Talking across the divide: English teachers respond to the NCEA.

The implementation of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement as a single, senior secondary school qualification in New Zealand has been a fraught process marked by a good deal of acrimonious debate. This article reports on a research project that brought together two groups of secondary English teachers, one self-described as in favour of the NCEA and one as opposed to it. Both groups were invited to describe aspects of their practice, share their views on aspects of the NCEA and engage in a focus group where they explored these views with other teachers. Certain predictable trends were found in the responses of both groups but there was also an interesting degree of convergence. On the basis of this convergence, a possible way forward for reform of the NCEA is suggested

[Review of] Susan Guyette. Community-Based Research: A Handbook for Native Americans

Community-Based Research has a clear sense of purpose: This handbook is intended as a practical research guide for an era of self-determination in community development (xvii). The author seeks to provide the means for research to be planned, designed, and implemented by community members with the research priorities set by the community that lives the socio-economic conditions, rather than by an outsider who studies the community for informational purposes (2)

On Pottery

One of my life’s most poignant moments came during my first lesson at the potter’s wheel. I’ll never forget how my teacher laid his hands over mine and helped direct the pressure needed to guide the clay into center. That moment when the clay ‘found’ center was absolutely electric. It tickled my innermost being in much the same way as feeling the faint kick of our first child in my expectant wife’s womb. Life yet-to-be-born was announcing itself

Diversity and the Undertreatment of Pain

The undertreatment of pain is a major public health problem and has enormous costs -- to the individual, the health care system and society. Undertreatment is complex and many studies have clarified the factors that may contribute. Clinicians who become aware of these factors are better able to assess accurately, treat appropriately, and educate about pain. Among other factors, undertreatmentof pain has been associated with race, sex, ethnicity, and culture

Cross Border Organizing Comes Home: UE & FAT in Mexico & Milwaukee

[Excerpt] When Manuel Ortega was sixteen, in 1993, the time arrived that his family had long been dreading. The pesticide-ridden land from which they eked out a living in Mexico could no longer maintain them all, and some of them had to leave. Manuel, his father, and two of his brothers headed north across the border to find a living in the United States. Manuel (not his real name) and his father went to Milwaukee, while his two brothers went to California. They found sporadic employment as farm workers, dishwashers and busboys, sending home as much money as they could to Manuel\u27s mother and brother, who had stayed on the land. Later, one of his brothers joined them in Milwaukee. Early in 1994, Manuel got hired at a Milwaukee factory, Aluminum Casting & Engineering Company. His brother Jose soon followed. Like many Mexicans, the Ortegas suffered a personal crisis parallel to the general economic crisis gripping Mexico in the \u2790s. Even before the devaluation of the peso, even at the height of Mexico\u27s economic miracle, campesinos (small-farmers) were forced northward by economic necessity to seek work in the States. And like the Ortegas, they face a new set of problems here: separation from their families, a cold climate, the Immigration Service, unfamiliar language and customs, racism, violence, poverty-stricken urban neighborhoods, and degrading and exploitative work. Relying at first on guidance from friends and relatives who arrived before them, sometimes living two and three to a room to make ends meet they cautiously feel their way in the new environment. Many, like Manuel Ortega, miss their life back home and wish it were possible to find work there, but nonetheless face life up north with cheer and humor

Teachers as action researchers: Towards a model of induction

Towards the end of 2006, a group of secondary and primary teachers, in collaboration with university researchers based at the University of Waikato, began a two-year journey where they researched their own practice as teachers of literature in multicultural classrooms in Auckland, New Zealand. This presentation briefly outlines the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI), which initially provided a vision of teachers, working in partnership with university researchers, researching their own practice with the aim of enhancing the practice of the teaching profession as a whole. Through the eyes of one of the university-based researchers, but drawing on the experiences of four of the teacher participants, this presentation reflects on factors that had a bearin