Hello is anyone out there

Well due to lack of comments I thought I'd try get a cheap plug/comment. I found this on Izaac's blog about how apparently Google alerts this guy Soulfan (who I'm not going to link to just to see if this makes a difference) whenever some one types in the words Guy Sebastian. Apparently it works. However Andrew Finden isn't too sure. However to make it worth Soulfan's while I'll tell a story about Guy.
I wasn't into Australian Idle at all and was going to AGMF (Australian gospel music festival in Toowoomba) with my sister (who is a big Guy Fan). It was announced he was going to preform but only 3 or 4 songs. I felt quite ripped off as apparently it was a big cost but as Bethany was hugely excited we were there very early (AGMF sold out that day) and had a good view kinda on the side of the stage. Guy arrived in a limo and did a couple of songs and whilst he had a good voice, wasn't too inspiring. He then blew me away announcing- "Well since this is Easter we have to sing some Easter songs that remind us about Jesus our Savior who came to earth to die on a cross for us..."
Now where we were sitting we could see his manager or someone with him and he didn't look too happy about this change of plan. Guy then sent off his guitarist and invited us to join him as he launched into some of my Favourite Hymns. Now I didn't expect him to know The old rugged cross and a few others off by heart but he sang them perfectly. His voice really bought out the emotion in the old Hymns hitting the notes right on. After a few songs he then sang Where angels or whatever that song was called and then went his merry way.
That gave me a huge amount of respect for him and his singing. Firstly that he was prepared to disobey his plans/set and then how well he did know those songs. His short message reflected far better the Easter event we were there for than many of the 'Christian' artists who were there as well who have millions of 'Christian Praise and worship' Cd's sold.
I just thought I'd put that out there- I also enjoyed seeing Jason Stevens in the clip for 'like it like that'
P.S. other people who read my blog need to post more too- if anyone does

Pointing to the Light

A friend of mine just got ordained in Sydney. I found out Sydney Anglicans get swords to celebrate this. I want one :) Maybe I will go to Moore. PCQ will need to do better to beat that. I vote Lightsabers to help us point towards the light.

Follow up on Tim Tebow

I thought I would write a follow up on Tim Tebow. I was just going to post a video but Aaran gets cranky about that. Tim Tebow seems to be a polarising sort of person. People either Hate him or love him. There are some people who are filled with hate whenever he is mentioned. Articles like this one have been written. The irony is he hasn't played past College Level. But I do say he seems to impress me immensely. He has put religion back into discussions, speaking the word of God with his voice and even his face paint and all he does is throw a ball around.

But can I just say I was disappointed by the softness of the Focus on the Family add at the super bowl. But it is well worth going to the Focus on the Family site and watching their full story. I think they have set up the website well.

Now Didn't Jesus tell us "All men will hate you because of me" ?(matt 10:22) Well I had to say I searched for a video of where Tebow got a concussion in Kentucky as refereed to in the video and it took me a while to find a decent one- all the rest celebrated that "That Christian Preacher quarterback finally got what he deserved. " I reckon good on him for preaching what he believes and not backing down. For daring to tell people about a God who gives Hope to the needy, love to the broken. If more of our Christians did that it would be a vastly different place- so I put the challenge out to you- how many of your work colleges know you are Christian? Are you setting opportunities for faith discussions. Or are you quietly sitting back hoping some one might ask you something about the cross you wear hidden under your shirt- or the fish on your car? I see the media attack people who do. How have you been persecuted this week because of your Faith?

Patrick Henry Hughes - Inspirational Story

Something to think about when we think we have it tough. Worth a watch about a kid who was blind and crippled but yet incredibly gifted in music. It is also a tale of love of his father.

Commercials from the superbowl

Often the best part of the superbowl is the adds. Here is some of my favourites

Hmmmm reminds me of some syndrome--- can't remember the name though

In a League of its own

enough said

Comment Spam

Sorry about all the comment spam. I've now put it on so you'll have to type in a word to comment. Sorry about that guys, I hate doing it on other people's blogs but I was getting too much garbage

Anti Abortion Add

Often the American Superbowl adds are the main reason people watch american football. Why because it is long and boring. What we see on aussie TV is the shortened version. This year Focus on the Family has teamed up with College football superstar, who Nathan (mistakenly) alluded to here, Tim Tebow to do an anti abortion add. It will be interesting to see if it airs.

