Jean Walker

Yes, feel free to quote me - they're only personal insights really! In our local paper this morning there was a report from "Relate" the Australian relationship counselling organisation who were quoted as saying that celebrities such as Brittany Spears and Jessica Simpson, are causing young women to go in for "starter marriages". Many celebs are marrying, magazines are full of them, and these young women in their late 20s feel they have to do the same to be accepted. The average age for women marrying for the first time is quoted as 29, but younger women are copying celebrity marriages at an earlier age. "They believe marriage makes them special and helps them stand out from the crowd. It's a romanticising of marriage in a new kind of way." "For women in the UK divorce is highest among those aged 25 to 29. Their marriages are breaking up at a rate that has more than doubled the national average. We're in a new era where marriage is not the big deal it used to be. It's all part of the so-called living a dream, and you can see how compelling that can be to young women. There's no question that seeing celebrities do it is feeding that fantasy." In the same peper there is a repor tof an interview with Jerry Hall who says she will never have plastic surgery - "If a man loves you, he accepts you the way you are. If a man asks you to have plastic surgery, he doesn't want you, he wants a trophy." Well, in my day it was put up, or shut up! Plastic surgery wasn't an option!!

Very wise words, Leslie - I think you would make a very good counsellor in your own country!! In Australia we talk about relationships very freely, there are lots of ways of acquring knowledge, plenty of relationship courses etc, but we still have a very high divorce rate. It just seems as if young people today expect too much from marriage. They want everything to be perfect all at once, and when it isn't , it's very easy and not shameful to get a divorce - or two or three! My generation (I'm 60) were brought up to expect to have to compromise, make allowances, take the rough with the smooth, and put up with some problems if the relationship was worth saving, but now that seems to be too difficult for this generation. Also, we now live much longer, healthier lives, than centuries ago, when marriages often ended in early death from disease, accidents, childbirth etc. and people either had very short lives or remarried. So they didn't have to be happy for a 40/50 year span with just one person. So, perhaps serial marriages are just the result of our different life span and expectations?

Very true, Leslie. At the beginning of last year I asked my Grade 7 students (all girls school in a very middle-class suburb) to introduce themselves to the rest of the class.I was astonished to hear almost 3/4 of them starting with "I live with my mother and sisters....." or "I live with my father and sisters/brothers......." It is not even thought of as unusual these days, but what affect will it have on future generations and their ability to form lasting relationships? Another thing which I'm becoming aware of, is the increasing likelihood of people ending up marrying their own half brother/sister etc as a result of so many children not knowing the identity of their father. There are so many young women who just want babies to occupy them and so many young men who sire children indiscriminately. Maybe there was never a "golden" era, but at least it was a bit more responsible.

But how do you get this message to fundamentalists who sincerely believe that they will go to a better place and their soul be rewarded for eternity in return for slaughtering innocent people, including children?

I'm a Civil Marriage Celebrant here in Tasmania and we are having all sorts of discussions on this topic. Our right-wing Liberal govt tried to make celebrants offer relationship training last year. We defeated them on that but had to accept the compulsory distribution of relationship training pamphlets to couples. This, to my mind, is a complete waste of time, as 99% of my couples have been living together for varying periods of time and simply want to make the relationship legal, often because of children, family pressure, or health reasons. They are totally uninterested in reading How to Relate brochures and often say they find it insulting to be given them by a Civil Celebrant. It is also interesting that on our Celebrants' Association Chatline there was a recent discussion on Internet relationships - apparently Celebrants around Australia are noticing that they are increasingly marrying couples who have met that way. Morally, after 10 years of practice, I'm no longer sure where I stand. Does it matter if couples divorce? Unmarried, they would probably move from one relationship to another in just the same way - the only difference being they pay courts and lawyers large amounts of money to process it. Does legal marriage encourage people to stay together? I don't believe so. The real problem seems to me to be the lack of will to solve problems, to compromise, accept imperfection and the realities and frailties of the human condition. Being able to do those things has nothing to do with being lawfully married or cohabiting. Nevertheless, I am happy to go on marrying couples who see this as something they want to do!!

I don't personally watch these shows - much rather watch 10th reruns of Black Adder and As Time Goes By via satellite, being as old as I am - but I now work in an organisation where the office staff are very much part of our daily life, and I have come to realise how seriously they take these shows and how much their attitudes and beliefs are shaped by them. The talk at tea breaks is often a heated debate about what's happened the night before and what might or might not happen next. There's nothing wrong with vicarious experiences, most of my generation got it from books and cinema, but it depends on the values being espoused and the previous writers are right - these are not good values. It seems to be all about selfishness, greed, anger, envy, jealousy and every man for him/herself. It may be going a bit far, but I believe these shows are already making these types of values acceptable and even desirable among young people.

