Writing the environment : changing attitudes to the Aotearoa New Zealand Environment : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University

There is a long-standing and irrational opposing discourse between the sciences and humanities as to which is the most relevant discipline for meeting the environmental needs of modern society. In a business, technological and industrially focused growth economy, there seems on the surface little room for writers, poets, historians and philosophers. However, it is in part due to the growth economy, the consumer, capitalist, scientific and industrial society, that our planet is suffering from overpopulation, pollution, and in many cases irreversible environmental degradation. In order for human beings to understand what is happening to the environment and why, and before we can begin to restore the ecological balance, a holistic approach must be fostered between the different disciplines that are involved with environmental issues and in writing the environment. As with the medical profession in an age of specialisation, where the 'bone men' don't talk to the 'muscle men' and the 'muscle men' don't communicate with the psychologists, we are in danger of becoming increasingly fragmented from the planet's ecology of which we are a part and which supports us. Those who write the environment are rediscovering the advantages of an ecological, interdisciplinary discourse

Myth, Land, and History in the Poetry of James Clarence Mangan and Ernest Jones

This essay discusses poetry associated with Irish nationalism and Chartism. Chartism’s eventual de facto leader, Ernest Jones, was an admired and prolific poet; as Irish poets including James Clarence Mangan were helping to forge a new Irish cultural identity in support of Irish nationalism, Chartist poets including Jones were attempting a similar project for a radical British working-class readership. This article undertakes a brief comparative study of the poetry of Mangan and Jones, and finds the points where they converge and differ to be equally illuminating in terms of their mythic representations of the land and the past

Underneath the Observational Snapshot: Looking For Sense and Meaning Behind the First Impressions of a Learning Interaction

Education practitioners, including Ofsted inspectors and Teacher Educators, try to make sense of behaviour in the classroom by observing the interaction of teachers and learners. They make judgements about what is good teaching, what is bad learner behaviour and what are inclusive and effective learning experiences. This article argues that such observations are inadequate for assessing and evaluating learning behaviour and insufficient to enable teachers to develop their own personalised teaching and learning strategies and their confidence as professional teachers. The article was written in response to examples of Further Education (FE) teachers describing the college classroom as a war zone and a battlefield (Lebor, 2013). The author argues that such metaphors reinforce the notion that teachers and learners are situated at opposing sides of an education institution with differing interests. They also ignore the position of the teacher as being a learner too. The author advocates using an existentialist approach to understanding and reflecting on the learning process. She models strategies she has used herself to attempt to step outside the conventional paradigm of learning in college and create a new framework for reflecting on what is good behaviour from a teacher and good behaviour from a learner

Fly on the wall: can students' learning be enhanced by allowing them to witness their own summative assessment and feedback event?

The Design studio learning system within New Zealand Tertiary Design Schools has a unique critique method, (often called 'The Crit'); The Crit event itself is rather a 'veiled' process and has been analyzed and written about extensively. There has also been some negative feedback from students that this form of critiquing process is not necessarily a good type of feedback process. Is there a method that protects the student's privacy related to his or her own design work and at the same time maintains the Design School's integrity of supplying reasoned and fair assessment within the wider Profession? A field trial scenario was designed and arranged with a group of volunteer design students, so each in turn, could sit-in and witness their own assessment / feedback session. This paper reports on this field trial, (timed to occur after the critique). This paper analyses this experiment, exploring the field trial responses, looking for links within a wider Educational literature base to the ground this 'Fly on the Wall' scenario within known pedagogies. NB. This scenario is not proposing to supplant 'The Crit,' rather the intention being in addition to it

Stories from the front line : the impact of inspection on practitioners

"This paper explores the impact of the new inspection arrangements on practitioners in further education (FE) colleges. It is based on a small study, involving FE practitioners who kept a record of their experiences before, during and after inspection. The aims of this research were to investigate a range of personal experiences of inspection in colleges and to build research capacity among the participants themselves. This research should shed light on the impact inspection has in colleges and provide useful information about the inspection experience for the inspectorates, for the Learning and Skills Council(LSC ) and for all post-16 stakeholders" -- page 5

Rule 82 & Tort Reform: An Empirical Study of the Impact of Alaska’s English Rule on Federal Civil Case Filings

Alaska is the only American state that employs a variation of the “English Rule,” whereby the losing party in a civil case must pay the prevailing party’s attorneys’ fees. In recent years, advocates of tort reform have praised Alaska’s Civil Rule 82 as a model for tort reform to help rid the overburdened courts of low merit claims. But does Rule 82 really reduce meritless litigation? This study compares civil case filings in the District of Alaska to a sample of other comparable federal district courts. Although filings in the District of Alaska were lower than the national average, they were indistinguishable from the remainder of the sample. Other measures also failed to demonstrate any significant differences between civil cases in the District of Alaska and the other districts. These results suggest that reformers looking to reduce meritless litigation should look elsewhere for model reform measures