The week’s best education and union reads
The war against COVID is also a fight for equality
From australianunions.org.au, July 16, 2021
The pandemic is hitting hardest in communities with rich cultural diversity, populated by people and families in the lowest income brackets, locked into Scott Morrison’s insecure work economy in casual or part time jobs without entitlements, writes Francis Leach.
Authors back unionising booksellers
From overland.org.au, July 14, 2021
Staff at a supposedly progressive bookstore are taking the first retail protected action ballot, outside of meat workers, in fifty years. They're being supported by authors who say the workers who sell their books have been denied basic workplace protections and conditions.
Spot fires lurk but students struggle to find a spark in fifth lockdown
From The Age, July 20, 2021
Parents, school staff and teachers are worn out by Victoria's repeated lockdowns, with concerns that the negative effects of repeated school closures are 'accumulating'.
Curious Minds program encourages girls to break STEM 'boy's club'
From ABC News, July 16, 2021
The program aims to address the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) occupations by providing female students in years 9 and 10 with mentors and pathways into STEM study and careers.
Where to for our best and brightest?
From The Mandarin, July 20, 2021
The pandemic and a reform-shy federal government means young, talented, ambitious Australians keen to contribute to policy-making are no longer heading to Canberra. Now, its the states which are the centre of power, argues Bernard Keane.
The latest evidence on digital literacy inclusion in education
From The Mandarin, July 19, 2021
The pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of society. But there are still 1.3 million Australian households offline and the digital inclusion gap is widening.
Saving Aboriginal languages
From ABC News, July 11, 2021
In South Australia, First Nations languages are being revived with the help of linguists and tailored training courses to help language learners pass their skills back to their communities.
School kids to be warned about online porn, sexting, identity theft in new cyber-safety lessons
From the Courier Mail, July 20, 2021
Children as young as four will be taught about online pornography, fake news and cyber fraud under new e-safety lessons endorsed by the federal government.
Australian Business Has Used the Pandemic to Attack Workers — Now It’s Time to Fight Back
From Jacobin Australia, July 16, 2021
Gerald Fitzpatrick says Much of Australia is back under pandemic lockdown thanks to Coalition mismanagement. The Liberals have used the crisis to bolster big business. Now the workers’ movement needs to champion its own measures to counter the pandemic and rebuild the economy.
Why too many recorded lecture videos may be bad for maths students' learning
From educationhq.com, June 8, 2021
Studies suggest the use of video will help learning if the level of thinking required is relatively low, such as learning medical procedures, but not necessarily where it is high, such as gaining conceptual understanding in mathematics.
A look back: We are living in an historic, radical transformation. What are we learning?
From Crikey, July 23, 2020
How ironic that the libertarian right might get what they want, due to the very truth they deny about human nature — that we are social, entwined, and other defining, prior to being any sort of individual at all, Guy Rundle mused a year ago.
Long Read: C.L.R James and the Black Jacobins of Haiti
From The Jacobin, July, 20, 2021
The Trinidad-born writer and activist gave the twentieth century a pioneering social history of cricket, and a classic history of the slave revolt in Haiti, which opened a new field of study, showing that slaves played a huge role in their emancipation.