Friday, October 08, 2004
Children too protected, says scientist
Many children are now so protected from the real world and any risks that a leading New Zealand physicist is worried for the future of science. Paul Callaghan was speaking at Massey University today on the scientific future and how New Zealand might educate its students to meet it.
Callaghan says that while this is the century of science with more and greater breakthroughs just over the research threshold, science enrolments at universities all over the Western world are in decline.
"I have a personal view about the reasons we are failing to interest children in science at school," he says. Scientific discovery hinges on curiosity, but Professor Callaghan says that New Zealand adults have become so obsessed with protecting children from risk that many kids may never develop the itch to know why. "Many children are (now) enveloped in electronic media while being excessively protected from physical and emotional experience," he said. "Fireworks are a wonderful example... we don't let children near them because a handful have been hurt."
Today's throwaway society does not give children the chance to fix things. Nobody tinkers, taking things apart to see how they work. "How many children nowadays know how to play outdoors on their own, to make up their own games, to make mischief and have fun through their own imagination," he said.
"Ask grandparents... you hear over and over that unless they happen to be readers, children need to be entertained, and often that entertainment centres around the computer or the DVD player."
Prof Callaghan's own childhood was typical 1950s New Zealand. Kids disappeared after school, rode bikes, messed about in home-made boats, fired shanghais and generally "created havoc". Families talked in the evening and let their imaginations roam while listening to radio.
Children need the pleasure of the natural world put back into their childhoods, now denied to them by well-meaning parents who fear for their safety and give them too tidy a suburban environment. "We need to put back what has been removed from their play as children. They need conversation, they need direct experience of nature and the world, and they need effective teaching from inspired individuals with all the subtlety and nuance that only real human beings can provide," Prof Callaghan said.
Many children are now so protected from the real world and any risks that a leading New Zealand physicist is worried for the future of science. Paul Callaghan was speaking at Massey University today on the scientific future and how New Zealand might educate its students to meet it.
Callaghan says that while this is the century of science with more and greater breakthroughs just over the research threshold, science enrolments at universities all over the Western world are in decline.
"I have a personal view about the reasons we are failing to interest children in science at school," he says. Scientific discovery hinges on curiosity, but Professor Callaghan says that New Zealand adults have become so obsessed with protecting children from risk that many kids may never develop the itch to know why. "Many children are (now) enveloped in electronic media while being excessively protected from physical and emotional experience," he said. "Fireworks are a wonderful example... we don't let children near them because a handful have been hurt."
Today's throwaway society does not give children the chance to fix things. Nobody tinkers, taking things apart to see how they work. "How many children nowadays know how to play outdoors on their own, to make up their own games, to make mischief and have fun through their own imagination," he said.
"Ask grandparents... you hear over and over that unless they happen to be readers, children need to be entertained, and often that entertainment centres around the computer or the DVD player."
Prof Callaghan's own childhood was typical 1950s New Zealand. Kids disappeared after school, rode bikes, messed about in home-made boats, fired shanghais and generally "created havoc". Families talked in the evening and let their imaginations roam while listening to radio.
Children need the pleasure of the natural world put back into their childhoods, now denied to them by well-meaning parents who fear for their safety and give them too tidy a suburban environment. "We need to put back what has been removed from their play as children. They need conversation, they need direct experience of nature and the world, and they need effective teaching from inspired individuals with all the subtlety and nuance that only real human beings can provide," Prof Callaghan said.
Grammar is for them, not us
Most New Zealand schools no longer teach grammar.
Thousands of Asian students pay huge amounts of money to come to New Zealand to learn English grammar (I've seen the study materials).
This has to be one of the great ironies of NZ education today. They prize grammar but we don't.
But don't worry - soon we won't have any teachers able to teach it.
Most New Zealand schools no longer teach grammar.
Thousands of Asian students pay huge amounts of money to come to New Zealand to learn English grammar (I've seen the study materials).
This has to be one of the great ironies of NZ education today. They prize grammar but we don't.
But don't worry - soon we won't have any teachers able to teach it.
Citizenship Bill threatens civil liberties
New Zealand is currently reviewing its citizenship and passport procedures in a wide-ranging Bill before Parliament. It's supposedly in the name of combating terrorism, but many submitters have pointed out that many personal freedoms are under threat because of the broad nature of the Bill.
The Human Rights Foundation - in an excellent submission to the Select Committee - says the government in fact is subverting parliamentary standing orders and conventions in the way it is handling the Bill.
