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This essay was written by one of my composition students at the Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas, California. These students write their essays entirely by hand and with no Internet resources. I am honored to share this lovely piece of writing with you. If you have a comment that you’d like me to share with Luis, please add it in the Comments section below.

It is said that people can motivate another person through rewards and punishments. Or does all motivation come from within? I think that people can be great motivators for others, but I would argue that the best motivator should come from within, regardless of the reward or the punishment.

Please enjoy this profound essay on happiness by my former student, Fabiola Zamora. This essay inspired and helped me, and I hope you will have the same experience.

  I wholeheartedly believe that happiness is a choice, despite the body, the family, or the external circumstances that we may have been born into. We may not have chosen the life that we were dealt, but it’s entirely up to make the best of each and every single second of it. I like to view my life as the prime example of making the best out of a less than ideal situation. My childhood consisted of many back-to-back traumatic experiences, from poverty, bullying, witnessing cartel violence, having a caregiver who regularly endangered us, to being unknowingly tricked into boarding a plane at the age of 5, permanently leaving behind my home-country as well as everybody and everything that I had ever known and loved. Only to arrive in the US and have my life become significantly worse, one version of hell just morphed into another. My first 16 years of life were brutal, and the fact that I never had any emotionally available adults around me to offer me any kind of solace, only made things worse.

For years — decades, really — I’ve been wondering why teaching makes me feel exhausted and utterly depleted, even on a good day. I’ve been wondering why I feel that with every year, I’m becoming more anxious and depressed doing this work, even though I am much better at it than I used to be. As a well-seasoned (aka old) teacher, and someone who has worked hard to improve, I know how to help my students read and write effectively. I can teach them to think for themselves about a challenging question and create arguments and responses to counterarguments. Even when tired, I am able to lead my class in a lively, complicated discussion, keeping the energy high while drawing out quieter students. I can read the room on any given day and make adjustments on the fly. I know how to give feedback that is specific, helpful, and aimed towards the particular needs of the student in front of me. I know when someone could use a pep talk and when someone desperately needs a firm deadline.

I list these attributes in part because I keep trying to remind myself of them. I’m trying to remind myself of them because at the end of a day of teaching, I feel bad about myself. It’s a sinking feeling that can easily veer off into depression. No matter what I put into teaching, no matter how hard I work or how much I care, I always feel that it is not good enough.

The paradox of my life as a teacher is that I feel this work is killing me, yet I also love this work obsessively, with a kind of madness. I dream about teaching, and in my dreams I am sometimes a better teacher than I am in real life.

The paradox, too, is that I have never been better at teaching as I am now, yet my devotion to the work imperils my future in it. I am so thoroughly exhausted and heartbroken: at the system and its nonsense talk of standards and assessment, and at the society that has addicted our students to devices and then abandoned them.

Readers, please enjoy this thought-provoking essay written by my student, Sarah Vegas. Her words inspire me to do better for our students.

–Jennifer Hurley

I just finished my fourth online class in a graduate TESOL program, and I’m left feeling empty. It was clear that the courses were constructed with professionalism and that the instructors cared about their students’ learning. Even so, the experience felt artificial to me. It’s not to say that I didn’t learn; rather, I didn’t engage, and no one engaged with me. Only one of my professors ever gave me any feedback on my work, aside from points, and even her comments were only brief words of praise. Never did any of my teachers engage with my ideas, or ask me questions, or get to know me as a person. This is not their fault. What else were they supposed to do, in a system that rewards efficiency and reduces education to discrete lesson plans attached to point-based assignments?

I suppose the engagement I was craving was there for me on the discussion boards, but to be honest, I never spent much time there. The point-based grading conditioned me to get in and get out, collecting my points for the required posts. I did notice that some of the other students seemed more authentically engaged and spent more time replying to other students. Why couldn’t I do the same?

AS A LONGTIME community college teacher, I have hosted a lot of end-of-the-semester parties that you probably wouldn’t want to attend. There was the party with nothing but a jug of orange soda, four bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, and no napkins. At another gathering, students were sprinkling potato chips on ice cream, then putting that on pizza, and no one acted as if this were out of the ordinary.

