Volume Eight, Edition 1 (March 2021)

13
1 Volume Eight, Edition 1 (March 2021) Education in Queensland has produced memorable catch-cries such as: “excellence”, design thinking”, “visible learning”, success criteria, “learning intentions”, “a right to access the curriculum”, “inclusiveness” and intellectual rigour”. These aims are laudable, but the tools of educational improvement need to be closely studied. What, in essence, are we faced with? We have a teaching body with the more experienced teachers about to retire and the other teachers being somewhat wearied and confused and frustrated by changing curricula, increasing problems in classroom discipline and the current belief that teachers and schools are there to solve the ills of society. A good number of their students come from disadvantaged backgrounds and unstable family relationships. A culture weakened by increasing drug usage is stretched financially as unemployment rises (especially youth unemployment) and our children are staying longer and longer in school or just staying home with us. What can we as parents and concerned citizens do? Firstly, and most importantly, BE INFORMED. Not a simple task when the appropriate language is constantly changing and becoming more and more obscure. Secondly, BE INVOLVED. Read, join a community discussion group or a Political Party and speak up at school events (bring along some other parents for moral support). Welcome to our March 2021 edition of “Education Uptake”. In this edition, alongside our popular current issuesand letters to the editorsections, our investigative reporter, Elizabeth Clarke, looks at numeracy and literacy topics, our politically savvy Lee Nightingale presents a well-constructed argument for the need to treasure and respect Australias Westminster System of Government and, last but not least, our always entertaining writer, Bruce Nickel, gives us a good belly laugh with his humorous article entitled: “Is work the curse of the drinking class?”. Please enjoy reading over our newsletter and feel free to pass it on to family and friends whom you feel might be interested in its content. FROM THE EDITOR Patricia Monsour

Transcript of Volume Eight, Edition 1 (March 2021)

Page 1: Volume Eight, Edition 1 (March 2021)

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Volume Eight, Edition 1 (March 2021)

Education in Queensland has produced memorable catch-cries such as: “excellence”,

“design thinking”, “visible learning”, “success criteria”, “learning intentions”, “a right to

access the curriculum”, “inclusiveness” and “intellectual rigour”. These aims are laudable,

but the tools of educational improvement need to be closely studied. What, in essence, are

we faced with?

We have a teaching body with the more experienced teachers about to retire and the

other teachers being somewhat wearied and confused and frustrated by changing curricula,

increasing problems in classroom discipline and the current belief that teachers and schools

are there to solve the ills of society. A good number of their students come from

disadvantaged backgrounds and unstable family relationships. A culture weakened by

increasing drug usage is stretched financially as unemployment rises (especially youth

unemployment) and our children are staying longer and longer in school or just staying

home with us.

What can we as parents and concerned citizens do?

Firstly, and most importantly, BE INFORMED.

Not a simple task when the appropriate language is constantly changing

and becoming more and more obscure.

Secondly, BE INVOLVED.

Read, join a community discussion group or a Political Party and speak

up at school events (bring along some other parents for moral support).

Welcome to our March 2021 edition of “Education Uptake”. In this edition, alongside

our popular ‘current issues’ and ‘letters to the editor’ sections, our investigative reporter,

Elizabeth Clarke, looks at numeracy and literacy topics, our politically savvy Lee

Nightingale presents a well-constructed argument for the need to treasure and respect

Australia’s Westminster System of Government and, last but not least, our always

entertaining writer, Bruce Nickel, gives us a good belly laugh with his humorous article

entitled: “Is work the curse of the drinking class?”.

Please enjoy reading over our newsletter and feel free to pass it on to family and

friends whom you feel might be interested in its content.

FROM THE EDITOR

Patricia Monsour

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NUMERACY AND LITERACY:

It is my opinion that the various Education Departments of Australia are overloaded

with experts who have high degrees in various areas of study, but very little experience.

In a previous article I wrote that when I was at Teacher’s College in Queensland, we

spent two whole days a week at a school, learning from (hopefully) the class teacher to

assist any children who were having difficulty with or were slow in completing any set

tasks. They were valuable ‘hands-on’ days.

Years later a good teacher friend of mine, Joyce Milligan, phoned a university in

Brisbane and was told that those studying to become teachers spent 75 hours per year in a

classroom. I might add here that I personally sense a difference between studying teaching

at a university and training at a college.

So - back to the experts. When I was working as a teacher at Primary Correspondence

School, we Year One teachers were working with papers set by an expert with a Masters

Degree in Mathematics. In the third week of school, the word ‘fewer’ was to be taught. The

instructions to be given to the pupils were:

• Put out a set of one matchbox. Touch and count

• Put out another matchbox. Touch and count your

set of two matchboxes

• Put out another matchbox. Touch and count your

set of three matchboxes

Now the teacher was told to ask the pupils, “Have I more or fewer matchboxes in my set of

three matchboxes than I had in my set of two matchboxes?”

Talk about hiding a simple question in a confusion of words. Answer the question yourself.

The answer is MORE.

The word FEWER needs to be given to the pupil in a taking-away situation (e.g. teacher

and student each picking up a few smarties and putting them out, matching one-to-one to

find out who has more.

Then say, “You (or I) have fewer smarties”. Just as we teach an infant “This is your ball”

the word ‘fewer’ needs to be supplied to the learner. Words cannot simply be plucked out of

the air.

OVERLOADED

WITH EXPERTS

By Elizabeth Clarke

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The same papers taught ‘above’ and ‘below’ with these steps:

• Go to the door

• Put your hand on the knob

• Now put your hand ABOVE the door knob

• Now put your hand BELOW the door knob

There you are. Simply give a command and the child will comply as if those words are

programmed into the brain at birth and a command is all that is needed to bring them forth.

On another topic – the disorder ‘dyslexia’ that somehow became an accepted reading

problem only after we discarded phonics-based reading in Queensland around 1960 and

changed to whole-word recognition primers. I remember an expert (a professor) in the

1980’s wrote about the emerging problem. He wrote two very good books on the topic. But

one book I recently read on dyslexia actually had an

example placed on its cover of a child’s writing

seemingly to demonstrate that child’s many letter

and word confusions.

Remember, dyslexics:

1. confuse d/b. p/q

2. confuse on/no, saw/was

3. will truncate words like rember for remember

I wonder who chose the child’s writing for the cover of the book for if you go back and

actually study that writing looking for the three examples of dyslexia stated above you will

find:

1. d/b confusion? Darck, inda, cold, Darckr, Dings, smoshd, bits, Ilond, Difacaley,

mad(e). No problem observable BUT wherever this child wanted to use ‘d’ as the

first letter in a word, he used the capital D. I would guarantee that this child learned

to read using a whole-word language approach (similar to the Queensland Happy

Venture series which introduced Dick and Dora as first sight words and then

immediately afterwards introduced to Nip and dog – instant D/d confusion). There

was the sound for the fourth letter of the alphabet ‘d’ – a stroke with a left-hand curve

– introduced to the developing brain for a first impression as a stroke with the curve

to the right ‘D’. It is no wonder then that the child worked out that whenever ‘d’ was

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to be used as the first letter of a word, it must be ‘D’. THAT IS HOW CHILDREN

LEARNING TO RECOGNISE WHOLE WORDS MAY WORK OUT THINGS

FOR THEMSELVES. The child however wrote the ‘d’ in the words: ‘India’, ‘and’,

‘bits’, ‘Island’, ‘made’ all correctly. Imagine if Queensland had chosen readers that

used Janet and Jane instead of Dick and Dora then children like the child used on the

book’s cover may not also been so confused, if only ……...

