November Liberamente 2012 - Issue 20

Student News | Issue 20, 2012

Liberamente

‘FREELY, WITH LIBERTY’

IN THIS ISSUE: Art and Soul at Tabor Adelaide Tabor At Asbury Theological Seminary Teacher Education Graduand & Credit Union SA Teacher Education Awards Book Review SAIER Series AUSSE Student Participation Survey Winner Alumni Facebook Connections Notices

Key dates to remember!

Remember to make note of the following dates: Monday 12 November Tabor Adelaide Course Information Sessions Tuesday 27 November GCRI Book Launch Friday 7 December Free GCRI Public Lecture with Colin Humphreys

Art and Soul at Tabor Adelaide

Asbury Theological Seminary

On the evening of the 25th of October, the Chapel was turned into an art gallery for the inaugural Tabor Adelaide student Art & Soul exhibition, which featured 24 works by 9 artists.

In September, I represented Tabor Adelaide at the inaugural annual Seminary Stewardship Alliance Conference, which took place at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. Tabor Adelaide was recently selected as one of the twelve Founding Partners in the US-based alliance, a consortium of theological schools dedicated to reconnecting Christians with the biblical call to care for God’s creation. Representatives from each of the seminaries convened to discuss progress towards sustainability at their schools. They also came together in fellowship and conversation as they discovered their common ground in creation care.

The featured artworks included works by Shirley Ginsberg, Karena Forster, Hayley Kroschel, Michael Prendergast, Dimity Dalzell, Mitchell Clisby, David Pretorius, Foster Davis and guest artist Leanne Stahl.

The exhibition was launched by Tabor Adelaide Principal Don Owers, who thanked all the student artists for displaying their work stating, “To be an artist not only involves being creative. It involves being courageous.” Don ended his speech by introducing the guest speaker, Kon Heyer.

Kon is a painter, sculptor and Vice President of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts. He congratulated the artists and organisers of the exhibition and said that his impressions of the exhibition were of “warmth, charm, intimacy, rich texture and Christian aspects of the works.” Kon quoted Matisse, saying that art should be unique, new and should come from the soul, aspects which Kon saw in the works exhibited.

The wonderful atmosphere of the Chapel, the people, art and fabulous music played by Virginia Lakeman made this a very special night.

The works will be on display in the Tabor Library until the 9th November 2012. Please visit and vote for your favourite piece to win the People’s Choice Award!

Oksana Feklistova Library manager

The weekend kicked off with a “Meet and Greet”, where the foundations for new friendships and working partnerships were laid. The camaraderie continued through the first evening’s dinner at Asbury Seminary, following an opening greeting from Blessed Earth’s executive director Matthew Sleeth. The next day, representatives from each school gave presentations detailing efforts their seminary has made so far. Topics discussed included waste reduction (Tabor’s contribution), landscaping, food services, and “green” buildings. After hearing about endeavors at other seminaries, the representatives divided up into small groups to talk about future sustainability plans for their campuses as well as discussing initiatives in introducing creation care principles in curriculum development.

As a closing ceremony, twelve trees representing the founding Seminary Stewardship Alliance schools were planted on the Asbury campus. Dr. Matthew Sleeth presided over the dedication of the trees, which symbolize the flourishing partnerships at the heart of the sustainable seminary movement. We are currently working towards the establishment of an Australian cohort of seminary alliance in the coming year.

Graham Buxton - Director of the Graeme Clark Research Institute

02 | Liberamente. “freely, with liberty”

Teacher Education Graduand Celebration and Credit Union SA Teacher Education Awards 2012 Credit Union SA was established in 1958, primarily for the teaching sector. Each year Teacher Education invites Credit Union SA to set up a display at our Orientation Day and Graduand Celebration to promote their facilities and services to the student teachers and pending graduates for membership and loans.

Credit Union SA enthusiastically and generously responds, providing light refreshments for the Graduand Celebration and three annual graduand awards: Academic Award; Professional Experience Award; Professional Communication Award – each award is $100.

