Articles tagged with "teacher"

Crybully: “A person who engages in intimidation, harassment, or other abusive behaviour while claiming to be a victim” - Wiktionary

The government is really pushing the COVID vaccine at the moment, including with this weekend's Super Saturday - where around 130,000 vaccines were administered in a single day.

An “alternative” health clinic in Christchurch, which specialises in colonic irrigation and coffee enemas, has announced online that it will not treat anyone who has been vaccinated within the last 30 days.

The Centner Academy in Miami, Florida has barred its teachers from being able to see students if they've been given the COVID vaccine, and will not be employing new teachers who have already been vaccinated. They argue that because the vaccines have not yet been fully tested, there is a risk that they could have unknown issues that may affect other people.

Issue 115, 2015 | I have just read your editorial and really enjoyed it. You make a lot of very good points and, as a teacher myself, I can relate to some of the experiences that you have described.

Creationism is not a new problem in New Zealand schools, as this article excerpt from NZ Skeptic 18 (December 1990) illustrates.

The decision by Judge John Jones ruling that the promotion of Intelligent Design (ID) in schools is a violation of the constitutional ban on teaching religion, is at least a temporary victory for scientific integrity (Newsfront, p10). Previous attempts to get creationism into the American classroom have been more ambitious, notably a Louisiana act which would have mandated for biblical literalism to be granted equal time alongside evolutionary theory, finally struck down in a majority Supreme Court decision in 1987. The proposal in Dover, Pennsylvania, was modest by comparison. It required that teachers read a 159-word statement declaring evolution "a theory ... [t]he theory is not a fact", and stating that ID is "an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view." The book, Of Pandas and People, was recommended for students who wished to understand what ID involves.

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A Waikato University website on evolution has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from teachers, says biological sciences lecturer Alison Campbell.

Presenting the evidence just isn't enough

An article in the Tucson Citizen, May 18, 1994, about a teacher in Chicago tells a frightening cautionary tale. An extract follows:

In reference to Ruth Walker's article "Absurdities of Creationism" [Skeptic 22], I would like to remind fellow Skeptics that it is not only "fundamentalist" Christian schools that teach creationism.

The debate over how "dry" a skeptic should be in promoting skepticism does not appear to take into account the dangers of ridicule in hardening the very views we are attempting to counter. This is particularly so in schools, where both teachers and pupils have things to learn.

Calls for Maori input in the science classroom are fine for encouraging students in the belief that science is relevant to their lives, but could also be used to cut them off from the international scientific community.

A report of a survey conducted in 1988

The Skeptics have been saddened by the deaths of two of our most lively and engaged members.

This will be the last editorial that I write as in September, my wife and I will leave for Thailand, where we shall be doing voluntary work. The first issue of the Newsletter went to 80 members, the last one went to 180 (with another 55 going in bulk to the U.S.A.). Such growth in just over 3 years is very gratifying and the credit for that belongs to our members who have so faithfully sent in articles and cuttings. (Especial thanks to Malcolm McCleary who has just sent me more material on the infamous Time Life series of loony books. $35 a throw). I am not naturally efficient, and if I have failed to use your contribution, I apologise. It was my policy to use everything sent to me and if I failed in this it was not intentionally. Thanks are also due to Mark Davies and his gang at Vic who, apart from the first few issues, typed out the material, duplicated it and stapled it together. If you look back over the past issues, you can immediately tell when Mark took over by the startling improvement in the layout and appearance of the newsletter.

I was a teacher of Biology and Science at a State High School in North Queensland throughout 1983 and 1984. In this article I wish to briefly present the successful creationist campaign there as 1 personally saw it, and to point out trends and other factors which were conducive to this success, with comparative references to the New Zealand education system.