Living in Hong Kong

20170618 Let's no-longer have holidays - everyday is a workday!

2017-06-18T11:55:00.000+08:00

Maybe the real problem isn't penalty rates. Maybe the real problem is our concept of weekends and public holidays. Let's no-longer have holidays - everyday is a workday! Schedule the sporting events for Monday morning at 09:00, remove all the restrictions on retail opening hours, and hold parliament question time on Sunday. We still have until 2020 to raise a talented cohort of engineers to run our power stations and transport systems during the weekend for the same $/hr as their weekday colleagues. If you want to play in a sporting team, simply take the day off - all the players on both teams will have no problem because an employer will simply hire another person to take your place! No bank holidays - everyday is a workday. No ANZAC day - everyday is a workday. Same $/hr = same attitude. Our great nation's new Orwellian motto "Everyday is a work day! "

20130925 How English Teachers Mark Your Work

2013-09-25T12:21:00.000+08:00

How English Teachers Mark Your Work.

English compositions are marked by qualitative and empirical measurements.

Learning Objective:

To enable students to meet the objectives of secondary school standards in writing.

To inform students about the teaching practices that affect their overall marks.

Focus

Students will focus on the methods to improve their ability to comply with the assessment criteria and rules.

Process

Introduction:

English teachers use subjective methods to assess a student's abilities and competency based on performance standards versus content standards. During this lesson the student will be given the opportunity to become familiar with the teaching methods expected by their school. The reason a student must know this is;

The student will be expected to deliver English essays of a specific standard.

Assessment for this lesson:

The student is required to summarise the passage in 600 words, in 30 minutes.

Assessment criteria:

Word count
Spelling accuracy
Grammar and tense
Accuracy of information

Consolidation

Review the main points of the article:

English teachers rely on empirical and subjective assessments.

Definition of assessment.

References:

Marsh, Colin. “Becoming a Teacher. 4th Edition”, Pearson Education, 2008.

How English Teachers Mark Your Work.

English compositions are marked by qualitative and empirical measurements.

The passage below is taken from the book Becoming a Teacher by Colin Marsh.

‘Assessment’ is the term typically used to describe the activities undertaken by a teacher to obtain information about the knowledge, skills and attitudes of students. Activities can involve the collection of formal assessment data by the use of objective tests or the use of informal data by the use of observation checklists. Teachers typically assign a grade or mark: a numerical score, a letter grade or a descriptive ranking for work undertaken.

Assessment Principles:

Assessment can only be based on samples of behaviour and therefore inaccuracies will always occur.
Assessment must communicate to teachers how to make instruction more effective.
Assessment is not done mainly to grade students, but to promote instruction.
Assessment must be fair to all students and groups.
Assessment must measure a broad range of abilities.
Assessment results must be meaningful to all participants, students, teachers and parents.

The reasons for assessment:

Assessment is usually undertaken for the following reasons:

diagnosis of learning and monitoring progress
grading students
predicting future achievements
motivating students
diagnosis of teaching

Who benefits from the assessment?:

Students should be the main reason for assessment but they are typically not given a high priority.

Teachers need feedback about the effectiveness of their teaching and student assessments are used increasingly for appraising teachers.

Parents want regular feedback on the progress of their children and schools are subject to a parental review based on the assessment results.

Tertiary institutions require specific information from applicants intending to enrol.

Employers are demanding more specific information in terms of literacy and numeracy and key competences.

Write the answer to the questions in the space provided using a short sentence.

Your answers will be assessed on spelling, grammar and correct tense. Your opinion will not be assessed.

Can you see any conflicts of interest in the assessment process? Explain your answer.

What questions should you ask your teacher about your assessment?

If there are 15 students in a class, and only one student passes an assessment, has the teacher failed to deliver the lesson? Explain the reason for your answer.

If there are 15 students in a class, and only one student fails an assessment, has the teacher failed to deliver the lesson? Explain the reason for your answer.

Write a summary of the passage in 600 words in 30 minutes.

20130904 Teachers of Today.

2013-09-04T20:44:00.002+08:00

“Teachers of Today – who they are and what they need to do and know”.

Teachers of Today need to know that they are expected to fulfill a special role in the community that is challenging, relentless and, at times, blatantly unfair. Teachers should find it flattering that the good people of their community assume that a common garden-variety primary teacher is capable of being a competent professional in areas of expertise so wide and divergent that it is not unusual to find a teacher who can teach science in the morning, art in the afternoon, coach a cricket team after school, play the cello in a concert in the evening, compassionately consult with concerned couples afterwards and still have the patience of a saint while consoling a lost and distraught eleven year-old with bipolar disorder with an obvious fear of abandonment. Regardless of all this, there are people who genuinely want to be teachers (Teacher supply and demand and student placements in Western Australia – Strategic Issues 2006). The purpose of this essay is to offer some educated opinions in answering the question of who these people are, what they need to know, what they need to do, and if they can get help from a reputable 12-step program.

A teacher is regarded as a professional. Questions have been raised about whether teaching is a legitimate profession. Teaching is undoubtedly a profession (Langford, 1978). In every rule there is always an exception; if the letter Y can be vowel ‘sometimes’; if an egg-laying amphibious furry creature with venomous hind legs can be called a mammal then surely that courtesy can be extended to teachers.
The teaching profession asks its members to commit to life-long dedication to serve others regardless of personal gain. Teachers have a full-time life-commitment to the role, they are always at work and everything a teacher does influences their lesson planning including: listening to students, remembering, visualizing, writing things down, flicking through magazines, rehearsing, or drinking tea while staring into space (Woodword, 2001). Marsh (2008) on the subject of lesson planning, mentions receiving “sudden flashes of intuition while taking a shower or working out at the local gymnasium”. The community expects a teacher to set an example to his or her students in all aspects of life, which is not expected of other professions. While many people in the community may expect a teacher to convey certain and specific values as a subtext in every lesson, the same community may react with feelings ranging from mild concern through to conniptions if the same values were taught by a professional hydraulic engineer from the local sewage treatment plant. A teacher is trusted with confidential information about sensitive social problems within their community. This trust is based on an expectation that a teacher will act, and always act, even out of school hours and out of school grounds, in an ethical manner that exemplifies the profession (Whitton et al. 2009). This expectation of trust has become so embedded in the community’s expectation of the teaching profession that it was deemed in a court of law that there exists a legal teacher-student relationship that extends the ethical boundaries of duty-of-care into a legal obligation to exercise greater responsibility to protect students from foreseeable harm (Crouch 1996).

As a profession, as a trade, as a craft or even as an art, teachers are the front edge of the curriculum so the teacher’s primary role is to deliver the learning objectives described in the curriculum to the letter. Marsh (2009) explains that lesson planning is so diverse, variable and personal that there is no definitive set of instructions on how to make a ‘standard lesson plan’ (Marsh 2009). This being the case, a teacher must know the elements of a good lesson plan and practice the art of lesson planning. Like the definition of genius, lesson planning is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration. Good lesson planning comes by inspiration, then a concept that must be moulded into shape by applying the rules and using the tools of the profession.
A lesson plan must satisfy these conditions:
• The plan must be derived from the stated learning outcomes, which in turn, are derived from the approved program via the learning objectives in the state or national curriculum.
• The learning objectives must be achieved.
• The lesson must differentiate to accommodate the preferred learning style of the students.
• The learning experience must be delivered in a safe, welcoming and positive classroom environment.
• The learning process must be continually reviewed and refined, and changed according to the future needs of the student.
• The learning outcomes must be assessed.
• The lesson plan must be economical, achievable, legal and ethical.

A teacher has a responsibility to keep control of the events occurring in the classroom and ensure students regard it as an inviting, comfortable, nurturing, relaxing and challenging workplace where they discover that work, interest, challenge and reward can peacefully coexist. It is a place of work for the teacher and a place of work for the students and in this context, a teacher is in the business of teaching and the student is in the business of learning (Cangelosi 1992). Studies have shown that proper classroom management can raise student performance by as much as 20 percentile points (Marzano, Marzano & Pickering 2003).
A school classroom is instantly recognisable as such and this is true throughout the known universe. There is a certain look, feel and smell about a primary school classroom, desks and chairs set out in rows, the new smart board, the smell of paint, paper and old lunches. Minds are moulded in this place. It has been described by experts as “a feel” to the classroom in regards to how the physical arrangement of desks, chairs and other furniture are arranged. There is only one thing that ruins a good classroom: the classroom misbehaviour. Marsh (2008) cites a study by Infantino and Little where research has indicated that, in at least one Australian secondary school, up to 76% of the teacher’s time was used for the purpose of correcting negative student behaviour. This inefficiency should not be tolerated. The teacher must know how to use appropriate and effective classroom management skills as a normal and expected part of being a competent professional. School administrators often make judgements about the efficacy of a teacher based on his or her ability to manage the classroom, also, there is a community expectation and a professional obligation that the teacher can and will work towards maintaining a positive learning environment (Marsh 2009). The arrangement of classroom furniture affects the student’s ability to learn due to distractions caused by proximity to other students and the level of comfort offered by climatic controls (Gunter et al. 1995).
A teacher needs a working knowledge of child psychology to the extent where he or she is able to recognise a student’s character and be able to correctly apply appropriate and efficient teaching strategies matching the student’s learning strategies. The importance of this ability and expectation is emphasised by the fact that psychologists can, and often do, refer to a teacher’s observations to make a diagnosis for conditions such as ADD and ADHD. In an article in the Early Childhood Education Journal, Kimberli Andrews said “Often it is a child's teachers who may notice many of the behaviours associated with ADHD" and; "Therefore, all teachers, including early childhood professionals, should be aware of the behaviours associated with ADHD"(Andrews 1989).

A teacher must know about different teaching and learning strategies.
One such strategy is called Constructivism and according to the Western Australian Curriculum Council it is regarded as the most popular learning philosophy used by Australian teachers (Hurst 2009). It is a teaching philosophy that has a basic belief that knowledge is built upon previous knowledge, and just to make it more interesting, the new knowledge affects the perception of the previous knowledge. There is a Chinese question that may help to illustrate how constructivism works. The question is: “When is the best time to plant a fruit tree?” Students often answer with “Spring”, ‘Summer’, or ‘When the moon is full”; or offer practical answers such as “After the summer rains when the ground is moist.” The answer given by the teacher is simply “20 years ago”. Then, after a pause for reflection, the teacher asks the student the same question. Many students will confidently give the answer that the teacher has just taught them. They may feel that the lesson is about well-known agricultural practices so the students allocate the knowledge a place in their mind merely as an addition to the list of things that require simple recall using only the first two stages of Bloom’s Taxonomy, namely, knowledge and comprehension. The teacher then gives the answer to the same question, but this time the answer changes to “now”. The second answer changes the previous knowledge and carries the student to the next level of learning towards the Application and Synthesis stages. The lesson is no longer a piece of minutia merely to be recalled, it is now a lesson on planning for the future. It becomes a lesson on life. Constructivism uses a logical progression of new and challenging concepts to build on previous knowledge and is one of many teaching strategies that a teacher must know how to use in teaching these approaches to problem solving.
Project based learning is a teaching approach where the students are given time and resources and instructed in the method of delivery and presentation. It uses a theme to create a series of situations with a given problem. The theme can cover a wide area of the curriculum, that is, the problem can include more than one learning area, and it is reported to be well received by students because the varied learning styles can be accommodated due to the open nature of the questions (Whitton et al 2009). This gives students an opportunity to express their personal opinions when they present values-based answers. The goal of problem-based learning is not so much to find an answer, but more to teach students how to find an answer. Smith (1995) in Whitton (2009) refers to a study where problem based learning is attributed to the improvement in thinking skills and the acquisition of life-long study skills needed for independent learning (Whitton et. al. 2009).