Hello I joined this forum earlier this year and enjoy posting here. I was a classroom teacher of secondary English/Social Science/Special Needs for 30 years. I am also an active and ardent unionist and was elected to the fulltime, paid position of State President of our union (The Australian Education Union - Tasmanian Branch) at the beginning of this year. We're small compared with the UK (5500) members, but because we only have one national teachers' union which incorporates all education workers, including Principals, TAs, TAFE (like your old polytechs) as well as teachers, in every state, we are very strong with about 90% membership in most states. I'm particularly interested in comparative education, curriculum issues, special needs and teacher conditions and find this site a very useful source of international information. I am English by birth - born in Huddersfield - and my partner (a Geordie) and I travel back to the UK regularly. We are dreadful Europhiles and love to visit France, Spain and Italy in paerticular.

What do people think about paying teachers at different rates to attract/retain them. Do you offer more pay to Science/Maths/IT teachers? Suggestion here at the moment is either better pay or fewer working hours. Can it be done without causing divisiveness?

Here in Tasmania my union has just released the findings of a major workload study which we commissioned from our University last year. It shows that teachers are working long hours, considered "dangerous" by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Even extrapolated over a "normal" 46 week working year, teachers work at least a 40 hour week. If you want to read the whole report it's available on our website www.aeutas.org.au

Yes, me too. I really missed all of you the last few weeks. Looking forward to getting back into debating mode!! Thanks for getting yopurself back on line.

I thought I read in the weekly edition of The Telegraph that I get here, that Blair had said he would not give any money at all to private schools? I've just been at a National Curriculum Conference here in Tasmania entitled: Leadership, Breaking the Rules. Keynote speaker was woman from UK - de Quesnay, can't remember first name. Head of something like a National Leadership Institute (sorry, left the program at work and having memory lapse). Anyone heard of her? Main theme was about Heads/principals' new types of leadership models and "facing the challenges of 21st century management etc etc

Teachers do blame parents for their childdren's behaviour, but in my long experience of classroom teaching in difficult schools it's not because they stayed home with them and smiled at them or didn't stay home with them, but because so many have no idea of the basic principles of child rearing, regardless of income or education. There seems to be a growing trend amongst the young middle-class of the belief that kids do not need rules, structures or boundaries, that somehow "freedom" is everything and if you love them enough everything will come out right in the end. While at the other end of the spectrum, the offspring of the previously working class, but now generationally unemployed, is one of hatred towards all authority, disregard for the truth, and support of their children past all common sense. Maybe this is not so much the case in Sweden? Our own Minister for Education avows the principle of never saying No to her own two young children - but on the quiet her colleagues, relations (and somewhat indiscreet cleaning lady) says they are unmanageable and objectionable. I find that many professional/educated mothers who are now having their children very late in life seem to be totally and obsessively child-centred to the detriment of the child, while the growing numbers of young single mothers lose control of their children after the first few years and produce totally unmanageable adolescents, and the very poor unemployed simply give up because it's all too hard and the chip on their shoulder against society grows ever bigger. While I know this is generalising and we can all think of exceptions, I do believe these are more the causes than whether a mother stays at home or not.

One problem in current society here and probably the UK - our PM has introduced a "baby bonus" - $3000 after the birth of each child. However, guess who will have three babies in three years - the educated 20-30 year olds or the 15-18 unemployed? He has had to amend it so that "those at risk" only get it in instalments, but even a $300 instalment will buy you a new TV or DVD player or even an old car - who will benefit?

What Anders describes is what is happening in Australia. Private schools are funded by both our state govt (25%) and the federal govt and the formula for funding which has developed during the current Liberal rule has become so inequitable and elitist that already wealthy private schools are receiving more money than poorer ones, can charge whatever fees they want, have no accountability, while govt schools are starved of funds and fast becoming ghettos. Here, many of those who send their children to private schools claim that the govt SHOULD fund them because they pay their taxes and should be entitled to get them back via school funding. However, I much prefer the arguments offered above about govts insisting on schooling and therefore providing the best. It is an extremely touchy subject here and rates third in our current election issues after terrorism and health - our health system, once one of the best in the world is falling apart. We have 30% of students in private schools, which is absolutely ridiculous.

I can't add anything scientific except I was fairly unusual in my time as a fulltime working mother in the 60s and 70s whose three sons all went at an early age to a childcare centre. They are now perfectly normal adults and were not badly behaved at school - not perfect, but generally average boys. If it's such a scientific theory surely it should have applied to at least one out of the three?

