The Opposition is once again complaining about the fact that the Government’s stimulus package is working better than expected.
Yes, that’s right, they’re complaining about the Government doing something right.
Occasionally I have to wonder what it must be like to live in Malcom Turnbull’s head…
I’m not a fan of the Government wasting taxpayer money, so it’s good that there are people looking into the Government’s school spending program. But I have to say, maybe the opposition should stop trying to discredit the idea of these spending programs when it only draws attention to the fact that there is a 99.75% satisfaction rate.
I’m no political advisor, but it seems like common sense… dunnit?
Do you think anyone will mention that Queensland students are younger than students in other states?
No. Yeah you’re right - I was being optimistic.
No… I thought that was being optimistic.
I can’t help but applaud Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe for trying to tell people that homophobia is a bad thing.
Catchthefire.com, however, slams Radcliffe for failure to tolerate their intolerance simply because he thinks it might be a good idea to teach same-sex sex-ed. You know, so young gay men and women don’t engage in risky sexual activity without knowing exactly what they’re getting themselves into. Silly Daniel.
Then, in some kind of spectacular leap of logic that is clearly beyond my limited human comprehension, the article claims that Radcliffe’s telling people that saying hurtful and harmful things that can have a profound negative impact upon LGBT people is both wrong and anti-[theirdefinitionof]-family. Gosh, clearly this young man is a terrible role model because he wants us to be respectful to each other.
And of course the celibate, wise and over-qualified Dumbledore seems to fail some kind of morality quota and, like all homosexuals regardless of qualifications, should not be allowed to be headmaster. I wonder when I’ll get around to studying that important fact in my education degree?
I’m not quite sure how this story ended up in the papers. Maybe someone got tired of creating the appearance of corruption where there is none and instead felt like creating the veteran’s viagra scandal.
When I read it I was filled with deep shame. Not, however, because of the information contained within, but rather because this story was even put into print.
So, you may have heard that infamous Australian shock-jock Kyle Sandilands and his partner Jackie O have been taken off air because of an incident last week where a fourteen-year-old girl revealed on-air that she had been raped. Now, I posted a status update on both Twitter and Facebook stating that I was annoyed at this ‘suspension’ and within the evening received a few messages along the lines of ‘how could you think that?!’ So I thought that it might be good for me to explain myself.
First, let me point out I’m really not a massive Kyle fan. I think that he’s often a very rude individual who unnecessarily hurts people’s feelings. Still, being crude and generally tactless isn’t necessarily a reason to take someone off air. Therefore my problem isn’t so much the suspension itself, but the reasoning behind it.
The main cause of the moral outrage seems to be Kyle’s response to the revelation. After the girl stated that she had been raped when she was twelve, Sandilands responded:
“Right, is that the only experience you’ve had?”
If you actually listen to the segment it’s quite clear that Kyle was just scrambling for words in an attempt to fill the ridiculously awkward silence that had arisen. It wasn’t a deliberate, calculated attempt to trivialise what this girl had gone through. It’s on this point that society’s culture of perfection is really kicking into overdrive. I mean, how many of us have, when blindsided by a shocking/awkward statement, said something stupid? Think about it for a minute.
Now, imagine that it’s one of the most horrible things anyone could ever say to you, and imagine you’re also on national radio.
Was what Kyle said entirely appropriate? Well, I’d say that it certainly wasn’t the best response. But, as I pointed out, who hasn’t said something dumb when faced with a similar, though usually not quite so extreme, situation? Kyle just happened to be unfortunate enough to be on national radio when he made his blooper. As one of my friends who works in radio will tell you, there’s really no time to think when you’re live on air; if a silence comes up you are reflexively programmed to try and fill it.
I’m not saying that what happened was good, I’m just saying that what happened was clearly beyond the control of Kyle and Jackie. This is a segment that’s apparently been going on for years, and I imagine the producers probably thought it was a good way to give a bratty, promiscuous, drug-taking teen a rude awakening via lie-detector on the radio. I’ll admit that I do have an issue with someone who’s underage seemingly being forced into this interview. But I also have an issue with the double-standards of a society who, a week ago, would have had little problem with the concept of this segment now suddenly changing their tune. Where was the moral outrage last Monday? If you’re going to react to a segment at least be consistent about it.
