Sarah Wilson

why i’m sending my kids to public schools

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I’ve ranted about this issue before. I’m vocally against the principle of private schools. So is Justice Michael Kirby. Below are some of his thoughts from his interview with Fran Kelly on Radio National this week. But first…

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I know parents want to provide the best thing for their own kids. And they feel that private schools provide a better start in life.

But two issues.

1. I don’t know that fancy pools and excursions to Tuscany make for a better education. When I got to uni I was surrounded by private school kids…I was one of a few public school kids studying law at ANU (I don’t think this is to do with grades alone…more that I think law is pushed more as a career at private schools…which ain’t necessarily a good thing). I remember being astounded by how much hand-holding my peers required to keep up with the course load. This is a generalisation that might offend. So let’s put it this way – I reckon the “self-led” approach required to get ahead in public schools sets a kid up well for life beyond school. In all kinds of ways. Not least of all that it instills awareness of a fuller spectrum of the human experience.

2. The “my kid deserves the best” attitude perpetuates the growing divide in schooling quality between public and private. While ever good, engaged, smart parents send their kids to private schools, it drains resources from public schools.

My beliefs are these:

* The two hallmarks of a just society are the same (high) standard of education and health for all. What chance does a kid have if these things aren’t accessible to them? With a decent education a kid that comes from nowhere has choices.

* Good, engaged, smart parents have an obligation to all kids, not just their own.

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how to start a blog. actually, how to start anything.

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A while back Clare Lancaster of Women in Business asked readers to share “the tips you would give yourself if you were starting up your blog today”. I get asked the same a lot.

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It’s funny because just yesterday I was thinking about a feature I wrote on the early blog sensations. This was back in 2008 when I was in New York. I interviewed Julia Allison (the first online megac-celebtrity) and Emily Gould (started the whole “snark” movement at Gawker.com) and Choire, who was just starting up The AWL. I also chatted to Problogger (Darren Rowse). At the time he was one of less than 10 or so bloggers in Australia who were making some money from blogging. Frontier stuff!

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I’ve been blogging for a little over 18 months now.

My tip would be for anyone starting out. Or starting anything:

Enter the fray. Step in, get messy, work it out from there. Just enter.

With blogging NO ONE knows what they’re doing. Even now, several years after it all took off, there does not exist a “person” out there who can show you how to set it all up, design it, get the perfect mechanisms in place. Everyone is sucking and seeing. It’s BLOODY frustrating. Not a day goes by where I don’t scream to the gods, “WHERE IS THE ONLINE BUSINESS THAT COMES IN AND SHOWS HOW ALL THIS IS MEANT TO WORK!??!?”. (If you are that business, do get in touch!).  All we can do is share little tips along the way that gradually build things in the right direction.

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how to make easier decisions

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I love this article on why easy decisions are so hard by the ludicrously young and authentic Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide and Proust was a Neuroscientist. I’ve mentioned it here on this blog a lot…that I struggle to make the simplest of decisions, like what toothpaste to buy. And other such”first-world problems”. (As an aside, for thyroid disease folk…indecision is a very AI trait).

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I loved, mostly, how Jonah confesses that he’s crap at making toothpaste decisions, too, despite being an expert on how we decide. He picks the research apart and finds that we stall with dumb decisions because we allow ourselves to be fooled into thinking they’re important decisions simply because they’ve been made complicated (mostly by too many options):

“Call it the drug store heuristic: A cluttered store shelf leads us to automatically assume that a choice must really matter, even if it doesn’t.”

The analysis paralysis makes us think the decision is important…which intensifies the paralysis. And around and around we go. It’s a very real issue for more of us. We’re bombarded with more stupid options daily.

This is how I simplify decisions?

my bike philosophy *plus* I’m giving away two nutcase helmets!!

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“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving” – Albert Einstein:

A rippa of a quote. I live by it. Keep up the momentum, have a flow. In life, as on a bike, you only have to a) have the good intention b) activate your cells in flow. And then balance simple comes. In flow we balance. We get true.

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Anyone who’s ridden a lot knows you don’t “steer” a bike. When I’m mountainbike racing, I don’t turn the handlebars. I look to where I need to be, keep peddling or tumbling down the hill, and the bike simply leans there. Intention. Activate. Flow. Balance.

Anyway. A giveaway.

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a chat with Hugh Mackay about getting creative (sunday life)

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This week I’m cruddily creative

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Every now and then I use the auspice of this column to meet people I’ve always wanted to sit next to on a long plane trip so as to pick their brains for fatty morsels on how to make life better. It’s not a bad perk of the job. So, on Tuesday I arranged to have afternoon tea with social researcher and ethicist Hugh Mackay.

Mackay is a man whose values and considered opinions I’ve gravitated to since I was a kid, like a little mollusk to a sturdy pylon in rough, swirling waters. He’s spent more than 50 years observing and reporting on what matters to Australians, the fatty morsels from which he’s collated in his latest bestseller “What makes us Tick“, I figure, as we order sencha, he might be able to answer this: what’s the one thing that works?

Having interviewed tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Australians and spent decades reflecting on his own sense of wholeness, this is what he reckons makes for a better life: Being creative. And often.

