pod cast of specific ideas or lessons) and discussion, learn new vocabulary and could even include the ICT in class drama productions. This ICT could be implemented as an effective cognitive tool through getting each student in the class to record one line of a ballard or spoken poem written collectively by the class. If used for this purpose the ICT would incorporate the inter and intrapersonal learner groups and invoke V ygotsky's zone of proximal development theory because those students who are not strong linguistically, kinesthetically and or rhythmically could learn from those students who are.

John Hattie's concept of "active learning" will also be put into effect, as it is anytime the student is required to create something. Bloom's Taxonomy will be implemented up to the level of synthesis assuming a poetic or rhythmic structure is maintained in the creation of the student sound file. This learning could be elevated to the final and highest stage - evaluation - by getting the students to judge, discuss and polish the final product. It is generally assumed that the two higher order stages of Bloom's Taxonomy - synthesis and evaluation - are not expected until senior years however, I see no reason against attempting to implement this ICT in younger years - obviously dependent upon collective class ability.

References:

Blooms Taxonomy http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm

Gardner Multiple Intelligences http://surfaquarium.com/MI/

Hattie, J (2005). What is the Nature of Evidence that makes a Difference to Learning? www.acer.edu.au/workshops/documents/HattieSlides.pdf

Prensky, M (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Vygotsky Social Development Theory http://chd.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledgebase/theorists/constructivism/vygotsky.htm

www.sonific.com

ED 4134 Item 2 A Video Clip

The film Billy Elliot was directed by Stephen Daldry and is rated M. It is to be used in the Standard HSC English course and is part of the Texts and Society module in accordance with the NSW Board of Studies.

Overview: Billy Elliot realistically presents Billy's growth as he struggles to find his place in the world and acceptance from his family and the community. The story challenges viewer's attitudes towards issues such as gender sterotying and class.

The above ICT aids the VISUAL learner because it stimulates their primary mode of learning allowing them to "see" a concept in action for example, the issues surrounding a typical Northern Irish mining community in the 1960's. The film media accomodates the learner's imagination allowing them scope to explore multiple possibilities (in this case the focus would be on the various life transitions of the characters and setting). The ICT of film also allows the visual learner to use mental images as a mnemonic device. Use of this ICT potentially increases recall, helps the learner to use the content appropriately and to effectively address issues raised in the film.

EXISTENTIAL learners require a big picture perspective as they seek to make connections accross the curriculum. A discussion about the context of the film, for example the era in which Billy Elliot was set, might prove useful to the existential learner when contextualising knowledge in a history subject. This is particularly relevent to Vygotsky's zone of proximal development. The existential learner synthesises ideas through previously constructed knowledge as well as a sharing and discussion of that knowledge. Similarly to the INTERPERSONAL and INTRAPERSONAL learner, existential learners often need to feel as though they are a part of something bigger.

INTERPERSONAL and INTRAPERSONAL learners acquire understanding of the issues in the film this helps the learner to develop social empathy including an awareness and concern for others as well as skills for relating to peers and adults. Vygotsky emphasises the importance and value that social interaction has on cognitive and emotional development. In order to make a judgement on the issues in the film the students must first examine their personal morals, values, attitudes and feelings. In this sense the ICT of film supports both inter and intrapersonal learners. The ICT of film gives the student access to a form of expression that differs from literature. It offers some variety of media and a basis of comparison between what a film is capable of portraying that a book cannot and vica-versa. A class discussion on this could lead to students sharing and contrasting their own experiences to situations and/or settings that characters in the film find themselves in.

RHYTHMIC learner stimulates their primary mode of learning. Rhythmic learners are particularly drawn to sound and respond to cadence in language as well as music. They enjoy moving to rhythms. With all this in mind the ICT of film and more specifically Billy Elliot is an obvious choice for the learning style of these students. The music and movement in the film will help these students associate strongly with the issues in the film. They will be better equiped to internalise and recall concepts. It is important to note here that the use of this specific ICT (Billy Elliot) might prove more beneficial for this particular learning style than a less rhythmically inclined film. However, for our purposes, the ICT supports the style of the rhythmic learner.

