The Forum > Article Comments > The illusion of schooling > Comments
The illusion of schooling : Comments
By Phil Cullen, published 27/2/2012When it comes to teaching, teacher knows better than anyone else.
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Posted by Cambo, Monday, 27 February 2012 8:16:59 AM
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Teachers in Australia have already fully embraced US style education, by buying so much US software, hardware and textbooks for Australian schools.
The author is correct in some other areas, but handing the education system over to teachers is the worst thing the public can do. Teachers will attempt to do as little as possible, while at the same time asking for as much public money as possible, while putting as much as possible into their own bank accounts, or spending as much as possible on imports, such as US software, hardware and textbooks. Posted by vanna, Monday, 27 February 2012 8:25:08 AM
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Vanna, you are falling for the neo-con trap that "teachers are inherently lazy" (though they would more generally say that "workers are inherently lazy").
I am a retired school principal, and I have been through the processes of dealing with low performing teachers, so I know that there never was and never will be some golden age when all teachers are wonderful (the union position). However, I do know that most that I dealt with over 35 years in the profession had the best of intentions to serve well the children in their classroom. Often, as is normal in any field or profession, there are new enthusiasms and other forms of quackery that take hold for a time, but I tended to find that these enthusiasms were pursued by teachers who were more interested than most in finding a better way to achieve positive outcomes. I also found that older teachers who had lost the spark had been those whose enthusiasm when young had been burned by the bureaucracy of school systems. My wife is still teaching and is still enthusiastic; she works with a group of teachers who are busting themselves to find the best ways to facilitate student engagement and learning in a school of disadvantaged kids. I would be happy to trust them to filter out the New York nonsense. And I know that they are not unique in the public school system. I adjudicate debates in public primary and high schools, and I deal with many great teachers and their students; I assure you that when teachers are trusted and encouraged, great things happen. It may not necessarily be shown directly in NAPLAN results, but it shows in real life. Posted by jimoctec, Monday, 27 February 2012 8:45:09 AM
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jimoctec,
So often, teachers are asking for more and more money from the taxpayer. That money is for early childhood education programs, increased teacher pay, incresead use of ICTs in education, decreased student to teacher ratios, more buildings in the school etc. As the author has noticed, early childhood education is normally a waste of money as the student is not mentally capable of organised learning. Increased use of ICTs has had no improvement in student marks in the US, but teachers want more and more software and hardware from the US. Increased teacher pay has no effect on how a teacher operates in a class. Decreased student to teacher ratios do not necessarily increase student marks, and more buildings in a school do not equate to increased student marks. So if left to teachers, more taxpayer funding would be spent for no improvement in student marks. Posted by vanna, Monday, 27 February 2012 3:24:30 PM
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Is there a place in this teacher dominated vision for the students and their parents? Once again, we have the proposition that experts, in this case teachers are better placed to know what children need than do the parents who love and nurture them. And they will know these things without the benefit of objective assessment and detailed analysis of students progress? It beggars belief.
If I hear teachers talking again about teaching as their main responsibility rather than faddish nonsense such as being facilitators of student learning or, even sillier, empowerers of students, I might be prepared to assign teachers an equal place in school education with parents, who really should control what happens in schools. Posted by Senior Victorian, Monday, 27 February 2012 4:40:07 PM
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I was treasurer of a P&C when our old mate Goss came into power. He had promised teachers a substantial pay rise during his campaign.
The teachers union, & many local teachers had been clamoring for "more money for education" for some time, & were incredibly noisy during the election campaign. Goss kept his promise to the teachers & they got a huge pay rise. There was only one problem, that pay rise was unfunded. All the extra money for the teachers to take home, had to be pinched & squeezed out of the existing budget. The fact that there was not enough money there did not worry teachers one little bit. Having got their pay rise, they immediately dropped their campaign for more money for education, after all, the most important part of the education system to them, had got lots more money. Trouble was, many things previously supplied to schools, really high tech things like paper & pencils, suddenly became no longer available. We of the P&C found we needed to raise an extra $140 per student to supply the simpler things lost to the teachers salary raise. So sorry Phil,you'll have to do a much better job to convince me the majority of teachers are doing their best for the kids. Unless we keep testing the kids, to judge the teachers by their results, & weed out the worst, our education system is going to continue its slide at an ever gathering pace. Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 27 February 2012 4:45:21 PM
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Goss kept his promise to the teachers & they got a huge pay rise.