            Last week, I would have paid to go to any of these parties, because despite the questionable food choices, people were having fun. They were laughing and eating and telling jokes. There was eye contact and lots of smiling.

             Contrast that with the party I hosted last week, in a classroom where I had 24 semesters of positive memories. At this “party,” such as it was, the students filled up their plates, brought them back to our table, and then took out their phones and started scrolling. Even though we were seated in a circle, no one talked to anyone else. The students ate and scrolled, ate and scrolled. I did not want to lecture or berate them, so I started doing some teaching, just to interrupt the painful silence.

This lovely essay was written last semester by my student, Basil Rana. Basil is taking a huge course load right now, and I know he is struggling to manage all of his responsibilities. If you have any words of encouragement for him, please share!—Professor Jennifer Hurley

Attaining perfect freedom has always been a common desire amongst society. Freedom is a value that has many definitions through the several perspectives of society. An example of this is in the article “Easy in the Harness” by Gerry Spence in which he states, “Freedom is like a blank white canvas when no commitments, no relationships, no moral restraints have been painted on the free soul” (Spence 2). This statement is a reminder of the importance of certain commitments, as well as having good relationships, and that we must maintain the strive to achieve perfect freedom in other ways. Many people would argue that perfect freedom is not achievable in today’s world. However, I personally believe that freedom may not always be how we would like, or perfect in our eyes, but it is still achievable. When freedom is treated as a belief rather than a state, it becomes easier to refer to our freedom as perfect, since a state of mind is affected by time and place, whereas a belief stands wherever, whenever.

So much of what we call education is small minded. Even something seemingly large, such as a student learning outcome, reduces a layered, individual human experience to a standardized bullet point. Rarely in education do we speak of big, unanswerable questions; rarely do we speak of passion and inspiration; never do we mention dreams aside from the ones involving a good GPA.

Honestly, the longer I am in the system, the more aghast I am at its values. My current institution, with the help of the state of California, has become a factory that turns out transfer-ready widgets. Over the years I’ve made arguments about the educational value of certain courses and certain approaches, but such arguments hold no weight in a place that does not truly value learning.

Over the years I have had to create my own set of values that I try to stick with despite considerable social, cultural, and administrative pressure to do otherwise. What follows are a few of those values:

Remember that learning is about thinking and understanding, not about the mindless memorization and regurgitation of facts.

Involve students in big discussions about real things, and ask for their ideas.

Always treat learning as an intrinsically interesting activity, and avoid devaluing it with extrinsic motivators such as points or grades.

This article was originally published, in slightly different form, on the author’s Substack, The Friendly City Urbanist. It is shared here with permission. All images were provided by the author.

Coles and Woolworths seem to take turns offering items on sale, showing that they are more concerned with protecting their market power than competing against each other, Australia Institute research has revealed.

The ACCC this week launched legal action against Coles and Woolworths for misleading consumers through discount pricing claims on hundreds of products at a time when inflation was at its highest. However, this is not the only way the two major supermarkets work to keep their profit margins high.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, we discuss the allegations of dodgy conduct against the big supermarkets and the government’s apparent interest in negative gearing and capital gains tax reform.

Greg Jericho is Chief Economist at the Australia Institute and the Centre for Future Work and popular columnist of Grogonomics with Guardian Australia. Each week on Dollars & Sense, Greg dives into the latest economic figures to explain what they can tell us about what’s happening in the economy, how it will impact you and where things are headed.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute and Centre for Future Work // @GrogsGamut

Host: Hayden Starr, Digital Media Manager, the Australia Institute // @haydenthestarr

Show notes:

‘Inflation may be falling but business’ drive to maximise profits fuelled Australia’s cost-of-living nightmare’ by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (September 2024)

This interview is also available on Rumble and podcast platforms.

Oftentimes the idea of “wokeness” or “woke” ideology, whether calling it as such or acknowledging its existence, can be thought of as coinage of the right wing. Christian Parenti, professor at John Jay College, journalist and author, joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to make the case that what he and many others define as “woke” is actually a weapon used to further suppress marginalized people, prevent the awareness of class politics and class struggle and further divide the working class.

