Teachers' union backs call for comprehensive approach to education

This is another shot in the long war between those who want education to lead to jobs versus those who see education as a general cultural experience.  It seems clear to me that if the taxpayer is paying for it, it should be useful in some way.  I see only three options there: education for jobs, education for citizenship and English language education, where that includes instruction in reading and writing, which in turn includes spelling and grammar. Education for citizenship should cover primarily history and how the political system works. 

I see no role for literary education or foreign language education.  Literature and language can be left to adult education courses and other evening courses.  There are already in the country people of many ethnic origins who grow up bilingual so foreign language education seems particularly useless


The Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT Branch has welcomed comments from NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes calling for a balanced approach to education, with no extra emphasis on any one discipline.

Stokes said on Wednesday that STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects must not be preferred over the arts, sports or social sciences.

IEUA NSW/ACT Secretary John Quessy said providing a comprehensive education was the best strategy to create adaptable and employable adults.

“All disciplines, whether it be languages, sport, arts or science can and do contribute to greatness in Australian society,” Quessy said.

“It is important that teachers from all disciplines are supported and provided with professional development that enhances the education they can provide to students.

“While we totally support and understand the need to encourage the study of STEM subjects, students should never be discouraged from studying other disciplines.

“Everyone needs to be allowed to find their niche and be given a chance to shine.”

Media release sue@ieu.asn.au





Inside the 'most dangerous job in the world': White farmers in South Africa are FOUR times more likely to be murdered than anyone else

White farmers in South Africa have the most dangerous job in the country, are twice as likely to be murdered than police and are killed at four times the rate of the wider community, a rights group claims.

This week, as the government moves to seize all white-owned land without compensation, civil rights organisation AfriForum claimed there had been 109 attacks which left 15 white farm workers dead so far this year.

This follows 82 killings and 423 attacks in 2016, though none of the figures can be verified because the South African government has refused to release farm murder statistics since 2007.

Some of the killings are reported to have been barbaric, with farm owners tortured, raped, burned alive and slaughtered in front of their families.

Farm attack victims are usually restrained with shoe laces, telephone wires or electric cables, according to a previous AfriForum report.

Some have had their nails pulled out, had boiling water poured over their bodies and been beaten to death with makeshift weapons.

'Some of the murders have been accompanied by gratuitous violence and torture that can only be explained as racial hatred,' Australian National University international law expert Associate Professor Jolyon Ford told SBS.

'They tied me to a chair and came with a steam iron they found in the kitchen and burned me,' Ms Alsemgeest told The Daily Telegraph.

'Piet, they burned on his back in three or four places and burned on the back of his leg. They stripped off his skin... I thought Piet was dead because he was lying on the floor.

'They put a cloth in my face and tied me to the chair. They stripped off my top. I was naked. They put some tape over my face and eyes. They took my breast and twisted, humiliating me, not saying a word.' 

This week, a 40-year-old farm manager was tied up and hacked to death by a group of attackers, according to local reports. His wife was said to have been raped. 

Pictures posted to the Stop Farm Attacks & Murders in South Africa Facebook page show the horrific injuries inflicted on farmers

Earlier this month, a woman was allegedly 'repeatedly and violently' sexually assaulted in front of her young son as five attackers stormed the family farm.

The group tied the family up in separate rooms and told the woman they would harm her husband if she didn't comply, according to AfriForum. 

The brother of another South African farm owner who witnessed his murder spoke to Australian activist Avi Yemini on Friday.

'I could see the fear in his eyes before he was shot. Then I tried to convince myself that my brother was one of the lucky ones... His fear was only for a few minutes,' he said.

'There are people that are being tortured for nine hours and through the night.'

The South African government denies white people are deliberately targeted and says farm murders are part of South Africa's wider violent crime problem

Afriforum claims 156 commercial farmers are killed per 100,000 of the population, more than four times the wider murder rate of 34 per 100,000.

The group said it is forced to compile its own statistics because the government stopped releasing its own figures more than 10 years ago.

'Although the South African government denies that a violence crisis is staring rural areas in the face, the numbers prove that excessive violence plague these areas,' Ian Cameron, AfriForum's head of security, said.

'The government cannot deny the facts - our people are being mowed down... Our rural areas are trapped in a crime war.'

Ernst Roets, AfriForum's vice president, said last year 'political factors' were fuelling the violent attacks. 'We are concerned about hate speech, political leaders who... would say for example ''the white farmers should be blamed for everything'',' he said.

The situation has worsened since the ruling African National Congress joined with the Economic Freedom Fighters party (EFF) earlier this month and announced a motion to confiscate white-owned land without compensation.

