Showing posts with label Racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Racism. Show all posts

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Bigots' FB Page.

I can't believe people would express senseless views like this publicly. However, I still come across them from time to time. The mainstream media promote racism on a regular basis and contribute a lot to these kinds of views being held by people who don't know any better.

I encourage anyone who uses FB to report this page. It's quite blatant discrimination based on lies.

For what it's worth, the I'd just like to point out that unemployment cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be linked to immigration, as this page tries to imply. In fact our economy and the jobs we have rely heavily on it.

Political correctness is just derogatory word that racists have begun to use as a defense whenever they are told not to say offensive, idiotic or defamatory things about others in public. This is worrying. Words have consequences. Words can hurt people. If you hurt people physically, of course there are laws to stop you. The same applies if you hurt people with offensive words, for example, by creating stereotypes or misinformation about them.

When these people talk about 'Aussy Pride' what they really mean is that they have the arrogance to say they are better than other people in other parts of the world, no matter how little intelligence they exhibit, simply on the basis that they live in Australia and look something like their ideal image of what it is to be Australian. It's because of this that we need words like racism and bigotry.

Worst of all, the page uses the word 'islamification,' which presumably refers to some kind of conspiracy or agenda on the part of our friends and colleagues who believe in Islam. There is no evidence for any such agenda. All religions aim to encourage people to believe. The white majority from whom the page's creators undoubtedly derive are themselves descended from Christians and their religion has been spread world wide, often (though not always) through coercive means. For them to blame any social problems on those who practice Islam, a religion that values purity and peace, is both hypocritical and disrespectful.

So, dear readers, please take action and report the page to FB admin. The more complaints they receive, the sooner it will be removed. Also, please share this article to send a clear message to bigots everywhere about how wrong these kinds of views are.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Community Detention; Finally.

In my previous post, 'Immigration Officials Getting it Wrong in Australia,' I pointed out that it would be far more humane, as well as more cost effective, if asylum seekers were to live in the community, rather than being detained, while their claims were processed. Today, finally, the government have announced that at least some of them will now be able to do so. An article in the Australian today read as follows: 


"Under a plan announced by the Prime Minister today, all asylum-seekers will be processed on Australian soil with community detention and bridging visas provided to those unable to be processed within the existing detention centre network." The Australian, 13/10/2011


This will not help the many asylum seekers who do fit in to the current detention facilities, which is a great shame and pity. However, it is certainly a huge step in the right direction and marks a divergence from the government and opposition's 'race to the bottom,' which has consisted to date of each party trying to outdo the other for sheer cruelty and abuse of human humanity's right to flee persecution. Let us hope it is the beginning of a broader rethinking of policy in this area. It is important that we all continue to pursue this issue in the spheres of public debate and to communicate some sense to the politicians. 



Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Multiple Intelligences and Fish

Today, I participated in a discussion at the university of Gardener's theory of multiple intelligences in relation to pedagogy. I was enjoying the discussion a lot, until one of the teachers put an end to it by prescribing the exact way in which they should be considered: first decide what your lesson goal is, then think of how to teach in a way that caters to multiple intelligence.

I put is to him that perhaps the learning goal may not be the same, once multiple intelligences had been given proper thought. His response was a flat 'no.' Not wanting to be rude, I didn't pursue the matter further at the time. However, needless to say, I was far from satisfied.

The scenario we had been considering was a school in Papua New Guinea, in a small wooden building on stilts over the sea. The building had no windows, but cracks between floor boards meant that the students could look down and see fish swimming below. Fish were the topic of the unit. One of our lecturers said he had watched the teacher's first class, in which the students had read in silence about fish from a textbook.

The lecturer asked members of our class what advice they might give the teacher. Most of the responses were along the lines of introducing practical interaction with fish, visual representation, song and rhythm and interpersonal interaction through group work, each of which would suit students strong in a different one of Gardner's intelligences. Of course this made a lot of sense and would no doubt have helped the teacher a great deal.

Some students in our class also pointed out that the children being taught, being from a fishing community and having caught, cleaned and gutted fish since an early age, probably knew a great deal about them already. One of my friends suggested that the students should be taught as experts and their knowledge valued and respected by the teacher, he himself being a highlander with little experience of fishing. However, having studied biology, he possessed other kinds of fish related knowledge which he wanted to share with the students.

The point I really wanted to make though, and I don't think I did such a great job of communicating it, was that multiple intelligences have the potential to be used formatively. That is, rather than just asking 'how can students understand this set of facts through the forms of intelligence they posses?' we might also begin to ask 'which forms of intelligence are of the greatest potential value to them?' and 'how can students learn to think in new ways?'

Of course that last question goes a bit beyond gardener. We understand the brain as 'plastic' and able to be changed. We know that people can improve their score on IQ tests through training, for example. This of course brings the whole concept of intelligence as it has traditionally been understood into question. However, Gardener's multiple intelligences were never all that aligned with traditional conceptions of intelligence in the first place. Things like 'musical intelligence,' 'linguistic intelligence' etcetera are seen by many psy' discipline scholars as more like areas of talent than anything so fundamental as intelligence. In any case, it is clear that they can be learned.

What needs to be considered in the case of the class in PNG is whether the types of intelligence in which the students are strong are those which will help them in their future. Any particular culture assigns values to types of intelligence. In the west, linguistic and mathematical in ability are in broad demand because the nature of our economy and education system relies on them to a greater extent than others. There are of course niches for those who posses the other forms of intelligence, such as artists, athletes etcetera, but the relatively small numbers who succeed in these areas are determined by economic and social factors and it is generally only an exceptional few who are able to use these kinds of talents to make a living, either by becoming famous or by going into teaching.