Authentic learning is a learning strategy which teaches students what they can expect in a real situation. This is also referred to as practice or training. A real life situation is replicated or modelled and the functions and procedures needed for successful completion of the learning area objectives are carried out in a controlled and supervised environment. An example of this could be when a teacher of economics gives students a task to follow the share market for a set time and allocates each student an experimental sum of money which is really no more than a simple integer on a spreadsheet. The students practice buying and selling shares according to the real-world market reports. During the project, which may last all semester, the teacher uses any or all of the six teaching strategies that are often associated with authentic learning. The strategies are:
Modelling. This is when a teacher demonstrates the learning outcome.
Coaching. This is when a teacher guides the student during the learning experience and offers advice and applies corrections as needed.
Scaffolding. This has a few meanings in the context of learning strategies: one meaning given by Fetherston (2009) describes scaffolding as any help given by a teacher, while Marsh (2009) describes it as assistance by a teacher in a specific stage of development called the “zone of proximal development” which is a particular area of uncertainty created in the mind of a student when previous knowledge has been challenged by new information. There is an interesting process where the student must de-construct their old belief and re-order his or her thinking to accommodate the new concept. This is where scaffolding is used as a teaching strategy and the teacher offers guidance until the new information can be assimilated. Where Marsh and Fetherston do agree is that the guidance from the teacher is withdrawn as the student demonstrates an understanding and acceptance of the new concept (Marsh 2009) & (Fetherston 2009).

Articulation is a teaching strategy where the teacher asks students to explain their reasoning and the process they used to derive an answer. It is an important part of math assessment as it asks the student to show all working as part of the process of obtaining the results, and the opposite of this is used in English where planning is not submitted as part of the finished work. Taylor Mali says it this way “I make them show all their work in math and hide it on their final drafts in English.” (Mali, T. 2009). Exploration as a teaching strategy takes the student to higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy to where he or she starts to find more questions. Using our example of share trading, as the student actually works as a share trader he or she will find many questions pertaining to the task.

Reflection is the process of comparing results with their peers. In the example of simulating share trading, reflection shows the student what can be achieved and creates an expected standard of work.
Concept Learning uses emotions as the carrier signal to give the learning experience a strong association with a known concept. This can be effective in teaching a particular concept such as a moral value rather than a mathematical algorithm, or when a definition or a principle is applied in new circumstances. Concepts are groups of ideas that have a common association and so students can apply a known concept about a particular object or idea and apply that concept to other objects using Bloom’s Taxonomy’s stages of assessment and synthesis.

For example: this method could be used in a lesson about computer hardware where the concept that the functions of a computer’s central processor can be compared to the functions of a human brain. The student takes the concepts that he or she associates with the functions and abilities of a human brain and associates those concepts to the computer processor. The learning strategy of associating similar concepts is called Zygotsky’s second phase; named after the psychologist who, after painstaking research, discovered that a person has three phases of understanding. The second stage occurs when a student associates concepts that are similar. The third stage occurs when the student can compare dissimilar objects and concepts (Whitton et al. 2009).

Teaching compared to some other professions: A pilot must fly an aircraft according to a flight-plan and air-traffic regulations, but is free to make decisions according to local weather and aircraft conditions which can result in additional cost and time delays; or ensure the safety of the passengers and crew. A pilot is expected to make the right decisions. A soldier must follow the mission objectives, but is free to choose a course of action according to local intelligence and the tactical situation which can result in unplanned changes in political boundaries, loss of life; or the successful completion of the mission and the reclamation of sovereign ground. In a like manner, a teacher must follow the curriculum to produce a lesson plan but is free to create a lesson plan according to the needs of the students. Teachers must apply all their training, experience and professional judgement to produce a lesson plan that is of the most benefit their students, that it will land them safely at their destination without flying through a storm and that it will enable them to capture and secure areas of ignorance and to establish a nation of understanding.

References.
Cangelosi, J.S. Systematic Teaching Strategies. Longman Melbourne. 1992.
Crouch, School Sport and the Law. The Practicing Administrator. 1996.
Hagstrom, E. (1962). The Teacher's Day. The University of Chicago Press.
Langford, G. (1978) Teaching as a Profession. Manchester University Press.
Mali, T. What does a teacher make? retrieved from
http://www.taylormali.com/index.html (2009)
Marsh, C. (2008). Becoming a teacher (4th Ed.) French’s Forest: Pearson. P. 291.
Marzano, Marzano & Pickering. Classroom Management that Works. ASCD
Alexandria, Virginia USA. 2003.
Woodword, T. (2001) Planning Lessons and Courses. Cambridge University Press.
Teacher supply and demand and student placements in Western Australia – Strategic Issues December 2006 Western Australian Department of Educational Services. 2006.

Legislation.
There is no legislation cited in this work. This line is intentionally blank.

Appendix.
There is no 12-step program to help them.

20130410 B-doubles Are Dangerous and Should Be Banned.

2013-04-10T06:58:00.001+08:00

B-doubles Are Dangerous and Should Be Banned.

According to the Australian Department of Infrastructure and Transport, there have been, on average, 35 deaths per year in Queensland involving heavy vehicles. 35 people are killed every year by trucks. When there is as little as one death involving our soldiers, police or teachers there is a public outcry. The Easter holidays saw another fatal accident where two more innocent people were killed by a B-double truck. According the news report, the driver claimed he made some kind of conscious decision on where to crash. This is obviously nonsense. The claim raises some questions about the job (it is not a profession) of driving a truck. Clearly, it is improbable that a skilled and experienced driver can decide where to crash an out-of-control truck - if the truck was under any control, then there would be no accident. The driver clearly failed to judge the situation correctly. The driver is either incompetent, sadly mistaken, a liar or a murderer.

The Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads currently have a campaign aimed to reduce the number of needless bloody deaths on Queensland roads; Distracted Driving. Such is the problem of being distracted while driving that the Queensland TMR has managed to create a new genre of its own among the top four reasons that trucks kill people. As at the time writing, Queensland heavy vehicles are the only Australian state to have killed a baby.

In a recent conversation with a B-double driver, I was told that truck drivers often refer to the police as pigs and that the CB radio is alive with chatter about the perceived persecution of truck drivers. This same B-double driver understands why all Australian Federal Police are referred to in this manner and strenuously defended his right to do so. In what lower levels of Bloom's Taxonomy do these people live?

In a job that is directly involved in the accidental deaths of 35 people every year, B-double drivers are either criminally incompetent or B-double drivers are not adequately trained to safely operate the machine; or, the standard needed to attain an HC licence is dangerously low. Already this year there are 7 graves sadly occupied by people who are no longer in a fit state to make their opinions heard.

The Queensland TMR issued a guideline specifically for heavy vehicle drivers, in which it provides details of the Distracted Driving campaign. The level of language is consistent with the level used to instruct children of 12-years of age. It explains the risks in three ways: manual, visual and cognitive. It clearly states that simple acts such as changing the radio are significant risk to road safety. Any driver who does not follow these simple guidelines is either incompetent in applying simple safety rules, or needs more training.

The Heavy Vehicle Driver Fact Sheet number 4 clearly states:

A manual distraction is when you take your hands off the wheel..."
A visual distraction is anything that takes your eyes off the road.." and
A cognitive distraction is anything that takes your mind off the driving task."

Using a mobile phone while driving is mentioned specifically and repeatedly. Texting while driving is deemed
so dangerous that it carries a penalty of 3 demerit points and fine of $330 even when stopped at traffic lights. Compare the combined elements of manual, visual and cognitive distractions present while texting to the equally distracting task of taking 'selfies' while driving. The Australian landscape is wonderful, beautiful and inspiring, but for safety's sake, history has proven there is a significant risk of killing yet another innocent person while a fully-laden truck hurtles along at 100 kilometres an hour and uses 30 metres-a-second of life-saving stopping distance.

When it comes to safety, a B-double is not even a remotely safe way of transporting 30,000 litres of petrol.
Petrol is dangerous enough when it is stationary, but why in the name of Google would any sane person think it is safe to put a poisonous, flammable, heavy, carcinogenic liquid in motion through public streets knowing the probability of a fatal accident and the 'acceptable' standard of training has already resulted in the deaths of 7 people this year (2013).

References:
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/distracted-drivers-put-risk-back-on-the-road-as-inattention-identified-as-a-factor-in-every-five-crashes/story-e6freoof-1226534053920
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19349921
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saints09/6154459417/
http://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/~/media/busind/Heavyvehicles/fatiguemgt/Factsheet4Distractions.pdf

20130306 Model of the Teaching Role.

2013-03-16T13:46:00.000+08:00

Model of the Teaching Role

The role of a teacher in today's world

This teaching model is based on an idea that teaching can be compared to an engineering process. The engineering of malleable little minds is, at its simplest level, a matter of transferring information. The OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) standard for information exchange in computer networks is used here as a scaffold to support the ideas of the teaching model.

All manufacturing processes use resources create a product. The fundamental process has an input material, a process in which some kind of change takes place, and an output of a finished product. The teacher in the classroom adds value and guides the process to completion. If all goes according to plan, the desired result is a happy, well balanced, informed, educated, and enlightened citizen of the world.

Layer One - Physical facilities. The teacher performs the functions of the layer-one delivery system by providing the physical pathway for the transfer of information.

Layer Two – Data Link. Each student is allocated a reference that is unique, identifiable and locatable. Students are localised and assigned a physical space in which the delivery and processing occurs.

Layer Three – Information transfer protocols are established. The teacher must use recognisable common languages and symbols. The physical layer for two-way communication is now established including a common channel for error checking and corrections.

Layer Four – Information transport is established with the class. Greet the class as a group. Establish order using proactive classroom management techniques.

Layer Five - Session information is established with each student. Direct communication is established with frequent and regular scanning of the classroom to check for signs of communication problems and make corrections.

Layer Six – The teacher presents the information to the class as a broadcast message using an error-correction protocol to establish a link with every student. The teacher checks the input quality by using frequent and relevant questions delivered and presented in a manner that gives students time to process and store the information.

Layer Seven – The application of the information is assessed. The teacher can decide the method of determining the quality of the retention of the information by several methods. It is common for students to sit an exam at the end of the semester or a quiz at the end of the lesson.

References:

( Leo Alting, Geoffrey Boothroyd 1994 ) - Manufacturing engineering processes

OSI Network Layers - http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/internetworking/technology/handbook/OSI-Protocols.html

http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_ics_browse.htm?ICS1=35&ICS2=100

20130310 Giving Credit Where Credit is Due.

2013-03-11T02:04:00.002+08:00

20130310 Giving Credit Where Credit is Due.

At a Story Tellers workshop there was a discussion about how a story evolves as it travels through a social network. One story that was discussed was about drink driving which appeared on the www as early May 2011 and changed form many times. The real point of the discussion was not so much about the story, but about giving credit to the originator. We all have an amazing ability to produce original content and yet so many people simply transfer a story from one site to another. In the days before the www, when a joke was told among friends, it was usually introduced as "I heard this one from..." as a polite acknowledgement to the author. There are at least two types of people on the www, the artists who produce and create, and the distributors who take the work of others and, without giving proper credit to the artist, simply transfer, recycle, re-purpose or regurgitate.

The joke evolved with a few minor changes since it was posted by Ted Hickman in May 2011.

"I went out with some friends last night and tied one on. Knowing that I had a little too much of the demon drink, I did something that I've never done before. I took the bus home! I arrived safe and warm, which seemed really surprising as I have never driven a bus before..." (Hickman. T. May 2011).