Many of the measures in the Bill are the result of pressure from other governments rather than because they are really needed here. To quote from the submission: "The amendments in the present Bill bring to mind the recent comments of Dr Rodney Harrison QC about the increase in this sort of legislation: “…in many instances the legislation or proposed legislation is not aimed at combating terrorism, but at indiscriminately curtailing the freedom of everyone, New Zealand citizens included. What we are regularly seeing is omnibus Parliamentary Bills, amending a wide range of legislation and increasing the powers of a variety of officials: Police, the Security Intelligence Service, Immigration Officers, Customs Officers, Ministers of the Crown. The powers being sought and so readily conferred by Parliament in the name of the “war on terrorism” are quite frequently much broader than, and sometimes even unconnected with, any conceivable goal of fighting terrorism. They appear to stem from an unholy mix of Executive empire-building, and appeasement of the United States.” [Address to University of Waikato Law Graduates at the 20 April 2004 Graduation Ceremony]
New Zealand is currently reviewing its citizenship and passport procedures in a wide-ranging Bill before Parliament. It's supposedly in the name of combating terrorism, but many submitters have pointed out that many personal freedoms are under threat because of the broad nature of the Bill.
The Human Rights Foundation - in an excellent submission to the Select Committee - says the government in fact is subverting parliamentary standing orders and conventions in the way it is handling the Bill.
Many of the measures in the Bill are the result of pressure from other governments rather than because they are really needed here. To quote from the submission: "The amendments in the present Bill bring to mind the recent comments of Dr Rodney Harrison QC about the increase in this sort of legislation: “…in many instances the legislation or proposed legislation is not aimed at combating terrorism, but at indiscriminately curtailing the freedom of everyone, New Zealand citizens included. What we are regularly seeing is omnibus Parliamentary Bills, amending a wide range of legislation and increasing the powers of a variety of officials: Police, the Security Intelligence Service, Immigration Officers, Customs Officers, Ministers of the Crown. The powers being sought and so readily conferred by Parliament in the name of the “war on terrorism” are quite frequently much broader than, and sometimes even unconnected with, any conceivable goal of fighting terrorism. They appear to stem from an unholy mix of Executive empire-building, and appeasement of the United States.” [Address to University of Waikato Law Graduates at the 20 April 2004 Graduation Ceremony]
Thursday, October 07, 2004
Swedes want "man tax"
A group of Swedish parliamentarians have proposed levying a "man tax" to cover the social cost of violence against women.
"It must be obvious to all of us that society has a huge problem with male violence against women and that has a cost," Left Party deputy Gudrun Schyman told Swedish radio. "We must have a discussion where men understand they as a group have a responsibility," said Schyman, one of the party members to sign the motion for debate on the new tax.
Sweden already has the highest taxes in the European Union as a percentage of gross domestic product to pay for its famous but hard-pushed cradle-to-grave welfare program.
It is also one of the world's most advanced nations in terms of gender equality, but Schyman said in a headline-hitting 2002 speech that discrimination in Sweden followed "the same pattern" as in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
A group of Swedish parliamentarians have proposed levying a "man tax" to cover the social cost of violence against women.
"It must be obvious to all of us that society has a huge problem with male violence against women and that has a cost," Left Party deputy Gudrun Schyman told Swedish radio. "We must have a discussion where men understand they as a group have a responsibility," said Schyman, one of the party members to sign the motion for debate on the new tax.
Sweden already has the highest taxes in the European Union as a percentage of gross domestic product to pay for its famous but hard-pushed cradle-to-grave welfare program.
It is also one of the world's most advanced nations in terms of gender equality, but Schyman said in a headline-hitting 2002 speech that discrimination in Sweden followed "the same pattern" as in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Growing problem of elder abuse
Someone slipped into a Philadelphia nursing home last week and cut the feeding tubes of six unconscious patients aged between about 40 and 80. Fortunately the leaking tubes were discovered soon after and none of the victims' lives was actually endangered. The "barbaric" act -- in the words of local police -- was just one incident in what a study published this week in The Lancet calls the "pervasive and growing problem" of elder abuse.
Researchers from Cornell University estimate that the rate of elder abuse is probably between 2% and 10% and that people who have been mistreated are over three times more likely to die within three years compared with those who are not abused.
The Lancet's editorial concludes that "elderly people should not be seen as marginalised victims in society but as fully participating and valuable citizens. Anything less is inhumane and unsustainable."
