Bugging my MP about Primary ethics classes.. again

Rev. Fred Nile thinks he has the upper hand an declared war on Primary Ethics classes, again. And again, I have written to my State Member. I urge you to do the same if you are appalled that Rev Nile would use our children as a "trump card" to manipulate the government to get his own way.

The following is an adapted version of my letter:

The issue of Primary ethics is one close to my heart. I've been following it since April last year. I watched the success of the pilot. And now I teach the ethics class at my local school.

I understand that politics often involves power plays and manipulation, it come with the territory. Rev Nile has always made his opinions regarding the Ethics classes well known and this stunt really wasn't surprising. But please allow me to give you some quick facts about the Primary Ethics program and my experiences in the classroom. As of June 2011, Primary Ethics had started 180 Ethics classes in 128 schools across the state, teaching about 2700 students in Years 5&6 each week. Primary Ethics managers claim that there are about 100,000 children whose parents opt their kids out of SRE classes, and we are offering an alternative (it is not compulsory) to that section of each school. 

These classes promote higher order thinking. They are philosophy classes. Ethics is the study of the concepts involved in practical reasoning: good, bad, freedom, virtues, rationality... etc (according to the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy). In these classes children learn to investigate how they behave in a moral context, and why they choose to do it. The curriculum puts a strong emphasis on reasoning. Without realizing it (or being able to define it in the same way as a university philosophy text book might), the students in my class have learned to recognise "circular reasoning". Rather than state "Your premise assumes the conclusion", they'll say "you've just said the same thing twice". But in its most simplistic form, the class is learning to see logical flaws in others arguments. While this may have created an issue 6 months ago, being a potential chance to "put someone down" they have also learned to respect each other. Fallacious arguments are pointed out with care and consideration. Students will often then reflect upon the comments of their classmates. Furthermore, the children love the classes. They are held right before lunch recess, and yet there is a communal groan when I tell them it's over.

Now, for my personal opinion. Keeping in mind the critical analysis skills these students are learning, the fact the ethics teachers require formal training and ongoing monitoring and that the curriculum has been approved by the DEC (formerly known as the DET) I can see possible validity in the argument, from those who oppose the classes, that the SRE children are disadvantaged by not attending the ethics course. I disagree that cancelling ethics is the answer. Surely the solution would be to fight for inquiry based learning, and higher order thinking to become more widely spread throughout the entire general curriculum, rather than scrapping the only subject based on philosophy.

I then finished be asking my PM to fight to keep the Liberal Party's promise not to cancel the program.
I ask that you write to your member if this issue is important to you too.

Over, and Out

It's a national treasure:

Just a random doodle I drew while on "hold" to a government department.

(It's a parsnip. If you don't get it, that would be because you don't hang with the cool kids enough. But it's ok, dweebs, today is your lucky day. I'm going to let you in on the joke. During June a current affairs program 60 minutes run this great report on vaccination in Australia. It's worth watching the entire film, but pay particular attention around 2:15. Listen out of the mention of a "National teasure" and see if you can spot the parsnip box. I hope you find it as entertaining as we did )

Let's admit it, it's not like you'll use it again

It's come up a couple of times on twitter now. The topic of body donation to a university for Medical teaching. Death really isn't something that people like to talk about much. But in my relatively short time in the skeptical and atheist (and admittedly nerd-tastic) community I've found that these reasonable people seem to be the most comfortable with their imminent demise.

These skeptics are overwhelming pro-science and medicine. Many of them have chosen careers in these fields. They understand the importance of medical research and high quality training for student doctors. They are also amazingly generous. With their time and skills devoted to the education and promotion of science, or the public debunking of misinformation and pseudo-science. They are also generous with their blood and tissues (ewww icky bodily stuff) with many proudly proclaiming that they donate plasma, platelets and blood regularly and are on the organ donor register.

However, few are aware that you can make advance preparations to send your body off to the local Uni. Furthermore, the Unis will collect the tab for the transport your life-less form, embalming and cremation. That's right, it's on the house. They only keep you around for about four years. Then they pack up your ashes and send them to your loved ones (I've asked mine to then plant a tree with burnt-up little me at the bottom of the hole for fertilizer. I wonder what your relatives will do with you?)