EFF leader Julius Malema, who was previously convicted of hate speech for singing the outlawed apartheid-era song 'Shoot the Farmer,' said two weeks ago: 'We are starting with this whiteness. We are cutting the throat of whiteness.'

On Wednesday, he urged white South Africans to 'go and live in a racist country like Australia' in front of a cheering crowd during a Human Rights Day rally in Mpumalanga.

'A racist country like Australia says, ''EFF wants to kill white
farmers – they must come to Australia''. If they want to go, they must go. They must leave the keys of the tractors because we want to work the land.

'They must leave the keys of the houses, because we want to live in those houses. They must leave everything that they did not come with to South Africa.'

He went on to say anyone who immigrated to South Africa from Australia must 'leave quietly' and added: 'Don't make a noise because you will irritate us.'

Australia's Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton last week announced controversial plans to fast-track white South African farmers through Australia's refugee program.

SOURCE





'Racist to its core': Outrage as nurses are subject to a new code where they must announce their 'white privilege' before treating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients

Australian nurses and midwives are being forced to announce their 'white privilege' before treating Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander patients -  a move which has been slammed as 'racist to its core'.

The term 'white privilege' defines the unearned social and cultural advantages awarded to people with white skin which are not enjoyed by people of colour or non-white backgrounds.

The Nursing and Midwifery Board believes the cultural safety of Indigenous or Torres Strait Islander patients is just as important as their clinical safety.

But Graeme Haycroft, spokesperson for the Nurses Professional Association of Queensland, (NPAQ) told Sky News the addition to the code of conduct could have serious consequences for nurses and is simply 'racist'.

The Board describes the move as 'a decolonising model of ­practice based on dialogue, communication, power sharing and negotiation, and the acknowledgment of white privilege'.

Mr Haycroft said 50 per cent of NPAQ members were opposed to the new rule. 'They have said "this is wrong, do something about it",' Mr Haycroft told host Peta Credlin.

The inclusion of 'white privilege' in the code of conduct was first exposed by Cory Bernardi's Australian Conservatives. Senator Bernardi heavily criticised the move, labelling it as 'another virtue signal' and 'nonsensical'.

'This is just another example of where PC and this identity politics has captured the professional class or the political class,' he told 2GB.

Following backlash, the Board released a statement which said the codes required midwives and nurses to 'acknowledge that Australia has always been a culturally and linguistically diverse nation'.

Medical staff are also asked to consider the impact historic factors such as colonisation have had on indigenous peoples' health.

SOURCE






'We're not talking to you, you have no rights': Shocking moment female officer tries to stop civilian filming police

This is the shocking moment police officers refuse to give their badge numbers after tasering a driver 'for no good reason' and arresting him.

The driver and his wife were heading to dinner with a friend at Fremantle, south of Perth, when his Jeep was stopped and served with a defect notice.

After being tasered, as he tried to drive off, the motorist's friend turned on his camera phone and repeatedly demanded the three officers give him their badge numbers. 

To make matters worse the female officer, Senior Constable Arnold, repeatedly put a hat over her face as the driver's friend filmed the encounter in March 2017. 'You are not the person being spoken to,' she said.

When the driver's friend asked her again, explaining it didn't matter that he wasn't the one being arrested, she doubled down on her refusal to comply with the law.

'You're not the person that we're dealing with. You have no right.'

Earlier in the four-minute video footage, a male officer Constable Keenan repeatedly told the driver to 'get out of the car' before holding the taser pointed towards him

The state watchdog blasted the officers for using 'unreasonable and oppressive force'.

'The incident involved a driver, his wife and friend who were heading to a Fremantle restaurant for dinner – but ended up with the driver being tasered in his vehicle for no good reason, arrested and locked up,' it said.

When the man was told by police to turn around to be cuffed, Constable Keenan then used force to twist his arms behind his back and press him against his four-wheel drive.

'I'm not resisting, mate,' the man told the officer.

'You were under no threat when you tasered him,' the friend behind the camera added.

He was then placed under arrest for disobeying the directive of a police officer.

A subsequent internal police review cleared Constable Keenan of any wrongdoing, however the Crime and Corruption Commission has found his actions 'unlawful, unreasonable and oppressive.'

Constable Keenan has not been charged with any wrongdoing but has been stood aside, one year after the incident. The female officer, Senior Constable Arnold, was criticised by the CCC for preventing the filming and has since been charged.

Police Minister Michelle Roberts said the police would be brought to justice.  'Police officers in this instance have done the wrong thing, they have been found out, and they will need to cop the consequences,' she said.

Ms Roberts said officers should be kept accountable with the use of body cameras, and WA traffic police could be trialling the devices by the end of 2018.

SOURCE

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