References:

http://www.tedhickman.com/?p=2246 (May 2011)

http://baileysbuddy.blogspot.hk/2011/03/found-for-friday.html (March 2011)

http://crazedpw.blogspot.hk/2012_04_01_archive.html (2012)

http://cyrilhuzeblog.com/2012/05/02/joke-of-the-week-dui-checkpoint/ (2012)

http://biggamehoundsmen.com/forum/dui-checkpoint-t32430.html (2012)

http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?2364451-Drunk-Driving (2012)

http://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/471022-friday-jokes-4.html (2012)

20130302 Job Application.

2013-03-01T16:55:00.001+08:00

20130301 Job Applications.

Job hunting can be a depressing soul-destroying project, especially when the search seem futile and agonises its way into the third day. I received this reply, but according to some philosophers "our choices are half chance, so are everybody else's". So I refuse to accept rejection.

Dear David,

We regret to inform you that your application for the role of BTS Technician has been deemed unsuccessful at this time. A number of candidates were considered, and we shortlisted those candidates who were a closer match to our client’s requirements.
We appreciate that you have taken the time to send your application to Phase One, and we will keep your details on file so we can notify you when an opportunity becomes available that matches your experience.

Thanks & regards,

Catalina Arteaga -
Network Consulting Specialists
P : 03 9017 0779
F : (03) 8672 0769
E : Catalina@phase1.com.au
W : www.phase1.com.au
A : Suite 703, 169 Queens St, Melb, 3000

===================
My Reply:
===================

Catalina,

Thank you for your reply to my application to become a BTS technician, your rejection letter has become unsuccessful at this time. A limited number of companies were considered worth my experience and knowledge in this field and so I will be starting with Phase One on Monday 4th March 2013, 09:00 at your Melbourne office at Suite 703, 167-169 Queen St Melbourne. As discussed in the job description I will arrive prepared for the OH&S induction and the issue of a company car, laptop computer and mobile phone.

Thank you, I certainly appreciate your help and I look forward to working with Phase One.

Please feel free to call or reply at anytime.

David Nightingale
M 6622 4730

20130219 Things I have learned from "School of Rock"

2013-02-19T21:25:00.000+08:00

Things I have learned from "School of Rock"

Substitute teachers are real teachers.
Always check the ID of substitute teachers.
If the police suspect you of impersonating a teacher and endangering children, all you have to do is run home and go to bed and they will not catch you.
You need a ticket to get into a concert even if your kids are performing.
It may be handy to know how to spell your friend's name.
The children have had their lunch.
Those that can't do, teach. And those that can't teach, teach gym.
I believe the children are our future.
Only try a stage dive when there are more that 5 people in the crowd.
Kids think that green hair is rock 'n roll.
Drum solos are gut bustin'
Guitar solos are face meltin"
In a US presidential election, people would vote for a primary school kid.
Pink Floyd is homework.
Making guitar sounds with your mouth is a good way to tell others what the music should sound like.
If you can play a cello, you can play a bass.
The "masters of the universe" stance can make you play better, a lot better.
You are not hard core unless you live hardcore.
You can sound-proof a room by stuffing towels under the windows.
A recording on an Apple Mac is a good substitute for a substitute teacher.
You're the man.
When faced with an angry guitarist, the whole situation can be changed by saying "call security".
I come from the land of ice and snow.
Eyebrows can move independently of each other.
If you tell someone to stand up for themselves, they might standup to you.
Be prepared on parent-teacher night.
If a school sends you a cheque, don't ask questions, its just your flatmate taking over your life.
No one gets in without a ticket.
The original member of a band is not the band.
Every Fender Stratocaster has been played by Hendrix.
A school uniform for a 20 stone man can easily fit into a lunch-size paper bag.
Credits go up the screen.
Alcoholics have a disease.
Kids like to burn things.

References:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332379/

20130209 Chinese New Year BBQ.

2013-02-10T13:19:00.003+08:00

20130209 Chinese New Year BBQ.

At a Chinese New Year barbecue a few friends were talking about their career plans. They are all teachers at a ‘prestigious international school’ and have impressive credentials in regards to the places they have worked and their long and continuing education. The fact that this is known is part of the social customs of Americans. While most other civilised societies consider the amount of money earned in a year to be a matter only discussed with an accountant, a solicitor while making a will and maybe your closest friend, the Americans seem to ask this question as way of quickly establishing a pecking order among colleagues.

One particularly bright chap regaled the assembled merry-makers with tales of working for and with such great minds as Jacob Goldman and for companies that have brought amazing and innovative products and inventions such as ‘the wheel’, double-sided sticky tape and the photocopy machine. In an effort to counter his like-minded science teacher and best friend, another teacher told his story of his involvement with the creation of the Internet while studying at Berkley and the life-saving research into the American obsession with ridding the world of the scourge of the remote probability of eating an egg contaminated with salmonella.

Sitting around a fire, just like our early ancestors, holding a piece of dead animal on a stick in the glowing embers it became apparent that as a civilisation, in terms of social customs, we have not progressed that far.

After all was said about their education, their research into lasers, radiation and optical physics, the brightest teacher of them all, the one who had worked for xerox and who currently held 4 masters degrees in physics and education, considered his primitive meal slowly roasting on the end of a stick by the heat of a open fire and asked a simple question: “How can you tell when chicken is cooked?”
References:
Note:
The term “prestigious international school” appeared on the Wikipedia entry with the conspicuous footnote of “citation needed” and had since been changed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_International_School
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/business/jacob-e-goldman-founder-of-xerox-lab-dies-at-90.html?_r=0
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/3M-Defense-US/Defense/Products/Air/~/3M-Double-Coated-Urethane-Foam-Tape-4026-Natural-1-in-x-1-in-1-16-in-1000-Squares-per-pack-1-per-case?N=4294649436+5420242&Nr=AND(hrcy_id%3AGSC2NWK1YZgs_RPS963T64K_N2RL3FHWVK_GPD0K8BC31gv)&rt=d

Bridge TEFL Module 6.

2012-12-07T16:54:00.000+08:00

20121207 Teaching English as a Foreign Language.

Bridge TEFL. Module 6.

Hello good people and fellow teachers of a language other than English.
There are many aspects to language: humour, seriousness, soliloquy, sarcasm, just to name a few. A comedian once quipped that English is impossible to learn, it must be memorised.
So once again, I pretend to be sincere while being disingenuous to the good people at Bridge TEFL for their wonderful charade of insincerity.

As the good people at Bridge TEFL said in the final lessons: Please compare your answer to this example and provide your own assessment.

=================================

o Lexis

o Phonics

o Function

Date Level – Primary 1 (age 6 – 8) Duration – 1 hour.

What is the Weather Like Today?

This lesson is typical for level one to three (ages 6 to 8) and introduces concepts about the weather, days of the week and temperature. It can be used as a lead-in for calendar, counting, use of numbers, what clothes to wear. Grammar subjects such as present and future can be explored.

Lesson type and subject:

· Vocabulary and Grammar.

Materials:

Recording of the weather report for the week. MP3 or CD. Suitable means to play recording.

Worksheets with days of the week.

PowerPoint or flash cards with new vocabulary words and meanings.

Lesson Objectives:

Teaching the subjective descriptions of weather: sunny, raining, cloudy and fine.

Teaching the quantative measurement of temperature.

Assumptions:

Students will be familiar with the General Reading text regarding weather.

Students will be familiar with the order of the days of the week.

Anticipated Problems and Solutions:

Problem: - RSVP – Rhythm, Speed, Volume and Pitch.

Solution: - The rate of speech on the recording will be slower than normal radio presenters. A rate of 0.8 on media player is usually sufficient.

Problem: - Initially overwhelmed by information.

Solution: - Reassure the students that the recording will be played several times.

Problem: - Pronunciation of Sunny vs Sunday.

Solution: - One on one practice with the problem students.

Presentation.

Duration: 10 minutes

Activity.

Introduce the new vocabulary: Sunny, Fine, Cloudy, Raining and Typhoon.

Introduce the weather by eliciting a response “What is the weather like today?

Write a few of the different ways that this question is asked in English:

· How’s the weather.

· Is it a nice day outside?

· What is the weather like where you are?

The weather report is on the radio after the news every hour. Draw a picture of a radio on the board.

Show the Hong Kong weather web site as an authentic example of how to check the weather.

The website has a simple chart showing the day of the week and a symbol to represent the forecast.

Elicit a response from the class asking:

what will the weather be like on a random sample of days.
if they have seen the weather website.
if their parents use the website.
if they used the website to see what the weather will be like for an important event in the next week e.g. the school picnic or sports day.

Practice.

Duration: 20 minutes.

Distribute the worksheets with a personal greeting.

Referring to the worksheet, elicit a response regarding the weather on Sunday.

Elicit a response – “What will the weather be like on Monday?”

Elicit a response – what will the weather be like on Tuesday? We don’t know!. How can we find out?.

Lets listen to the weather report on the radio.

Production.

Duration: 30 minutes.

Reassure the students that the weather report will be played a few times and that there is no need to hurry.

Start the recording that has 15 seconds of quiet time – during the 15 seconds, pretend to tune the picture of the radio to the news station.

After the first sentence, pause and elicit a response – can you hear?, is it too fast? – adjust if needed.

Replay the recording from the start and elicit a response from a random student – what will the weather be like on Thursday?, ask another student – “Is that correct?”

If there is an incorrect answer or it the answer is unknown – then elicit a response asking how they could find out. Wait for an answer like – listen to the weather report and then use this prompt to replay the recording. Replay the recording as needed or often as time permits.

Assessment and final discussion.

Elicit a response from the class for a self correction exercise.

See each student personally and elicit a response for a few of the entries and reward them with a stamp on their worksheet.

Follow up lesson:

What clothes do I wear today?

Use the weather information on the worksheets to prompt for a discussion about what clothes the students would wear according to the weather.

Elicit a response to the class on what will you wear on Wednesday?

Why would you wear that?

What is the weather like today.

Listen to the report to hear what will it be like for the week.

Listen for - Sunny, Fine, Cloudy, Raining and Typhoon 1.

Day	Temperature	Weather
Sunday	26° C	Cloudy
Monday	28° C
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday

Weather report.

Script:

Now here is the weather report for this week:

Sunday, the temperature will be 26 degrees and it will be cloudy.
On Monday, it will be 28 degrees and sunny.
Tuesday, the temperature will be 25 degrees and it will be cloudy.
Wednesday, the temperature will be 23 degrees and it will be rainy.
Thursday, it will be rainy and the temperature will be 22 degrees.
Friday, the temperature will be 26 degrees and there will be a typhoon level one.
Saturday, the temperature will be 27 degrees and it will be fine.

==============
Instructor's comments:

Listening:
Very nice work. Your choice of activities demonstrates your ability to handle the unique demands of teaching the skill of listening. The recording you´ve chosen, the activities you´ve created, and the problems you´ve anticipated show your experience with this level of student and your skill at creating appropriate listening lessons for them. Your warm-up ensures that students will be prepared for the listening and your additional listening tasks are appropriate for them. It was particularly nice to see that you include a follow-up activity that gives students the chance to reinforce new language in an interesting way.

Reading:
Well done! Your selection of material and activities shows a sensitivity to your students´ levels and interests as well as an understanding of how to create an excellent reading lesson. Your lesson flows well from introduction to gist questions to more detailed questions. It was particularly nice to see your class ending with an activity getting the students to use their new language in a practical, personal way that involves other skills.