In a fishing community in PNG, spacial intelligence and kinesthetic intelligence are likely to be of great importance for catching fish, while linguistic and mathematical intelligence may carry far less weight, though this is merely a speculation based on the nature of fishing as their primary occupation. Assuming this to be the case, the question any teacher in such a situation must ask is this: for what kind of future am I preparing my students? On the one hand, I can share with them the knowledge created by and for western post industrial society. This may change their lives and give them opportunities of which few fishing village denizens have dreamed. On the other, I can respect their culture and way of life, learn from them and seek to enhance the value of what they already own.

As educators, are we there to spread our culture, or to help students within their own, which is what we would be doing if we were educating at home. Note that the teacher in our example was not a westerner, but he was an outsider to the fishing community and possessed a western style education himself.

It's a difficult question. Perhaps it may be possible to offer both or to find some compromise, but that too would necessarily come with its fair share of drawbacks. A better answer may come in the form of a bilateral cultural exchange between teachers and students in such as context. This would require mutual respect, caution and humility. The greatest achievement of Gardener in terms of education  was, I would argue, his recognition of the value of forms of thought, activity and knowledge outside the traditional academic sphere. Calling them intelligences, controversial though it may be, has helped many to see their value and in some cases change the distribution of intellectual capital.

Monday, October 10, 2011

中华民国一百年 *English

Today, many Taiwanese and non Taiwanese and somewhere in between people around the world are celebrating the centenary of the founding of 中华民国 (the republic of China), which is now the official title of Taiwan. There are complexities about this which continue to be debated. Arguably Taiwan was separate from China since about 1680. However, what is clear is that the events of 100 years ago were highly significant in the forming of the amazing and unique country that we know as Taiwan today. 

Being from Australia, it's hard to see why there is so much controversy. Australia is just as new and few Australians look to their British ancestors (many of us don't even have British ancestors) in assessing our identity. We find it extremely hard to relate, I think, even to images and voices of the Australia of the 1950s. People change quickly. Language and culture change, perhaps even more quickly. Clinging to past associations, can bring only suffering.
Somehow I have to reconcile two contradictory urges. On the one hand, I hate nationalism and all it stands for. There is no satisfactory distinction between racism and nationalism, because no universally applicable definition of race exists that can stand independently of either culture or nationality and the phrases 'we are better' and 'they are inferior' ultimately convey exactly the same meaning. 
  On the other hand, I do love Taiwan. When I'm there I feel nothing by joy most of the time and when I meet Taiwanese people, wherever I am in the world, I feel drawn to them as if to my own family. 
  I wish nations didn't exist, I really do. They can't last forever and of course there will be a new world order in the future and probably sooner than we think. Will it be any better? It would be hard to do much worse and the programs of regional cooperation such as the EU are a good start, despite the complexities they involve. However, right now, in the context of how the world is, Taiwan is a bastion of inspiration, creativity, culture, friendship and education in a world where all these things are lacking. 

If new nations like Australia and East Timor can be internationally recognized, then surely Taiwan must also. Most nations are cowardly and two faced, treating Taiwan as a nation state, placing embassies and recognizing its passports while calling it part of China whenever the all powerful PRC happen to be watching. Citizens of the world need to make it clear to their governments that this kind of dishonesty and cowardice is unacceptable. Therefore, I hope that people will make a point by displaying Taiwan's national flag (you can copy and paste the one below) and making this an issue for public debate. 


Sunday, October 09, 2011

Ricer!


The term Ricer is a term used by Australian bogan types to refer to some brands of car in what appears to be a derogatory way. The etymology of the word is probably something to do with the noun 'rice' being made into a verb, then back into a noun, but this time to describe machines that do whatever the verb means. What is it they are doing then? Well, as best I can deduce, they are being associated with countries in North East Asia, usually Japan, where rice is considered a dietary staple.

The term, however, does not appear to be applied universally to all vehicles originating from Japan. For example, I recently overheard a conversation in which a young man was advocating that his friend buy a Subaru, but then, when his friend said he was considering a Nissan, he denounced Nissans as 'Ricer cars.' On another occasion, I heard the same thing, but with Toyota and Mitsubishi substituted respectively.

One possible explanation for this apparent inconsistency is that the bogans wish to emphasise the foreign nature of vehicles which they deem to be in some way inferior. Subaru and Toyota offer exceptional engineering, it's true. However, both Nissan and Mitsubishi have high end models which should be sufficient to dispel any possible perception of inferiority: the Nissan Skyline GTR has an engine manufactured in a laboratory and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution has driving aids that would make an L player look good round a race track. Anyway, if inferiority was the key, then surely Korean cars and Peugeots would be called Ricers almost universally, which does not appear to be the case.

Another possibility that should not be discounted is that the term is chosen not based so much on the origins of the vehicles, but on the perception that more people from rice staple cultures are likely to own and drive them. This would imply a great deal of racism on the part of the bogans using the term and, as there doesn't seem to be any readily available data linking vehicle manufacturer preference to dietary staple or culture of origin, it would not be fare to level such an accusation without further research.

For now, let us simply consider that the term Ricer is a quirky linguistic anomaly and that, though I have to say it makes me cringe, I have very little idea what it means.