Professional Educator Volume 5 Number 4 October 2006

Editorial

World Teachers’ Day, on 27 October, is an opportunity for your students and school community to recognise and celebrate your work, but it’s also your opportunity to call on all stakeholders to implement UNESCO’s 1966 Recommendation on the Status of Teachers – in fact, 146 recommendations – such as the recommendation that the work of teachers ‘should be so organised and assisted as to avoid waste of...time and energy,’ and that teachers’ salaries should ‘compare favourably with salaries paid in other occupations requiring similar or equivalent qualification.’ The guiding principle? ‘Advance in education depends largely on the qualifications and ability of the teaching staff in general and on the human, pedagogical and technical qualities of the individual teachers.’ Forty years on, these things still need to be addressed. World Teachers’ Day might just be the right day on which to address them.

Letters to the editor

Professional standards in Victoria are here, now

Fran Cosgrove, Acting Group Manager, Standards and Professional Learning Branch, Victorian Institute of Teaching
I was intrigued by a brief news item, ‘By the profession, for the profession,’ in the March edition of Professional Educator. (5(2): 29) While wholeheartedly endorsing the view that professional standards need to be determined by the profession for the profession, I was rather dismayed at the comment that this was a long way off in Australia.

Educators show solidarity in rejecting a-to-e reports

Wendy Currie, Research Officer, New South Wales Teachers Federation
In a display of solidarity, about 1,300 public schools in New South Wales have already determined that they ‘cannot and will not implement the government’s unacceptable reporting requirements.’

Opinion

The AQTF Code

Forget whether Jesus was married or whatever; the newly discovered transcripts of the Gospel ccording to Judas reveal the real reason Jesus and Judas fell out: it was all about proper procedure, as Ian Broinowski explains.

Professional Teachers

Ange Kenos is President of the Western region of the Australian College of Educators in Melbourne.
He is the co-author of texts in legal studies, been a pioneer in VCE Economics and has taught broadly in the secondary sector for more than twenty years.

Features

Bush School - Warrego School: the story behind the story

Bush School, a documentary that screened last month on SBS, told the story of Warrego School and its conversion to an Indigenous school serving the remote Mungalawurru community. Here, Colin Baker tells the story behind the story.

Research

Informing post-school pathways - Investigating school students’authentic work experiences

How do you help students to develop a better understanding of post-school pathways?
By using their paid work experiences to get them thinking and talking, as Stephen Billett explains.

Rationalised Cheating - What turns honest students into cheats?

You can prevent or reduce cheating among students who are happily dishonest by convincing them that they’ll be caught, but how do you stop students who rationalise their cheating by reinterpreting their behaviour as honest?
Just make it more difficult for them to describe cheating as anything other than cheating, says Bill Von Hippel.

The Profession – A-to-E reports

Judy King looks at A‑to‑E reporting and rates the new assessment system. Will she give it an A?

Issues

Letting students choose their own History - And why the Commonwealth government is all wrong about the teaching of history

Let students co-construct their curriculum and not only do you empower and motivate them in their learning, but you also equip them with the capacity to be independent, self-directed and purposeful learners, says Joe Alexander.

Academic prose it’s not academic; it’s boring

Since, from a semiological point of view, academic prose operates according to the syntactic and semantic modalities that govern the particular denotative and connotative discourses of particular academic communities, its sociocultural function is a sociological marker, embodied in the work of academic
communities as a code.

Lost already? That, says Zofia Pawlaczek, is as much as to say that academic prose has become impenetrable – and just plain boring

Teaching and Learning

Suzie Vlaming looks at a new pilot program that may hold the key to boosting teacher retention rates in south-western Sydney

National Perspective

Performance-based pay, merit-based pay, incentives for highachieving teachers, incentives for teachers of high-achieving students or just a storm in a teacup?
Steve Holden reports.

In Brief

Transforming Education

Education Journalism

Accc says no to AHiSA deal

Interview

Love Learning

How do you make sure your students love learning? By listening to your students’ questions and giving them the opportunity, and guidance, to find their own answers.
Steve Holden spoke with Andy Flouris to find out how

Review

Beyond the reading wars edited by Robyn Ewing, published by PETA, reviewed by Marion Meiers

The Diary

Want to know about professional development opportunities, conferences and just plain useful stuff? the Diary tells you what’s on.

As i see it... School Concerts

School Concerts

Every year, at exactly this time, school students across the nation prepare to face the most daunting and difficult challenge of their entire school life: a challenge of mental ability, emotional stress, and physical stamina. It is, of course, the annual end-of-year school concert. Danny Katz remembers.