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The Forum > Article Comments > Australian English education is built on sand > Comments

Australian English education is built on sand : Comments

By Chris Nugent, published 24/10/2013

For 30 years Australian English education has followed a path which destroys rather than builds literacy.

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David G,
yeah, cobber !
Posted by individual, Thursday, 24 October 2013 6:09:28 PM
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It's hard to know to what extent we have a literacy problem, because records from the far distant past are not adequate to make comparisons with today. People left school much earlier back then and many went into jobs that didn't require strong literacy and verbal communication skills.

Anecdotally speaking, my mother was a stenographer and secretary pre-1970. I can recall her complaining frequently and loudly that over the course of her working life, she had to fix the lousy grammar, punctuation and spelling problems of her male bosses. Before the rise of the desktop PC, secretaries and stenographers, all female, covered up a lot of poor literacy skills in the workforce. Also, the rapid decline of Australian manufacturing has meant that many men who would once have gone into blue-collar jobs, requiring only limited literacy, now have to work in service-based professions that require strong literacy and verbal communication skills.

I doubt that literacy standards pers se have declined over the last 30 years. It's more that the wider workforce has changed in such a way as to demand more literacy-based skill sets.
Posted by Killarney, Thursday, 24 October 2013 10:26:23 PM
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My perception as to why literacy has become such a problem among young people in Australia is based upon my reading of socialist ideology.

Socialists teachers developed this "whole language" approach to literacy because they had an aversion to the idea that children should compete with each other. "Competition" was linked to "capitalism" and that was an ideological no-no. In addition, their idea that "all are equal" could be disproved by the simple expedient of fair examination. It was obvious that fair examinations would reveal that some races and ethnicities were smarter than others. That was anathema.

So socialist baby boomer teachers demanded that examinations must never be held. It did not matter if the taxpayers who's children they taught, and who paid their wages, wanted fair examinations to find out how their children were doing academically. The Socialist teachers stubbornly refused to consider the validity of examinations because they most earnestly did not want to contemplate what the examination results would reveal.

Today, the sundry teachers federations in our states are doing their utmost to sabotage any attempt by the Federal government to hold nation wide examinations which would reveal where the real problems of literacy and numeracy would lie. And they do not want to admit that their ideology has failed. Instead, in true Socialist style, they are demanding that the Federal government keep pouring more Gonski money into their department to reinforce failure. But their stubborn refusal to ever admit that they were wrong all along is being revealed by the fact that it seems that no amount of money can solve a problem that is fundamentally flawed from the beginning.

One can only hope that there are intelligent young teachers who are utterly fed up of the baby boomer socialists who are now ruining their once respected profession, and who will eventually replace them. Like it or not, the world is a competitive place and unless we compete we will be left at the post. I have talked to Asian parents about NSW education and they think our teachers are crazy.
Posted by LEGO, Friday, 25 October 2013 4:30:41 AM
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Ponder and Qurhops,

Not the “split infinitives” rule again! The idea that one may not split an infinitive is a myth that comes from Latin, in which the infinitive is a single word. It is two words in English and to boldly split infinitives is permitted. (See Fowler’s Modern English, as far back as 1964 edition).
Posted by Chris C, Friday, 25 October 2013 7:11:06 AM
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its global[google]..dumbing down american education
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15257&page=0

ALL..HOLY TEXTS..have been..subsumed
Compressed.into..obscure academical-abstraction
eg..im..unwinding..acim[a-course-in-miracles]..by jesus[himself]
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6040&page=0

<<..the instructions..that Jesus..gave
for..the editing.were as follows:

* If..what..you write..is so personal
that it..cannot benefit others,..take it out.
* If you take..down scribal errors,..correct them.

key-source/text
http://www.circleofa.org/library/acim-history-issues/copyright/earlier-versions/

The editing..results in fewer..and fewer words.
[bigger and bigger destractions]..We go..from..68 words..(Urtext) to 47 (HLC)..to 34 (standard Course).

The/same ideas..get compressed..into a smaller..and smaller space.

One unfortunate..result of this..is that,./quite often,
ideas which you originally..had time..to digest,.now come too fast for..you to..adequately take in.

[EN-VISION}

More formal,..less conversational..and plainspoken.
Overall,..the editing..seems designed..to make the early Course sound less informal..and..less/conversational...If you read the first and last versions..of our passage above,..you can feel the difference.

For..another example,..a line that originally read,
"You and Bill..have been afraid of God,..of me,..of yourselves, and of practically..everyone you know..at one time or another"30

becomes simply,.."You have been fearful.of everyone and everything." (T-2.VII.3:4)

The..early Course..now reads..less/like..someone talking..and more, in fact,..like..the loftiness..of the..*later Course...The question is,..which is better?

There are times..when I prefer..the edited passages,
but most..of the time I prefer..the plainspoken original.

ME TOO..
http://miraclevision.com/acim/urtext/acim-urtext-2003-upe-ready-edition.pdf

I like being spoken..to in a clear,..down-to-earth way
in the early chapters,..before the Course lifts off into the stratospheric..tone of the later material.

Mostly unnecessary...If you will,
go back..and read the first version..of our passage.

Then ask yourself,..what is wrong with it?
How much editing..does it really need?..Does it need any?

I personally don't think..it needs much editing,..if any.
In fact,..I prefer it..to either of the edited versions.

Now this is not true..of all the Urtext passages./Many of them are very rough and..obviously need cleaning up...However, my opinion is that most..of the line-by-line editing..was unnecessary.

Think about Jesus' instructions.

He said remove personal/material..and correct scribal errors.
Does the editing..in our passage fit either of..those rules?

Editing..to make content..Course-consistent
(in the opinion of..the editors)

Editing errors

It would be hard..to do so much
line-by-line editing..and not make an occasional mistake.

Indeed, a number..of unambiguous errors—changes..in the meaning of the original—have crept..into the material..(I count 27..in the first two chapters).

Here are..a few examples:[see link]
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15257&page=0
and..what im doing..about it
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15542&page=0
Posted by one under god, Friday, 25 October 2013 10:31:45 AM
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The problem is very simple gentlemen. Money.
English teachers (and all other teachers) have more concern for their income than they do for their teaching.
I suggest an annual audit of individual teaching capacities and if they don't measure up sack them.
Posted by chrisgaff1000, Saturday, 26 October 2013 1:16:43 AM
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