Hasbeen, And look what we ended up with ? We have to deal with young adults who have no idea what responsibility means & their kids who can't read & teachers whose main ambition is to maximise their Super. Posted by individual, Monday, 27 February 2012 7:32:30 PM
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Did I misread the title of this forum? Is it actually meant to be "Bashing teachers based on stereotypes"?
Senior Victorian - I'm going to assume you were having a senior's moment when you wrote your post. I love and nurture my children but I don't assume I know more than the doctor who treats them, the coach who trains them for their chosen sports, etc. Heck, I wouldn't even trust myself to cut their hair - I get the trained hairdresser to do that. I think you will find that qualified teachers are in a better position to deal with your child's educational needs than you are. And that doesn't detract from the fact that you do know your child better and any teacher I have worked with keenly seeks to meet with you and share that knowledge. I have sat with too many parents whose sole focus is what's best for their child and their child alone. I have heard way too many parents actually say the words, "Well I don't care about the other children!" Hardly a model for deciding what works for the whole school. I insist all of my staff either meet with, call or, as last resort, email all of the parents of children in their class by mid term one at the latest so they can tap into the knowledge and background the parents have, so we can work together to educate their child. I also encourage all staff to invite parents into their classes on a regular basis to contribute. That is the appropriate model for parent involvement in schools. Posted by rational-debate, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 7:01:40 AM
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rational-debate,
While I think most teachers are dedicated to their calling, I'm in favour of children being self-motivated in their learning. My son is going along swimmingly in a stress-free non-competitive learning environment at home and in the community. The idea that someone should shape your learning in the same way that a hairdresser shapes your hair says it all. Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 8:37:58 AM
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Well done rational-debate. Always better to go for the cheap jibe and the glib analogy than engage in the debate around the trend throughout the Western world towards parent involvement in and control of schools. You might want to start by looking at Sweden and the Netherlands.
Posted by Senior Victorian, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 9:56:29 AM
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Hey SV, I'm not the one who called people faddish and silly... It was an attempt at humour which failed. I apologise.
I think you will find I was promoting parent involvement at schools. The more the merrier I say but within limits as to what the involvement actually is. Obviously I am aware of what happens in Scandinavian countries but there is more to consider before adopting that wholesale here. As I mentioned earlier, many of the parents I deal with are very focussed on their child only and how things work OS would not work here. What works OS relies on parents seeing a much bigger picture that many do here. I would love to trial it but don't see it working at the moment. However, read a bit more. I certainly wouldn't be citing The Netherlands as an example... Poirot - Please do not put words on my mouth, especially when you are doing so disingenuously. You know full well that I was not drawing ANY sort of analogy between how one has their hair cut and how one teaches. I take it your children are home schooled? If so, that's a whole different discussion. Posted by rational-debate, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 10:47:13 AM
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The qualitative measures of 'good teachers' being used by various academic and institutional policies is often at odds with a clearer understanding of the environment that teachers find themselves in.
