Yesterday NSW teachers held a stop-work meeting.
The media report “a big turnout” of teachers with over 2000 schools being affected.
The NSW Teachers’ Federation listed grievances including the government’s proposed policies failing to guarantee class sizes, salaries etc. and that too much control is passing into the hands of local school principals.
No doubt persuasive cases can be made for both sides of the argument . . . .
* * *
A separate issue is whether teachers should ever strike.
I suggest that they should not.
This was called a “meeting”. But it was a strike.
They could have held their meeting at 6am and then, after deciding their policies etc., grabbed a quick bite of breakfast and turned up to teach at 9am.
The point needs repeating again and again that if you are a teacher, you are teaching all the time.
If you go on strike, you are still teaching . . . .
. . . teaching students that the way to get what you want in life is to inconvenience others – to do “whatever it takes” to get them to knuckle under.

Professor Kuruvilla George, Victoria’s deputy chief psychiatrist has found it necessary to resign from his membership of the board of the Victorian Equal Opportunity Commission.
As a private citizen he had signed a Senate inquiry submission which argued that marriage should remain a heterosexual state because it was important for the nation’s health.
The submission was signed by 150-plus doctors.
Dr George’s expression of opinion has, according to the media “polarised senior members of the commission” and “provoked angry responses from medical lobby groups which argued that his involvement was inappropriate”.
What did this submission which bothers so many people actually say?
* * *
It says, “ . . . the evidence is clear that children who grow up in a family with a mother and father do better in all parameters than children without”.
Also that “ . . . if there is one major demographic change in western societies that can be linked to a large range of adverse consequences for many children and young people, it is the growth in the numbers of children who experience life in a family other than living with their two biological parents, at some point before the age of 15.”
They also quote research showing that the rate of new HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men was 44 times that of other men and 40 times that of women — and that primary and secondary syphilis rates were 46 times that of other men and 71 times that of women. (data presented at the 2010 National STD Prevention Conference in Atlanta USA)
(more details at www.doctors4family.com.au/references/ and www.doctors4family.com.au/marriage/)

Some American research suggests that having married parents is a key factor in one’s chances of succeeding in advanced education.
Dr Molly A. Martin, Sociology Professor at Penn State University, has analysed data from the US National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS, 1988-2002), which followed children from the eighth grade until age 26.
Despite the single mothers in the sample having higher average education levels than the married parents, their children scored significantly less — lower grades in year 8 and less likely to end up with college degrees.
* * *
Somebody else may come up with evidence “proving” the opposite or questioning the study’s statistical methods.
The fact that the Martin results are based on a longitudinal study is in its favour.
Never take any notice of the “latest” research in sociology. The latest research, by definition, cannot have followed those sampled long enough to know how they coped with life 10, 20 or more years on.
* * *
All sociological statistics are a worry. Statistics can be found or invented to prove/disprove anything.
Must we keep trotting out percentages to determine the difference between right and wrong?
Better, perhaps, to consider the ideas of the best thinkers of the past.
Best of all, obviously, to consider what God thinks.
But who believes, today, in an interventionist God who reveals himself?
I do.

The conduct of Australia’s politicians is in the news.
The Prime Minister says she is “very open to a code of conduct”.
But the Opposition Leader says “no Member of Parliament should need to be told that fraud, theft and sexual harassment are wrong.”
He’s right. We’ve already got a code of conduct already — the Ten Commandments.
* * *
I am the Lord your God; you shall not have no other gods before me.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.
Honour your father and your mother.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife.
You shall not covet you neighbour’s goods.
* * *
These Commandments have been around a long time (e.g. in the Bible, Exodus, chapter 20).
The first three Commandments are about loyalty to God — without which nothing good happens.
The Commandments are listed in decreasing order of importance.
The remaining seven refer to loyalties to other people – most importantly, to father and mother, without which society falls apart.

A local psychologist told our local paper, “I absolutely despise web-based social media”.

He works with young people harmed by cyber bullying and considering harming themselves.

But these social (anti-social?) media are not going away. More likely, they will increase.

What to do?

There is no law of nature dictating that only superficial/mean/meaningless material can be transmitted electronically . . . .

Or is there?

Is the fault in human nature itself?

A flawed nature armed with technology enabling instant, irretrievable expression of frustrated self-absorption — with no built-in cooling-off period mechanism.

* * *

Those aware that it is God who gives us existence second by second . . . .

That life is a conversation/transaction between oneself and God . . . .

That God is closer to us than we are to ourselves . . . .

Those who understand all this must painstakingly seek to share it with those who don’t.

How?

Best, perhaps, by word of mouth.

The people we meet each day – let’s love them with a selfless, ordered, God-centred love.

Last week’s media reported “new hope” for infertile couples troubled about possible genetic disease problems.

Researchers at Melbourne’s Monash University have managed a “breakthrough” in embryo screening techniques.

The new methods will detect chromosomally abnormal embryos with “99 percent accuracy”.

Screening for Down Syndrome etc. is to be done “before pregnancy” — using cells from 5-day old embryos.

* * *

It sounds fairly ethical if you read it quickly

Slow down a bit and you’ll notice that young human beings are to be discarded if considered not up to standard.

The idea of destroying human lives which fail to meet somebody’s requirements has turned up repeatedly through human history.

The sacredness of human life is only sometimes taken seriously.

The real issue here is not a matter of science, but of religion.

If we don’t respect all human life as a gift from God, we risk behaving very badly when faced with inconveniences.