Caitlin and I headed in to the city this morning to meet up with friends from the Hoyden About Town blog community. We met in the Queen Victoria Building at about 11am and settled down for a couple of hours … Continue reading “I Do” or How I spent my Sunday
Because I don’t like reinventing the wheel, here’s the email I just received from Primary Ethics: Dear Supporters, As reported on ABC News at 7pm on Monday, July 18, Rev Fred Nile has told the O’Farrell government that he won’t vote for their new IR legislation unless they agree to cancel Ethics Classes in NSW public schools. At last count, Primary Ethics had started 180 Ethics classes in 128 schools across the state, teaching about 2700 students in Years 5 and 6 each week. You may recall that there are about 100,000 children whose parents opt their kids out of … Continue reading Please help defend Ethics classes from attack by Fred Nile
I had a fabulous time on Friday night, eating, drinking and talking into the wee small hours with good friends. Thanks to Toni for having us at her house, to Ariane for yummy pumpkin and potato and leek soups and … Continue reading Election Day bits and bobs
I really hope the timing of this doesn’t prove to be a mistake. But aside from that… Wow, how awesome is this? We have our first female Prime Minister. Congratulations Julia, now, don’t stuff it up. Continue reading Julia Gillard, Prime Minister
Stuff I thought was worth sharing… Karen Healey, at Attention Rebellious Jezebels, reviews books “in dialogue style in a spoilerific manner that often renders in-depth, wonderful works nonsensical” and is also highly amusing. Charlotte of Charlotte’s Library asks Where are the Good Mothers in Middle Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy? Ladysquires at Shitty First Drafts explains Why I’m Not Proud of You for Correcting Other People’s Grammar. On the subject of the Ethics Classes trial: Teaching Ethics as an option to non-scripture at Motherhugger. Practical things you can do to help – a post in the discussions section of the … Continue reading Linkfest No. 17
My niece attends one of the schools involved in the Ethics classes trial. Yesterday her mum posted a photo on Facebook of an article appearing in their local Village Voice newspaper in which Annika is quoted on the subject of the ethics classes. Click to embiggen “I think the ethics classes are really fun,” Leichhardt Year 5 student Annika Rees said. “The teacher gives us situations like whether we think something is fair or not, and then we discuss the topic and give our own opinions. It’s important because it gives us an opportunity to see other people’s point of … Continue reading A few words from an Ethics trial class student
This afternoon Tom came home with a 1964 pre-metric Australian penny that he’d been given by his Scripture teacher for remembering the weekly Bible verse. I asked what the verse was and he quoted – Peter said “You are the messiah, son of the living God.” I asked if he thought that what the Bible claimed Peter had said was true and he looked at me like I was silly and said “No” with an undercurrent of “Duh!” So then I asked if he’d told his Scripture teacher that he didn’t believe it, and he answered “HELL NO!” Which struck … Continue reading Thursday is Scripture day at school
It’s been fun, I’ve written 12 times as many posts as I did last month making it through my third NaBloPoMo with relative ease and, I think, only minor irritation to my family. We have 2 and a half weeks of school left for the kids, that’s only 12 days of primary school to go for David. I got his high school orientation info pack today, so many pieces of paper, so many forms to fill in, fees to pay (I’m interested to see that these include a voluntary $100 per student donation to the P&C – wonder how many … Continue reading Bye, bye November
Hosted by Mrs4444. A tossed salad of bits and bobs from the week just gone with a touch of things to come for extra flavour. Be sure to pop over to Mrs4444’s place for other fragmentary offerings for today! 1. On Wednesday afternoon my 12 year old walked into the loungeroom , smiled at me and said “Hi Mum, you’re awesome.” I can live with that. 2. The second dwarf gourami is dead and we’re down to one rummy nose tetra in Tom’s tank. I’m not buying anymore fish till after Christmas, that should give all the tanks plenty of … Continue reading Friday Fragments and Linkfest No. 12
I started to respond to comments on my previous post on the subject but it was getting kind of epic, so I thought I’d better chuck it all in a post of its own. This may be a little disjointed! (BTW, Scripture = Special Religious Education, or SRE, but no-one calls it that.) A couple of people made reference to the thumb-twiddling in the library being not such a bad thing, I must admit I very nearly included a disclaimer in the original post to the effect that I was quite sure the kids were perfectly happy with the thumb-twiddling … Continue reading More thoughts on Scripture in schools
Mim's Muddle 