LoginHome » News » Bush Telegraph » Issue archive » February 2005 » Resources
NEWS from Churches’ Agency on Social Issues
(Presbyterian, Methodist, Churches of Christ, Quakers)
Capital City Forum announces a seminar:
Race Relations 2005:
issues and practical responses
Chaired and introduced by Sir Paul Reeves.
Featuring Professor Manuka Henare, Sir Rodney Gallen, Race Relations Conciliator Joris de Bres and Dr Alex Frame, Wellington lawyer, speaking on issues relating to government, to Maori, to human rights and to local communities.
With contributions from those with hands-on experience of race relations in local and church communities.
The programme includes panel discussions and questions from the floor.
An opportunity to get to grips with a critical topic in this election year.
Saturday 5 March, 2005
9.30am - 4pm
Wellington: Connolly Hall, Hill Street, Thorndon.
Lunch and refreshments provided. Entry by koha. Details of the programme on our website, www.casi.org.nz, or from casi(at)casi.org.nz
<typohead type="4">The sins of the parents…</typohead>
While the National Party is declaring an open season on beneficiaries (again), CASI is expressing concern about current efforts to further reduce the income of some on the Domestic Purposes Benefit.
The Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill, a Government bill now before the Social Services Select Committee, tackles a couple of anomalies in social assistance relating to stand-down periods and eligibility for accommodation supplement. However, one clause increases the penalty on a parent supported by the Domestic Purposes Benefit, if they do not name the other parent of the child, by a further $6 per week. The current reduction is $22 per week.
CASI considers this a classic example of ‘the sins of the parents being visited on the children”, which runs counter to the principles of both natural and Biblical justice. Research and Government’s own publications show that families who are most likely to be “food poor” are those with children, and already 22 percent of these households report that “food runs out because of lack of money”. Further reducing the income of beneficiaries is likely to make their situation worse.
CASI says it would be better to find out why the number of domestic purposes beneficiaries who do not name the liable parent has increased, rather than taking this simplistic and punitive approach.
<typohead type="4">Busy-work For Schools</typohead>
Our schools, their teachers, and their pupils have suffered from a sequence of mantras over the last decade and a half – “self managing schools” with “community involvement”, then “choice” with competition as the means to tuning up school responsiveness, and “accountability”, which produced a new parallel bureaucracy to audit their efforts. Now we are to
have “evidence-based practices” promoted throughout the school system.
In 1940, C E Beeby drafted for his minister the words: ‘The Government’s objective broadly expressed is that every person, whatever his level of academic ability, whether he be rich or poor, whether he live in the town or the country, has a right, as a citizen, to a free education of the kind for which he is best fitted and to the fullest extent of his powers.’
In 2004, the document Making A Bigger Difference For All Students: Directions For A Schooling Strategy has a strategic goal, strategic objectives, a three-year consultation phase, and a five-year time-line. I read it with increasing despair. It proposes that “all students in our schools should be positively engaged in learning and challenged and supported to achieve to their full potential… The Schooling Strategy will provide a five-year framework, focussed around the best evidence currently available about what will improve outcomes for all students.”
Sixty years after Beeby, can you spot what’s new? Beeby was focused on the development of the learner as the whole person. The new thrust is on the bolting on of techniques, in the interests of student “outcomes”. Education is reduced to instrumental practice, with not to far away the suggestion that schooling, upskilling rather than education, should prepare servants of the economy.
Feedback from schools reported in the document from schools suggested levels of funding, teacher overload, and excessive paper work are pressing concerns. This document proposes instead paper flows and consultation over a further two years - and implies the development of a new mantra five years further out.
Check it out at: www.schoolingstrategy.govt.nz. But please recognise that teachers concerned to promote equity are not mere technicians. They are engaged in an activity with limited potential to amend power imbalances in our increasingly unequal society - and yet still very problematic. I once heard quality teaching has been defined as “the communication of enthusiasm for learning”. Its nurturing requires more than the wiring in of new circuits on to automated motherboards.
Ken Rae (Methodist member of CASI)
<typohead type="3">Resources </typohead>
<typohead type="4">Treaty study material</typohead>
Progress continues steadily on the Ecumenical Coalition for Justice study and discussion series. Theme 5 (Foreshore and Seabed) and Theme 1 (Re-looking at early relationships between Maori communities and European families) are complete. The theme covering Christian involvement in the Treaty of Waitangi is imminent, and the other three (Christians who have stood up for honouring the Treaty, Christian faith communities and the Treaty today, and the Treaty and immigration) will be ready in the next two months.
You can download the completed themes, and follow progress on the others, from www.socialjustice.org.nz.
<typohead type="4">Social issues kit</typohead>
A few copies of this major resource are available from the CASI office for $10.00. The Research workbook is also available - $2 per copy. Download free from the CASI website www.casi.org.nz or buy hard copies from the CASI office, 04 381 8295.
<typohead type="4">Thinking through Immigration</typohead>
A topic which is bound to become an election issue. Reflections, background information, and four studies. Obtain as above - $3 per copy p&p.
<typohead type="4">Dialogues on difficult topics</typohead>
The Interchurch Bioethics Council has two sets of these available - Making good decisions in Biotechnology and Euthanasia. They are an effective way of encouraging group discussion and can be used for study during Lent.
<typohead type="4">Recent additions to CASI’s library</typohead>
John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus. The second edition of this classic text on non-violent resistance, the ‘kingdom’ of Jesus, Christ and power, and the authority of the State.
Paul Hunt & Margaret Wilson, editors. Culture, Rights and Cultural Rights.: Perspectives from the South Pacific. Essays by Pacific writers.
Bronwyn Dalley & Margaret Tennant, editors. Past Judgement: Social Policy in New Zealand History. Essays by a range of writers covering, among others, religious contributions to social policy and the role of the voluntary sector.
Guide to Local Government in New Zealand 2004, produced by Decisionmaker Publications.
Preaching Notes and Prayers kits
<typohead type="4">Preaching Kit 3: Lent - a lectionary resource for 9 February to 26 March 2005</typohead>
Now available both in printed form ($4 plus postage) and on our web page. It has been written by Rev Roger Wiig, former editor of Crosslink, and contains notes and prayers for Ash Wednesday and each day of Holy Week as well as the Sundays of Lent.
<typohead type="4">Preaching kit 4 for 27 March to 8 May</typohead>
Written by the Rev Dr Frank Glen, a well published author as well as retired Presbyterian minister.
As with all the preaching notes, which cover every Sunday and special day of the Church year, these are based on the three-year Common Lectionary readings. They are suitable for both lay and ordained preachers or can be used by groups either preparing worship or wanting to do some Bible study.
The notes contain exegetical material on each of the lectionary readings, and preaching suggestions. These and other lectionary resources are also available here.
<typohead type="4">Easter and Lent Resources</typohead>
A series of 4 studies by Rev Dr Harry Swadling is available - “Journeys and Encounters” $4 plus postage. These studies look at stories from the four Gospels with thought–provoking questions. It is best if each person has a copy.
Another series of 4 studies is available written by Rev Doug Rogers - Seven Words From the Cross-a series of reflections for Lent. $4 plus postage.
A resource kit with a wide range of resources for worship, drama, pageants, prayers, and creative special occasions is available for the Easter/Lent/Pentecost season. The resources have been used by a range of parishes and have worked well so are being shared more widely. The kit “Lent and Easter 2005” is $9 plus postage and contains: