An open letter to the Prime Minister of Australia

“Education Minister Simon Birmingham recently announced changes to the scheme but is keeping it. Mr Abbott called on the Government to go further. “It is not about anti-bullying it is about social engineering now that we know exactly what this program is all about I think we should save ourselves the money and scrap the program,” he said.”

Gee, I don’t know, Mr Abbott; the apparent seizure of leadership with respect to assuring a safe schools community for all, by all does seem a reasonably intensive exercise in lack of (duty of) care; especially, given that the alternative to ‘radical social engineering’ does seem to be a ‘default’ to ‘normal-ised social engineering’ which normally (re)produces (normalisation of) prejudice(s) and harm(s).

Nevertheless, going a step or two further, as suggested, another ‘middle way’ mooted by Gillian Triggs could prove useful: continuous quality improvement(s) and impact review(s) of an ongoing safe schools program; and Rodney Croome‘s additional ‘middle way’ idea of program deepening mightn’t be too bad, either: further embedding general and specific inclusivity, safety, and wellbeing training(s) within professional development, either in-servicing or base teacher training, or both, so that more inclusivity/less exclusivity, more safety and wellbeing/less bullying becomes normal classroom and school (and community) practice.