2. Then, does this child confuse was/saw? No – the child wrote ‘wos’ and I ‘sor’.

3. Does the child truncate longer words? No – the child tried ‘torefic’ and ‘Difacaley’.

Both of these were good efforts at writing terrific and difficulty. The child was not

dyslexic – only confused, trying to do too much too soon. In the Year One class of

my Queensland friend, Margaret Lloyd, and in the Year One classrooms of many

other good teachers, the child would have had

the errors on the cover of that book explained to

him or her. And, that child would have been a

star pupil. One wonders if the child ever figured

out D & d. Even when we, in Queensland, were

made to use the Dick and Dora books, the

wonderful Margaret Lloyd would hand on to me

(as a Year Two teacher) children who had very little problem with d, b & D. She

continued to use a phonics-based reading approach in her classroom alongside the

Dick and Dora books. At the same time, I was not asking them to write stories before

I taught them to print/write words, phrases, etc.

I am just trying to prove a point. Being an expert, an author or even a professor

doesn’t mean you’ll always get the basics correct. In the days of traditional teaching, we

early childhood teachers often came across problems similar to those shown in the child’s

example on that book’s cover. We knew from our experience how to identify them and how

to assist our students to correct those errors.

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EDUCATION UPTAKE is a newsletter written by responsible community members and

practising teachers experienced in the areas of learning

support, infant, primary, secondary and tertiary

education who are members or friends of the

Queensland Democratic Labor Party’s Education

Committee.

The Education Committee meets regularly and

welcomes correspondence to the editor on its

newsletter’s content or on any educational topics

through its email address of [email protected]

or through its postal address of P.O. BOX 3086, CHERMSIDE WEST, Q., 4032.

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OPINION PIECE:

Introduction:

The Constitutional Monarchy is an inherent part of the Westminster System of

Government not only in Queensland but throughout all of Australia. The Westminster

System of Government in Australia includes many qualities such as the following:

• A Constitutional Monarch

• A Governor General who is the Head of State in Australia

• The Governor General is also the Head of the Armed Forces of Australia

• A Federal Constitution based upon a Federation of States in Australia

• The separation of powers (the Legislative, the Executive and the Judicial)

• Equality before the law

• Trial by Jury

• Innocent until proven guilty

• A politically independent Judiciary

• A politically independent Public Service

• An elected Parliament

• A parliamentary democracy

• A politically independent Auditor General

• Checks and balances on political power

• A Federal Senate and State Upper Houses

• A Governor General and State Governors with reserve powers and conventions

• In essence a decentralised political system and structures

How the Westminster System came about:

Turning our minds to the past and how the

Westminster System of Government was brought

about, I can say that this was a great cost to Great

Britain with the loss of many lives in a Civil War

centuries ago which was a tragic event. People from

England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales all paid a price

in blood. Then there is the narrative of the English

Lion and the Scottish Unicorn when the two

kingdoms became one, called the United Kingdom.

The coat of arms shows a crown with a lion on the left

and a unicorn on the right.

WE NEED TO TREASURE AND

PROTECT AUSTRALIA’S

WESTMINSTER SYSTEM

OF GOVERNMENT

By Lee Nightingale

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The Westminster System has been given free of charge to Australia due to our being

a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and Australia being settled by Great Britain

back in 1788. Most Australians do not realise what a treasure we have in our possession.

The United Nations rates nations like ours in the top quarter of countries with the best, most

stable governments in the world. Other nations I suggest are envious of Australia for this.

Australia’s general, Sir John Monash, of World War One

fame did understand the value of the Westminster System of

Government and its institutions and its decentralised political

powers. According to a recent biography I read about Sir John

Monash, he was a strong supporter of the institutions that Australia

had inherited from Great Britain. This would make him a supporter

of the Westminster System of Government.

When World War One came, Monash volunteered when he

was about 50 years of age. I have read that Monash feared that the

Kaiser would kill his British cousin, King George V, and seize the

British Commonwealth and that Australia’s democracy as a consequence would be lost.

Monash is a hero to myself and it is sad that few Australians know of this great man

who loved the Westminster System of Government and defended it.

