Stupidity

Firstly, a few things or people who are stupid:

• Packs of cyclists who bully cars and pedestrians
• People who talk loudly on the bus
• 30 minutes of advertisements before films

Secondly, let’s talk about the stupidity of Tony Abbot, the Mad Monk. I, like most people, was shocked when Tony became leader of the opposition late last year. While I could accept a coalition party lead by Joe Hockey, Tony not only seemed primitive in his views but lacking the class or touch of an alternative prime minister. Unfortunately, little has changed about this since he has taken the reigns and started the tried and tested method of opposition: oppose everything and anything the government does. Fortunately for Tony, the Australian people are so enamoured by his stupid, straight talking style that he is achieving success in what matters most to his party: the polls.

This of itself is not an issue. Every government, no matter how good, needs a decent opposition to hold it to account and the coalition lead by Turnbull was not doing this (although in-fighting lead by Tony didn’t help). Moreover, Kevin 07 has not delivered nearly enough and, if the bashing he got on Q&A a few weeks is any indication, many swing voters are now considering not voting for him this time around. However, Tony has not offered up anything remotely like a sensible policy or realistic plan for the future. Take his environmental policy of direct action: in truth, all he wants to do is plant a few trees so that he looks like he’s doing something and then sneer at environmentalists when the world doesn’t end when they predict it. Anyone with half a brain, this does exclude most Australian voters, could see that this would not reduce emissions nearly enough but it has gotten support and people are now turning on Rudd. How about health policy: local boards running the show. Maybe Tony thinks history is crap like the environment but this is what we had before and it still doesn’t even solve the issue of local doctors, funding or waiting lists. Finally, industrial policy: work-choices-is-dead-but-we-will-introduce-it-back-piece-by-piece-although-it-cost-us-the-last-election. This is truly insane because it was Howard’s hubris in trying to once and for all screw over the Australian worker that allowed Rudd to cakewalk to the Lodge and Howard to lose his own seat. Then Eric “I’m not going to announce policy on PM” Abetz can’t make up his mind whether statements by shadow ministers is policy and won’t give any promises but criticises Rudd for making similar promises.

Thirdly, what about the teacher shortage in NSW? I read in the font of knowledge the Daily Telegraph that there are over 400 unplaced full time teaching positions vacant in NSW at the moment. This does not surprise me one bit. I have been searching for a teaching position for two months; I have registered with the DET and told them I will work in any country town as long as it is at least a 6 month contract. Have I heard from them? No. Have I got a peep about working in a hard to staff area? No. All I can say about the education system in Australia: MORONIC! My sister-in-law informs me that schools in Maitland don’t even bother advertising and the way to get a job is just ring up and they offer full time work. Listen up morons in Maitland: quality candidates need to be advertised for, I know because I now work in recruitment. People don’t have time to ring every school in a region on the off chance of finding a job. Just place a freaking advertisement and then people might apply and you might get good quality teachers. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re stupid enough not to advertise then you deserve to have unplaced, poorly recruited positions.

Fourthly: that stupid country music film that is up for best actor Oscar. Americans need to get over their obsession with drunken/dysfunctional/abusive country singers: we get it, they get drunk, screw up their lives and cry over it. As an astute reviewer for SMH put it; this would be a B-grade midday movie if not for the lead performance and for this reason it doesn’t deserve a single damn Oscar. Clooney puts in a great performance in a touching and thought provoking film but he’ll probably lose to some hick cowboy who gets drunk. Grow the f^%k up America! Stop playing cowboys and Indians and get into the twenty-first century with your taste and cultural sensitivity. And if you must watch films about drunken cowboys see Walk the Line: at least the singer isn’t fictional and it has Reese Witherspoon in it.