This article was originally published, in slightly different form, on the author’s Substack, The Post-Suburban Future. It is shared here with permission. The image was provided by the author.

Kristian Blickle, Evan Perry, and João A.C. Santos

A new Everybody’s Home report reveals that Australians on the lowest incomes are being priced out of renting in virtually every corner of the country, despite a rise in Centrelink payments and rent assistance. 

The ‘Priced Out’ 2024 report shows people who primarily rely on Centrelink payments and the full-time minimum wage would be in severe rental stress across all capital cities and most regional areas. 

The report applies Friday’s indexation increase to Centrelink payments and 10 percent rise to Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) with indexation on top, with the findings underscoring the need for more social housing and for payments to reflect the cost of housing.  

Key findings include: 

Over the last six months we have been working with a group of young people to co-produce a project which explores ‘Reconstructing the Social Contract’. The idea of a social contract between the government and its citizens, which previous generations understood, has been steadily dismantled over the past four decades. This erosion has left young […]

The post Reconstructing the Social Contract appeared first on Equality Trust.

Everybody’s Home is urging parties and candidates to sign on to a roadmap for housing reform ahead of the election, as new polling reveals most voters want house prices to drop.

The national housing campaign’s ‘Roadmap to Reform’ puts forward real solutions to end Australia’s housing crisis.

RedBridge polling of 2,000 Australian voters released by Everybody’s Home reveals:

• More than one in two (54%) want house prices to go down over the next five years, while one in five (21%) want prices to increase
• Even people with mortgages want to see house prices come down, with two in five (44%) supporting a drop, compared to one in four (28%) wanting prices to rise
• Seven in ten (72%) renters want house prices to fall.

The polling also finds:

The People’s Commission into the Housing Crisis has released its final report, revealing the crushing consequences of homelessness, housing stress and insecurity in Australia, and recommending a suite of urgent reforms.

Convened by Everybody’s Home, the People’s Commission’s report is based on the submissions and testimony of more than 1,500 Australians who voiced their experiences of the housing crisis and the action they want government to take.

The People’s Commission recommends the federal government create at least 750,000 social homes within two decades, end investor tax concessions, and coordinate strong national rental reform. 

Other recommendations include: expanding social housing eligibility, recognising housing as a human right, raising the rate of working age payments, additional funding for crisis housing services, and improving productivity in home building by increasing the capacity of the modular housing industry.

The racist riots that spread through British cities in the last week of July were shocking, but not particularly surprising. Violent racism has been simmering for decades now, stoked to a boil by a media and political system that has upheld inequality by scapegoating migrants, Muslims, and Black and Brown people. Leaders within the British […]

The post Briefing: The Link Between Inequality and the Far Right appeared first on Equality Trust.

Everybody’s Home has acknowledged the appointment of Australia’s new housing and homelessness minister, and said it presented a renewed opportunity to scale up the government’s ambition on housing.

Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said: “A new minister presents an opportunity to build on the government’s plans for housing. We look forward to working with Minister Clare O’Neil on what we hope will be an ambitious policy agenda ahead of the next federal election. 

“Housing is one the biggest issues for voters – there’s not much more important to the electorate than a home but securing safe, decent, affordable housing has never been so tough for them. 

“Today, we’re writing to Minister O’Neil welcoming her appointment and briefing her on the recent findings of Australia’s first People’s Commission into the Housing Crisis. The People’s Commission has underscored the extent of the housing crisis across the country, with hundreds of Australians telling us they want urgent action.

“Australians are relying on the government to be bold in their ambition. To make a lasting impact we must drastically scale up social housing to meet the 640,000 shortfall.

“The government must also prioritise housing fairness by scrapping investor tax breaks and coordinating protections for renters. 

“Making housing more affordable for more Australians is possible if the government has the ambition and the willingness to act.”

Job title:  Senior SED Project Officer (Birmingham)  Hours: Part time, 3 days/21 hours per week  (0.6 FTE)   Contract type: Permanent, subject to funding Salary: £40,681.61  (FTE)  prorated 0.6 to £24,408.97 per year plus 7% employer pension contributions. Location: Remote working in West Midlands with travel within Birmingham Benefits: Time off between Christmas and New Year, […]

The post Senior Project Officer (Birmingham) appeared first on Equality Trust.