It is even more sad that few Australians today know about our Westminster System

of Government. Perhaps Federal and State Governments need to be more active as

advocates for and protectors of the Westminster System of Governments – especially in

times when it is under attack or being weakened.

Where the Westminster System of Government in Australia has been weakened:

Firstly, the Federal Constitutional External Affairs Power

has allowed large numbers of international treaties and

covenants to be signed and introduced into Australia without a

mandate at election time and without having a vote of the

Federal Parliament. This has resulted in the loss of Australia’s

Sovereignty, Australian Law, Australian Democratic Processes,

Values and Heritage and is such a serious matter that it needs to

be addressed as soon as practical because it is against the spirit

of the Federal Constitution. Australia needs an audit of all

international treaties and covenants introduced via the use of the

External Affairs Powers of the Federal Constitution in order to protect Australia’s

Sovereignty, Law, Culture, Democratic Processes and Values and Heritage.

Secondly, there needs to be constant vigilance that the High Court is not politicised

by having judges appointed who are tempted to act with Judicial Activism instead of being

guided by the Law and by the Australian Constitution.

Thirdly, some Federal Governments have attempted to take over State Governments

areas of responsibility and administration. This is particularly occurring in the areas of

Health and Education. This leads to unnecessary duplication and inefficiencies at great

financial cost to the people of Australia.

Fourthly, the politically independent role of the speaker and auditor general have

been under attack recently especially in the State of Queensland. These need to restored to

be in accordance with the Westminster System.

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Fifthly, an Upper House needs to be restored in Queensland in order to provide

proper checks and balances to the political power of the government.

Conclusion:

Australia is at a crossroad in our history and hard decisions need to be made in order

that our treasure, the Westminster System of Government, can be properly protected and

restored to its intended purpose. This is a large task and will require trustworthy and patient

people who understand and cherish the Westminster System to carry it out.

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CORRESPONDENCE TO THE EDITOR Correspondence to the editor is invited through Education Uptake’s

email address of [email protected] or via its postal address

of P.O. BOX 3086, CHERMSIDE WEST, Q., 4032.

Dear DLP Queensland Education Committee,

Thank you for sending me your recent DLP Qld education newsletter called QDEC.

I am looking forward to reading your other newsletter called Education Uptake when it is

published this year. I agree totally with the views expressed in your education newsletters;

most definitely true and desperately needs to be considered by all educators. Your DLP

Education Committee deserves full community and educators’ support.

One thing worth repeating in your newsletters many times would be any articles or

letters from Elizabeth Clarke. She calls the ‘new education’ a scam; it is/was. I have read

that psychologists and psychiatrists say the result of frustration and lack of education

satisfaction in teenagers is violence and lawlessness. We now have bullying as well as

lawlessness and violence; just because of the scam called ‘new education’.

Congratulations to all of you in the DLP Queensland Education Committee; your

newsletters are very well done and worth continuing; you're champions.

Barry Beetham

Dear Editor,

From my observation of Primary children during the period of the corona-virus

educational adjustments which were put into place in 2020, I became very concerned about

the effect upon those anxiety ridden children who existed in large numbers in our schools

prior to the virus hitting Australia. When the virus came they more anxiety heaped upon

their existing anxiety. Increasing tears, anger, physical reactions, wanting to stay with

parents or hang around school counsellors, showing evidence of self-harm and expressing

desire to die (even suicide) and no desire to learn were the results of the 2020 year of

corona virus time for those anxiety ridden children.

The corona-virus time was a big worry for those children without anxiety, but it was

an absolute nightmare for those who already had (for whatever reasons) anxiety. And the

poor teachers .... so stressed and wanting to help but finding it at times quite overwhelming.

With the corona-virus being seemingly under control in 2021 and schools settling

back to a more regular routine let us hope that we have learnt some vital lessons about how

best to assist children with anxiety when unexpected events raise their anxiety levels even

higher.

Barry Ainslie

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HUMOUR:

A question arose out of the side effects of the industrial revolution in England: Is it

true that drinking is the curse of the working classes? As far as I know, it has never been

properly answered.