This year’s Teacher Education recipients were (From left to Right): Professional Communication Award – David Wigzell Professional Experience Award – Marella Hannaford Academic Award – Rennae Vincent Heylen The awards were presented by Debbie Meich from Credit Union SA at the Graduand Celebration held at Tabor on Monday 10th September 2012.

Students attended an afternoon session with senior lecturers to debrief on their completed 8-week final Professional Experience placement (Internship). Then after a short refreshment break they joined family/friends in the chapel for a celebration service at which former Teacher Education student, Lee Grigg, candidly spoke of her time at Tabor and transition into teaching (complete with a sports bag of “shoes that remind her of the many facets of being a teacher!”)

impromptu speeches on their own ‘Tabor reflections.’

Graduands now complete their exit process and are free to apply for their teaching registration and seek employment. We have already received back reports of some graduands securing 2013 teaching positions.

2012 Graduand, Claire Richards, sharing some of her ‘Tabor reflections.’

Dr. Frank Davies Head of the School of Education

Book Review - Hope: Moments of Inspiration in a Challenging World by Tim Costello My son gave me a thought provoking book for Father’s Day this year. This book, which raises funds for World Vision to continue providing hope around the world, aims to counter the despair and pessimism of contemporary society arising from significant economic and political events in recent years. Through 60-plus brief reflections on diverse and often unconnected topics, Tim explores the nature of hope and provides ideas and insights for encouraging constructive and positive actions for making the world a better place, and persevering with perceivably ‘hopeless’ causes. These are based on encounters with people, often in difficult economic and social circumstances, and everyday life events that have occurred during his life as a child in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, a theological student in Switzerland, a Baptist minister in St Kilda and Melbourne City, the Mayor of St Kilda, a family man, and as CEO of World Vision Australia.

“Today we at Tabor wish you courage - to strive for the excellence that each one of you can reach to be remembered - for your unconventional thinking, your radically new approaches, your ability to engage, to use your position to protect, expose, inspire and encourage your students.”

There has been considerable interest in this book in the mainstream media, providing an encouraging example of how Christians can communicate confidently the strengths of their faith-induced worldview in a language and manner that breaks down the barriers that exist in the public square, in order to make a difference to broader society. The strengths of this approach for me, with my passion for promoting God in this posttraditional world, includes the power of narrative in connecting with the world beyond the Church and communicating difficult concepts of the Christian message, like judgement, to the unchurched; the importance of articulating in a logical fashion the significance of Christian convictions for the issues and needs of the contemporary world and how they generate hope for societal participation; the willingness to be transparent and vulnerable about difficult questions and issues, like faith and suffering, which can’t be ignored in our contemporary world; and his appreciation of learning from different cultural and religious contexts in Australia and beyond.

The students were treated to a presentation of photographic highlights of their time at Tabor and then some gave short

David Turnbull - Senior Lecturer in Intercultural Studies

Yvonne Smuts gave a thought-provoking devotion on Courage.... “that it takes great courage to be a teacher. Some professional people of courage would be.... the Astronaut, Mountain Climber, Bomb Squad officer, Navy Seal, and then there is … the Teacher.”

“You have a heart that is different to other hearts - you have a teacher’s heart - and although you may not always teach – you will always be a teacher. “

03 | Liberamente. “freely, with liberty”

SAIER lecture Series #2 Presentation On Wednesday evening, 17th October, the second in a series of three Education lecture presentations unfolded. The presentation, titled, International education comparisons – Finland, was given

by Dr Juhani Tuovinen.

Armed with slightly more than professional interest in the Finnish education system and its performance, Dr Tuovinen revealed data and an informative dialogue that caused quite a number of audience members to make physical notes about the topic. It is no coincidence that Finland outperforms Australia in all categories of the (international) PISA tests, and has done so consistently since their comparative analyses inception in 2000.

