The great Zerlina Maxwell (Week 5's post)

Zerlina Maxwell is the a women that we should all be listening to. The first time I heard Zerlina Maxwell speak about how society views rape victims was a defining moment for me as a women. She is an inspiring, persuasive orator whose passion is redefining society's treatment of women, in particular victims of sexual assault. I believe she possesses many strengths that are required of strong public speakers and I plan to convince you of this too!

The most admirable strength Zerlina has is her thick skin, and no I do not mean that literally. Zerlina appears regularly on news programs talking about women's rights. During those appearances she generally finds herself on the receiving end of some harsh criticism.  She also has to listen to quite a few illogical arguments that propose her stance is just a personal vendetta against men. And she does all this with a smile on her face and a calm demeanour reminiscent of Helen Mirren's role as Queen Elizabeth. Instead Zerlina uses her passion and purpose and some good plain language to get her point across.

What continues to impress me about Zerlina Maxwell is that she realises that first impressions count. Whether speaking at a conference or appearing on a news show she always look professional. Her hair and make up is always well presented and her clothing choices range from smart casual to business attire. When she speaks she sits/stands up straight and her body language exudes confidence in not only her appearance but confidence in what she is saying. I think her appearance allows her audience to accept her as an authority on whichever topic she is speaking about.

Adding to Zerlina's ethos of authority is her ability to show her vulnerability by  recounting her personal experience of sexual assault. This allows her to relate to her audience on a personal level while reinforcing that she has extensive knowledge of her subject. In other words she has been the victim she regularly talks about. 

So next time you have a spare five minutes google Zerlina Maxwell. Not only may you find your next favourite speaker but you just may learn about how we can help further the battle for equality that thousands of women face every day. 

                                                                                                          

Our team journey on the river named Report

As soon as our stream site started up my hunt for a group began because the early bird gets the worm right, and what worms I got!! Our group was based in Bay of Plenty and formed easily before the paper had even officially started. While we worked autonomously on our first assignment we still communicated throughout that period and quickly set a date for our first Skype session a couple of days after our first assignment's due date.As a novice Skype user I felt a tad awkward at first but we all quickly settled into a discussion about our group and the first assignment. It was clear from the first moment we wouldn't have much trouble communicating throughout this experience!

As recommended we elected our roles quickly in the first meeting.

Nicole was elected as our scribe in charge of taking notes during the meetings and posting the meeting minutes afterwards. This role suited Nicole as she is a very clear and concise writer and also worked quickly posting up meeting minutes which acted as an important guideline for what we should each be completing individually. Nicole's strengths reflected her Belbin role of Co-ordinator, although I feel her team role didn't. She  had a lot of skills that could have been utilised more had she not been gun shy due to her last terrible group experience.

Ana bravely took on the role of editor (a job I was avoiding) and flourished in it. She was able to work quickly with a clear concept of her directions and was able to adapt our individual writing into a cohesive report. This is clearly indicative of her Belbin role: the Implementer. She was able to take our assignment objectives and apply them practically during her editing.

Melinda offered to be in charge of the primary research that needed to be conducted as she had a large contact base of both education professionals and medical professionals and therefore also took the role of our Belbin Resource Investigator. We did have trouble with accurately perceiving what was required for this primary research and how to use it in the report so this wasn't the easiest role for Melinda to take over. But her ability to utilise contacts and unrelenting optimism that we would work it out eventually was a great strength to our group and enabled us to persevere with this research.

And of course the lucky last role fell into my lap and I became the group's leader which was a daunting prospect. I am generally the Belbin Plant of any group I am involved with and my communication skills reflect this as I am an extroverted talker,  meaning I tend to get too caught up in the idea to be able to explain it succinctly.

Our strong organisational skills were apparent with our weekly Skype meetings and our ability to create our own deadlines in order to ensure the assignment writing process went smoothly. In addition to our weekly Skype meetings we also meet up in person 3 times during the assignment two process. Those meetings weren't as well organised and productive as our Skype sessions and it showed. But this wasn't a terrible setback though as we all had a strong sense of responsibility towards completing our individual tasks and also it gave us an opportunity to spend time with fellow students, something distance students often miss out on.

Our group dynamic worked well and we all had confidence in our objectives until we completed the final report and noticed the ethical reasoning wasn't very strong throughout it. We faced two options. Firstly, we could individually rewrite our sections to reflect a more ethical approach or secondly, we could leave it as is (it was pretty much finished after all) and be happy with the grade we received. We voted and it was decided that we should leave it so I asked the group for permission to rewrite certain parts and they allowed it. I feel that motivated some of the group to take matters in their own hands and change what they could. In the end our group effort resulted with an A grade report and we hope to repeat that with the seminar assignment  (hint hint Lucy :-) ).