20121009 Alan Jones and Radio Opinions

2012-10-09T18:00:00.000+08:00

Alan Jones, famous opinionated broadcaster - just one more opinion.

Way back in the olden days, around 1990, when radio was a relevant source of entertainment, there were a select few who made a living by telling people their opinion. Now everyone can have their opinion seen, heard and even x-rayed on that brilliant 'interconnected series of tubes' we call the Internet.

While stuck in peak-hour traffic between the hours of 4:30 to almost 9 o’clock we will no longer have rely on the radio for traffic reports, the news, or even listen to the mindless opine of a radio DJ because with the development of mobile-phone technology like LTE, 4G and amazingly inexplicable CDMA-x1 we can now use our wonderful iPhone (n+1) to get an Internet connection in our car. So, as a result of this incessant march of technology, the last bastion of AM/FM radio the 'The Drive Time slot' is now under threat from the likes of facebook, youtube and Project Free TV.

One of the loudest and most-opinionated of these broadcast personalities was Alan Jones who was able to earn a decent living for his producers by being so controversially stupid that listeners would tune in and wonder what he was going to stuff-up next. Mercedes Benz has had enough of him over comments about the Prime Minister's dead dad and asked him to return the free car that was politely provided and has also refused to be associated with him ever again such was the level of embarrassment that can be caused by not knowing the difference between a fact, a logical fallacy and his arse.

There are of course many things worse than talk-back radio DJ’s who spout their biased and illogical opinion on commercial radio stations and are rewarded for their efforts by being paid a million dollars a year, and one such thing are a talk-back radio hosts who spout their biased and illogical opinion on community radio and are paid nothing.

References:
http://www.commercialradio.com.au/files/uploaded/file/Surveys%202012/Survey%201%202012/Brisbane%20Survey%201%202012%20Summary.pdf
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/alan-jones-loses-his-merc/story-e6frg6n6-1226489835280
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCmbbk5WAJM&feature=relmfu
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-07/alan-jones-told-to-give-24250k-car-back/4299572

20120922 Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Bridge TEFL Module 3.

2012-09-23T04:52:00.002+08:00

20120922 Teaching English as a Foreign Language.

TEFL Bridge. The TEFL course which offers accredited training by peer-review.

“The BridgeTEFL TEFL & CELTA certifications are recognized both in the United States and in many countries." says certified TEFL Online & CELTA Graduate Don Guadagni. So the course is perfect for teaching in the USA and many other non-specific and un-named countries. If you have no idea where you want to go, then BridgeTEFL can get you there.

Bridge TEFL upholds the standards of the industry by a peer review by the The Accrediting Council on Continuing Education, ACCET, who expresses its sincere appreciation to all volunteers who serve as evaluators. ACCET was founded in 1974 for the purpose of improving continuing education and training and has been officially recognized by the U.S. Department of Education since 1978 as a "reliable authority" as to the quality of education and training provided by the institutions we accredit. Being recognized by the Department of Education is apparently just as good as actually being a part of the Department of Education.

Here is an example of the standard of work that can be expected and accepted according to the rigorous marking scheme of the peer-reviewed and accredited BridgeTEFL. It is unacceptable to use first-person when writing at the tertiary level at most respectable universities but at BridgeTEFL, they take a more modern and relaxed approach than an established and accredited university by allowing the use of first-person as the subject. After, all this course is about you, the teacher. The curriculum advisers were told to prepare teachers work in far-away exotic countries and the accountants were given the same instructions regarding your course fee.

Module 3.

1. Take a look at the list of items below. Decide which system these relate to: lexis, phonology, grammar or function.

I went to London; I´ve been to London.

Grammar

Lend me $5. Could you possibly lend me $5?

Function

library; bookstore

Lexis

foot; foots

Grammar

I'd rather not; No way!

Function

hit; heat

Phonology

photograph; photographer

Lexis

should; must

Lexis

2. Imagine that you work in a language school. You have just received a new student from Korea who wants to study English prior to entering a university in the U.S. The student takes the placement test, which is all grammar and vocabulary and mostly multiple choice. She scores quite high; however, she does not speak very well and has difficulty understanding even the

simplest spoken language. What balance of the four skills and the four systems would you recommend for her study program? For example, would you focus on reading and writing or utilize her strengths in grammar to introduce topics, but make the exercises mostly listening and speaking? Would you focus on function, pronunciation, productive skills because the test was multiple choice and not a fair assessment of her success in a university with writing papers and listening to lectures?Explain what an appropriate balance would be. How did you reach that recommendation?

I would a create a study program where the student listens to recordings and then answers comprehension questions. All instructions would be given in writing to take advantage of her reading skills.

There would be no transcript of the recording – the student must listen to the recording. I would choose a skill level that accounts for student’s difficulty in understanding the spoken language. (Can we assume that there are no other factors such as a hearing impairment?) The test answers would start as multiple choice answers and other open answer questions that require a short written response progressing into spoken presentation answers as the student develops.

I would focus on function because the skills will be needed to participate in the course and also when she starts university. The recordings would be examples of asking questions in a classroom and how to elicit a response from a teacher. Within the teaching of function there would be built-in components of grammar, phonics and lexis that would develop her productive skills.

As her receptive skills improve, the focus would be shifted from developing her listening skills to a fuller, more rounded course where all the receptive and productive skills are further developed in harmony with each other – so that the student is equal in her abilities in each component of the language .

I believe an appropriate balance of receptive versus productive skills would be 80% receptive in the form of listening and 20% productive in the form of written and spoken answers.

My recommendation is based on information in the text – it states that the student has passed a multiple choice question test on vocabulary and grammar. It seems that the student has developed the reading and writing components of the language well but has not developed the listen and speaking components equally. The text also states that the student ”does not speak very well and has difficulty understanding even the simplest spoken language” and as a result the recommended course of action would be to develop her listening and speaking skills.

Teachers comments

Your choice to utilize reading as a segue to promote an intensive listening and speaking focus shows an astute grasp of integrating and balancing the skills based on individual student needs. Also, your ability to match the items listed in the question with the appropriate language system shows an excellent grasp of the systems concept.

The History and Spelling of English

Describe how your knowledge of the history of the English language will help you explain things to your students in an EFL class. Give specific examples.

As a Native English Teacher working in China I have had times when I have had to explain that the English language is made up from other languages. The explanation is usually centered around the terrifying number of wars that Europeans were so good at starting but really needed some help in learning how to stop. Knowing that a good portion of English is from Latin helps to explain the strange names the English give to appliances as compared to the stark descriptions given to mechanical devices in China. As an example, in English we have the word television derived from the Latin words “far” and “see” which basically describes the machine as the thing that lets you see what is far away. The Chinese word for television is Din Shi – or “electrical job” or the thing that uses electricity and to make one is a big job.

The Chinese students have an English text where a character in the book goes to France. While there, the character meets a French man named Monsieur Bas – I had to explain to the Chinese students that this is not an English title or name and that most of the letters in French are not pronounced. The correct pronunciation is “Monsieur Bah”. I think that it is unfair to introduce a difficult French name to young children that are already trying to learn English.

What differences in student approach to English do you anticipate when working with students who speak a Latin or Germanic language versus students who speak Japanese, Chinese or Arabic?

As a Native English Teacher working in China I have had the experience of teaching the words “athletic” to Chinese children only to have the lesson taken up with explaining how to make the “th” sound. The problem is compounded when teaching this to a young child who may not have the fine motor skills to form the correct sounds.

Describe strategies you will use in class to help you with your own spelling, if it´s a problem, like bringing a dictionary to class or writing down troublesome vocabulary in your lesson plan.

I overcome spelling problems by having a dictionary and noting troublesome words in the lesson plan – also as discussed – eliciting a response from the students can be helpful.

Teachers comments

Your answer shows that you understand the importance of having a working knowledge of the history of English, an awareness of your students´ linguistic backgrounds, and a strategy for dealing with your own spelling weaknesses. However, more specific examples of how these issues might play out in the classroom would strengthen your response. Also, when discussing the differences between students of differing linguistic backgrounds, don´t forget that Arabic and Asian students also have a completely different alphabet.

Overall mark

60/70

References:

http://www.bridgetefl.com/index.php

http://www.accet.org/accreditation

http://www.bridgetefl.com/accet-accrediting.php

20120828 Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Early Childhood.

2012-08-28T10:35:00.000+08:00

20120828 Teaching English as a Foreign Language in Early Childhood. ( ... is best done by professionals who are competent in the psychology of early language development.)

The very idea of an online teaching course is flawed and contradictory. In practice, doubly so. There are logical-reasoning errors that make circular arguments against itself. Having said that, I have done this:

Teaching a Gym Class to Pre-school

Completing the TEFL, also known as Teaching English as a Foreign Language, course has proven an interesting exercise in building personal confidence but a poor investment in professional development. One of my previous blog entries shows a letter from an employer stating that I am "too old" to be considered for a teaching job. So, in an effort to re-balance the universe; post-rationalise my decision; and force a self-fulfilling-prophecy immortalised in the words of Jack Black from his role as Dewey Finn pretending to be Ned Schneebly - "Those who cannot do; teach. And those who cannot teach, teach gym".

Lesson One from Bridge TEFL.
TTT. Teacher Talking Time

TTT stands for Teacher Talking Time. TTT can be a problem in a class for foreign-language students for a number of reasons.

1) - A teacher may feel that the natural silence that occurs between asking a question and receiving and answer may be "too long". This time of silence is subjective and can vary between teachers and as a result the teacher may start talking again in an effort to elicit a response to fill an "awkward silence". The act of asking another question will interrupt the student’s line of thought and delay the answer even further. A teacher should allow time for a student time to understand the question and formulate an answer before prompting for a reply.

2) - The student's time is valuable. A language class should give the student time to learn, practice and allow time to recall the information needed to create a positive experience and would like to see some return on their investment. A student may also be a customer and therefore, customer perception regarding value for money needs to be considered. A student, a customer, will make a subjective internal decision on the value of a language course based on their experience in the classroom and may frankly assume that a more economical way of listening to an hour of genuine English speaking may be accomplished by simply listening to the radio.

A Native English Teacher working in a Chinese school must consider several factors when the student is thinking of an answer. One strategy is to put the student at ease by asking them to answer the question in their own language.
This demonstrates to the teacher that the student can understand the question, and has an answer, but is searching for the right English words.

How to avoid excessive TTT.

1) Be patient. Allow the student to think quietly. Students need to feel that their teacher is patient and their learning is important and we can use the class time efficiently to listen to their answer (Marsh, C. 2008).

2) Overcome the social stereotype that every occasion needs a backing sound. Students learn better when they recall - it is recall that makes a memory stay (Karpicke et al. 2011).

I plan to use student centered activities such as English word games like Bingo and Hangman. The use of open questions such as "What have you done today?" and "What do like to do?" will be encouraged where students can answer and demonstrate their progress.

References:

Marsh, Colin. Becoming a Teacher. Pearson Education Australia 2008.

Karpicke, J. Practicing Memory Recall Boosts Science Learning. cited 2011.
http://neurosciencenews.com/practicing-memory-recall-boosts-science-learning/

Bridge TEFL
http://www.bridgetefl.com/

White, Mike. School of Rock. Paramount Pictures 2003.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332379/

20111116 The Occupy Brisbane Movement.

2011-11-10T09:23:00.001+08:00

The Occupy Brisbane Movement.

A few months ago a small band of insignificant protestors gathered in Wall Street New York to make their voices heard regarding their perceptions of the 'greed of the corporate world' in America.

Like so many ideas that come from the United States of America it had at least two attributes: it was appealing and it was stupid.

