opinion
letters
Power to crusade for top teachers
Greens stand
Robert Macklin the gadfly
THE best thing about Julia Gillard’s education “crusade” is her determination to raise the standard and status of teachers. And lest I be accused of special pleading, let me confess immediately that I am married to one of Canberra’s most beloved teachers. Wendy has devoted a lifetime to the joyous musical and general education of young Territorians. And even now, when she might be putting her feet up, painting or composing her children’s songs (she has created the anthems for half a dozen of our primary schools), she returns as a relief teacher one or two days a week. But while she enjoys the challenge, she has been witness to the progressive fall in the place teachers occupy in our community. And, sadly, it has occurred in line with the feminisation of the profession, particularly in primary school. Teaching has become the secondary job within a partnership and, while women are wonderful teachers, they are the first to say that there’s a desperate need for
10 CityNews September 20-27
dose of dorin more men on staff, especially with the marked increase in single parent and blended families. Boys from such families can be greatly assisted by the male mentor and role model. But if you want more men you have to increase the pay and the status of the job. Moreover, classroom teachers are called upon to accept everincreasing responsibilities for the social development of the pupil in addition to formal instruction. This involves additional training and skills development of a high order which should add not just to
greater job satisfaction, but more take home pay as well. Raising the standards of individual teachers would also improve the quality of their representatives. I have had personal dealings with teachers’ union leaders at the national level and they are, sadly, second rate. Most would be more appropriate running the Builders Labourers’ Federation. Teaching, like journalism, occupies that equivocal position between trade and profession, but the best practitioners see it as a vocation, and that is not reflected in the
snarling outbursts of the teachers’ union leadership. Better teachers will elect better leaders. We have three parallel systems in Australia. The expensive independent schools somehow manage to eliminate the hard cases: the class disrupters and the seriously disadvantaged. The Catholic and Evangelical group undermine the quest for true understanding with their religious instruction. The public school teachers have to deal with the full spectrum, from the brightest to the most needy, and with many parents who have abandoned their own responsibilities. I strongly suspect that if the Gillard crusade succeeds, the best and the brightest teachers will increasingly avoid the soft option and the religious institutions, and make their way into the public system. And as they bring new status and esteem to the public schools, parents (and pupils) will reverse the trend and follow. Julia Gillard, I suggest, is very well aware of this most important effect of her crusade. If so, she is showing a rare and delightfully subtle approach to policy making. More power to her. robert@robertmacklin.com
SORRY, Patricia Saunders (letters, CN September 13), when you study politics as a major, then work with numbers of Federal Ministers and their staff over many years and then become president of an ACT community political party, you learn to read between the lines. Many of the Greens’ policies at Federal and State level are pipe dreams with little economic credibility. Their idealistic proposals are usually based on the fact that they do not have to concern themselves with stumping up the money to pay the costings attributed to them. And when we have Greens MLAs in the Assembly, including the Speaker, either not immediately criticising illegal actions (and then being forced by public opinion to do so) or giving tacit approval to those actions as was the case of the attack on CSIRO facilities, it doesn’t take an intelligent person too much time to figure out where the Greens actually stand. Ric Hingee, Duffy
Questioning Moore I QUESTION the reality of Michael Moore’s statement (CN, September 13): “The vast majority of heterosexual couples are not particularly concerned about the issue of gay marriage.” On what basis does he claim this statement to be fact? What research did he conduct to arrive at this conclusion? The opinion of individual Australians on the gay marriage issue will be known if the issue is put to a vote. We have a Federal election coming up in 2013. Lois Owers via email Letters are invited from “CityNews” readers. Let loose to editor@citynews.com.au or write to the editor at GPO Box 2448, Canberra 2601. Letters of 200 words or less stand a better chance of publication.