The industrial revolution began in Britain in about 1770. Cottage industries could not

compete with steam powered factories, so workers who lost their jobs in the cottage

industries found work in the new factories. New cities sprang up around the new factories.

For example, the town of Birmingham, known as Brum to the locals, had a population of

30,806 in 1770. One hundred years later it was 343,787. By 1951 it was 1,112,340.1

Unsafe work conditions and cramped, insanitary housing soon led to the need for a

good anaesthetic to take people’s minds off their troubles. That anaesthetic was, of course,

alcohol.

The reduction of duty on spirits by 75% in 1828 gave a big

boost to the hotels but did little for other businesses. In 1850, a

leader article in a major Scottish newspaper said, “That Scotland

is, pretty near at least, the most drunken nation on the face of the

earth is a fact never quite capable of denial”. It was a polite way

of saying that the Scots were a drunken lot.

The English were not far behind the Scots. The monopoly on gin distilling was ended

in 1690. New distillers set up shop in London and elsewhere. By 1740 there were 7,000 gin

shops in London alone. Whisky, brandy and strong beer were taxed but gin was not taxed.

An advertisement of the time said in relation to gin “Drunk for a penny. Dead drunk for

tuppence.” The average Londoner was consuming 63 litres of gin per year. There was a

revival of gin consumption in the 19th century. One must conclude that the drinking classes

were numerous in England at this time.

The early days in Sydney saw a substantial drinking class. For example, in 1792 the

Governor was forced to buy 34,000 litres of whisky from an American ship because the

captain wouldn’t sell the colony any food until the whisky was sold. Convicts were not

allowed any alcohol, so it had to be consumed by the few hundred free settlers and military

1 Chambers’ Encyclopaedia, Vol 2, p.334

IS IT TRUE THAT WORK

IS THE CURSE

OF THE DRINKING CLASSES?

By Bruce Nickel

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officials. The latter also had their own private supply of alcoholic beverages so they didn’t

need another 34,000 litres of whisky. This ship load works out at over 100 litres per head of

eligible consumers. I think we can conclude that Australia had its own drinking classes

from earliest colonial days.

It was a terrible burden to inflict on the colony. The fact that the colony survived

shows that the drinking classes did their patriotic duty at this critical time. Normally one

would say they rose to the occasion, but in this case they sat down to the occasion. Indeed,

it may be the only case where the drinking classes saved a colony from starvation.

Owners of businesses other than hotels, such as John Dunlop (of tyre fame) and

William Collins (of publishing fame) complained of the demon drink. Some were now

beginning to say, “Drink is the curse of the working classes”.

Some fought against this demon. For example, an Irish priest named Theobald

Mathew established the Teetotal Abstinence Society in 1838. In 1842, he addressed a crowd

of 50,000 in Glasgow and later induced 40,000 Irish immigrants to take the pledge.

Whether they kept it is not recorded. Others took an opposite view. For example, one Clan

Chieftain, who was probably a distillery owner, had two house rules:

1. Always help yourself to a drink

and

2. Never put that drink down on a book.

Oscar Wilde simply transposed “drink” and “working” to

come up with the statement that “Work is the curse of the

drinking classes”. Wilde knew a thing or two about drinking

alcoholic beverages, so on this point he was clearly speaking

from personal experience.

The question I have asked gives rise to three questions, viz.

1. Who are the members of the drinking classes?

2. Is work always a curse for these members?

3. If there is a class of persons that can be identified as the drinking class, it follows, by

definition, that there must also be a non-drinking class. If work is the curse of the drinking

class, the obvious implication is that it is not a curse for the non-drinking class. The

question is - Is that correct?

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I think you will agree with me that these are very important questions that need

answers such as: Am I a member of the drinking class? Are you members of the drinking

class? Is there a way of working out who are and who are not members of the drinking

classes? These are difficult questions to

answer. I think the first two questions

(i.e. whether you or I are members of

the drinking class) can be answered by

looking at the amount of alcohol we

consume. Obviously one beer or wine at

Christmas or some special occasion

would not sweep you or me into the

drinking classes. Even the odd drink at

other times wouldn’t sweep us in.