Complaints about lost luggage

we've all lost luggage :) but never had this happen

Reprise

I Like reprises... probably my all time favourite is Jesus Freak (reprised)
They say to me an artist isn't too scared to muck around with their own work... This one is pretty cool too If you haven't heard the original it is here (triple J #30 in top 100)
Other worthy reprises to note- Can you think of any more?

Many in Phantom of the Opera

Prince Ali song in Aladin

Pink Floyd: Breathe

Many Disney movies esp Notre Dam, Little Mermaid

Team america theme

Timothy In Urbandictionary.com

Apparently you can look up your name in Urban Dictionary :D Apparently it means something... Well not too sure about that. :D

1.	timothy
	1. a person with a high degree of confidence. :D 2. a.k.a. mr. congeniality whenever you are with him,you never have to worry about getting lost in a far-away place ! he can actually pop a conversation with almost all kinds of people. i guess everybody knows him! 3. means FAST, swift, agile, exhilirating maybe because he's too skinny. ahaha:D you will be surprised with how fast he moves. his swift motions are crazy! 4. undoubtedly kind and sweet. he makes everyone feel good and he treats everyone nicely. 5. eats absolutely more than an average teenager could ever digest. surprisingly, he never gains a pound! 6. he is simply funny and fun to be with. you will never be bored whenever you are with a 'timothy'. just beware because at times, he can be a very very weird geek. haha. 7. smart and charismatic. he has the traits of a great entrepreneur in the future. "timothy" will be surely rich! girl1: hey, do you know timothy? girl2: yeah! who on earth doesn't know him? LOL

2.	Timothy
	a very, very fancy pornstar. using words such as precisely, of course, indeed etc. I am such a timothy
3.	Timothy
	Hebrew name meaning, honored by the gods. "Did you know, Timothy, means honored by the gods?"

My school discussion

Well I promised I would write about the my school website to stop filling up a facebook place. I will copy and paste the facebook conversation below. I will not be rehashing some of the remarks there but I will answer some points made.
Firstly let me say I am not a teacher. I also haven't done heaps of research on this and so Can be wrong on this. I will also be deferring to a far superior blog which I think everyone should read first here. I will be making some points on why I don't like the website.
My biggest problem is that it is based off National tests when each state has its own Education system. For example our year 7s are in primary school where most everyone else are in high school. Now everyone know that you learn different stuff in primary schools. So this rating is being based on a test which contains stuff our kids aren't even being taught yet.
Now that gives the teachers a choice. They are told at the begining of the year what focus areas will be on the exam. Do the teachers then say- Ok we focus on these areas to the neglect of other areas. or do we teach according to the queensland syllabus knowing that we wont cover everything before the exams but the students are better off all round. Which is the better teacher? The one who makes sure their kids know the exam stuff or the one who has good all round students. I think the later.
Secondly Do we take into consideration the factors which cause these results. Now can I just say school can fudge figures. For instance we have a census date where on day 8 funding is allocated to a school depending on enrollments. Some schools hold onto bad students- suspending them till after the date then expelling them to go find another school. The school where I work receives a lot of these kids who are normally the 'naughty' kids without receiving as much funding for that, hence a lot of times our resources are stretched and classes are skewed. For example if we do not get 6 more students by thursday a casual teacher will lose their job. However as soon as that date passes we get swamped with the worst kids from 'the better' schools because we have a reputation for correcting behavior. This means our class sizes are larger than most and kids placed into ability classes so the ones who need the most work have the least amount of one to one time. If those kids had been there from the begining they would have beeen another teacher placed with them. This skews the scores down for everyone despite how good the teacher is- we are swapped with kids other schools want to get rid of. Now can I just say just because we have those bad kids it doesn't mean you are getting a bad education. For example our schools has had more students enter into the Local high school's scholar program than any of the like sized private schools in the area. We have also won the 'Optiminds' (school science comp) 3 out of the last 5 years and have won Top of the Class competitions 4 out of the last 7 years. We also have a reputation for winning sport, Drama and instrumentals- all areas dominated by private schools normally. None of this will you find on the my school website.
Also we have a high level of indigenous kids. In our area we have huge problems with indiginous absenteeism. Also many of these kids come to school without breakfast or lunch. We tried starting a breakfast club but got swamped with over 100 kids coming. We do lunches for kids who don't have them but its a small drop in the bucket. What hope does a kid have of learning when he hasn't had anything to eat. (And there are many other issues) This is noted in small print the indigenous pop and absenteeism but the numbers are wrong. We as a school are trying to encourage kids to come to school but it isn't our job. That's a parents job and my school has won awards for working with the community to get kids to school but many kids don't even come for more than 2 days a week. When their score is averaged across the school our rating plummets. It doesn't matter how good or bad a teacher is- if you have a kid for less than 50% of the week you aren't going to teach them much. How then can you compare the results of our school to a private school.
Now can I just say I'm not against people finding out information about schools. but I think you should do that yourself. Go visit the schools. If you are a Christian I believe you can make a world of difference in a public school and your kids will have a far better world view and stronger belief system. After all can you honestly send your kids to the other side of a city and then say your honest about wanting to build an evangelistic relationship when your church is so far away. Simone wrote a bit of a blog which made reference to that here. But when God told us to go out to the world he didn't just mean to the good schools- he mean all the schools. I currently have 1 grade level with RE. The good school nearby has all but one covered. Bad Kids need God too and I think it is so much easier to have a good Christian chat to a kid who is crying out for attention.
I could keep going for days but interested to hear what you guys think- especially those who are teachers in state and private schools. There just isn't enough decent information to offset the scores on the site. people take things at face value. But here are some clips from stuff.

AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos urged parents to talk to schools directly to
get detailed information on school performance rather than relying on the website.
“While it is a worthy objective to give parents more information they should not be
given information that is misleading,” Mr Gavrielatos said.
“National test results were never designed to be used to compare schools and the
Federal Government has been repeatedly told they are not accurate enough to be
used this way.
“As one of the leading experts in educational statistics Professor Margaret Wu says:
‘It would be irresponsible for the government and education researchers to tell the
public that school performance can be judged from information provided on the My
School website.’”
“Schools cannot be compared on the scores of short, snapshot tests completed last
May, some in grades with as few as 5 students.
“It is misleading to claim ‘like schools’ are being compared when important factors
like school size, funding and resources and the enrolment policies of a school are
not even taken into account. They ignore whether a school has a selective enrolment
policy.”

The Facebook debate (I wasn't always being serious in some stuff I said--- Names Removed)

C thinks that the "My School" website was a very poor decision.

T

I just can't wait till we get to vote on our favourite teacher. Clearly I'm the best and most favourite chaplain at School X

L

me too. The idea of rating teachers is terrible too.

P

*To play devil's advocate* Why shouldn't teachers be rated? Every other professional is subject to intense scrutiny and ongoing assessment, pretty much for the duration of their careers. And teachers have an incredibly important job - we should demand a high standard from them. But I do have to agree C, basing school ratings on a few hours worth of tests from the year is pretty dumb.

C2

In Chicago, the schools balanced this table by recording everything the parents did or didn't do..as per school policies eg. did/did not provide healthy lunches, did/did not attend parent/teacher meetings, did/did not ensure home reading or homework was done and the list goes on...and it is all published online....That is the way to go...BECAUSE educating children is a two-way street which involves BOTH parent and teacher working positively together to ensure their child's future is bright and happy....

C3

I have no issue with rating Schools publicly and Teachers internally.

Schools should be publicly marked on their performance but it should take into account the various factors that are necessary to make an informed decision.

I think that it is hard to rate teachers publicly because they teach different grades, have different demographics and have been teaching for various levels of experience. ie it cannot be a single grade just like any performance review it should have a number of criteria which you are assessed against.

J

I think it's a good idea. The execution might not be great, but as someone who will hopefully have kids one day I want to know what options are set before me. Public companies are made to show their data, indeed they need to to sell their product. Why should something as important as education be left to word of mouth and hearsay?

Still, I'm interested to hear why you think it's a bad idea? I wonder if the teachers unions have gotten to you... :p

T

P and J to put it in med term we going to compare doctors, how many patients died for the doctor in plastic surgery compared to the the doctor in emergency or the the doctor in oncology. Doesn't matter what condition they came in but do they leave dead or alive? Also doesn't matter if you have a small practice in the north shore of sydney and one in the battle zone of Afghanistan.

J

No T, that's an unfair connection to make. That's comparing apples with oranges, and it also assumes that people are too stupid to take variables into account. If you wanted to compare two different haematology departments, go for your life. You'll find that the Royal Brisbane has a much higher mortality rate than the Townsville hospital (I pick these two because I've worked in both). Is that because it's a worse department? Of course not. It's because Townsville send all their complicated cases to Brisbane that they can't handle, and so does everyone else in the state, so by nature the patients in Brisbane are more unwell and hence more likely to die. That doesn't meant that comparing the two is a stupid idea; it just means that you need to use the right measure, and mortality rates clearly are the wrong measure. Or at least if you do use mortality rates as a measure, you need to factor in things such as complexity of case load.