I believe our team assignment was successful due to good organisation, strong communication, innovative ideas, diverse skills and shared work ethic. Another group strength was that we appreciated each other and more importantly verbalised our appreciation to each other. Although this group characteristic somewhat undermined our ability to have blunt honest conversations and I feel a bit more conflict would of ended strengthening our ethical arguments. But I am not complaining!! Mainly because we had no "bad apple" in the group, all got along well and received a great grade for it. Now the wait begins for the seminar grade......

Me and my binoculars

This month I took up bird watching in the pursuit of scientific research. This mandatory bird watching was a requirement of a research report for my other summer paper Biology, investigating whether or not native birds are more commonly found in native gardens. Yes at first glance of the assignment brief I groaned and moaned for a good five minutes but luckily my resistance wavered at the joy of completing some quantitative work.

So after scouring the net I soon found some great tips and instructions on successful bird watching on a New Zealand website: Land Care Research. Armed with a comfy bean bag, a set of binoculars, a bird guide and some bird sheets I begrudgingly set off at 5am each morning to complete my bird watching rounds at four different gardens.

Well, I am not going to lie it was boring for the first few mornings. And sometimes the motivation to get out of bed early just wasn’t there. As beautiful as the birds were the time did seem to drag on. That was until I saw my first Silver eye up and personal. What a gorgeous bird! Their markings look like over dramatic eye make up Lady Gaga would wear!! From that moment I was hooked and I actually began to enjoy my mornings spent bird watching.

                                                               Silvereye Bird

But I digress from the most important result of my bird watching: the data. By keeping to a strict, time consuming bird watching schedule I ended up with a huge amount of data. The larger sample size made it fairly easy to show a connection between native fauna and native birds. My results section was a breeze to write and I actually had to cull over half of my discussion because I had so much to write about. And that was all down to simply mucking in and turning what was a supposed terrible situation *into a great chance to learn about the environment around us.

As students of science it is important to put discomfort and boredom aside in the name of research. I am really glad I did and the benefits extended beyond my assignment. I learnt so much about how birds interact with each other and noticed their adaptive survival behaviors and feeding routines. I must admit I am a bit hooked on bird watching now. Since finishing the report I am still dragging my binoculars around religiously hoping for a brief glimpse of a Karearea (New Zealand Falcon) and I even slipped my bird guide into the beach bag for a bit of light reading. Oh well there are worse hobbies out there I guess……..

(*Now I only call enforced bird watching a terrible situation due to the Biology stream sight being inundated with whiny posts about the injustice of us students spending precious summers hours watching birds!!)

My preferred role: Plant

If life were just one long groundhog movie set at a university, what role would you play? Would you want to be the ambitious, diligent bio scientist? The lazy but brilliant student who always passes without studying? It’s a no brainer for me; I would choose to be the scatterbrained professor rushing around the university grounds with a stacks of seemingly unorganised papers mumbling to themselves about how to solve capitalist america taking over the world or reminding myself to water the tomatoes tonight. Why would anyone want to be the eccentric, continually preoccupied soul of the campus? Well, I would because they have all the best ideas of course.

I love ideas. I love ideas of ideas. I love ideas that are shocking. I love ideas that err on the side of no possible chance in hell of ever happening. I mean, who needs logic bogging you down anyway right???  I love ideas that create or show others a different way of looking at something. I love ideas for the sake of the conversations they create. And at work I love ideas that create solutions. In fact, I may even be slightly obsessed about that last type of idea. So much so that I have found I have developed into the “plant” of my work team.

As the plant I find myself continually putting my thoughts and ideas out there during our team meetings. While my fellow workmates: a monitor, a co-ordinator and a implementer, sit around discussing the strengths of our current behavioural plan and to put it plainly, playing it safe, I am thinking about the weaknesses and how to initiate change. Of course not every idea I have is a good one, and sometimes I allow a stream of consciousness to exit my mouth without thinking. But I wouldn't change a thing about my preferred role. I start conversations, initiate new ideas and often my extroverted method of communication encourages a sense amenability that allows others to share their ideas easier.

I love being the plant and feel my team role leads me to be an impassioned care worker continually going the extra mile in order to enhance the life of another. Hmmm, do I hear a Mother Theresa complex anyone??? Close, but no cigar. One of the downsides of my team role is that I tend to overvalue my skills and therefore underrate the skills of my fellow workers and overlook their strengths that could be focused on and utilised. Luckily my team get along and work well together so that helps alleviate my messiah type characteristics. 

I have grown personally and professionally through adopting the role of the plant at work. I use to be timid and incredibly unassertive but now I have more confidence and the fact that I did not shy away from the Team Leader position in our group assignment is a good representation of how I have grown. Don't be afraid to fill that slot needed in your group even when you are unsure you have the ability. Challenges are how we grow and mistakes are those lessons that help the most.

