Rainier,
Generally speaking, you can teach whatever way you want, as long as your students pass their exams (if you do believe in exams), and as long as your students are progressively getting better grades over time, and not remaining at the same level as the students from 30 years ago.

You want some type of information regards teaching, so you should know about the Australian Council for Educational Research web-site http://www.acer.edu.au/

There is a interesting list of the most common characteristics of effective teachers here
http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/policy_initiatives_reviews/key_issues/boys_education/guiding_principles_in_educating_boys.htm

You can pretend that the teaching systems being used in schools are as effective as possible, but if you want to learn about effective teaching and training practices, then research any manufacturing company that exports onto the world market, and also has at least 1 million man hours between lost injuries for its workforce. There you will likely find some real teaching and training, and not the pretend teaching and training that occurs in schools.

Also if you are a male teacher, then realise that you are a dying breed if things do not change, and change quite rapidly. You can contact the Central QLD University and ask for the booklet on their courses in the Creative and Performing Arts, Education, Humanities and Social Science. You can count the number of pictures of students and the testimonials from past students in that booklet. I count 11 photos of students, and 6 testimonials from past students. All photos are of female students, and all testimonials are from female students. They don't want male students to enroll. The trend has now started to remove males from Universities. So you have no future if you want to agree with, or accept feminist type education systems.

• Boazy,

That KD is a disciple of Howard is not immediate problem for me. Mind you, dinosaurs like KD are fun to play with.

That he is attempting to create a crisis out of nothing and to demonise underpaid and hardworking teachers is.

As for the political atmosphere, we it hasn't really changed that much for me and mine over the last 218 years so it’s really business as usual. Another day - another Tory to exasperate. Many belong to the Australian Labor party for your information.

• Sir Vivor, you're right mate, I shouldn't feed him anymore, and he’s getting very obese. But I can't help myself; old teachers never give up, even on the most resistant and belligerent.
I sense HRS is learning something from me, he just won't admit it!
But best I stop now before he explodes

David_BOAZ

You ask what motivates me and Ranier and suggest some answers - without a shred of evidence. So what's new on OLO?

Ranier can speak for himself (and does it more than eloquently); but it would be more intellectually honest if you addressed the substance of my arguments rather than try to pin me down to some (mistaken) ascription of motives. You can't dispense with people's argument by merely placing a label on them.

Donnelly's just a paid stooge, retained by the rodent Federal government to put the boot into State-based education systems and teachers at every opportunity. Fortunately, he doesn't do it very well.

This 'chaplain' business has got to be one of the most nakedly obvious 'wedge' ploys I've seen yet from them. The thing that surprises me most is that anybody takes it seriously.

Sure, increase existing counselling and support services for students and (and teachers), but keep the godbotherers away from impressionable and vulnerable kids. Of course the fundies want to get into our schools - in order to proselytise, brainwash, groom and recruit.

Howard, Donnelly and others of their ilk will go along with this because they know that schoolkids who are susceptible to these activities will end up being conservative-voting happyclapping androids such as we see at Hillsong etc. This, of course, is the real agenda.

HRS,

Schools already have transition programs for students moving from primary to secondary and orientation programs for students moving up a level. I suppose they are the equivalent of your induction programs, but they really are neither here nor there in the great scheme of things. The problems in education will not be solved by better transition or orientation programs.

That you have rarely heard a teacher mention safety is not surprising. Schools are not factories. There are not problems with safety. Schools, in Victoria at least, have health and safety officers and representatives; they have fire drills; they have procedures in place for evacuations, etc. But I cannot think of a single reason for a teacher to mention these things in conversation with you or anyone else. Whether or not a teacher talks to you about student safety says nothing about school management practices. Risk management is required of the system and is done, but that has nothing to do with education itself. It is to do with safe lifting, level pavements, fume cupboards in science labs, etc. It's hardly a topic of interesting conversation. I don't normally tell people I meet that I have just rung the CFA to organise the annual inspections of fire extinguishers (something that is, surprisingly, part of my specific job as a so-called “Expert Teacher”). Schools have furniture too, but we don't tend to talk about it much either.

No-one is saying that everything is perfect in our schools, but most of us actually in schools are saying that Kevin Donnelly's picture of a low-standard, morally empty, discipline-free education system controlled by PC trendoids is false. We use a variety of teaching methods, we update through PD, we have set outcomes and standards, we assess work, we report on student progress (in Victoria now, with the strictest reporting system I have ever seen), we teach proper academic subjects and we teach right from wrong. Some schools do a poor job, but the system as a whole is not falling apart. I wish you could see things from the inside.

Rainier,
Sorry, but I haven’t learnt anything from you.

Chris C,
“We use a variety of teaching methods, we update through PD, we have set outcomes and standards, we assess work, we report on student progress (in Victoria now, with the strictest reporting system I have ever seen), we teach proper academic subjects and we teach right from wrong”

Ah Hah. Now this is a part of risk management, particularly the part “we have set outcomes and standards, we assess work, we report on student progress”. That is the first step in risk management, which is to identify possible risks.

If a student is failing in some way, then that is a risk. They can be a risk to themselves and they can also be a risk to others.

The next step is to determine how to control those risks. If you are keen then you will be looking outside the education system to learn how to overcome or control risks. Many of the larger companies now have specialised risk control officers or risk control departments. Those companies can be anything from accountancy firms through to coal mines, but the techniques those companies use can also be used in schools to identify and then control risks, to either the students or the teachers and general staff.

Also about 90% of the meetings I have attended in industry have had safety as the first agenda item. This focuses people attention on the safety and general well being of the work force as first priority, and some companies now have environmental matters as the second item on the agenda.

I wonder how many teacher’s meetings have safety as the first agenda item followed by environmental matters.