Dear Readers

I hope you and your family have a great Christmas and a terrifically fulfilling 2023. I have found this year to be one of many parts. If 2022 was a jigsaw puzzle, it has been one containing a good few unrelated and rogue pieces.

Vladimir Putin goes beyond being rogue. This is the 301st day of the current war against Ukraine that he ‘commenced’ on February 24 this year. I admire the Ukrainian spirit but it is awful the country has been decimated, with so many people killed and the population decimated. Putin forecast his troops would be in Kiev within 14 hours of the war being declared, so his timeline is a bit skewed.

I like looking in on education from afar, because the panoramic view offers perspective not available to those who are in the mix at the chalk face. The need to be reactive, supplicating responses to commands on high, can be uncoupling. Good intentions and systemic planning do not always lead to positive action outcomes.

Even for old ones like me, there always seem to be regular elements of Territory and Australian Government surprise diving into contention and more than often, from left field. What annoys is the trotting forward of new ideas which are regurgitated old ideas that have been previously discarded because of inappropriateness. It is important to never learn from the past.

I keep on blogging and posting on LinkedIn along with writing occasional letters to the papers. “The Conversation” also offers some interesting papers to read.

All the best as we march inexorably toward the future, never quite knowing what tomorrow will bring.