If you are interested, here are some links for body donation information at a University near you. And why not? By the time those slimy med students get their hands on your body, you won't be around to care.
Brisbane ; Newcastle ; Sydney ; Wollongong ; Melbourne ; Adelaide ; Tasmania   ; Perth

Edit: James Cook University in North Queensland wants you too.
And if you plant a tree on someone's ashes you need to know how acid/alkaline that plant likes its soil, or you could kill the poor thing.

Now we're a criminal gang of hypocrites*

Well, yesterday, Meryl Dorey blogged about the recent false DMCA's filed against the Stop the Australian Vaccination Network (SAVN).  "In two hours, I filed approximately 50 copyright claims against various Facebook members for using screenshots of my posts without my permission." (Dorey, M, 2011). I had wondered how long it would take the person responsible to own up. Only a couple of Days apparently. It is clear that Ms Dorey believes that anything she says or does is automatically copyright. "I know that my words, my images and my posts are my own and they have no right to use them for any purpose without my express permission."(Dorey M,2011) This includes the comments I highlighted, made on the ABC 4corners forum (I wonder if the ABC has Ms Dorey's express permission to archive her forum responses?). It is also apparent that she doesn't understand that concept of Fair Use (as it is known as in the US) or Fair Dealing (essentially the same in Australian). If you've been following this saga, you'll know that the reproduction of material that is copyright is allowable for the propose of criticism, and that I went to some length to ensure the screenshot was properly referenced. There was no doubt about where it had come from, are who had made the statement "Measles is NOT a serious disease" (Dorey M, 2005). 


The blog titled "Hypocrisy- thy name is 'SAVN'" Describes the extreme lengths that AVN members have had to go through to feel safe using the social networking site. I too have worried about my family being victimsed, and blocked access to photos for anyone outside a customised list of approved viewers. I have increased security has strongly as I can, I have blocked accounts of known harassers, I blog and tweet under the alias Eggrings (admittedly, it's not a particularly good alias). One can make the links between the "real" me and Eggrings, but I didn't want it to be easy. My point is, this is nasty. Both sides are feeling that insure on the internet. But, really, learning to protect yourself on the internet isn't a bad skill to have anyway.

Ms Dorey also continues to harp on about the pornographic images Personal Messaged to her, and fellow AVN members. This did happen. Ms Dorey has every right to be appalled, offended, and pursue any legal action she sees fitting. At the time that this occurred, I was still new to the SAVN, and didn't really catch everything that was unfolding. What I DO know is that this behavior was never condoned by the SAVN. In fact most members of the SAVN facebook page were appalled and offended too.  Ms Dorey only quickly mentions that this was a "member of the SAVN page (to be fair, SAVN did kick this person off after they were alerted to his abusive messages) "(Dorey M, 2011) As one Facebook member of the SAVN said "blink and you'll miss it".  From Ms Dorey's blog, one could be easily lead to believe this was common practice on our group site "Indeed, abuse and harassment is their stock in trade."(Dorey M, 2011). 


Finally, Ms Dorey has missed the fact that she my in fact be committing an illegal act by lodging these DMCA's. Without an understanding of the acceptable grounds of Fair Dealing and Fair Use of copyright material, it could be easy to see why the posting of someone else's comments may appear to be an infringement of copyright. But, for the reasons I've already outlined, I believe I was within the law when I posted the screenshot. This being the case, Ms Dorey has filed a false DMCA against me- and 50 other images on the SAVN website. This is illegal.


In closing:

The AVN has gone and spoiled all of their fun and they are not going to come out and play any more until Facebook says they are sorry and returns all of their vile posts to where they were previously.   
Nearly right Meryl. I am using the Facebook appeal process because the 'rights and responsibilities' page says that I can. They don't need to say 'sorry', just do the right thing, in accordance with their own rules. But I do want the "...vile posts [returned] to where they were.."(Dorey M,2011) Because you are the author of a great many of the comments contained in these images.    


The following is referenced is using the Chicago system, and has been carefully denoted at the bottom of my blog, for the benefit of Ms Meryl Dorey and her loyal AVN members:
Dorey. M., 2011, "Hypocrisy- thy name is SAVN" in Living Wisdom [blog], May 2, available World Wide Web URL: http://avn.org.au/nocompulsoryvaccination/?p=1015 (accessed 3 May, 2011) 


*Please note that Ms Dorey didn't coin this term. Nor did she call the SAVN 'a gang' at any point in this blog (well, no where that I saw)