Maggie What you describe is very much what we are doing here with our new curriculum, The Essential Learnings - no curriculum at all actually, but the freedom to do these sort of activities and be accredited for the outcomes set by the teacher. I like that part of it - it's just getting the balance of basic skills/content teaching and this sort of activity right. We have no exams until Yr 12 but our students still do very well in international comparisons, so I think you're right when you say "What kind of learning is going on?"

You are all such mines of information, I have another question. (Hope you're not sick of them yet!! Are there any countries in Europe which employ Teacher Assistants as para-professionals, with duties more responsible than the usual Teacher Aide? If so, where and does anyone have any details of how they work?

Anne This was meant for you too - you may be interested in our total reform of Special Ed - all money devolved directly to clusters of 5-7 schools who can do with it whatever they want for physical, intellectual and behavioural disabilities, provided they can show some reasonable outcomes - even, as the authors note, it is just a smile from a severely disabled student. In one fell swoop, our Minister has wiped out an entire level of bureaucracy and put them back into schools. Our top bureaucracy will be reduced to 6 from 20, and 200 Support Teachers will be moved from district ofices directly into schools and be reponsible to them. In our case it will mean an extra full-time SEN teacher in every school and $2m to each cluster. It's quite scary for some, but could be highly beneficial to kids if it works. The review that was commissioned showed that in one district only 40% of money was actually getting to the SEN kids.

I only just spotted that my quote had been transferred to this thread - which is fine by me. Perhaps I should say that our system is a little different from the one you describe there. We (the union) are adamant that the positions here will be permanent, there will be no quota, and the AST will have a very clearly defined position embedded in our Teaching Award. Perhaps we do not have the same sort of local politics as you. We are state controlled and although some ASTs might be "party-line" followers, they would be no more so than those who are still wanting to get on - perhaps less so seeing that the ASTs would have already won a permanent "promotion". Because staff here are state appointed as in France, and transferrable, and we have only one nation-wide union, I tend to think we do not get pressured/manipulated in quite the same ways that happen in the UK. I am certainly hoping that it will work for experienced teachers. However, our govt has just this week dropped a bombshell - there is to be a completely new para-professional layer appointed, to be called Assistant Teachers who will sit between TAs and Teachers, have required qualifications, teacher conditions including duty of care, but a clearly defined and regulated job description. I have already told our Minister that we will NOT have the situation that has developed in the UK re TAs, and we go into consultation next week about it. This is part of a complete overhaul, biggest in history of our DoE, of all DoE operations and systems and the devolvement of all special needs money to schools. If anyone is interested in the full report (Title: Atelier Report) on www.aeutas.org.au

Maggie (and others) http://www.aeutas.org.au/main.htm Here is the link to the document.

Maggie I thought you may be interested in the fact that the DoE of my state has just brought down and completely accepted all the recommendations of an independent review into our SEN delivery. It is sweeping and wide-ranging and has been both welcomed and derided according to who/what you are. It will be adopted wholesale from next year. One of the innovations will be a new class of para-professionals, trained , qualified and better paid, who will be called Assistant Teachers. There are lots and lots of interesting stuff in it, all 82 pages, and I will send you the link to the document shortly.

And as another aside, can I recommend Alain de Botton's recent book: Anxiety Status. Has some marvellous quotes from various philosophers and has helped me make sense of certain people I am dealing with at the moment. Very interesting that the reasons for our insatiable need for status have changed so dramatically over time. Anyone else read it?

Thanks, Maggie. I appreciate your help.

This is such a useful site for garnering information! 1. Please, can someone give me a brief run-down on how teachers are currently employed in the UK? Are they still all directly appointed by school heads or boards, do they get a set-term contract, then permanency or do some always stay on contracts? 2. Is the fight about what teachers and teacher aides can/can't do still raging or has it been settled? Thanks in advance.

It might cheer you up a bit to know that here in Oz private schools charge about 3000/4000 pounds a year fees and then on top of that they get huge federal funding, some state funding and also run as a business with investments, donations, grants etc. The result is that some of the top private schools have over 40% more spending power per pupil than govt schools and they have no accountability whatsoever to deliver a state/national curriculum. In other words they are actually government schools which are allowed to charge fees to top up their funds. The argument given by parents of those who attend private schools is that they pay their taxes so should get them back regardless of where they send their child. They also claim (as does the federal govt) that if all kids went to state schools it would cost them even more. What they won't admit is that the problem is that we spend only 4.3 GDP on education compared with 7 or 8 % in places such as Scandinavia.