Porn Filters Ineffective at School or Home

The Australian Government seems to be hell-bent on wasting money on an ineffective home and ISP filter systems which are very likely to be bypassed easily by simple strategies including the huge and growing number of "anonymous proxy" sites.
These sites provide a window within a window. The school, home or government computer registers that the user has gone to the proxy site..... and stayed there. The inner window then allows the user to go anywhere, look at anything without any trace.....
As in so many areas of law enforcement (in or outside school), the only real deterrent is a "climate of fear" regarding severe and public punishment for offenders caught by traditional methods - surveillance, informers, mistakes by the perp (e.g. storing images on local machines for later viewing).

Stephen Digby

Banned for $15 pants

In Melbourne Australia, a students defiance of her government school community dress code is aggressively backed up by her parents...

She said she had been offering the Palmers free school-issue pants for the past month, but the family had "rejected them on principle".

Says it all really......

1. Some think the only way to explain their problems is in the desperate search for others to blame.
2. Some think that they can benefit from community resources while refusing to support community values.

Here's hoping that the state supports the right of school communities to set ANY requirements on student dress or behaviour that they see fit.
The future for state education lies in removing the straitjacket of government micro-management and allowing schools to run in ways that their local community actually want.
If Karla and her mother don't like the community rules, then they should find another school community.

Stephen Digby

Student Search - Schools are not like CSI

Teachers at Rowville did nothing wrong based on your article 2007-06-02 Teachers frisk pupil for drugs - Herald Sun. The Victorian Government School Reference Guide instructs teachers with a "cause for concern" to instruct students to "empty their pockets or open their bags for inspection and a failure to comply with such an instruction is a discipline offence." It is only if the teacher thinks the student will not "imminently use" that they should put off the search. You can imagine the hysteria (probably from the same parents) if a teacher assumed the use was not "about to happen, or threatening to happen" and it did happen ! If hysterically defensive parents make schools operate like CSI, then there will be even less staff time and energy left for actually teaching !

Stephen Digby

Education must stay the top priority in "one stop shop" schools

The push for transforming schools into "one stop shops" has little to do with education, and more to do with child-minding for parents fixated on consuming and governments fixated on the economy. In the article ("Relief push for working parents, Herald Sun, Mar 18) the only mention of education was in the job titles. "One stop shop" schools as the centre of childcare, welfare and community resources (such a libraries) is a great idea - as long as it doesn't continue the trend where "real education" is a minor consideration among a range of social welfare purposes.

Stephen Digby

A-E grades will outlast Victorian government attempt at "Newspeak"

The conceit of the Victorian Government is breathtaking ! A few years ago, it dismally failed in its attempt to ban A-E and replace it with “Established”, “Consolidating” and “Beginning”. Now it thinks it can use schools to change the common language meanings of A-E to suit its political agenda. It’s great to see the Catholic Education System opting out of this Big brother attempt at “newspeak”. The centuries old dictionary meanings will remain the same long after the Bracks government is forgotten.

Stephen Digby

Teacher unions should concentrate on workload - not curriculum design

As a Victorian teacher unionist for 25 years, I have seen the union lose membership over that period as it loses support by pushing a politically correct curriculum and social agenda to the detriment of its campaigns to actually improve industrial conditions for teachers.

A national curriculum does not need to make more work for teachers. It could make teachers’ jobs easier and more satisfying. The frequent turnarounds in state curricula do seriously distract teachers from teaching. The role of the union is to negotiate workload so that the employer realises that doing a "new" thing means not doing an "old" thing, and that planning "smart" work is better than paying for "more" work. Currently, teachers are continually being asked to work "more " to compensate for poor government planning. If we had an industrial agreement with any credibility, the government would have no alternative to being "smarter". As a Australian Teachers Union school branch president, I wish my union would represent the vast majority of its members and spend more time negotiating effective workload agreements. It seems to spend far to much time trying to further a wide range of socially "progressive" policies that are supported by a minority of teachers. The result is diminishing union membership and support in schools.

The fact is that there is NO state curriculum at all ! There are mountains of plans in "eduspeak" called guidelines and standards along with bits an pieces called "exemplars" - but NO approved courses of study in ANY subject at ANY year level that guides teachers lesson by lesson through a years instruction. The result is a "make it up as you go" smorgasbord.

Cool rooms are NOT a good idea.

In response to Cool rooms urged for kids, parents

Cool rooms are NOT a good idea. They create a presumption that the school has a role in managing violent, anti-social behaviour by adults and students. Schools are educational institutions. Cool down rooms are just another confused attempt to turn government schools into "youth training centres". Students who threaten the safety of other students or staff should not be permtted to return to the same school again - ever. The salutary effect of the inconvenience of travel or relocation would encourage them to regard their next school opportunity with a lot more care. Parents who threaten school staff or students should immediately be dealt with by police. There is already "manadatory reporting" of child abuse and even occupational health & safety issues to authorities. There should be mandatory reporting to police of all threats to staff or students. Police would then be in a responsible informed position regarding the possible threat.