We have a celebrated case from Victoria where counsel in a divorce case had

laboriously proved that the husband had committed perjury by claiming he was a teetotaller

but admitted drinking up to six beers per night. That famous Victorian judge Sir Charles

Lowe said “I suppose that makes the condition of being teetotal a little more bearable.”2 On

this basis, six beers per night are clearly consistent with teetotalism and would therefore not

be enough to make one a member of the drinking classes. An interesting question which I

would rather not answer is whether one becomes a member of the drinking classes on the

seventh beer.

It follows then, that to be in the drinking classes, one must consume alcoholic

beverages with serious intent. What that intent must be is obviously up to the individual.

As for the third question, viz. working out who is or is not a member, there is no test

that one can apply. That leaves only instinct. If you are a member, you know instinctively

that you are a member. It also follows that if you have to ask the question you are not a

member.

In previous times one could rely on the clergy, mostly Presbyterian or Anglican, to

discourage their flock from becoming members of the drinking classes. It is recorded that

one Daniel Burgess had his pulpit equipped with an hour glass. He would speak for an hour

and if the subject was the demon drink, he would say “Therefore, my friends and brethren,

we will have another glass before we go” and then turn the hour glass over.3 It is recorded

that some preachers turned the hour glass three times in one sermon. If nothing else this

would have kept the parishioners away from the public houses for some considerable time.

2 See the biography of Sir Charles Lowe (1880 – 1969) by J.R.Poynter at anu.ed.au/biography/lowe-sir-charles-john-10865 3 Simon Goodenough, The Country Parson, David & Charles, London, 1983, p.90

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Today the clergy tend not to speak about the demon drink. I am not sure why. Perhaps the

Temperence Societies and bodies like Alcoholics Anonymous have captured the field.

Perhaps it is a case that sermons on alcohol and its dangers simply do not work. One can

readily sympathise with the poor unfortunate parishioners who had to endure three-hour

sermons. It is difficult to see how they could be of benefit to anyone. The French have a

lovely word for this. It is ennui.

I now move on to my second question – Is work always a curse for members of the

drinking classes? I have given this a lot of thought and have come to the conclusion that the

answer is no. Work is not always a curse. I remember a case

some years ago where a man was employed by a country hotel

as a cleaner. His only real job was to mop out the bar every day.

This did not take very long and involved nothing more arduous

that holding a mop. He was finished for the day well before the

hotel opened for trading. He was not paid wages but was given

free beer for himself and his spouse. You might say they both

shared an interest in ‘dipsomania’ and they would have

instinctively known that they were members of the drinking

classes. In a case such as this, how could one argue that work

got in the way of his drinking? The only way it could be seen as a curse would be if the man

and his spouse started serious drinking at 6.00am in the morning. However, drinking at this

time would soon land the drinker in a rehabilitation clinic where he or she would be forced

to leave the drinking classes, thus leaving my proposition sound. The fact that I have found

one case where work was not a curse for the drinking classes does not mean that there are

no cases where it is a curse.

There are many epicureans in our society who believe with all their hearts that lunch

should take at least four hours accompanied by at least three bottles of wine per head. A

famous epicurean, viz. one Henry Aldrich, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford from 1689 to

1710, put the case for the epicurean most beautifully when he said –

“There are five good reasons we should drink

Good wine – a friend – or being dry –

Or lest we should be by and by –

Or any other reason why.”4

The comedian, W. C. Fields, had a rare fondness for Scotch whisky and gave what

might be considered a sixth reason. He said that he always kept a supply of the stimulant

handy in case he saw a snake, which he also kept handy. Clearly, for the true epicurean,

work is a curse for these people because it cuts into their drinking time.

