Posts by Hilary Stace
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Hard News: Do you like what we've done…, in reply to HORansome,
Comic sans is actually recommended by the British Dyslexia Association. I also use big and bold font on a plain pale yellow background to improve the contrast in my power point presentations, as suggested by my vision impaired colleagues. So I think opposition to comic sans by academics is just personal. (I also think you should be able to write a PhD in plain language, which is not a popular viewpoint).
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Hard News: Do you like what we've done…, in reply to Megan Wegan,
Thanks, that was easy.
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Would it be possible to put the links to older and newer pages at the top of the page too, please?I can't be the only one to go backwards through threads. I still use a keyboard and would be easier on my OOS.
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How do I add my email and twitter links?
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Yay for the big font (BTW Emma, I like comic sans as it reminds me of very good teacher writing on blackboards, and I always use it on power point).
I like the email and twitter links. Russell, please could you add humans to the links. Even though there are only occasional postings, they are a useful archive. (Giovanni, Philip and I went to the Education select committee on Wednesday to hear what the Ministry was doing re national standards and kids with autism, which has been an ongoing saga since raised on PA almost two years ago. The answers were not conclusive. Seems if kids who have regular Individual Education Plans as they get ORRS funding, don't need to do standards, but the teachers still have to report to the board on where they could be on the standards. What the board does with this information is unclear. Kids with ASD without IEPs - which are the majority - well who knows? But at least the committee keeps asking. And there seems to be some new support for the first three years of schooling for kids with special needs.)
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Thanks Islander and Stephen. We were in Beijing on May Day 1976. Probably a good day for a protest. Was an incredible dust storm too I remember while we were there. My sister was there later in the year when Mao died.
Robin Hyde's China connection came up too - might have been in the English course I did at the same time. Con Bollinger was our English lecturer and James K Baxter dropped in as guest speaker from time to time (for English 1 !)
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My undergraduate degree decades ago was a double major in history and Asian studies. So I got to study the Long March in which Norman Bethune, Edgar Snow and those other old China hands featured. And NZers were there too -James Bertram, who reported on the Sian Incident with Chiang Kai Shek, had become a Victoria University English lecturer. Kathleen Hall was a very brave NZ nurse/resistance worker. About that time NZ recognised China, one of Kirk's first actions as PM. In 1976 I visited China on a NZ-China Society tour and met an aging Rewi Alley (was part of that large and prominent family - brother Geoff National Librarian, sister Gwen Somerset one of the Play centre movers and shakers). Muldoon visited the same week as we did, and unknown to us there were big riots in Tienanmin (sp?) Square after the death of Chou En Lai (I think that's right, it is late at night). All foreigners in Beijing were efficiently bussed out to a stadium to see an amazing fireworks display, and all was tidy when were we allowed to venture out again.
Of course what we didn't know was that that Cultural Revolution was in full swing and our whole trip was carefully stage managed. Explained why Rewi was quite reticent, as apparently he was under virtual house arrest.
One of the little red books of the time was called 'Remembering Norman Bethune' as he was considered a huge friend of the Chinese revolution.
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Talking about unreasonable people and politicians I might just sneak this in as a bit of karmic come-uppance.
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Thanks so much Jackie (and Russell for asking Jackie to write this post). I will never criticise single parents and beneficiaries, having been one for periods of my life. It's not only that you have to count every cent and plan every expense from tomorrow's bus fares to tomorrow's school trip, or that you face pity or marginalisation in a society full of comfortable couples and nice nuclear families, or accusatory looks or media headlines for being a 'bludger', or that it is lonely because no one else has that passion for your children like you do, and you worry what will happen if you get sick.
It's the basic lack of security. You can't plan. There is always the threat of a disaster around the corner that could wreck your already fragile existence. Or politicians out there plotting ways to cut your meagre income and make your life even more stressful. There is so much labelling and denial of humanity.That WINZ era under Christine Rankin was one of the worst, when everyone going through the door was whisked into a side room and grilled about benefit fraud, as if they were assumed to be not only bludgers, but criminals as well.
And I was lucky as I was middle class and had lots of great support from family and friends.
A society that really valued children wouldn't be so cruel to those trying to raise them alone.