In 2009, the bestselling and award winning book, The Spirit Level, sounded the alarm on the corrosive effects of economic injustice. At a time when only a few academics were exploring this issue, the book provided a comprehensive analysis linking the negative effects of inequality to a wide range of social ills – from higher […]

The post The Spirit Level at 15 appeared first on Equality Trust.

Ahead of the King’s Speech, we wrote to every newly-elected MP in the House of Commons and coordinated an open letter calling for the immediate commencement of the socio-economic duty from our #1forEquality campaign group signed by Amnesty, Shelter, the Royal College of Physicians, Resolve Poverty, Equally Ours, Just Fair, and more. We need to […]

The post There’s No Time to Wait – Write to your MP to demand equality now appeared first on Equality Trust.

The 2024 King’s Speech is the first of the new government’s, and reported to focus on “Inclusive Growth.” That’s why a key part of it should include enacting the socio-economic duty, finally bringing the last part of the Equality Act 2010 into force and requiring public bodies to focus on the inequalities that result from […]

The post Open Letter: Implement the Socio-Economic Duty Now appeared first on Equality Trust.

Everybody’s Home is urging the government to rapidly step up its efforts to ease the housing crisis, as new figures reveal the stubbornly slow growth and low proportion of social housing in Australia.

New Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data shows the proportion of households living in social housing is shrinking – dropping from 4.7 percent in 2013 to 4.1 percent in 2023. 

Meanwhile, the number of social homes grew by just 2,870 between June 2022 and June 2023 – all while more than 184,000 households officially sat on a waitlist.

Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said the glacial pace of social housing growth is failing to meet demand.  

“Australia is only building about 3,000 social homes every year – at this rate, it would take us more than 200 years to build enough homes just to meet today’s need,” Ms Azize said.

The Equality Trust looks forward to working constructively with the new government and would like to congratulate them on a historic victory. After 14 years of austerity and the degradation of our public services, bold and urgent action is required from this Labour government. The UK is one of the most unequal countries in Europe. […]

The post The Equality Trust responds to Sir Keir Starmer’s First Speech As Prime Minister appeared first on Equality Trust.

Derby, like many cities in the UK, has been struggling with the cost-of-living crisis, as well as the legacy of decades of disinvestment and an unequal system. This inequality manifests in a lot of different ways. Not only is Derby left out of the wealth flowing into the hands of the UK’s richest, who mostly […]

The post Fair Chance Derby lead protest of dolls appeared first on Equality Trust.

It’s crucial the next government addresses our inequality crisis, and it’s an all-encompassing crisis: it’s heavily intersectional, affects almost every area of policy, and is itself created by dozens of overlapping factors. There’s many different ways the policies can improve or worsen things. That’s why we decided to assess the manifestos released by the big […]

The post Evaluating the Party Manifestos appeared first on Equality Trust.

Stories for Change has been an opportunity for people to share their lived experiences of structural inequalities in a language and format which encourages more people to discuss the issues described in these stories. Our hope is that people will resonate with these experiences and better understand structural inequalities as the multiple systems, policies and […]

The post Stories for Change appeared first on Equality Trust.

A fresh analysis reveals Australian renters are spending thousands more each year to keep a roof over their heads since the pandemic, as the final day of the People’s Commission into the Housing Crisis hearings get underway.

Everybody’s Home’s analysis of SQM Research weekly asking rents data shows those in regional Australia are on average spending $153 more each week compared to June 2020 – that’s nearly $8,000 extra per year at current rental prices.

Today, the national housing campaign will hold the third and final day of People’s Commission hearings online from 10am Tuesday to explore the housing crisis’ effect on the following communities: First Nations, regional, remote, and disaster-impacted. 

Recommendations to fix the crisis will also be explored.

Top 10 regional areas hit with the largest $ rental increase since June 2020

As Australia’s first People’s Commission into the Housing Crisis gets underway today, submissions reveal the majority of respondents are in housing stress and forgoing the basics to cope. 