4 Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 6th ed, 2004, 10:13

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I think you will now agree with me that work is not always a curse for the drinking

classes, but it may be for some members of the drinking classes, particularly for its most

enthusiastic members. I will therefore move on to the problem of work and the non-

drinking class.

All of you will have encountered the problem of what to do when work has interfered

with other aspects of your lives. Being virtually forced to work overtime from time to time,

missing out on public holidays, attending training courses are all good examples of this

interference. Of course, work in this context should not be limited to paid work. Painting

the spare room or cleaning out the garden shed or shampooing the carpet are other examples

of work which interferes with the enjoyment of life. For the moment, I will confine myself

to paid work.

Occasionally, you may have planned a fishing weekend at Stradbroke Island. On such

a weekend, consumption of alcohol is a necessity

when the fish are not biting. I know that for

some, fish are not biting when they don’t leap out

of the water and lie in the bottom of the dinghy.

Be that as it may, sunburn, biting midges and the

sea air all combine to produce a dreadful thirst

which can only be slaked by consumption of

whatever beverages are to hand. If there are only

a few cartons of beer to hand, one would have no

choice but to become a temporary member of the drinking classes. An order by a mean-

spirited employer that you be somewhere else is a serious interference with your need to

join the drinking classes for a very brief period. In these circumstances, I would suggest that

the term “drinking classes” includes those wishing to enter these classes. On that basis,

work would, in some cases, be a curse for the non-drinking classes.

Whether work is a curse for the non-drinking classes where other activities are

involved would depend on the activity concerned. One can easily imagine activities where

work (in the sense of normal paid employment) would not be a curse. Attending a funeral of

a much-disliked colleague, going to a fancy-dress ball, bungee jumping for a bet and joining

a working bee at the school to level a new playing field are all good examples of cases

where work is the perfect excuse for not doing something one dislikes. However, there are

others where work would be a curse. The real problem is that in so many cases, whether

work is a curse cannot be answered objectively. All that one can say is that the more one

enjoys life, the greater the possibility that work is a curse. Whether it is a curse for the

drinking classes depends on the definition of drinking classes and the nature of the work

involved.

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You can see, or at least I hope you can see, that a simple answer to the question that I

have put before you is not possible. I have really only given you a tentative answer to the

question. I am sure that you will agree with me that breaking it up into sub-questions didn’t

help all that much. What is really needed is for those who are interested in finding an

answer to the question to form a study group. By combining their talents and knowledge,

this group would establish a working party or, indeed, several working parties, whose

members would volunteer their time so as to help find the answer.

Of course, the working party or parties would need the right surroundings. It would

be thirsty work, so the members would need large amounts of food and drink to keep them

going. The choice of surroundings is obvious – it needs to be a good hotel.

As the answer is not likely to come quickly, the working party or parties must consist

of members who will persevere to the end, regardless of the amount of alcohol consumed.

Indeed, the answer may not come in one session. It may take many years or several

lifetimes. I suspect that most will die before an answer is found. In time, most will see the

aphorism of Robert Louis Stevenson that “It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive” in a

new light. You may hear members of the working party or parties say it is better to study

the problem than to find an answer. At that point it is time to start a new study group and

start all over again.

We have now created the ultimate think tank – one with perpetual existence.

What more could you want?

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CURRENT ISSUES These are some of the current issues being discussed and investigated by

the Education Committee. If you would like to express an opinion on

these issues or to send in one of your own to be considered by the

committee then feel free to email the editor at [email protected]

• INCLUSIVENESS: How do schools ensure that all students regardless of ethnic,

religious, economic or family background will develop a sense of belonging and

progress well both academically and socially?

• WELL-BEING: What has been the impact of the corona-virus period’s educational

adjustments on the emotional well-being of students and staff members in our

Queensland schools? What about the impact on those special needs students who were

already experiencing anxiety before the corona-virus hit our community?

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‘Education Uptake’ is an educational newsletter published by the Queensland Democratic Labour Party Education Committee for the general public and is authorized for distribution by Terri Bell, Secretary of the Queensland DLP.