The sustained excellent academic output results may be attributed to multiple factors, including: *Community attitude towards teachers (ranked in the top 3 prestigious occupations in Finland) * ‘Hands-off’ Government policy and practice (leaving education to the educators) * Teacher quality (must have a Master degree to gain a permanent position ANYWHERE in Finland) * Schools (nationwide consistency of quality, small class sizes, broad general education, equity for all schools, extra help for learning difficulties without cumbersome access processes and criteria, academic achievement as the systemic focus) *Students (accepting of authority & obedience at school, interest/ engagement in reading, maintaining a balance between reading & technology, self-concept in reading, cultural artefact respect & recognition, home libraries).

Quite apart from a robust yet diverse curricula offering, Finland annually accepts only about 12% of applicants for school positions: typically 600 from over-4500 hopeful inquirers.

Teacher preparation is of 5-years duration: 3 years for a basic degree followed by 2 years to achieve Master level before being entitled to a permanent school position. Selection for course entry involves consideration of Matriculation marks, psychological test profiles, interviews and school recommendations. Pre-service teacher training is research-based, founded on continuing educational research, with both an undergrad thesis and Master thesis required. During their pre-service period, Finnish teachers are prepared for operating at a broad level of school management, to undertake curricula design & resource material selection, as well as classroom practice.

To enable such high quality teacher education, Universities have their own teacher training schools, staffed by university staff, which removes any practicum placement issue matters while ensuring that the in-school mentoring is synchronised with the university education. Other schools from the general education system are also used for further training.

Interestingly, as part of any comparative checklist, special nation-wide programmes for Science & Mathematics operate, all students receive one hot meal in the middle of the day plus health & dental care, all provided free of charge.

There are challenges for Finland though, including encouraging the remaining 5% of post-Year 10 students to continue education, and the issue we would ALL like to have – “What next for the Finnish system?” There is no clear vision for the future because it has all been running so well for so long. Overall, a very enlightening presentation.

David Wescombe-Down Education Postgraduate Studies Coordinator

AUSSE Student Participation Survey Winner Congratulations to Andrea Carter whose name was drawn from those who had completed the AUSSE Student Participation Survey conducted at Tabor Adelaide this year. Dr Don Owers presented Andrea with a $200 voucher to spend at Koorong Bookshop.

Johanne Manning PA to the Principal

Alumni Facebook Connections Stay in touch and LIKE Tabor Alumni on Facebook

Find us @ www.facebook.com/#!/TaborAlumni?fref=ts

04 | Liberamente. “freely, with liberty” Course Information Sessions

GRAEME CLARK RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Science and Miracles FREE PUBLIC LECTURE Friday 7 December 2012 Open Night at Tabor 12th November Explore your study options for 2013!

Discover your potential through study options at Tabor Adelaide.

Come along and hear a 30 minute presentation by the faculty of your choice. All information sessions begin at 7.30 pm followed by an opportunity for questions and a chat with key staff.

Education, Ministry, Theology, Intercultural Studies and TESOL, Vocational Education Training, Humanities, Youth Work, Counselling Tea and coffee will be supplied Please send your registrations to enquiry@adelaide.tabor.edu.au For more information please visit our website at www.taboradelaide.edu.au

with Sir Colin Humphreys Professor of Materials Science, Cambridge University, world-renowned physicist, science adviser to the UK government, and past chairman of the UK-based ‘Christians in Science’. .....................................................................................................................

7:30 PM in Room 2 Tabor Adelaide 181 Goodwood Road, Millswood RSVP Colleen Walker gcri@adelaide.tabor.edu.au Tertiary education with a Christian Perspective 08 8373 8777 www.taboradelaide.edu.au

181 Goodwood Rd Millswood SA 5034 PO Box 1777 Unley SA 5061 tel. +61 8 8373 8777 fax. +61 8 8373 1766 www.taboradelaide.edu.au When was the last time you checked your student emails?

Tertiary education with a Christian perspective.

Contact Us. Tabor Adelaide, located in South Australia, is a multi denominational Christian Education Centre offering government accredited courses at tertiary level.

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