We have to remember that talk shows like this are part of the entertainment industry as well. The general public love this crap, despite it being stupid – the same public who are now calling for Kyle and Jackie’s head on a platter. If people want to watch movies where stuff is blowing up instead of films that deal with deep, socio-political issues then what do you think the media will give them? The media reflects the desires of the general public as much as it helps to shape them. If this segment hadn’t been popular for so long do you really think that 2DayFM would keep doing it?
After listening to the whole segment I think that, all things considered, Kyle and Jackie handled what happened pretty well. Aside from Kyle’s dumb question they were reasonably sensitive and immediately offered to give the girl free counselling.
What I’m really surprised by is that there is not more outrage directed towards the mother of this poor girl, who either didn’t listen or didn’t care when her daughter said that she had been raped. A mother who, after two years, hadn’t sought help from the police or a counsellor for her daughter, and who thought it might be a good idea to quiz her daughter about her sex life on national radio knowing full well that she had been raped.
Tl;dr? Overall it was a horrible experience, but clearly Kyle and Jackie O are not the ones at fault here. Yes Kyle said something stupid, but we’re all human. We all unintentionally say insensitive things, sometimes at work, and we don’t get fired for them.
Those of you who live in Queensland may have seen this story (and the follow-up article) a few weeks ago in the news. I have been busy having my soul being consumed by university, so I’m only getting around to writing about it now, but I think it raises some interesting questions. Now before I begin, let me get this out of the way: it is absolutely horrible that this boy has fallen and is now suffering psychological trauma as a result. People are indeed right when they say that it shouldn’t have happened, as no tragic accident should ever happen. There is, however, another tragedy here that may not be immediately apparent, particularly for people who don’t operate in the field of education. This tragedy is the detrimental effect this incident will likely have on teachers who are attempting to come up with innovative ways to engage with and teach their students.
If you can’t see what I’m talking about, let’s take the incident out of the incident. That is, let’s remove the unfortunate fall from this story and then ask ourselves; what do we see? Well I can’t speak for you[1] but what I see is a teacher who was trying to move beyond the typical classroom setup to create an activity that, in all likelihood, would have thoroughly engaged his students. As someone who is still relatively fresh out of high-school, I can tell you that re-enactments and roleplays are something that a lot of students really enjoy, and if students can learn something from them, even better!
If my Grade 9 English teacher told my class that we were going to re-enact a crime scene we would have been bouncing off the walls with excitement![2] We would have done the activity, learned from it, and then gone on with life. While I wasn’t in the classroom where the hanging incident happened, I can imagine the atmosphere would have been very light and jovial until the fall.
Then we have to remember that what happened here was an accident, and until an official inquiry has been performed we should all withhold judgement instead of crying out for blood and claiming it was as a result of gross incompetence. There are so many questions that have to be asked, for example: What were the instructions from the teacher? What kind of surface was he standing on? Was the boy following the teacher’s instructions and taking his own precautions against falling? I’m not necessarily saying it’s a good idea to put actual nooses around students’ necks, there are of course risks, but I can’t imagine the boy was instructed to put a noose on and do interpretive dance on a lubed-up block of ice.
Teachers these days have it drilled into them how important it is to look after kids, for both ethical and legal reasons, and I highly doubt the teacher would have run this activity if he thought that a student would have in any way been harmed. Accidents happen, even though they shouldn’t, and the likelihood of this boy falling off a stationary table was very low.
So now we have to ask, what is the future of atypical, fun, learning activities in Queensland classrooms? Honestly, I don’t know. But the possible ramifications do terrify me. Hell, I’m studying to be a Drama teacher and I’ve seen what can happen in a theatrical environment to cause not-insignificant injuries![3] Cuts, scrapes, bumps and concussions are not unheard of in even the safest classrooms, let alone ones where students are required to get up and move around like crazy people.
