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Keywords: Teaching

  • EDUCATION

    How our universities are failing new teachers

    • Tim Hutton
    • 12 October 2018
    8 Comments

    Data published by the ABC has revealed the shockingly low threshold for entry into tertiary teaching programs. On one hand, there are some legitimate concerns here. But the problem isn't with who gets accepted to university; it's with what happens to them while they are there.

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  • EDUCATION

    The joys of teaching adult refugees

    • Paulette Smythe
    • 25 May 2018
    15 Comments

    I often feel I have the best job on the planet. Teaching English to adult refugees should be a daunting task. Yet these classes are especially warm and congenial places to be. Human beings at their most vulnerable possess an extraordinary fund of light and laughter despite, or perhaps because of, the darkness they have left behind.

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  • EDUCATION

    Teaching public issues in Catholic schools

    • James O'Brien
    • 09 March 2018
    65 Comments

    I was in a lecture with 50 pre-service teachers preparing to transition into the profession. One student spoke up saying he was afraid to teach in Catholic schools, fearing he'd be reprimanded if he said 'the wrong thing'. In fact, a church school comes alive when teachers and students breathe an air of freedom.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Teaching kids to read between the rhymes

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 21 November 2017
    16 Comments

    Nana's favourites were chain-rhymed stories such as 'The Old Woman and her Pig', and 'This is the House that Jack Built', both of which I try to communicate to my grandchildren. My sister and I never realised how we were acquiring tastes for story and rhythm, or that we were exercising our young memories, our capacities for recall, as well.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A credibly Christian church would respect gay employees

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 August 2017
    47 Comments

    A threat reportedly made, and later denied, by some church leaders was to dismiss from employment in Catholic organisations people who contract same-sex marriages. The argument is that Catholic organisations must uphold the teaching of the church, and that upholding church teaching implies living in a way consistent with it. Whatever the abstract merits of this argument and its applicability to dismissal in limit cases, its general use belongs to a past age.

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  • RELIGION

    Ordinary Catholics must help with reform

    • Kevin Liston
    • 31 July 2017
    38 Comments

    There are many reform movements active in the Catholic Church. Most seem to focus on changing the structures and systems of the church, on reshaping doctrinal positions and updating teachings. Organisational reform is necessary and long overdue but there is also need for a complementary movement among ordinary Catholics.  

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  • RELIGION

    Family matters: Strengthening respectful relationships

    • Frank Brennan
    • 26 June 2017
    6 Comments

    Here in Ballarat, you know better than most other Catholics that respectful relationships in the church community have been rent asunder by the depredations of child sex offenders whose exploits went unchecked by those ordained to exercise tradition, authority, teaching and discipline. We will strengthen respectful relationships only with a voluntary commitment to truth, justice and healing — and not one forced by a royal commission or public odour. 

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    When cricket, work and Catholic teaching collide

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 07 June 2017
    5 Comments

    To consider cricket as work would strike many people as odd. They would see it as a hobby, a recreation, a game or a calling. Professional sportspersons receive little attention in Catholic social thought, which is a pity because a Catholic understanding of work provides a helpful perspective. Its crucial insight is that work is a human activity, and that each human being is precious, unique and needs to be respected. Neither people nor work can be seen as means to an economic end, or as expendable.

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  • EDUCATION

    A student's view of 'big business' universities

    • Francine Crimmins
    • 08 May 2017
    14 Comments

    'We won't have classes next Monday because of the public holiday on Tuesday.' My tutor tells us this cheerily, as if he has done us a favour. I'm studying a degree that costs $4000 each semester, about $60 per hour of actual teaching time. This includes a subject where instead of being able to meet with faculty members, we must skype them. If that's not the most expensive skype call ever, perhaps the critics are correct, and young people should stop complaining about the potential increase of fees.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Waiting for the trickle down effect

    • Frank Brennan
    • 10 April 2017
    16 Comments

    In an age of 'budget repair', social policy risks becoming just a sidebar to economic policy which is a contest of ideas about how best to grow the size of the pie thereby providing a slice for 'the deserving poor' without having to redistribute too much of the pie, while 'the undeserving poor' drop off the edge as they would have anyway. For those of us schooled in Catholic social teaching, the so-called 'undeserving poor' are the litmus test of our commitment to the human dignity of all persons.

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  • RELIGION

    Religious literacy routs Islamophobia

    • Ann Deslandes
    • 07 April 2017
    24 Comments

    A person with religious literacy has an understanding and appreciation of the teachings of religions in the world, is knowledgeable about the various applications and manifestations of those teachings, and understands how religious faith forms, informs and enriches contemporary human society. In a world where Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are on the rise, endangering and taking the lives of so many innocent people of faith, it is difficult to overstate the importance of religious literacy.

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  • RELIGION

    Labor Party reform through Catholic Social Teaching

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 05 April 2017
    6 Comments

    It can be disconcerting to hear our family history told by a sympathetic outsider. I found Race Matthews' new book that treats Catholic engagement in public social issues fascinating in that respect. Matthews' perspective is that of a member of the Labor Party who admires Catholic Social Teaching, especially its commendation of the communal ownership of business enterprises. He sees the possibilities this presents for the reform of Australian society, particularly if adopted by the Labor Party.

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