Instantly and all around the world, at least two more people behaved in such a manner as to suggest that this was regarded as a fairly good way to take advantage of the rebellious idea that it was now ok to camp in a public place. And so, the daring few carried their tents into Post Office Square and made a stand for what they truly believed to be true. They were determined, they were resourceful, they had no idea what they wanted nor how to get it but that was not the purpose. Their purpose was to get some attention and pretend to be just like their American idols.

The basic idea of a protest is fairly simple: the protestors make everybody else feel uncomfortable until everybody else makes the protestors feel comfortable. This tactic has been astonishingly successful, and has proven to be necessary for the survival of the species, among those younger members of our society who have yet to develop their ability to speak, walk, or use civilised and customary systems of personal hygiene.

From the outset, the Occupy Movement has either deliberately or ignorantly refused to be part of the very system of change that is needed to meet their demands. If they only knew their demands.

The false hope that the Occupy Brisbane movement has created is sad to the point of being criminal. During the Occupation of Post Office Square, the news reported the industrial action at Qantas. One person actually asked the Occupy Brisbane movement to take action. This plea for help was a turning point in my perception because it occurred to me that some people in the fair city of Brisbane actually believed that a bunch of people sitting in a park had real power.

From these events, it is evident that there are people who believe that a public protest is the first order of action for change in a civilized society. The Queensland education system could not be so incompetent that it has utterly failed to tell students how the political system works. That is not the case. The Queensland Curriculum includes lessons at the year 9 level:

• Contact between cultures has produced movements to improve democratic participation and citizenship rights for specific groups

e.g. government policy and legislation to increase opportunities for participation in electoral and government

processes for women, Indigenous people and young people.

So, the question remains on why these people continue to follow a leaderless and illegitimate political movement. Possibly, they either missed class that day or they do not have the equivalent of a year 9 education.

In an effort to guide some of the wayward followers, I asked them if they had writen to their local member about their concerns. Not one of them had done so. They had a feeling of helplessness and isolation and that their concern would be disregarded. I asked others if they had looked at any of the policies of the existing parties to see if their concerns were already being addressed. Again, nobody had taken the time, about 3 minutes of research on the Queensland Government website, to find out. While chatting with the supporters on facebook, I came to a realisation that there really are people who need to be protected from themselves. These people are truly a danger to society. As a political movement, it is a sad dismal failure. As a joke, the Occupy Brisbane Movement is an elaborate social success that went severely bung.

References:

http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/downloads/early_middle/qcar_el_sose_yr9.pdf

http://www.occupybrisbane.org/

http://www.occupybrisbane.com/

http://occupywallst.org/

1102111230 Teaching English as a Foreign Language is for young people.

2011-02-11T09:31:00.005+08:00

1102111230 Teaching English as a Foreign Language.

I never honestly considered that an on-line course to be an English teacher would be highly regarded by the teaching profession. A four-year degree course which includes the psychology of learning, effective formative assessment and a one-year practice in the classroom does not favorably compare to mucking about for 120 hours on the internet. Even though I managed to do well and was awarded good marks for my lesson plans, the teacher's comments never mentioned anything specific about my work: it was like they were cut-and-paste from a spam generator. The "print-it-yourself" on-line certificate does not carry any authority and there is something hollow and artificial about it. It lacks an essential ingredient. Like carob. Having said that, the only people who consider the qualifications from Bridge TEFL seriously are, oddly enough, the people at Bridge TEFL. The final part of the course is job placement with their agency. I received this reply:

Dear David,

Thank you for considering BridgeTEFLJobs for placement in South Korea. As a warning, placements are extremely difficult to secure in South Korea when the applicant is nearing the age of 50. We apologize for this difficulty. This is not a policy of BridgeTEFL, but of the employing agencies in South Korea. Each school has its own guideline for hiring teachers and currently most teachers being hired are from 22 to 40 years of age. If you are outside of this age group, it might take longer to find a school. Being that the retirement age in Asia is presently 50~55 yrs, it is highly unlikely that anyone nearing or past 50~55 yrs will obtain a decent job offer.

In light of this information, you may want to consider teaching in other areas, such as Latin America. If that sounds appealing, we strongly suggest enrolling in a TEFL Certification course in-country for numerous reasons:

* Allows time to acclimate to the culture
* Provides an opportunity to look for housing
* Usually includes free language lessons
* Encourages networking (with potential employers and classmates)
* Greatly improves your chances of being hired

Please visit http://www.bridgetefl.com/tefl-courses-abroad.php for a map with locations where we are currently offering such courses.

Please let me know if you have any questions or if you would like to continue with your placement in South Korea in spite of the aforementioned difficulties.

Regards,

Matt Clark

BridgeTEFL Jobs Advisor, BridgeTEFL
915 S. Colorado Blvd.
Denver, CO 80246
(303) 785-8861 (direct)
1-888-827-4757 (Toll-free USA & Canada)
0-800-028-8051 (Toll-free UK)
www.BridgeTEFLJobs.com

_______________

Dear Mark,

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I understand that this is not a policy of Bridge TEFL or your personal feelings, because age discrimination is illegal in the USA, Canada, England, France, Australia, New Zealand, most of Europe, some of the more interesting parts of Asia, anywhere East of the Urals, the Baltic States and the Antarctic Territories.

I sincerely hope that you live long enough to experience this yourself.

David Nightingale.
TEFL Graduate

1012082230 The Automatic War. Chapter One.

2010-12-08T22:56:00.005+08:00

The news about North Korean artillery made me think of this:

"At My Command"

John lay in his allocated firing position, watching his arcs as his sergeant had ordered. There was no movement, there never was, there were no troops in the minefield that lay between the North and the South, there never was. He just lay there and peered into the blackness trying to see the military targets meticulously described in routine orders. After a while he tired of it and took out a letter from home that he had been waiting for a chance to read. At the same time, miles away, John’s small movement was detected by an enemy automated sentry using Doppler shift radar coupled to a thermal imaging device. The machine added an entry to its database of known enemy locations. This particular automatic sentry had noted the locations of 75 soldiers in the last hour. The night was quiet. There was no breeze. The air was cold. John attached a red coloured filter on his torch in the mistaken belief it would not been seen easily by the enemy. It was John's 16th mistake that he had made during his 2-hour guard duty, but he was aware of only 3 and disregarded those as petty. Although the light from his torch barely provided enough light for him to see, it showed up as a brilliant white point in the night-vision equipment of the automatic enemy sentry. The sentry controller was 25km away, out of artillery range and safe inside a hardened concrete shelter. His name was Jon and he honourably, and according to his orders, fulfilled his duty and remotely aimed the Chinese made Cz20mm cannon at the target. To Jon it was a routine task: allocate the new target to gun number 47. The image of John was clear, he could be seen fumbling with his torch in the dim red light. Jon watched the screen and noted the location of the target, the range, rounds remaining and the gun’s state of weapon readiness. Then, out of curiosity, he also looked at the barrel and cordite temperatures. He regarded another control with interest: AMC & Automatic. AMC stands for "At My Command", this setting gives the operator control over when to fire the gun. It is the trigger. When using the AMC setting, the decision to fire will be made by the operator, a person, a live human with feelings, compassion and maybe a family. The operator will make that decision based on his or her training, an assessment of the tactical situation or, a direct order from a higher ranking officer. When the gun is set to AMC it will report as "Ready" instead of firing. When the gun is set to "Auto" it will fire on the identified target without delay. The manufacturers of this weapon system won the lucrative defence contract by persuasive use of the words 'without delay'.

John, the identified target, took out the letter from his girlfriend back home. He was looking forward to reading about home; that far-away place where he could kiss his girlfriend, drive his blue Chevrolet convertible and stroll along Main Street freely without the constant nagging fear of stepping on something explosive. The letter read "Dear John, I have been lonely since you left and I have fallen in love with Jack. You'd like him, he has a red Dodge pick-up truck.” John had received a "Dear John" letter.

A soldier in a war-zone needs to keep control of impulsive behaviour because anything done on the battlefield can get a soldier killed; including doing nothing. On the frontline border in a region where an unknown number of nuclear warheads are always ready, and an even bigger unknown number of troops are waiting for a half-decent excuse to reunify the south, John started a tantrum that would last for both the rest of his life and another 14.5 seconds.

John’s immature-anger welled up, the misdirected blame scrambled his thoughts, a mere 20 years of life experience was not enough to give him perspective and presence of mind he needed to appreciate his role in the complex geopolitical topography of the worlds worst place to make sudden loud noises. He tried to make some sense of it all and verbalised in his preferred native expressions which used smaller words with their own distinct but similar sounding meanings. John cursed.

Now, he mistakenly thought to himself, he was going to personally end this war. He aimed his M205 assault rifle expertly and exactly as he had been taught during years of training. He held it firmly to reduce recoil and focused on the rear sight; it was black, he could not see it; he focused on the foresight, it was black, he could not see it either; he focused on the target, it was huge and black, he could not miss it. Then with purpose and intent he deliberately squeezed the trigger and fired twenty accurate well-aimed shots blindly into an area target he identified as the entire northern hemisphere.

The sound a rifle makes when fired may be compared to the sound of thunder, however, small arms do not sound like thunder. Small arms make a vicious and irritating sound like the barking of an angry little dog, only much louder. It is the big calibre weapons that have the volume and gas momentum to reverberate against the earth and rumble the ground to make the sound of thunder. The sound and muzzle blast from field artillery can lift the dust from the ground and push over fully grown men, much to their surprise and others' amusement. The sound of a rifle firing is a sharp sudden noise accompanied by a force that is felt in the sensitive delicate paper-thin facial muscles. There is a tiny moment of unconsciousness after each round is fired while the soldier’s body absorbs the shock and recovers from the involuntary blink. It takes a few milliseconds to focus, assess the fall of shot and correct any aiming errors. After careful observation and accurate corrections the next round is squeezed off. John had no need to correct for aiming errors, his target was the one half of the war, the enemy half, so everywhere north of his allocated firing position was just as good a target as anywhere else. John’s delicate facial muscles absorbed the recoil of the rifle while the force of the sound barged into his ears and pushed his eardrums as far back as they would go, and then rattled them. He fired at nothing and everything, cursing the enemy, the war and his tiny futile role in it.

John's first round left the barrel of his rifle at a speed of 853 meters per second, a number that John had learned and remembered during basic training because it was a vital piece of information that every soldier must know, just in case he was ever asked by an officer. The round then travelled about 720 metres in the first second: the round slows down considerably with air resistance. The sound of the first bullet was noted with interest by one of the enemy's many automated listening posts. Its sensitive microphones recorded the "crack" of the sonic boom made by the bullet as it travelled along its arc and then listened for the "bang" of the rifle that fired it. The listening post sent the data to the command post where it was analysed and compiled then and compared to similar data from several other identical automated listening posts. A "circle of error" appeared on a map in the enemy’s command post. John was somewhere in that circle and every round that John fired made the circle smaller. The circle shrank smaller and smaller about three times every second until it became a point. This point indicated known troop locations. A stream of data was sent to gun 47. Several stepper motors in the aiming mechanism pointed the business end of the weapon at John. A 20mm full-metal jacket round was loaded into the chamber by an obedient solenoid.

At the enemy command post, on the control panel, a circuit switched on a particular resistive filament which warmed and then glowed with satisfaction as it illuminated the "Ready" light for gun 47.