Just when we had begun to move away from the bog-standard teacher-up-front-lecturing kind of pedagogical practice, we encounter hiccups like this.
Maybe I’ll just have to rely on someone writing more plays where people just sit down and have conversations at bus stops.[4]
[2] We were in Grade 9 so we were bouncing off the walls regardless, but still…
[3] Not to mention what can happen in English when Backslash gets involved…
[4] Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Some good plays have taken place at bus stops!
As the title of my blog is Shadow People in Paper Towns, I believe it would be remiss of me not to begin the reviewing portion of this blog with a review of John Green’s Paper Towns. So, here we go!
Paper Towns Covers (USA)
Paper Towns, by John Green, is a YA novel that focuses on the life and misadventures of Quentin “Q” Jacobson and his quest to find the mysterious Margo Roth-Spiegleman. What, however, must be understood when reading this book is that “finding” Margo is more than just a (not-so) simple quest to locate where she is in space-time, but is instead a quest to find out who Margo really is.
From the very get-go Green manages to generate the necessary tension to drive the story forward and engross the reader. The book will have you constantly asking questions that you must know the answer to: Who’s the man in the park? Why is Margo showing up and whisking Q away to go on a midnight adventure? Where’s Margo? Is she dead? And, most importantly, why does someone need to own so many black Santas!
Green’s youthful and intelligent tone sets the scene, engages the audience and lets them know exactly the kind of characters that are going to be in this text. It’s obvious that Green is at home in the first-person perspective, and returning to it for this novel really works to his advantage. There are a few awkward shifts from past to present tense, but besides these isolated incidents, Green manages to capture the teenage voice exceptionally well, transitioning seamlessly from quirky and witty to contemplative and serious when appropriate.
Green’s ability to create believable teenage characters is also part of the appeal of Paper Towns. The characters, from the nerdy and awkward Ben to the caring cheerleader Lacey, are complex and multi-layered, and engage in realistic contemporary dialogue.
On top of this, the first-person perspective works well in demonstrating the limitations of human perception. While Q is not an unreliable narrator, he certainly has his own world-view and this works against him in his search for Margo. He is only able to see the person he thinks Margo is, instead of the person who she actually is, and before Q can locate her, he must first “find” her. This ties in to the overall recurring theme of the novel, which is the necessity of imagining the other with greater complexity. While such an intricate and deep theme might have a tendency to weigh down a text and make it come across as preachy, the way the novel addresses the central theme through the challenges of its characters means that while the book occasionally walks on a delicate line, it certainly isn’t anvilicious.
Overall, Paper Towns is a well-written, entertaining and thought-provoking novel. On a personal note, I like this book so much that I’ve bought three copies (one for myself and twice for friends). Its themes are universal, its characters are fun to spend time with, and it is written such a way that it reads very easily. I highly recommend it.
As the title of my blog is Shadow People in Paper Towns, I believe it would be remiss of me not to begin the reviewing portion of this blog with a review of John Green’s Paper Towns. So, here we go!
Paper Towns, by John Green, is a YA novel that focuses on the life and misadventures of Quentin “Q” Jacobson and his quest to find the mysterious Margo Roth-Spiegleman. What, however, must be understood when reading this book is that “finding” Margo is more than just a (not-so) simple quest to locate where she is in space-time, but is instead a quest to find out who Margo really is.
From the very get-go Green manages to generate the necessary tension to drive the story forward and engross the reader. The book will have you constantly asking questions that you must know the answer to: Who’s the man in the park? Why is Margo showing up and whisking Q away to go on a midnight adventure? Where’s Margo? Is she dead? And, most importantly, why does someone need to own so many black Santas!
Green’s youthful and intelligent tone sets the scene, engages the audience and lets them know exactly the kind of characters that are going to be in this text. It’s obvious that Green is at home in the first-person perspective, and returning to it for this novel really works to his advantage. There are a few awkward shifts from past to present tense, but besides these isolated incidents, Green manages to capture the teenage voice exceptionally well, transitioning seamlessly from quirky and witty to contemplative and serious when appropriate.