The People’s Commission, convened by Everybody’s Home, received more than 1,500 survey submissions which show:

• Three in five (58%) respondents are in housing stress 
• Three in four (76%) of those who rent are in housing stress 
• The top ways respondents are coping with housing costs are by reducing energy use like heating or cooling their homes (52%), avoiding the doctor and essential appointments (45%), and reducing vehicle use (39%)
• One in three are skipping meals (32%), or relying on credit cards or buy now pay later (31%).  
• Uncertainty about the future (67%) and increased housing costs (61%) are the top reasons for concern about the housing crisis.

Dozens of organisations have also lodged submissions to the People’s Commission.

Statement from Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize on the federal Budget:

“The federal government has delivered a Budget that will keep pushing up housing costs for Australians who are already battling a brutal housing market.

“There is no new funding for social housing. What the government has announced is a business as usual spend that is nowhere near enough to shift the dial on the housing crisis.

“The government’s ‘new’ funding for social housing is a repackaging of existing initiatives, offering loans instead of providing real funding, and the continuation of a funding agreement with the states and territories – something the Commonwealth routinely renews for other essential services like education and health.

“An increase to Commonwealth Rent Assistance will provide some short-term relief, but it’s not a lasting fix. It isn’t enough to keep up with rising rents, and it doesn’t go to all of the people who need it.

“If the government was serious about tackling this crisis, it would build more social housing to end the massive shortfall. These are the rentals people can actually afford. A target for the private sector will only deliver more of the same – homes that are way too expensive for average people. 

“Any Budget that seriously tackles the housing crisis would also stop using unfair tax handouts to prop up landlords and investors, pushing up the cost of housing for everyone else. The Treasurer ruled out making those changes well ahead of Budget day.

Everybody’s Home has urged the federal government to increase its social housing target and back it up with funding in next week’s Budget if it’s serious about easing the crisis.

Right now, just three percent of homes that the government wants Australia to build over the next five years are set to be social housing.

As the government confronts warnings it will fail to meet its 1.2 million housing target, Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said building more social housing was essential.

“If the government is serious about making housing affordable, it must step up and build social housing,” Azize said.

“It’s clear that the private market can’t meet the government’s target, and their track record shows us that these homes won’t be affordable for most people. Social housing is guaranteed to be affordable for people – and at scale, it pushes down the cost of housing for everyone.

“The government describes its national housing target as ambitious, but it’s lacking ambition when it comes to bringing down the cost of housing. Only three percent of their target will be social housing.

“There is no use building homes that people can’t afford. The government must end the social housing shortfall – and aim for 10 percent of all homes in Australia to be social housing.

“We need a Budget that matches the scale of this crisis. Housing in Australia has never been so unaffordable and unfair. Without a huge increase in social housing, it will only get worse.”

Everybody’s Home is urging the federal government to boost social housing in its upcoming Budget, as a new report paints a dire picture of rental affordability across the country. 

Anglicare’s Rental Affordability Snapshot lays bare a harsh reality: affordable rentals are almost non-existent for those on income support, and scarce for full-time minimum wage earners. 

The report also shows increases to rental supply in parts of the country hasn’t made renting more affordable.  

Everybody’s Home spokesperson Jennifer Kirkaldy said more social housing is key to easing the housing crisis.

“Every year the Rental Affordability Snapshot serves as a sobering reminder: the housing crisis deepens the longer that the government fails to act,” Ms Kirkaldy said.

Introduction

Learn how the ECDA team used Sosha, a social media engagement tool, in this year’s EU elections, and how your organization or political party can also use organic social media to win.

This article has been adapted from the original with consent which was published on SoSha by Areti Livanos, Email Communications Lead at SoSha.

Using SoSha to build Toolkits

Ahead of the 2024 European Union elections, ECDA set out to support progressive organizations across Europe to engage their communities and mobilize support for critical issues such as women’s rights, environmental protection, workers’ rights, and the rights of refugees.

Shifting algorithms make it difficult for followers to see much of the content produced from their connections, let alone attract new supporters. Additionally, legislation in many countries protects private data, complicating the generation of new email lists.The ECDA team used SoSha to build toolkits, collections of ready-made posts, for anyone on the internet to share on their own accounts with their followers. These toolkits were instrumental in petition and fundraising efforts leading up to the EU elections in early June.