People know that they can't expect Hughenden state school to produce the same level of academic achievement as Nudgee College, but they aren't so stupid as to think that factors such as cost of schooling and distance to travel shouldn't be factors in their decision. What they do deserve is to have all the information at hand so that they can make an informed choice.

To flip it, what would you prefer? If you needed a complex surgery in Townsville that was beyond the skill of the generalist surgeons there, would you prefer that we hid the information that it would be done better at another hospital? Or would you prefer that we told you that you would likely have a better outcome elsewhere but you would need to travel and incur cost etc and let you make the decision yourself? It's simply unethical to not give you all the options.

L

P, I think having teachers rated by professionals is a potential idea. Rated by parents is bad. Would you want to be rated by patients who have no idea what your job actually consists of? Think about this. A lot of parents are pretty blind when it comes to their kids. They think their kids can do no wrong, and when they hear bad reports from the teachers, they automatically assume it is something wrong with the teacher; or if the child comes home complaining about the teacher who gave him detention/failed his test, the parent sometimes assumes it's the teacher doing something wrong/picking on his kid, and not the fact the kid is actually misbehaving/terrible at maths.

You also need to consider this. Different schools will bring out different performances in kids, regardless of the teachers. Anna Bligh's gov came up with an idea a while back to pay teachers depending upon their performance. This is a very, very bad idea because you can have a fantastic teacher, but throw in a bunch of (often low socio-economic) students who have been taught to hate school/authority by their parents and don't have any parental support re: completing homework, no encouragement to actually behave or even ATTEND school, and you will still get kids who fail miserably. Teachers know this, and so would avoid schools in such socio-economic areas like the plague because they know their 'performance' will drop and so would their pay. It's the same idea. A lot more goes into a teacher's performance than simply their ability; a child's willingness to learn, and most importantly, family support, are vital parts in a child succeeding in either the academic, sporting or musical arena.

Of course you do get some outstanding kids who reject what their parents model for them, but they are the exception to the rule.

L

When I said ' A lot more goes into a teacher's performance', I should have put "performance" in inverted commas - because what they would be rating is not the teacher's true performance, but how it simply appears on the outside.

L

Actually J, you do get people so stupid as to not take variables into account. Sad but true.

T

to stop filling up people's walls I'll blog about it and we can debate there--- sorry all

P

I know this is a very, very long comment thread, but I wanna make a few statements:
1. No-one is suggesting we assess teachers without taking into account socio-economic status, rurality, funding, etc. That would be complely non-sensical and unfair.
2. Teacher assessment should be based on objective standards, not simply parent opinions, etc.
3. Parents have an extraordinarily large role to play in their children's education and in many cases teachers are wrongly blamed for the parents lack of interest/discipline/etc.
4. That being said, teachers should have to have a basic level of understanding - I've heard of English teachers failing on basic grammar, which is simply appaling. University entrance and course requirements should be raised to make sure we are getting a sufficiently high standard for our kids....
Sorry to spam you again C

L

The thing is P, to take all those things into account, you would need the teachers to be assessed by some sort of professional, which I think is a perfectly acceptable idea. But the "My School" idea is that teachers are assessed by parents, which I think is a very bad idea. You are very right that there are teachers out there with awful basic skills - in my opinion, they shouldn't have been allowed to pass their B. Ed. But there's a difference between a professional making that assessment - "Teacher X has a below average understanding of Grade 8 English" - and a parent's possible assessment.

Looking forward to Tim's blog so we can move the discussion off C status ;) haha.

T
P I agree with your point one but they are being judged off this regardless. I also want to make some comments about some doctors who also shouldn't be doctors but I wont :D

Ferguson on the Out?

As I alluded to earlier in my soccer post Ferguson could be be gone. To be possibly replaced by Mckinna who was his boss at central coast... Not too sure what I think. I've always like McKinna but I don't know if replacing one Scot with another is the right method. Guus is still looking for a job :)

Operation Kill

I just finished watching a TV mini series call Operation Kill. Fascinating. It is based off a book written by a reporter guy who went into Iraq with the Recon Marines (kinda like our SAS) with the 2003 invasion. Quite a brutal but yet honest movie. Definently not a 'cuddle on the couch with Girlfriend movie' but quite thought provoking. It is quite violent and heaps of swearing but I thought showed a small insight into army life and the effects it has on people. Also the effects of good and bad leadership on a community.