As John's final tantrum continued, the sound of semiautomatic rifle alerted his section. Every soldier in the 1st of the 83rd of the 9th Mobile armoured light fighters sprang into action, to some it was a reaction to firing, others it a reaction to a conditioned response, others were just scared that the sergeant would yell at them. The men were well armed, well trained, motivated, fit and completely wrong. The orders stated that they must fire only when they see the enemy advancing. An alert radio operator sent a report to the brigade headquarters, "2 this is 2.2. Contact over". The short message spoke volumes, in its own shorthand way it said: "Calling Company Headquarters for the 1st of the 83rd of the 9th Mobile armored light fighters, this is platoon number 2, section 2, we are currently being attacked from the North, they are advancing on our location with armoured support". There is a lot of implied information in an army message.

In the enemy command post, the field officers saw the 1st of the 83rd of the 9th Mobile armored light fighters suddenly moving forward. This was honestly interpreted as an assault. The evidence was clearly before them. There was only one explanation: the south had started its invasion. In his own language, a Northern signaller sent a similar volume of information to his company headquarters. The sentry controller watched with great concern as automatic sentry guns numbered 14 to 39 detected forward movement and displayed ready lights, there was movement along the front, all advancing. The computer controlled sentry made a quick calculation of the predicted troop movement and alerted the officers by sounding a dignified beep. This particular beep had a distinct sound that, when interpreted correctly, told the sentry controller that at the current speed of movement, the soldiers of platoon number 2 would cross the perimeter in less than three minutes. The sentry controller knew the drill, he knew the procedure, he knew the orders. It is clearly stated that in the event of an imminent invasion, all guns must be set to fire automatically. Jon obeyed the order. He switched the big calibre weapons from AMC to automatic. Jon listened to the sound of little angry dogs barking at the thunder.

Gun 47 received the coded signal to fire an accurate three round burst at a point target. A capacitor charged, a transistor closed a circuit and sent 50 volt shock into the percussion cap of the chambered 20mm round. Following the laws of physics and chemistry, PV=nrT, the propellant gasses ignited, heated and rapidly expanded. The hot gas tried to expand inside the tiny cartridge as its volume increased to more than ten-thousand times of that of its solid state. The hot gas built up 52,000 pounds of bore pressure and impinged on the base of the projectile. Suddenly, the gas pressure overcame the initial resistance and accelerated the bullet along the barrel to a speed of 990 metres per second. The 20mm bullet burst from its confinement out of the barrel as if in celebration of its new-found freedom with a flash of light and an intense square-wave of sound. The gun recoiled in surprise as it released 4.5 litres of red-hot gas while the sound of reverberating thunder expanded into the night air. The massive 480 gram projectile, its gas expended, its cartridge case ejected, followed its graceful arc for 2,325 meters before hitting its allocated target just above the centre of the seen mass and slightly below its sensitive delicate paper-thin facial muscles. The second round passed through John’s Kevlar armour without any significant loss of momentum while the third round sped past his inert body, through a cloud of fine red mist and whiff of steam. In the next 3.14159 seconds, the mechanical automated sentry delicately adjusted its aim with ballet-like precision and repeated this procedure another 74 times with similar results. John's last round fell harmlessly into the Northern countryside about five meters from the enemy listening post.

Bibliography:

http://www.eurasiareview.com/analysis/10121-strategic-instability-in-korea

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/08/AR2010120800838.html?hpid=topnews

1011212030 My Interview Went Well.

2010-11-21T23:24:00.010+08:00

Meanwhile... .

And so my contract as a Native English teacher with the wonderful Chinese Catholic girls' school in Wong Tai Sin ended. My last day was ordinary, anti-climactic and sobering. The lesson ended and within a few minutes another teacher came to the classroom. She asked if I had finished because she needed the classroom for a violin lesson. That simple administrate gesture put my life in perspective.

I applied to work at another primary school and my interview went well. The few subjects that I passed in my Bachelor of Education were useful in the interview as I talked to the English teachers about the psychology of learning and the importance of formative assessments which lead to an in-depth discussion about the indicators of functional cognitive ability. I told them I was studying towards my Bachelor of Education but I am not a teacher and that is why I am not registered as a such with the relevant authorities in Hong Kong. There was a long pause. "We will discuss this with the principal and inform you of our decision."

The next day there was a long silence.

Then, late on Friday night, the agency called to tell me that the school would like me to start on Monday and could I please attend a planning meeting at eight o'clock in the morning. I thanked them and assured them "I will be there" with a postscript on how utterly amazed I was at the offer.

The school is about 50km away from where I live. In Hong Kong that means it is also two hours away and requires the crossing of three tunnels, two bridges and a partridge in a pear tree. On Saturday morning, early Saturday morning after dragging my half-unconscious carcass almost to China, I found myself at the planning meeting with the head of the English curriculum and the other English teachers. We talked about the lessons for the next few weeks and I committed to attending the parents and teachers night, the sports day and their upcoming 10th anniversary concert.

The principal talked to me afterwards and asked me at what university did I get my education degree.
It is at this point when I digress to talk about a famous Australian author, Miles Franklin, who wrote a book about her brilliant career. The book is aptly titled My Brilliant Career. She also wrote another less-known sequel called My Career Goes Bung. That is how I would aptly describe what happened next.

The principal casually asked for a copy of my Hong Kong ID card, my work visa and a copy of my first degree. I told the principal that I do not have an education degree or a first degree; and it could be argued, with a high probability of success, that I do not even have an education. "I cannot talk to you anymore, I will contact the agency. Good day." said the principal amid a flurry of apologies but he then took the time to explain to me that he had asked the agency for an English teacher, one who has actually completed a degree, preferably in the English language, about the English language and with the purpose and intent of actually teaching English as a career. Not a telephone technician. The English teacher looked at me silently for a few seconds and then asked me to return her books.

A few minutes later, I was riding my scooter along the long Yuen Long freeway back to Hong Kong. In my mind was the haunting image from a youtube movie showing a scooter accident that occurred on the same stretch of road a few days earlier. The scooter accident represents how quickly life can change.

As of Sunday night, I have not heard from anyone about where to be on Monday morning, so I sent an email to prompt the agency to contact me. It went like this:

The situation:
I have not heard from the agency
I have not heard from the school
I have not signed a contract
I feel like a fool

I cannot start on Monday
I am not welcome there
If I sit and do nothing
It will not be fair

Everyone was so helpful
It happened so quick
"Please show me your papers"
I can't do such a trick

One minute I worked there
The next I was gone
They want a real teacher
But I just fix phones.

So now in the evening
I plan my next day
Do I go in the morning?
What do you say?

( I really did not mean it to turn into rhyming couplets but I was thinking about a play called the Misanthrope.)

References:
Miles Franklin. My Brilliant Career (1901)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Brilliant_Career

Misanthrope. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, Known as Molière (1622-1673)
http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/Misanthrope.html

Scooter Accident in Hong Kong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZenB1F6cdw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

091210 Everyone Hates Doing The Dishes

2009-12-11T01:28:00.005+08:00

Everyone Hates Doing The Dishes

One of my close and dear relatives recently said that she needed to go on anti-depressants. One of her many legitimate reasons for considering taking mind altering medication under competent medical supervision is that she simply cannot face doing the dishes. This is not a secret, she did post the news on facebook. Everyone hates doing the dishes.

Here are some statistics that may support that statement:
Dishwasher sales in the US alone amount to 1.8 Billion dollars per year. The number of cleaning maids, also known as domestic helpers hired from the Philippines to work in Hong Kong is more than 250,000. The population of Brisbane is about 2 million people. The population of Stanthorpe is about 10,000 people. So, if you happen to live in Stanthorpe, think of everyone you see every day and imagine another 25 people helping them do the dishes. Imagine, at the end of each meal; in this imaginary situation in Stanthorpe, 25 people politely and graciously descend on the table like a flock of well mannered seagulls, clear everything, clean the table; take every plate, knife, fork and spoon to the kitchen where it is thoroughly and vigorously washed in hot soapy water, dried, stacked, folded, sanitised and generally cleaned in the time it takes to unfold your linen napkin, elegantly dab the corners of your mouth, burp and say “My goodness that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehova.”

The BBC had an interesting article about why a particular English family has a maid. The charming and well spoken wife said, among other things, that the family has a maid not so much as to do the housework, but to preserve the sanity. This family would rather pay someone to always be the one to do the dishes and therefore stop the endless bickering about whose turn it is. The cost in dollars and the mental cost of employing a maid is far lower than the mental cost of dealing with the nightly arguments over who is going to wash and who is going to dry. These complementary and diverse tasks set an important social standing within the family. The best way to devalue the position, according to the psychologist running the study, is to make the position part of a different social structure.

Doing the dishes is a futile task. No sooner are the dishes done and the kitchen clean when someone walks in and innocently puts one single solitary dirty glass in the nice clean empty sink, smiling sweetly as they do so. With that innocuous action, the incessant cycle of drudgery starts again. The job was complete for nearly, almost but not quite, 7.62 seconds. Endless, futile, thankless, degrading and lonely; so lonely. Even on chip night, when there should only be that lovely big square of white paper with a few delicious deep-fried crumbs, scraps of soggy batter and a lovely lingering lemon fragrance to be rolled up and dropped unceremoniously into the wheely bin, there is always something in the sink. Always. Always. Always.

Most of the drudgery can be taken away if someone just stays and gives some moral support, but as history has shown time and time again, everyone runs off to do something far more interesting like watching a documentary on the lifecycle of bats.

There was a young bloke in the army who was given permission to live off the base. I cannot believe that a soldier had to actually ask permission to enjoy the very freedoms for which he was willing to risk his life; a soldier, a grown man, trained in the deadly arts of hand-to-hand combat, had to get permission to live in his own house. Anyway, this young bloke soon started showing his youthful inexperience and innate inability to run his own life when he showed signs of ill health and poor diet. His sergeant was asked to go to his private property to see what was going on. To the surprise and bewilderment of all, this young soldier was not doing the dishes. The story goes that he did have a basic common-sense system of standing orders with the duty roster posted on the fridge, but it seems it all went awry when he couldn’t muster the mental energy to do the dishes. After a hard day of marching up and down the square and painting white rocks white and shooting at a moving target, he just couldn’t be stuffed. The whole system collapsed. He became uncivilised. And so that day the legend was born of the Lazy Soldier With Mouldy Pots Who Had To Be Ordered To Live In The Barracks. The pots were taken away by men wearing Nuclear-Biological-Chemical suits and thrown in the dump.

Everyone hates doing the dishes. Even with a dishwasher, there is still the Tetris-like preparation of fitting all the round pots into what is essentially a square box. There is always one pot that takes up an unusual and inefficient amount of space. And this is the part that really gets me fired up – you have to wash the pots before they go in the dishwasher. It is no coincidence that the English language does not have the phrase; I had as much fun as doing the dishes.

It is perfectly normal to hate doing the dishes. It is perfectly normal to feel less than enthusiastic about the prospect of yet again, and knowing that, and this is the bit where the psychologist helps, the whole dreary job will have to be done again in three hours.

References:
http://www.gov.hk/en/residents/employment/recruitment/domestichelper.htm
http://search.nationmaster.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?query=stanthorpe&submit=+Search+%C2%BB+
http://www2.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=105&STORY=/www/story/08-22-2000/0001295620

0905183230 Tax Time

2009-05-18T22:15:00.008+08:00

The Rudd Government announced an important new measure to ensure that workers who earn income overseas do not have an unfair advantage over workers who earn income and pay tax in Australia.

This latest change to the tax system only effects the relatively few Australians that have decided to live overseas, but it does make me think about what will really happen to the planned gain of 675 million dollars.