We both agree that the pursuit of happiness is not much chop when it comes to determining a better life. It’s fleeting and only one emotional expression among many on the spectrum. A satisfying, full, purposeful and whole life is what we’re all after and to achieve this requires knowing ourselves, our true, “inner” selves, which is something Mackay and I both agree on, as do a long tradition of philsophers, theologians and eastern spiritual types. And the shortcut to this? Being creative.

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four tricks to reduce mobile radiation

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I have to share this. I was going to put it on Twitter but it’ll take too many characters.

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The New York Times has just run a story on all the studies that point to cells/mobiles frying the brain. The put a link to a list of the relative amounts of radiation various cellphone models emit, or their SAR (specific absorption rate). This number indicates how much radiation is absorbed by the body when using the handset at maximum power.

But more important than looking for a low-SAR phone is how you use it, they say.

So, some tricks.

1. Wait until after your call has been connected to put your phone next to your ear.

Phones emit the most radiation when they initially establish contact with the tower, making their “digital handshake.”

2. Tilt the phone away from your ear when talking and only bring it in close to your ear when you are listening.

Which always looks funny…but there’s method to the madness. The emission of radiation is “significantly less when a cellphone is receiving signals than when it is transmitting,” said experts at Rice University in Houston.

3. Be still.

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are you left or right brained?

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Don’t we just love to test ourselves to see “which one” we are! I think I did this test years back. Perhaps you’ve seen it? Can you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

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If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain. And vice versa. Most see her turning anti-clockwise. Which I find IMPOSSIBLE to fathom. I can only see her going clockwise. Surprising…I’ve always convinced myself I’m completely left brained – rational, logical etc.

See the rundown of the right and left-brain functions. Apparently you can try to focus and change the direction.

Since I posted this, reader Teresa sent me a link to a site that explains how this works (and that the right/left brain divide isn’t accurate – we use both in tandem)…

What they reveal is how our brain processes visual information in order to create a visual model of the world. The visual system evolved to make certain assumptions that are almost always right (like, if something is smaller is it likely farther away). But these assumptions can be exploited to created a false visual construction, or an optical illusion.

The spinning girl is a form of the more general spinning silhouette illusion. The image is not objectively “spinning” in one direction or the other. It is a two-dimensional image that is simply shifting back and forth. But our brains did not evolve to interpret two-dimensional representations of the world but the actual three-dimensional world. So our visual processing assumes we are looking at a 3-D image and is uses clues to interpret it as such. Or, without adequate clues it may just arbitrarily decide a best fit – spinning clockwise or counterclockwise. And once this fit is chosen, the illusion is complete – we see a 3-D spinning image.

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS

  • uses logic
  • detail oriented
  • facts rule

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I refuse to dumb down. you?

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I saved this passage below from Daily OM ages ago. It describes those scenarios where you’re at a ra-ra gathering and you’re looking around and… everyone’s an idiot.

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Which is a judgment. But, honestly, sometimes it’s true. Like when you’re sober and everyone is pissed or on the gear. Vibes spread and it’s easy to get caught up, or dragged down, and to dumb down so you can endure and fit in.

I liked this advice:

The ability to go into any social situation and sense the level of consciousness in that situation is a gift…Sometimes, when we get into a particular social situation, we may feel pressure to play it small in order to fit in. Perhaps everyone is drinking or smoking excessively, engaging in gossipy small talk, or complaining bitterly….

One viable option is to quietly endure the situation, keeping to ourselves until it is time to leave. In this way, we take care of our own consciousness and protect our growth process.

Another option is to interact in a way that honors and pays respect to the people in the group, while gently attempting to shift the level of consciousness with our input. In order to do this, we must maintain our own vibration…Being able to stand on our own, separate from the crowd, is a powerful milestone on any spiritual path. It can be difficult in the moment, but when we arrive on the other side, our integrity intact, we may find ourselves feeling positively smart.

I’ve learned to do this. I don’t always drink when I go out; I hate drinking without food and my body doesn’t deal with being drunk any more. So I do find myself standing at parties drawing on every iota of strength to not fall over in catatonic boredom when people are frothing empty substance-fueled foam.

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Atlas reconnect: the deal?

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I AM the human guinea pig! Can’t help myself. I mentioned the other day I’d tried Atlas Reconnect… because the idea was planted and I figured I should test it. It’s a funny little technique – it involves a practitioner using a pen-like device that sends pulses into the soft tissues around the atlas vertebra, the top bone of the spine.

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This loosens things enough to allow the atlas to naturally slip back to its natural position. Natural? Apparently so. Most of us have an atlas that’s disconnected which in turn causes all kinds of ailments – crap digestion, headaches, general foginess, sleep problems, bad posture and so on – from poor blood supply getting to the right parts of our bodies.

* I did the adjustment with Sean Innis, who brought the concept into Australia and trains up other practitioners around Australia. He’s a dude.

* it takes one session only – about 45 minutes

* there’s no manipulation or cracking – just the buzzing pen thing

* it costs $200 ($100 for kids) you can find a practitioner here.

How did I find it? I emerged from the treatment pretty spacey and floaty.

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