These teaching and learning environments range from schools that attempt to cater to a wide range education of low socio economic and social capital interests. Clearly new teachers will thrive in schools that reflect their own experience of school and the modelling of teaching they were exposed to, but many do not. There is an ongoing mismatch between how schooling systems recruit teachers with the professional and personal qualities that will have both a short and long term impact on the academic and personal growth of the students in the schools care. The radical shift to standardization (eg. NAPLAN) of educational practices has the potential to flatten out of cultural and linguistic, intellectual and educational diversity, with potentially deleterious effects on residual and emergent pedagogic, curriculum and educational traditions. Teachers are finding it difficult to jungle official policies of standardisation and thus teaching practice to meet mostly externally driven school learning objectives as well as find ways to accurate calibrate and measure where 'their students are at". This leaves no room for experienced teachers or (newly inducted teachers) to strategically plan for 'what is possible' within their classrooms. One only needs to examine the standard deviation and often very different results that exists between 'like schools' on the myschools website to understand that schools cannot operate through policy and practice that adheres to production line (Fordist) notions of education delivery and thus academic achievement. School's need to have the internal democracy to be able to honestly declare both the capacity of its teaching staff and what it thinks are achievable goals semester by semester, year by year. What would be interesting if this were allowed would not be those indicators of educational (academic) achievement, but those goals that are informed by cultural, social, even philosophical endeavours, indeed many of the things we never discuss or think 'school enviroments' are Posted by Rainier, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 12:23:58 PM
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I help out in my kids' state school, and I have nothing but admiration for the hard work teachers do. For those critical of teachers, if you have the time, I would encourage you to volunteer at your local school on a regular basis - you can be part of the solution, and I am sure you will be amazed at challenges teachers face every day - things have changed since I was a student - some better, some worse.
From what I've seen of the new curriculum in QLD, the brightest students will do great; those kids with parents who help with homework or show an interest in their schooling will do fine. However, I have seen kids in Grade One who can't remember their alphabet when their peers are already writing in sentences - these are the ones who are be in big trouble. Due to the pace of the curriculum, there is little or no time for revision during class. Many of these kids who are falling behind don't do their homework as they need but don't get the help from their parents at home - as the children are not yet able to read. Within the school system there is some (but minimal) support for kids with Intellectual Impairments, or who are on the Autism Spectrum. But absolutely no help for children who have disorders such as Dyslexia or ADHD. These are the children I fear who will fall ever further behind. And I don't see anything being done to prevent this. For the naturally academic students who can concentrate and have good memory retention, there is learning taking place, but those children who can't keep up are being left behind. And for them it is an illusion of schooling and the education department, teachers and parents etc, need to work together to sort it out ASAP. Posted by BJelly, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 1:21:52 PM
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I don't agree with Sir Ken Robinson's simplistic explanation of schooling (and his amorphous description of creativity) but he does raise important questions about first world education and schooling.
See this clip to see what he is saying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U Posted by Rainier, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 1:30:09 PM
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Apologies, rational-debate,
I'm usually rattled when a teaching professional pushes the line that parents are "unqualified" to instruct and guide their children. That particular maxim is one of the reasons many parents find the school edifice so intimidating. Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 1:55:47 PM
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Rainier you have got it all wrong. Schools are not a place for teachers to indulge in their personal ideas of education, it is a place for them to do what the education system has decided is best. If as is often the case, this is not the best, they have to work towards changing it for all, not a class, school, or even district.
Perhaps if you had gone to 14 different schools, in 3 states by the time you were 14, as I did, you would have some better idea of what has to happen in schools, & it is not for teachers to indulge in their creativity. With our population even more mobile than at any time in history, it is critical that all schools across Oz are teaching the same segments in the same week, everywhere. It is totally unfair to have kids find they have missed whole chunks of their grounding in an important subject, just because some teacher was having fun, in the school they moved to, or from. We have to give kids a chance at school. Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 28 February 2012 2:02:22 PM
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I will start by saying (and, before I do, acknowledge that I say this as a teacher) that teachers tend to have a better idea of what's going on than many participants in this forum tend to give them credit for. We did learn a thing or two at university, and sometimes that learning comes in handy. And, in many cases, we spend more time with children than their own parents do. That's not an attack on parents - it's a sad reality in our time-poor world. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we know best. After all, that time is shared among 20-30 kids, while parents have quality time with their kids. They have a relationship built on trust, love and understanding. To try to build a similar relationship as a teacher would be a serious overstepping of the line.