Green’s ability to create believable teenage characters is also part of the appeal of Paper Towns. The characters, from the nerdy and awkward Ben to the caring cheerleader Lacey, are complex and multi-layered, and engage in realistic contemporary dialogue.
On top of this, the first-person perspective works well in demonstrating the limitations of human perception. While Q is not an unreliable narrator, he certainly has his own world-view and this works against him in his search for Margo. He is only able to see the person he thinks Margo is, instead of the person who she actually is, and before Q can locate her, he must first “find” her. This ties in to the overall recurring theme of the novel, which is the necessity of imagining the other with greater complexity. While such an intricate and deep theme might have a tendency to weigh down a text and make it come across as preachy, the way the novel addresses the central theme through the challenges of its characters means that while the book occasionally walks on a delicate line, it certainly isn’t anvilicious.
Overall, Paper Towns is a well-written, entertaining and thought-provoking novel. On a personal note, I like this book so much that I’ve bought three copies (one for myself and twice for friends). Its themes are universal, its characters are fun to spend time with, and it is written such a way that it reads very easily. I highly recommend it.
Hi all and welcome to my blog: Shadow People in Paper Towns.
I don’t want to spend too much time on an introduction post that is, in all likelihood, only going to be read by a handful of people so I’ll just skip ahead to the details.
Me in thirty-seconds or less: Hi, my name is Tim. I’m a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Education student from Brisbane, Australia. I’m majoring in English and Drama. This means I have an interest in books, TV, media, crit-lit, lit-crit and all things schooling. I am, of course, interested in more than just these things, but this is supposed to be a brief introduction and I can already hear you typing the URL for Youtube into your browser…
This blog in thirty-seconds or less: This blog is essentially a pet project where I can express my thoughts about life, the universe and everything. In particular, it will contain reviews of books, television, movies and plays, and commentary on the current state of education.
The title: The title, Shadow People in Paper Towns, was inspired by John Green’s novel Paper Towns.
One of the themes of this novel is that we, as humans, must attempt to imagine each other with greater complexity. With the advent of the communication age and the ability to make comments quickly and anonymously about things, it has become increasingly obvious to me that people have a tendency to fail spectacularly at using empathy when discussing issues. Instead, people reduce others to caricatures or silhouettes of who they really are; they cease to be people and become two-dimensional “shadow people.”
So there you have it, we’re all the “shadow people” living in our paper towns. In this blog I will be trying to imagine others with a greater complexity, and while I will probably fail from time to time I can at least say that I’ve given it a shot.
Shadow People in Paper Towns:
Hi all and welcome to my blog: Shadow People in Paper Towns.
I don’t want to spend too much time on an introduction post that is, in all likelihood, only going to be read by a handful of people so I’ll just skip ahead to the details.
Me in thirty-seconds or less: Hi, my name is Tim. I’m a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Education student from Brisbane, Australia. I’m majoring in English and Drama. This means I have an interest in books, TV, media, crit-lit, lit-crit and all things schooling. I am, of course, interested in more than just these things, but this is supposed to be a brief introduction.
This blog in thirty-seconds or less: This blog is essentially a pet project where I can express my thoughts about life, the universe and everything. In particular, it will contain reviews of books, television, movies and plays, and commentary on the current state of education.
The title: The title, Shadow People in Paper Towns, was inspired by John Green’s novel Paper Towns.
One of the themes of this novel is that we, as humans, must attempt to imagine each other with greater complexity. With the advent of the communication age and the ability to make comments quickly and anonymously about things, it has become increasingly obvious to me that people have a tendency to fail spectacularly at using empathy when discussing issues. Instead, people reduce others to caricatures or silhouettes of who they really are; they cease to be people and become two-dimensional “shadow people.”
So there you have it, we’re all the “shadow people” living in our paper towns. In this blog I will be trying to imagine others with a greater complexity, and while I will probably fail from time to time I can at least say that I’ve given it a shot.
