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Even the smallest school principal is responsible for the welfare of children and staff, as well as having control for large and very valuable materials, equipment and building. It’s a job of immense responsibility and I don’t envy the duty and burden of care that weighs on our average high school principal. I’ve worked for…

I have chosen Collective Bargaining as the topic that I will discuss; I have chosen this topic because the right for employees to undertake collective bargaining has been under attack in various guises in Australia during the last decade or so. In addition, assisting workers in collective bargaining is central to my own role as…

I went to the Welcome Refugees rally last weekend. The idea was that it was a show of strength in order to support Australia changing its draconian treatment of refugees, and especially how that should relate to children refugees. It has been for at least 10 years – and as far as I am concerned,…

Academia is a pretty serious business. Even in Australia, which hasn’t quite reached the carnivorous levels of the US, competition for research grants, for positions and for awards in different fields is intense. In many ways, it’s like the selective school for the real world – everybody you deal with who’s either done a PhD…

This article was originally published on the AARE blog here: http://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=1470 The topic of whether religion should be taught in public schools has been an ongoing cause of rancour since the late 19th century when the first classes were held. In recent years it has become a clearly defined battleground for opposing religious and secular interests. In…

Catchy title, hey? I’m one of those people who likes to have little projects going on all the time – at the current moment, I’m tinkering with Raspberry Pis, learning to code in Swift, mucking around with Python scripts, growing vegetables, building things out of wood, learning Spanish through Duolingo and trying to teach myself…

I’ve been revising my methodology chapter recently, which was a process that filled me with dread when I considered it. Much to my surprise, I’ve found that I’ve actually enjoyed it. When I originally wrote the chapter, I must admit that I was, like many other doctoral students, a little bit hazy on the differences…

There’s been a lot of discussion in the media and amongst unions lately about declining membership rates. On the face of it, the situation for unions in Australia looks pretty grim – membership is heading towards single figure percentages, and without the big institutions like nursing and teaching, I think that it would be probably…

You might have guessed that I find the political process deeply interesting. The politicians themselves, probably less so (do we really need another profile on Truffles Turnbull and his wife?) But the ins and outs of the electoral  process, and the way different parties and organisations try to modulate these to their respective advantages is…

I’ve been aware of educational resource sites for a while now – they’ve gradually been growing in appeal, I guess, as more and more people start to have access to the internet and it becomes easier to manage transactions across the web. You could call it the ‘Amazonisation’ of teaching, I guess. For the most…