Lastly, some stupid things about wrestling:

• Hulk Hogan’s 1,000,000,000,000th comeback – piss off Hulk, you can barely walk let alone wrestle
• Jericho not winning the Royal Rumble – he’s been the best for the past year and he deserved to headline Wrestlemania as the winner of the rumble
• TNA – see about the Hulk but they also waste great wrestlers with ridiculous storylines and gimmicks e.g. Curryman
• WWE themed pay-per-views – Vince obviously doesn’t understand the concept of overkills, it does explain his love of people kissing his naked arse on TV, and so must destroy ladder, hell-in-a-cell, elimination chamber and submission matches by having 3+ on one night rather than as special events
• AJ Styles as the new Ric Flair – Wooooooooooo what a joke, AJ can’t style, nor profile and he looks surprisingly uncomfortable about women for a guy who’s meant to be living it up, just wrestle because that’s what people love about you
• RAW Guest hosts – please stop shilling your god damn movie, TV show or product especially if you don’t give a rat’s arse about wrestling in the first place. Apologies to Bob Barker, even though you punked out Jericho, and William Shater, whose album of spoken entrance music I would actually buy.
  

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… a HATS!

While I often marvel at the level of stupidity and ignorance in the reporting on and about education, I was incensed by the news articles that did the rounds on the so called “super teachers”. So, are they really that super?

For those who don’t know, the “super teachers” are officially called HATS (highly accomplished teachers). In order to retain their services in the public sector they are given a 20% bump on their pay up to $98,000 and get to spend less time teaching and more time mentoring other teachers and liaising with the community. Of course, there are fewer HATS but they are targeted at lower socio-economic areas to help address disadvantage in the community.

At this point, you’re probably asking why I have an issue with paying people to assist the disadvantaged. In fact, I agree with addressing the in-balance just not at the expense of all the other teachers. There are numerous problems with the scheme which I outline below.

The first major issue is the selection of the HATS. The article from the Telegraph says they underwent a “rigorous selection process” but then doesn’t explain what was so “rigorous” about it. Did they base it on test scores like NAPLAN? This would be unfair as teachers with better students would benefit while good teachers may be weighed down with poor performing students. Did they base it on student feedback? Apart from the difficulty of surveying ALL students, this ignores the fact that sometimes students may not appreciate the tough stance a teacher may take that ultimately leads to future success. What about peer feedback? If it comes down to a popularity contest among staff then this is perhaps the worst measure as many popular people are extremely inept or simply just talented at playing office politics.

The second major issue is the office dynamic of working with a HATS. Imagine this scenario if you will, your boss introduces you to a new worker X that does less of the same work as you but spends the rest of the time attending meetings. Then to top it all off, X gets paid 20% more than you and spends some of his/her time telling you how to do your job better. I know that I would feel jealous of such a worker, they get paid more than me for doing a similar job, and pretty pissed off too, where do they get off telling me how to do my job? Now combine this with the fact that teachers can be quite narky, I know because I am one and believe me most teachers can whinge with the best of them, and don’t get paid enough anyway, to me it’s a recipe for disaster. I can just imagine the staffroom conversations about the HATS that go on and I personally wouldn’t want to put down my own colleagues by demeaning them in such a manner and rubbing my fatter pay cheque in the faces to boot.

The third and last major issue is the claim that it will entice young people to go into teaching. Reality check morons: I went into teaching after finishing school on the promise of plenty of work and greater recognition. I now have to work in an administration role because I cannot find a full time role and with all the retirees coming out to replace funds lost by the GFC all those young teachers are stuck either working casual or maternity leave and hoping that another position is just around the corner. It sounds so enticing I’m sure everyone is just waiting to do a BEd so they can join the queue of under-employed teachers. Moreover, the HATS are a select group from the entire teaching force and thus the chance of a young person who becomes a teacher even achieving this status is even smaller. So I’m sure it will entice young people to become teachers: young people who can’t think through the likelihood of the event occurring and thus probably being a stupid candidate for a teaching job in the first place.

After all that you would think that I am against the scheme. On the whole yes. I would rather the government spread that money out to ALL public school teachers so that ALL teachers are made to feel special and super thus ALL public school students can perform better. Australia only needs to look at our academically bright neighbours in places such as South Korea to understand the secret to good education: appreciation and recognition. In this country, where I have taught, ALL teachers are revered and respected in the community and shown recognition for the important role they have in society. There is no shortage of quality teachers: in fact it is a difficult prospect to get into the public system because there is so much competition. So if Kevin “I wish I hadn’t voted for him” 07 wants an education revolution try this: revolutionise society’s respect for education and stop treating us like top performing sales executives that you selectively favour depending on your budget bottom line.