LINGUISTIC learner this type of learner would benefit from film, specifically Billy Elliot, because they exhibit a keen appreciation of the context of language. The "Irish speak" is lyrical and incompasses sayings that may not be familiar to the student thus appealing to their learning orientation.

Hattie emphsises the role that the teacher plays in students learning - clearly an important and substantiated topic as we heard in the news this week - effective teachers are reportedly able to cover material twice as fast and effectively. Thus the way the teacher chooses to implement the lesson is important - as this ICT caters for the highest number of learning styles it is clearly an effective cognitive tool. Exploitation of this ICT means it is possible to reach the evaluation stage of Blooms Taxonomy although it is more likely to invoke a synthesis / analysis level of learning.

Resources:

http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/pdf_doc/annotations_texts_04_07.doc.
http://hsc.csu.edu.au/english/standard/texts_and_society/world/3244/billy_elliot.html#consider

Blooms Taxonomy http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm

Gardner Multiple Intelligences http://surfaquarium.com/MI/

Hattie, J (2005). What is the Nature of Evidence that makes a Difference to learning? www.acer.edu.au/workshops/documents/HattieSlides.pdf

Vygotsky http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/step/ep301/Spr2000/Jenna-B/zpd.html

How do I post stuff into my Blog?

Video: U-tube - email to blog - copy the embed code - paste in HTML

Slide shows: www.slide.com -embed html - paste into HTML (ignore warning).

Inspiration: to save an inspiration file to my Blog I must ... FILE - Export - GIF - Save - Save USB. Then in my BLOG I must ... New Post- Picture icon (add image) - add inspiration article that I saved on my USB (it'll come up as a jpeg file).

Sonific: copy embed, paste into html

ED 4134 Item 2 Online Game

I found a lot of websites that delt with learning the English language (ESL) rather than teaching the NSW curriculum. Some of these would be suited to junior years and students who need help with grammar, spelling, tense and punctuation. On the whole these English Language games cater for the kinesthetic, interpersonal, logical, linguistic, visual and sometimes rhythmic learners. Both the BBC website and puzzlemaker can be manipulated by the teacher to include learning material relevent to their classes.

http://www.englishpage.com/games/nouns.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/quizzes/
www.puzzlemaker.com

Although these games are fun, educationally they are limited. The best game I discovered for secondary English students was a webquest relating to Lord of the Flies - a good game to get the students into the mindset of the characters and do a bit of psychological exploration.

http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us/lhs/teach/webq/lmasterjohnlord/

Cognitive learning requires students to internalise sensory information therefore kinesthetic learners would most probably benefit most from this interactive process, however, doing is beneficial to all types of learners. This webquest requires students to work in groups thus developing intrapersonal and interpersonal skills.

Vygotsky's zone of proximal development is put to the test when students are required to use specific ICT's that may or may not suit their learning style. In this webquest students must create / invent and sell an idea thus engaging with Blooms synthesis level.

The way a teacher uses resources (or often improvises with a lack of them) effects the students ability to learn, according to Hattie. A good teacher would form groups of students all of whom learn differently and design a webquest that catered for the different learning styles; thus encouraging them to play to their strengths, use their talents and also learn from and engage with their peers.

References:
Game 1 http://www.englishpage.com/games/nouns.htm
Game 2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/quizzes/
Game 3 www.puzzlemaker.com
Lord of the Flies Webquest http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us/lhs/teach/webq/lmasterjohnlord/

Blooms Taxonomy http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm
Gardner Multiple Intelligences http://surfaquarium.com/MI/index.htm
Hattie, J (2005) What is the Nature of Evidence that makes a Difference in Learning? www.acer.edu.au/workshops/documents/HattieSlides.pdf
Vygotsky Zone of Proximal Development http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/step/ep301/Spr2000/Jenna-B/zpd.html