The Staffroom

Teaching Jobs Available In West Australia

There is a big shortage of teachers in Western Australia right now. Most people fall in love with WA. The state is in the middle of a mining boom and teachers are leaving to get other jobs. So the government is looking for teachers, including retired teachers and overseas teachers. They will take you for as short a period as one term. For up to date info on working conditions do a google search for PLATOWA, a brilliant site.

WA News item at:
http://www.badapplebullies.com/news.htm

WA teaching Job applications at:
http://det.wa.edu.au/education/teaching

thank God the school kicked you out

Ian Cox is the worst teacher to teach us ever. he is never on time. always late to class with silly excuses like he forgot his watch and stuck in bathroom! Thank God that Mrs.Rima Kaissi listened to our complaints and kicked him out of school and out of bahrain. he doesn't know what he is teaching. he is in bahrain to party and drink. then he has no job so he sit and write wrong information about our school and administrators. He is a lier. he needs to get a life.

Rate Your Teacher Dot Com Hits Australia!

Look out teachers! It seems the shoe is now on the other foot, the worm has turned and the lamb is chewing the sweet, sweet entrails of the wolf! Sorry, I just had an urge to roll out some clichés. Perhaps it's due to my excitement that rateyourteacher.com has come to Australia. Well, it's true. Some teachers may be terrified, others amused or, if you're like me, you won't really care at all. A popular American website which seeks to allow students to rate the quality of their teachers has expanded to Australia. On the site students and parents can name teachers and schools and give them a mark out of five for their performance as professionals. I thought The Staffroom should get in before Ray Martin and A Current Affair do a story (aside from how to find the cheapest meat in the supermarket) that all the bored housewives and upset fathers who resent the fact that their kid just isn't that bright can get really excited about.

In reality though, it's not that amazing, certainly nothing to lose sleep over. If you go and browse the site you'll find that not that many people have posted comments about teachers. Sure, there is the odd celebrity teacher who has a bunch of ratings saying how great they are. Please remember though, the most popular teacher at school is usually the one who lets the kids watch movies and bludge for the entire lesson. And inevitably, you've got the "mean teacher" who apparently sets out to fail all the students and "marks too hard". Well at least the kids are learning to use computers, I guess.

Ahhh, I'm just being cynical. It's quite amusing really. I'm going to let a few kids know the URL, just so I can see what they have to say about my colleagues.

Jaaack Spaaarrooowwwwww!

Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Rating: 
Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Stellan Skarsgård, Bill Nighy, Jack Davenport, Kevin R. McNally, Jonathan Pryce.
Plot: Captain Jack Sparrow finds he owes a debt to Davey Jones, and now the time has come to repay it.
Reviewed by: Ed Morris

The question with sequels is whether they can live up to the expectations set up by the first film?

Well, there’s certainly a lot of pirate action in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’sChest, which not so much fills the big screen as it does overflow out of it.

Truth, justice, and a really good time

Superman Returns
Rating: 
Starring: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Eva Marie Saint, Parker Posey, Sam Huntington, Kal Penn, Kevin Spacey
Plot: Superman has been away, but now he’s back.
Reviewed by: Ed Morris

I can only imagine how the expectations of others must have weighed upon the mind of Brandon Routh when he agreed to play Superman in this film.

With people generally having accepted Christopher Reeve as the definitive screen Superman, how would this new bloke measure up?

Well, if he did worry, he needn’t have because he’s very good indeed. Is he as good as Reeve was? That’s a question that can only be answered with reference to the four Superman films Reeve made, and while the first was good, the next three charted a steady decline in quality and entertainment.

A University Student, his Internship, and a Request for Help

It's my pleasure to have the opportunity to get the word out about my project. My name is Kim L. Smouter; I am a 23 year old student, studying at the University of Maastricht in the small European country of the Netherlands. I am a major in European Public Affairs, a study mainly concerned with the European Union, the way it came to being and functions and in the end: its future. I have spent most of my life living in different countries than my own. As such, I have developed a keen interest on anything that has the potential of being international.

The reason I write to you today is due to my end-of-studies internship. Unlike my classmates who have mostly elected to do internships within consultancy firms, I elected to do something completely different and more ambitious. I wanted to find out what it took to be an entrepreneur.

Queensland Teacher Pay Raise a Crock

Is it just me or is everyone on crack? It seems to me that the elated response to the pathetic pay raise for Queensland teachers can only be the result of a drug-addled lack of awareness of reality.

Workplace Bullying in EQ Schools

I was merrily surfing along on the Internet when I stumbled upon a rather interesting site dedicated to workplace bullying in Education Queensland schools. Even if you have never been bullied at work I urge you to browse this site.

I know I've bumped into some "workplace psychos" and had my share of unpleasant experiences with "Bad Apple Buliies". But nothing I couldn't deal with. I find documenting incidents (one of the strategies suggested on the site) does indeed help. Although in contrast to the advice from "Bad Apple Bullies" I have never made a secret of my habit of writing things down.

I suspect that the author is a little bitter. But he/she seems to have every right to be.

http://www.badapplebullies.com/

Pay strict attention...

Inside Man
Rating: 
Director: Spike Lee
Starring: Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Willem Dafoe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Christopher Plummer, Peter Gerety, Peter Frechette, Jason Manuel Olazabal, Darryl 'Chill" Mitchell, Ashlie Atkinson.
Plot: A gang sets out to rob a bank, but what exactly are they up to?

Essential characteristics of effective, productive learning

Three mental processes central to effective and productive learning can be identified as synthesis, analysis and metacognition. Combined with peer interaction these mental processes can aid learning.

Synthesis refers to the grouping together of thought into a complex whole. An example of this can be identified in a recent tutorial activity. The objective was to identify a phrase from a picture. By grouping together and organising these puzzles mentally the problem could be solved. This highlights how synthesis provides effective learning.