The United States has a similar system where all citizens must pay taxes for the upkeep of their country while they live elsewhere. It seems only fair given that overseas citizens are still entitled to the same rights. Expatriates have access to consulates and legal representation, they still want their nation to be protected by a fully funded and happy police force. Teachers, doctors, politicians and public servants all need to be maintained in perfect working order just in case an expatriate decides to use that freedom to return to their homeland.

There was a story a few years ago about how the Victorian government tried to raise money by increasing the tax on diesel fuel. They researched the sales figures for diesel fuel sales and figured that they would raise ( I forget the number ) an extra couple of million dollars. What they did not take into account was the fact that the interstate truck drivers stopped buying the more expensive diesel in Victoria. So instead of raising more money, the government actually lost money by changing the way truck drivers managed their fuel. - they bought the cheaper fuel in New South Wales. So the real world effect was that the state of Victoria lost money while its northern neighbor pocketed the money that Victoria so carefully planned on getting in its collective grimy little mits.

The bit that really fired me up was the unfounded allegation that overseas residents have some kind of perceived "advantage". What is the advantage? Everyone has strengths and weaknesses that amount to some kind of "unfair advantage". The Prime Minister has an unfair advantage because he can ask the air force to take him on overseas business trips - has he done anything to balance the "unfair advantage" by offering free air force flights to business travelers? Politicians can have their retirement benefits paid in full when they leave office - other people must wait until they are at least 65 years old before they can "derive any benefit" from their own hard earned personal superannuation funds. Is there legislation to redress this gross indecency?

If my argument is to be transparent and non-discriminatory then it could be said that just as everyone in Australia is free to choose to live overseas and, simply by co-incidence, pay less taxes then I must also have the freedom to choose to become a prime minister and have free business travel.

References:
http://www.treasurer.gov.au/DisplayDocs.aspx?doc=pressreleases/2009/066.htm&pageID=003&min=wms&Year=&DocType=0

note: use of capital letters:
a prime minister - a description of the office
the Prime Minister - the title replaces the proper noun of The Honorable Mr. Kevin Rudd MP Prime Minister of Australia.

0904091230 Facebook is the latest CB radio

2009-04-09T11:32:00.002+08:00

0904091230 Facebook is the latest CB radio

Facebook reminds me of the CB radio craze of the 70’s. The Citizens Band Radio, has, or rather had, an opportunity to radically change the way people communicated, instead, the medium degenerated into a laughable game where it was forbidden to speak in an intelligible manner. For reasons that were never explained to my satisfaction, every utterance had to be in some kind of code. The code wasn’t even secret – the list of codes was available to the general public at any electronics store.
Using a CB radio in the 70’s was like an early version of a chat room except people were really talking, actually speaking instead of typing. Random people would wantonly transmit their voices into the ether and hope that someone equally lonely would listen to them. Occasionally, people asked what time it was by asking if anyone had the “10-36” even though it takes a lot longer to say “ten thirty-six” instead of “time”. The simple addition of a clock into a CB radio was never a design consideration – that sort of luxury had to wait until the Betamax video recorder.
People just talked on the thing. There were some truck drivers that asked the exact location of police cars but mostly people chatted about nothing in particular. The word “police” was treated like a swear word. It was forbidden to utter the sylables. Everyone had to say “bear” or taking the image yet another diabolical and cryptic step further, “Smokey”. It was this last sinister change that completely and utterly failed to fool any of the worlds law-enforcement officers. For some reason the truck drivers thought the police would remain ignorant of their little code-making game and the truck drivers honestly thought that no one would ever know what “bear” meant. It was their little secret.
The ultimate downfall of CB radio was the randomness – there was no order, no control and way to call one single person, there was a lot talk but little communication. It was a bizarre social experiment to see if people would change their language just to show other CB users that they could. The whole industry failed the basic test of actually being useful. It really had no use. It was, as history has shown, useless. Who, when their CB eventually stopped working, actually replaced it.
The schoolboy-level conversations that I had about a CB radio were always accompanied by these concepts: The mystery of the standing wave ratio. I heard someone say that they had tuned their radio by shaving one eighth of one inch from the base of their antenna – they were of course, lying.
The total lack of understanding about a phenomenon called “skip”. In another conversation I overheard someone say that a tin roof could amplify a signal – they were sadly mistaken and I believe remain so to this day. A tin roof can, under right conditions, reflect a signal, it can focus a signal, but it cannot amplify a signal.
What was a “sideband” and what made it so special that, with one, you could talk to truck drivers on the other side of the world in America. What was squelch – was that even a real word? Apparently it involves the impossible compromise between either listening to constant static or listening to a signal so weak that reply was impossible. Then there was the useless switch marked ANL for “automatic noise limiter”. It didn’t – someone incorrectly told me it was the “analyser” even though he had no idea what it analysed and how it even showed the results of whatever it was analysing. I’m sure the electronic engineer that designed the radio had laboured into the night to think of a way to reduce noise, but really, for all intents and purposes, it was just another switch that the marketing people wanted to use to fill in a blank space on the front panel.
And so in this modern age of communication we have long ago replaced the near-useless CB. First with computer chat rooms and lately, and for the time being, facebook. The internet’s equivalent to the CB radio and humankind’s latest thing for people to tell each other what they are doing. Facebook is the medium for self-promotion, for creating your own brand image and advertising yourself and your chosen personality for all the world to see, albeit with a perfunctionary wave to privacy.

0903171930 Your own Sunscreen Song

2009-03-31T20:45:00.003+08:00

The Sunscreen Song is thought provoking, I really like it. I first heard this song at a time when I was slightly ticked off at the universe in general, not God, just the universe, for my utter failure to become an air force pilot. I quite wrongly felt that life the universe and everything owed me a job.

A journalist wrote the Sunscreen Song when she had a deadline to write a few hundred words by the end of the afternoon and, by a strange coincidence, happened to see some teenagers going to their senior prom and wondered, if she was asked, what she advice she could offer. The result was a down-to-earth list of random pearls from her “own meandering experience” that, to me, seemed to put a lot of life’s complexities into some kind of order. It did this by roughly explaining that there actually is no order. The song has a real life honesty that extinguished the mad rush of the 1980’s that seemed to constantly call on people to manically Do It!, Win!, Go! and other overly positive and irritating slogans – the type of unrealistic, delusional rhetoric that motivated Olympic athlete Gabriela Andersen-Schiess to stagger to the finish line after running a marathon even though she suffered a stroke. It was this wild 1980’s positive advice stuff that motivated me to leave a fairly good job that had reasonable prospects for a future, to go back to school and try to become an air force pilot. My optimism was fuelled by the prevailing aforementioned ridiculous advice that flourished during the eighties, that stated with the air of some authority, that if you really tried and always had a clear direction and always had a chipper smile on your face then by golly goodness you will succeed. Always. I studied all the right subjects, I even passed most of them. Then the Australian air force, in a moment of amazing generosity, granted me an interview, a psychological test and an aptitude test which I promptly failed. In one afternoon my plan for a fun-filled exciting career as a fighter pilot was gone. There was no plan B. All that good advice from the 1980’s never mentioned the fact that a lot of jobs in the military have age limits and 26 years old is too late to become a soldier – even if it is for the second time. This is where the real advice of The Sunscreen Song made sense. It said, inter alia, that your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. I was never in a position to make a choice about my career, but really who is?

One day in grade three, the teacher asked the students what job we wanted when we grew up. Everyone in that classroom wanted to be either a doctor, a policeman or an astronaut. So who was going to be an accountant or a teacher? In my class, all the boys wanted to be astronauts. I wondered what would NASA do with fifteen more astronauts – they only needed seven astronauts for the entire mercury project. That night I asked my dad what he used to say he wanted to be when he was a kid, before life started changing things for him. He said that he wanted to be a diesel mechanic. He became a diesel mechanic.

So, there I was standing outside the air force recruiting centre with no future as a jet pilot when I decided to go to university. I was fairly interested in computers so I thought that it would be a relatively simple task to complete four years of university to study electrical engineering. At the time I had every confidence in myself that I would know what to do. I had done fairly well at high school so I figured that the university lecturers would tell me and every other student exactly what we needed to know and I would, after four years of classes, a few assignments and then a some exams, have a neat little set of initials to put at the end of my name. Not so. QED.

A few years later, after I had either, depending on your belief system, lucked into or been blessed with a good job with the nation’s telephone company as, of all things, a radio surveyor, I was thinking about the Sunscreen Song from 1997 and so I wrote my own version.

This is what I thought about life in 2002:
My own 'Sunscreen Song' 2002.
Wait and think when given a task, a plan will form in a few minutes.
Speak clearly, speak loud, tell the truth. Don't make anything up even if you're sure it will happen. Report your achievements, not your plans. Your 'to do' list is not an historical record.
Be honest, to God, to your family, your employer, to yourself. You have certain human rights. Do not allow yourself to be exploited unfairly. It is not being humble.
Read the scriptures every day. You will discover a little more each time.
Pray every night on your knees, it will help you stay grateful.
Pray every morning on your knees, it will help you stay confident.
Let your kids live a happy life. They need time with you more than products. Let them speak to you, listen to their stories, get to know their view of the world. You do not have to prove yourself to them, they know all too well that you are only human.
Enjoy it when your kids play. Boys will play rough and get hurt, let them. It's a tiny model of life. Compliment Hugo on all his mighty accomplishments. He is doing great.
Compliment Alex on all his mighty accomplishments. He is doing great. They need extra attention while they grow into men. Build them up on true principles.
Compliment Rachel Ruby on all her mighty accomplishments. She is doing great. Listen to all her great stories. Get to know Rachel Ruby to the extent that you can answer questions about her personal life.
Your kids will remember what you say - think carefully before shooting your stupid mouth off.
It is better to remain silent. You will never have to explain, defend or retract your silence.
You will never be ridiculed, embarrassed or accused because of your silence.
Listen to your inner self, when in doubt, don't speak at all. By your own experience, this should be most of the time.
Act for yourself, do not be acted upon. Drive yourself towards the right. Disregard all of societies foolish, confining conventions & do what is right.
You do not need permission. Act for yourself after serious thought.
Keep your cool. Everything that happens to you or around you is an opportunity to practice thinking clearly under pressure.
Be generous with your time & talents. You will only waste them on something selfish.
Do not assume that anyone is your friend.
Sleep is more important than entertainment.
Time with your kids is more important than sleep.
Beware of pride. Yes you are special, but not that special.

TED talks have an artist who did something similar and made his own list of times when he was happy and related those experiences to his love of design. His list looks like this:

http://globalmoxie.com/blog/stefan-sagmeister.shtml

References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriela_Andersen-Schiess http://101olympians.blogspot.com/2008/08/gaby-andersen-scheiss-staggering-into.html
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/history/mercury/mercury.htm
Chicago Tribune on June 1, 1997 entitled "ADVICE, LIKE YOUTH, PROBABLY JUST WASTED ON THE YOUNG" by staff writer Mary Schmich. Some versions have an introduction saying that it is for the class of ’97 others say the class of ’99 – either way, I don’t remember the year that I first heard this.
Photo credits - Hugo took these pictures of me in two different aeroplanes - one in Amberly in Australia and the other in a Jaguar in France.

0902271700 Proof

2009-02-27T19:01:00.008+08:00

The other day I was talking with some of the other teachers at the Chinese Catholic Girls School at which I work and one of them kind of, in a friendly, happy, joking sort of way, expressed some doubt that I could have had more than one job in the forty odd years that I have been keeping an even tally on the number of times that I have breathed in and breathed out. It seemed to me that one of the only ways to convince her that I really have had a varied career path would be to simply show her a picture of me doing the various jobs.

It was not that simple. I sent an email to one of my old friends at Telstra and politely asked him, as a special favor, if he could look in a particular file for a picture of me working on the roof of a telephone exchange installing an antenna. I may have mistaken the name of the town because my friend could not find the picture. It was not there. The picture may have been removed because it was damning evidence that I was not wearing a safety harness while working at heights – but I doubt it. It is odd that even though I worked for Telstra for about 15 years, I don’t have a picture of me actually working. There are no pictures of me working at my desk, no pictures of me carrying test equipment and no pictures of me managing the design and construction of any particular mobile phone tower. None. I do, however, have hundreds of photos of where I worked and of projects in various states of completion, but none of me at the site, on the job, actually working. It’s like I was never there. It is as if Winston Smith, while working at the Ministry of Truth, received a request via his telescreen to make me an un-person.

" Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word." George Orwell, 1984.

The only record of what I actually did while working from 7:30am to 17:00 for five days a week for fifteen odd years is safely hidden from the prying eyes of the general public in the Brisbane Telstra office basement, in the dark, on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

I did manage to dig up a few photos of me of when I was in the army. Although I constantly carried a camera around with me for years while on an army exercise, I took very few pictures. I was always too busy with some sort of machine gun thingy that they made me carry. It would have given the sergeant a raving conniption if I suddenly stopped the accurately aimed suppressing fire on that unarmed but altogether menacing figure eleven target just to take a quick happy-snap of the event to help explain to my mum exactly what I had been doing for the last three months. There was also the niggling problem of deciding what would be an economical choice of subject. You see, I usually had only 36 or so pictures stored in a truly ingenious mechanical/chemical invention that consisted of a thin layer of flexible yet mechanically sturdy plastic that was evenly coated with a variety of special light sensitive chemicals. It was called “film” and I am told that film is still available in some parts of the world. Even though each picture only cost a few dollars to process, I only had about 36 pictures and I had to be prudent and wise in my choice of subject so that I had some pictures in case something really interesting happened. My camera had a self timer but I rarely pointed it at myself, there was no need – the proof was the picture – it was always generally assumed by the more reasonable portion of the population that a hardcopy print was evidence that you were actually there. Nowadays, you have to be in the picture. And even that carries some doubt due to the amazing skill some people have with photoshop.

References:
George Orwell. 1984.
Douglas Adams. Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.
This photo was taken somewhere on the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland Australia in 1987. That was my Land Rover and I don't remember the name of the guy in the front seat.

0902162030. Things that cannot be explained before they are experienced.

2009-02-19T22:45:00.006+08:00

0902162030. There are many things that cannot be explained before they are experienced firsthand.

There are some customs and manners in other countries cannot be explained until they are experienced. Sometimes it is impossible to understand the directions regarding how to operate a new appliance until you actually know how to use that appliance, only then do the instructions make sense. The things that we need to know how to do, we learn by doing them.
When we arrived in Hong Kong we were told that we would need a certain appliance called a dehumidifier. This device was, as we were told by many friends and associates, essential to maintain a healthy living environment in the warm humid climate that is typical of any place that is as far north of the equator as Brisbane is south. The weather in Hong Kong lately has been indescribable – I have no other experience for a comparison: I have been hot on a humid day in the summer and I have been cold during on a dry day the winter, but lately it has been cold and humid. It doesn’t make sense. There is a thick fog over the beach while the local Chinese people go swimming. Do I wear shorts or a ski-jacket?

Vespa in the rain.
One of the many interesting things about a Vespa is the well-known historical fact that this gorgeous modern icon of personal transportation was designed by a brilliant aeronautical engineer who did not actually like motorbikes, in particular, he did not like the way that a typical motorbike offered no protection from the elements. In fact, on most motorbikes of the day, it was the rider that kept the machine dry.
The other day while scooting along the picturesque winding mountain roads on the south side of Hong Kong, the heavy grey skies sagged and the perfect combination of temperature and humidity was reached, clouds formed, saturation limits peaked and then, and only then, did it start to rain.
There are two major concerns that every motorcyclist has in this situation, first is adequate traction and the second is keeping dry. My little Vespa is fitted with a fairly new pair of Pirelli hoops so traction was not a real concern, not while commuting at a stately and dignified fifty kilometres per hour. Keeping dry was the next concern. A few seconds after the rain started I instinctively waited for that familiar but unwelcome cold wet feeling of water seeping through the stylish outer layer of my chucks and chilling my dainty pair of tups. The first dreaded sign of impending cold feet is the noticeable absence of warmth, the comfortable feeling of warmth silently departs like a shy guest at a loud party, then the inkling of cold as the persistent rain tunnels its own torturous path past the shoe laces and through the loose weave fibres of pure cotton socks, and then, like a predator coming face to face with its victim, comes the inevitable cold, wet feet. It is futile to resist, pointless to do anything in response, the only remedy for wet feet is to get home and peel off the wet disgusting messy socks as if they were two dead lifeless soggy fish that died in an attempt to swallow whole, two oversized steamed Dim Sims. I waited, I waited a bit longer – the feeling never came. My feet stayed dry and warm. Apparently that front bit on a Vespa is there for a reason, not just style, not just to hold the headlight at a convenient height, not merely an engineering structure designed to add stability. It actually keeps the rider dry. Not only did my feet stay dry but most of the rest of me did also.

0902131900 Friday the 13th.

2009-02-13T20:54:00.005+08:00

Happy New Year and Happy Chinese New Year. I have not checked the figures on this so any corrections would be welcome, but I think that Hong Kong has the most public holidays of anywhere in the world and surrounding districts. Australians are generally seen as fairly happy and relaxed due the amazing amount of holidays we enjoy and even our allies in the war against terror in the United States of America think themselves fairly lucky to have two weeks’ vacation per year – but here in the Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China we have just had two weeks off for Christmas, a brief and sobering five days at work, then another two weeks holiday for the Luna New Year. In five grueling weeks, there will be yet another two weeks off for Easter. All these holidays occur in the most lucrative and dynamic capitalist economies in the entire universe. Economists can talk all they like about productivity.
Relationships.
There are two perfectly correct and yet completely contradictory theories on relationships. One theory says that a couple, that is each person in a couple, has to constantly work at the relationship and always put the spouse first and constantly think of what can be done to make their collective lives better, happier, more fulfilling and more nutritious. The other more simple theory is that the couple will always get along if they simply like each other. This can almost be explained with another story:
When I was a soldier in the Australian army, I was taught how to fire a rifle with the accuracy needed to pass the marksmanship test. The test required that I fire five rounds into a five centimetre wide circle that is 100 metres away. To accomplish this amazing feat a soldier simply holds the rifle in comfortable position and closes both eyes and gets very comfortable. The soldier then checks to see if the rifle is pointing at the target – if not, the soldier then moves his or her whole body so that the rifle naturally points at the target with no physical effort. This is the important phrase – with no physical effort. As much fun as it is to fire a few hundred rounds from a 7.62mm rifle at an innocent paper circle, the sad truth is anything, no matter how enjoyable, becomes work if it requires constant physical effort. The whole idea behind this marksmanship skill is that a rifle must point somewhere – even if, and especially if it is not being aimed on purpose, and that somewhere might as well be smack bang at the centre of the intended target.

So getting back to my theory on relationships, a couple that actually like each other with no effort should be happy for at least the rest of their lives and according to your belief in God, be happy for the remainder of eternity.

Facebook is soaking up my life – it is a time-sponge. I can use Facebook to post a few quick photo’s of my adventures but it doesn’t have the depth and feeling of a blog.

Our Lady’s Primary School.
Today was yet another celebration of the Luna New Year, apparently there is a need to have some kind of festivities for the waning of the moon when everyone returns to work so Sister Maria, the wonderful kind principal at the Chinese Catholic girls school at which I work decided to throw yet another party.
When I arrived at school, some students were wearing Red Cross uniforms and practicing marching. Marching up and down the square is a subject with which I am familiar and so I took some interest in the drill movements and wondered if the wonderful little Red Cross volunteers were doing Chinese or British drill movements. It looked familiar to me and so I guessed that the Hong Kong Red Cross must be doing British marching as a remnant from the old colonial days. They were being instructed on “turns at the halt” – which in layman’s terms means - how to turn left and right when you are not going anywhere.
The drill instructor was good – he toned down his drill instructor’s voice with good reason because shouting at little primary school kids can make them cry. I mentioned to another teacher that I was an Australian soldier during the nineteen eighties and that the drill movements look British. Chinese soldiers march with straight legs like Russians. I did not mention that most of the time while in the army my fellow soldiers talked about how we were training to repel an imminent Chinese invasion. Looking back on it now, it sounds like I was Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984 – other soldiers would never mention that Japan had actually bombed Australia – we are at peace with Japan, Australia has always been at peace with Japan…
Later, while talking about how the Facebook farm is soaking up my life, one of the teachers conveyed a feeling of doubt that I could have been an Australian soldier and a telecommunications technician and worked on a farm all in one lifetime. I never even mentioned my short career as an Avon representative.

References:
http://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/holiday/index.htm

0812261100 The day known throughout all of Christendom as Christmas Eve

2008-12-26T12:51:00.008+08:00

On Tuesday, the day known throughout all of Christendom as Christmas Eve, I went with a friend and his son, Brad and Michael, to a golf driving range.
The golf driving range is a lot of fun, it takes all the administration and tedium out of the game and just leaves the fun part, that is, whacking the ball downrange without having to go and get it.

When I was kid growing up in rural Australia we played cricket in the summer and football in the winter. There was an interesting primary school variation on both these games that made them a lot more fun. The variations basically removed all the rules. In cricket, there were no teams. Whoever owned the bat would bat first, whoever owned the ball would bowl first and all the poor kids that could not afford either would be fielders. I always started out as a fielder. The idea was to get a turn at batting. If you caught the ball, it was your turn to bat. This is a game of cricket at it simplest and purist form. Football, or Australian Rules, was refined to its simplest and most basic level of fun. Two teams of kids of roughly equal numbers and ability would stand a reasonable distance apart and kick the ball to each other. If you caught the ball, or “marked” the ball as it is called, then it was your turn to kick. There was no score, no teams and no stopping. Sometimes, in an utterly unheard of variation on every sport, there was more than one ball in play. The golf driving range is like that – just hit the ball. Players compete against their own internal perceived, real or imagined shortcomings.
Golf is an unusual sport. The winner in a game of golf is the one who played the least. There is no way that anybody can get that little ball into that little hole, all the way over there relying on their hard-earned skill and practice alone. When anyone gets a hole in one, anybody, it is simply one of those cosmic coincidences where everything that the golfer does is utterly canceled out by everything else that the universe is does. The hole itself is only 108mm across – about 10cm. A trained soldier must fire five rounds into an area 10cm across at a range of 100m to pass a marksmanship test. It takes a specialised weapon designed and built for the purpose of delivering accurate aimed fire to achieve this. A golfer tries to do this by a method that is more or less an overly complicated way of hitting a ball with a stick.
The driving range, like an army shooting range has a variety of targets in the impact area. In the centre was a basket about two meters across that the owners must have set up in a moment of either hopeless optimism or insanity. Their idea is that the golfers simply and effortlessly hit the balls downrange and pop them into the basket, thus making the whole laborious job of retrieving the balls so much easier. I spent most of the time trying to hit the basket. It was soon apparent that I do not have the golfing skills to do this and having a military background I resorted to a tactic that would increase probability of hitting the target by increasing the rate of fire. Brad said “I have never seen a golf game turn into an aerobic workout”.

References: http://golf.about.com/cs/rulesofgolf/g/rules_hole.htm