However, it says these fine sentiments may be difficult to support. By the year 2050, the proportion of people over 65 will double in most countries. For example, an estimated 29% of the population in Europe and 18% in Asia will be 65 years or older. "This shift in demographics," says The Lancet, "is likely to weaken traditional respect for elderly people and family-based systems for providing old-age care and support, making elderly people vulnerable to ill-treatment and abuse by carers and society as a whole."
(Note: You will have to register online (free) in order to read the Lancet articles.)
Someone slipped into a Philadelphia nursing home last week and cut the feeding tubes of six unconscious patients aged between about 40 and 80. Fortunately the leaking tubes were discovered soon after and none of the victims' lives was actually endangered. The "barbaric" act -- in the words of local police -- was just one incident in what a study published this week in The Lancet calls the "pervasive and growing problem" of elder abuse.
Researchers from Cornell University estimate that the rate of elder abuse is probably between 2% and 10% and that people who have been mistreated are over three times more likely to die within three years compared with those who are not abused.
The Lancet's editorial concludes that "elderly people should not be seen as marginalised victims in society but as fully participating and valuable citizens. Anything less is inhumane and unsustainable."
However, it says these fine sentiments may be difficult to support. By the year 2050, the proportion of people over 65 will double in most countries. For example, an estimated 29% of the population in Europe and 18% in Asia will be 65 years or older. "This shift in demographics," says The Lancet, "is likely to weaken traditional respect for elderly people and family-based systems for providing old-age care and support, making elderly people vulnerable to ill-treatment and abuse by carers and society as a whole."
(Note: You will have to register online (free) in order to read the Lancet articles.)
Monday, October 04, 2004
Someone else to blame for the weather
I can't remember who it was who said, "everybody complains about the weather, but no-one does anything about it." Apparently, they were wrong. It's the fault of the mighty US military machine.
According to the Global Research Center, all these extreme weather events we have been experiencing is a consequence of the significant expansion in America's weather warfare arsenal, which is a priority of the Department of Defense. The hand that rocks the cumulus rules the world.
And here was me worried that we hadn't seen any decent conspiracy theories recently.
I can't remember who it was who said, "everybody complains about the weather, but no-one does anything about it." Apparently, they were wrong. It's the fault of the mighty US military machine.
According to the Global Research Center, all these extreme weather events we have been experiencing is a consequence of the significant expansion in America's weather warfare arsenal, which is a priority of the Department of Defense. The hand that rocks the cumulus rules the world.
And here was me worried that we hadn't seen any decent conspiracy theories recently.
The Stig is dead? Long live the Stig
I am not a great fan of cars, but I have enjoyed Top Gear on Prime. If you are a fan, you might be wondering about the supposed death of test driver The Stig, as a result of running his car over the edge of a British aircraft carrier.
Apart from the fact that the whole thing looked so staged, and even a crocodile would have been ashamed of the tears(!) shed by Clarkson and co, weep not, gentle viewer. A quick trawl around the web shows that The Stig (probably racing driver Perry McLaren) was finding it too hard to keep up his commitments to the Top Gear programme, so they staged the stunt to get him out. (Just like they killed off poor Hector in Monarch of the Glen, so Richard Briers could get a life back.) Apart from the absurd proposition that there was no rescue team on hand in case of an emergency, alert viewers spotted that the empty car was catapaulted by the carrier's steam catapault (used to give aircraft an extra boost for the short runway).
The new Stig, incidentally, is thought to be British racing driver Damon Hill.
I am not a great fan of cars, but I have enjoyed Top Gear on Prime. If you are a fan, you might be wondering about the supposed death of test driver The Stig, as a result of running his car over the edge of a British aircraft carrier.
Apart from the fact that the whole thing looked so staged, and even a crocodile would have been ashamed of the tears(!) shed by Clarkson and co, weep not, gentle viewer. A quick trawl around the web shows that The Stig (probably racing driver Perry McLaren) was finding it too hard to keep up his commitments to the Top Gear programme, so they staged the stunt to get him out. (Just like they killed off poor Hector in Monarch of the Glen, so Richard Briers could get a life back.) Apart from the absurd proposition that there was no rescue team on hand in case of an emergency, alert viewers spotted that the empty car was catapaulted by the carrier's steam catapault (used to give aircraft an extra boost for the short runway).
The new Stig, incidentally, is thought to be British racing driver Damon Hill.
