Volume 13 Issue 1

An Avondale lecturer’s third and final book in a series telling the story of a boy and the challenge of adolescence launched recently.

This book by an Avondale academic revealing the Anzac’s deep but concealed interest in spirituality is world-ranking research, says the historian who launched it.

In her recent book, aptly named As Light Lingers: Basking in the Word of God, Nina Atcheson follows many other Christian authors in tackling the topic of how to study the Bible. Atcheson has written this book in a refreshingly honest and sensitive manner. There are many books on how to study the Bible, but I found a number of features set this book apart.

This article discusses performance appraisal in an education system context. With teacher quality key to improving student performance, school education systems must consider the role of performance appraisal on both teacher and principal development and improvement. This article describes the perceptions of employees within a faith-based education system as to current and suggested improvements in performance appraisal processes. This study utilised a qualitative approach for research design, adopting semi-structured interviews to collect employee perceptions. The employees indicated mistrust in the present performance appraisal processes, noted inconsistent use of performance appraisal, identified a need for evaluator training, and suggested the use of both an internal and external person in the evaluation and development space. These faithbased education system employees indicated that a district wide approach to the performance appraisal process, with flexibility at the local school level, would be beneficial for both the respective schools and the education system.

It is a typical classroom in an Australian primary school. The children are not at their desks. They are lying on the floor with their eyes closed. Their teacher is guiding them through a mindfulness exercise. This is a trend that is growing in popularity as schools search out ways to address the mental health issues that are increasingly impacting the lives of Australian children in negative ways.

Optimising student learning is an important goal of Christian education. It is suggested the strongest contribution teachers can make to improving student learning is to adopt a research-evidence based teaching system (The Gonski 2.0 Review, cited in Ballantyne, 2018a). In particular: Pedagogical practices must be contemporary and evidence-based, and teachers must have the resources and expertise to update their methods to those practices proven effective by current research. … Crucially, schools need to help teachers seize any opportunity to work collaboratively and review their own teaching practices.

How can teachers increase the effectiveness of their classroom practice, so that not only are ideas transferred (Perkins & Salomon, 1988), but so that students become people who shape their future and make the world a better place? This is an important question that refocuses the purpose of education and takes attention away from curriculum and outcomes to issues that have been seen as peripheral to education, such as ‘learning readiness’ (Schindler, 1948). The ludicrousness of the unspoken assumption that many students will simply ‘suck up lessons’ like a vacuum cleaner as they are presented, is thrown into stark relief.

The Context It is Tuesday afternoon at Prescott College, a Seventh-day Adventist high school in an inner suburb of Adelaide. Students and teachers are packing up their books, pens, computers and folders. But next, some are gathering garden tools, others are setting up a puppet theatre and still others are tuning up musical instruments. Students and teachers are all engaged in purposeful activity. It is service learning time, a program that fosters wellbeing for both students and staff.

Ancient Egypt still casts a binding spell over all who encounter it. Its scale is epic both physically and metaphysically. Buried beneath millennia of sand’s time its mysterious allure has drawn men like Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon deep into its heart. Much is now known about this ancient civilisation, its might, renown, culture, science and devotion to gods both fearsome and unpredictable. Yet there is an important understanding-void yet to be filled.

Nina Atcheson is the Adventist Identity Officer for Adventist Schools Australia. But she is also a writer and now published author. In the lead up to the launch of As Light Lingers, she answers questions from Nathan Brown about her new book and how spending time with the Bible can change our lives.

Teaching the history of the Holocaust is certainly complicated in a number of educational settings. However, in the attempt to make the Holocaust relevant we are all susceptible to glossing over key historical facts. Since we live an age of some anxiety over the future of Holocaust memory and Holocaust education, educators should teach Holocaust history without flattening it, providing an approach that wrestles with the specificities of the Holocaust and contextual factors in the lives of individuals.

This qualitative case study reports the Four Resource Model (FRM) reading practices used by a millennial while playing the game Minecraft. The FRM skills of code breaker, text participant, text user and text analyst were investigated through data generated by observation, field notes, semi-structured interviews and a researcher reflective journal. The data was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four key themes emerged: language and articulation; social and mentor integration; real-world connection; and, parent and child viewpoints. Across these themes the FRM reading practices are being used by this child to make meaning while playing Minecraft. This game presents a multimodal text which this child is able to successfully navigate while designing and creating a digital story in virtual spaces.

Advanced education for Christians of antiquity was only available through schools which used classical Greek methodology. This included literature, poetry, and philosophy closely tied to polytheistic and pagan traditions. Christian families and leaders at that time had to consider the spiritual implications of participating in such a system. This article contrasts the opinion of Tatian with that of Basil of Caesarea regarding Christian participation in pagan education.

Basil and Tatian had similar ascetic views, yet they differed on this issue. Tatian believed Christians should not take part in pagan education. Basil believed that Christians could benefit spiritually from this education if they experienced it selectively and wisely. I conclude that Basil’s view is the wiser choice.

Increasingly publishers are promoting illness as a commodifiable literary product. There is now a wide range of autobiographical and fictional texts that explore life-threatening illnesses from the embodied perspective of protagonists. This trend is also evidenced in the content of young adult literature where concepts of the diseased self, agency and mortality are explored. The aim of this paper is to provide some background context on illness narratives and offer a close reading of the young adult text, The Fault in our Stars by John Green, in order to highlight important issues such as the accurate and realistic portrayal of cancer, particularly in the lived experience of adolescent readers. It is anticipated that this discussion will allow classroom teachers to engage more fully in conversations about text selection and content, and the ways in which literature can advance realistic representation of illness that previously have been culturally taboo.

It couldn’t have been more idyllic. A large red-brick, country cottage quietly tucked away on the edge of the woods – blue sky–white clouds– moss green grass, and great friends. A writer’s retreat: a rest from the rest of our busy lives. I have defected from my family, found a community and completely ignored housework! The Huffington Post and I agree. I found that I had followed their advice before I even knew about it. Writing is work. Yes, writing is work. I always knew this but wasn’t really committed to it as one should be with real work.

Working for the wellbeing of indigenous students can be challenging, especially when a difficult home or school situation rouses them emotionally to the extent that it impacts their capacity to engage in learning and/or appropriate social behaviour.