Where that relationship comes into play is that parents know their kids. They know what their kids need, they know what their kids like and they know what their kids want. This is valuable knowledge that should be contributed to the educational sector. In the past, I've suggested that the idea of 'more parent involvement' is a silly one - after all, so many parents don't turn up to parent-teacher interviews, school functions and P&C events. If they want to be involved, they have the chance and don't take it. I think I'm beginning to see another side to this story, though. Perhaps parents don't get involved because their involvement can only be tokenistic? Because they have no real input into pedagogy, curriculum or discipline - the things that they really care about? For many parents, their only contact with the school is when their kids do something wrong. This is hardly an open invitation. Maybe if parents had a sense that their contributions meant something, they'd be more willing to make contributions. And maybe if they were more regularly involved, they'd see that their kids are (in the main) in quite capable hands. Posted by Otokonoko, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 12:12:08 AM
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Finland has the best performing school system in the world. Several of its features are:
1) Highly paid, highly qualified teachers. It is easier to get into med school than teaching. 2) Small average class sizes 3) A loose curriculum framework, not lock-step delivery, which teachers translate in each school 4)Public schools, none private, with equity for the disadvantaged. 5) A non-competitive environment with no national testing or public comparisons of schools. Essentially, the whole system is run on public trust. Teaching is a profession held in high esteem. Education in Australia is run by educrats in the thrall of whatever new wave pedagogy or organizational structure is in flavour of the month. They hitch a ride on such stars and teachers are left to pick up the pieces in the super-nova that follows, by which time the clowns are onto the next big thing. There is no accountability at the leadership levels of education for catastrophic failure and the public perception is that the teachers, who had no say in it, are at fault. After weeding out poor performers, giving teachers a go at running education will make teacher bashing to be a fair pursuit if they get things wrong. All we risk is ending up like Finland. Posted by Luciferase, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 2:09:51 AM
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Predictable Hasbeen, really predicatable.
I agree with Phil that this constant testing is a farce, and a dangerous one too but I am also painfully aware of (at least in Qld) the parlous state of our education system. All of us are involved in this too. Parents who pay scant regard for what goes on in schools and fail to take up their responsibilities to front at the P&C meetings, which are filled with (filled as in, there's a handfull of regulars who never demand any performance from the principal and focus only on fund raising, these days for the chaplain not anything the least bit useful)and teachers who really should not be doing the job. School principals are very poorly trained beyond knowing the jargon to propel their careers in a structure that is not the leat bit interested in 'education'. Politicians who keep interfering for a few votes but refusing to demand better performance from students, staff and parents. While doing my undergrad degree, some years back, I was in classes with 'new teachers'. They were simply so dim it was painful to think of them as fronting a History class. We still have Science teachers teaching, and being allowed to teach, Creationism in state schools in Qld! No, the current crop of teachers should not be trusted with anything but neither should principals be given more power. I suspect that a half intelligent child could learn more, in less time, via a computer based home learning system than they get through the current school system, but to reduce schooling to that, as with university courses today, would miss an opportunity to have children cooperate within the school with each other and adults. The schools of today are coercive bullying workspaces where it is a miracle that any child learns anything. Posted by The Blue Cross, Monday, 5 March 2012 9:06:46 AM
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TBC,
Good post...but there's no reason why a child who isn't "schooled" should miss out on refining his/her ability to cooperate with others. My son is 10 and hasn't been to school since pre-school. He's comfortable in the company of people of all ages because most of his life has been spent amongst them. He's confident and happy to self-direct the majority of his inquiries. He also constantly asks questions of the people around him. He gets an answer straight away and isn't required to put his arm in the air to ask it. He's never worn a uniform and is not required to sit NAPLAN tests...more time for real learning. Posted by Poirot, Monday, 5 March 2012 10:17:56 AM
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However some vested neo-con interests would find the prospect of hordes of highly productive, critically literate graduates emerging from a school system a wee bit threatening.