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.

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.

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.

The South Australian state parliament’s Upper House has just voted for a bill to permit lesbian women access to In Vitro Fertilisation.

The justification being that such women are “socially infertile”.

The debate now moves to the Lower House where it has a good chance of being defeated.

Today many children end up on drugs, dropping out of school, abandoning their religion etc.

Would IVF for lesbians help? Would the children involved be better off?

They would have no father, that is for sure.

Are children better off without fathers?

Doesn’t common sense suggest that children, where possible, should have both a father and a mother?

Conceding “rights” to politically-powerful adults at the expense of helpless children is bad — part of a war against the welfare of our younger generation.

Concerning family issues, the voice and the votes of the Church should be unwavering.

Monash University bioethicists, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, in an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics (February 23), argued that if there is nothing wrong with abortion, there can be nothing wrong with infanticide.

Their article sparked debate world-wide — including in the US Congress.

Yet the basic argument is not new. We’ve all heard it before.

It goes:

because a foetus (or newborn infant) doesn’t have self-awareness, it isn’t fully human – and so may be killed if its existence is inconvenient.

It’s a favourite argument of ex-Australian philosopher Peter Singer, a friend of Senator Bob Brown.

When Professor Singer has his afternoon nap, he has no self-awareness.

A good time, perhaps, to cut his throat?

Maybe not.  Even though asleep, his potential to have self-awareness (if allowed to wake up un-murdered) remains.

* * *

Everybody knows that, from the moment the sperm enters the ovum and their DNAs contact, a new, unique fully-genetically-equipped-to-develop-self-awareness human life has started.

This is reality, i.e. the way God sees it.

Destroy one of God’s innocent children in cold blood and you’ve signed your spiritual death-warrant.

And ceased being a civilised human being.