The most important element of water fluoridation

The subject of water fluoridation in New Zealand can turn a casual conversation at a typical summer BBQ into a parliamentary debate complete with petty comments, unrepentant fallacies and the raising of blood pressure on both sides. Pro fluoridation and anti fluoridation advocates alike tend to take their stances quite firmly and proudly. And so they should, this is New Zealand, the little island known for being adept at navigating the waters of social change and allowing citizens to retain their right of choice.

But there are elements about water fluoridation that poses a real quandary for both sides of the controversy. Does water fluoridation equate to forced mass medication and therefore does the consideration to fluoridate New Zealand water diminish our rights as individuals to choose what we ingest? If we minus the arguments surrounding the safety, efficacy and cost effectiveness of water fluoridation from the debate the one remaining facet is that of the ethics of water fluoridation.

I guess I need to admit something before continuing. I believe that water fluoridation could be incredibly helpful in New Zealand.  The scientific research I found completely dismissed anti fluoridation’s arguments that water fluoridation causes cancer, kidney problems, and oh of course, the mildly humorous proposition that fluoridated water drops the I.Q of people drinking it. However mention the ethical stance that water fluoridation results in a “nanny state” and I leap right over to the side of anti fluoridation, proudly waving my placard renouncing the medication of the masses by our over bearing government.

I doubt I differ from most pro fluoridation advocates.  I suppose many of them would agree that forcing strategies like water fluoridation on people sounds slightly archaic. And then they could swiftly justify the ethical element by stating that the benefits outweigh the risks.  But it is that need to disprove the other side and swift justification that will hinder the debate in the long run.  The ethical implications that are faced by water fluoridation need to be discussed by both sides.  Not just used as a tool to support their respective arguments. But to be used to start a conversation about what is good for all of New Zealanders.

New Zealand has long been a front-runner in advancing the rights of its citizens.  We were one of the first countries to give women the right to vote, to legalize prostitution, and to legalize gay marriage.  Why should we turn our back on human rights now to incorporate a strategy that essentially removes our right to choose? I am confident that New Zealand can make the right decision but only if we choose to identify the most import factor in this debate: Is water fluoridation ethical?

Does water fluoridation cause bone cancer?

For my position paper I argued that all community water resources should be fluoridated in New Zealand. There were vast amounts of literature and primary research arguing that water fluoridation is safe and effective, and that community water fluoridation provided the best defense against dental caries and improving oral health. On the other hand it was not easy to find good research that supported the opposing side of my argument.

I was pleasantly surprised to find opposing journal articles about primary research on the relationship between water fluoridation and bone cancer. I felt that it was important to address this claim, which has predominately come from the anti fluoridation side, in order to address the claim that water fluoridation is harmful.

The first article supports the anti fluoridation argument and researched the link between bone cancer and water fluoridation in the United States and was conducted by Elise Bassin, David Wypij, Roger Davis and Murray Mittleman (2006). This study compared the incidences of bone cancer against the individual’s exposure to fluoridated water. They used logistic regression; method of finding statistical probabilities, to show that males under 20 years of age residing in areas of community water fluoridation have an increased risk of developing bone cancer and concluded that there was an link present. This conclusion was reached due to the fact the authors had to estimate what level of fluoride each subject would have been exposed without being able to obtain actual fluoride levels from each respective area. Bassin et al. (2006) clearly had confidence in their findings, however, no causal relationship was found during this research meaning that they did not prove that water fluoridation causes cancer.

The opposing argument to the previous research study is that there is no link between bone cancer and fluoridation water and that water fluoridation plays no part in causing the occurrence of bone cancer. This second research article substantiates this claim and was completed in Ireland by Harry Comber, Sandra Deady, Erin Montgomery, and Anna Gavin (2011). The research compared bone cancer occurrences and whether the patient had resided in a fluoridated or non-fluoridated area. The data shows no difference in the number of bone cancer diagnosis of those living in an area with water fluoridation present and those living in no fluoridated areas. Therefore, Comber et al. (2011) reached the conclusion that there was no relationship between ingesting fluoridated water and the development of bone cancer, causal or otherwise. The data used in this study was easy to understand and clearly showed no relationship which I believe strengthened the authors’ findings that there was no link between water fluoridation and bone cancer.

Bassin, E. B., Wypij, D., & Davis, R. B. (2006). Age-specific fluoride exposure in drinking water and osteosarcoma (United States). Cancer Causes Control, 17, 421-428.

Comber, H., Deady, S., Montgomery, E., & Gavin, A. (2010). Drinking water fluoridation and osteosarcoma incidence on the island of Ireland. Cancer Causes Control, 22, 919-924.