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The Forum > Article Comments > The true story of the education revolution > Comments

The true story of the education revolution : Comments

By Mercurius Goldstein, published 11/2/2008

We should all hope that Australia does not, in a revolutionary frenzy, abandon the public system of education that has served it so well.

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The author seems to be moving inter-state.
Posted by HRS, Monday, 11 February 2008 9:25:19 AM
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Lingo is more than just Lingo when it comes to understanding the role it plays in everyday life. Never would I agree to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I use maths when I take a photo, or animate a film. I use math when I cook the pudding and math when I calulate my options in other activities even though sometimes it may not seem so.

If I were a fishing person I would do math and have lingo that is different to a horse person who works campdraft or on the trots, perhaps.

What is education if it can not handle a discussion inclusively rather than the idea that all this is about one thing or nothing. This would be hopeless.

I think I see education through people working everyday. The point is it good or bad education?

This is what social Peer to Peer and Mentorship, Community, Family, School, Governments, Local Governments, Work activities and Life-style activities is about all ought to be about. Something cohesive and inclusive or inter-relates.

Do we care?

I was bold over as I listened to a program on "Global finance: big,
bloated and dangerous?", by Dr Paul Woolley on ABC last week. I also understood all that Lord Robert May said in his "Relations on a finite planet" talk.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigideas/default.htm

Many brains are better than one I say but it might take some discretion for all sides.

Free thinking and learning is only half the undertaking.... me thinks.

http://www.miacat.com/
.
Posted by miacat, Monday, 11 February 2008 10:17:20 AM
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Good luck Mercurius in the land of the Free. Hope you keep posting your insights. I think we may have come to a bit of a watershed on education in Australia with Rudd. Many supporters of public education are waiting for a sign of committment from the new government especially on funding of the growing private sector. We all hope Rudd was mainly trying not to frighten the sheep when he said that Labour would support the SES funding model to 2012. Jane Caro indentifies the lowly position Rudd has placed education in the topic list for his Future talkfest in Canberra in April as a possible indicator of lack of committment- we can only hope that this changes. Any way good luck.
Posted by pdev, Monday, 11 February 2008 1:18:40 PM
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I agree we need a renaissance rather than a revolution.
Introduction of Philosophy for Children to all public school six year olds and all classes of older children and continuing the strand throughout their education would, over time, lift the performance of all public school students and give them a more satisfactory life as adults.
Why are people scared to have clear thinking citizens?
Introduction of P4C will improve academic performance and substantially reduce the incidence of bullying and other inconsiderate behaviour. P4C requires about one hour a week during which time the students learn by participation. They participate in discussions of topical ethical and societal questions of their own choosing. In Kirkaldy, Scotland 30 minutes were taken from a language lesson and 30 minutes from personal development. Can anyone argue that language ability won’t improve and personal development be significant if a young child learns to reason and present arguments in a group discussion? With clearer thinking senior students and older adults we should reduce both drug problems and criminal behaviour, surely worthwhile long term benefits.
Buranda State School, Queensland has had substantial success by introducing just such a programme as has Clackmannan Shire in Scotland. The method is also being introduced in Nottingham Shire in the UK and in New Zealand. Why not in every state in Australia? Are our education systems controlled by ideologues or control freaks or ‘fraidy-cats?
Posted by Foyle, Monday, 11 February 2008 2:58:42 PM
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I don't know where Mercurious Goldtsein has been for the last twenty years but the good public education system has been destroyed over that period - in NSW at least. The final remnants of what was the envy of teh world in the 50s to 80s is being swept away as Iemma has announced that school principals will have the say in who is employed as teachers. This instead of a system which ensured that the Education Dept sent teachers to schools - which provide uniform education for children in Vaucluse and Menindee, in Bellevue Hill and Dunedoo
Posted by Plaza-Toro, Monday, 11 February 2008 3:06:17 PM
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He's picked the hype word 'revolution'. Rudd and Gilly are about as revolutionary as a dish mop.

Not sure whether the author just dismissed a kid's right to spell and write in a formal way or whether he's taking a long term view - say from San Francisco. Excellent news on his FIRST CLASS Honours. Bloody marvellous.
Posted by Cheryl, Monday, 11 February 2008 3:57:15 PM
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The problem with public education is that the bureaucracy determines what is taught. This may be fine some of the time but is likely to go against the wishes of many parents a great deal of the time. The only solution is to have a fully private system with low income earners given an education grant. Home schooling would be included in such a scheme.
Posted by RobertG, Monday, 11 February 2008 5:43:45 PM
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On the revolutionary theme, I knew (but didn't sympathise with) many International Socialists, Trotskyites, Angry Brigade bombers et al in the '60s, who believed that (their kind of) change could be brought about only with blood in the streets. They tried to hi-jack any prominent person or movement to serve their own ends, e.g seeking support from the Beatles. Indeed, when I was walking down Oxford Street with John and Yoko in protest at the gaoling of Richard Neville, the IS/Trots tried to divert the march to the Home Office in support of the IRA. John's response of course was, "Well, you say you want a revolution, we'd all love to see the plan ...." No plans from Rudd during the election campaign.

Mercuriouser and mercuriouser ... when I was in Canada and the States, I found that a Merc was a Ford Mercury rather than a well-engineered German car. Be warned. I also found the inhabitants friendly and hospitable wherever I travelled. That was in 1962 and '78, but my daughter had similar experiences during the last 14 months.
Posted by Faustino, Monday, 11 February 2008 6:05:21 PM
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There are easy ways and hard ways to get a first class honours in education and win university medals. The easy way is to be a vitriolic defender of public education, of the unions, of outcomes-based education and anything else the education faculties deem politically correct.

The hard way is to challenge the system: to say many people believe education reforms have not been as successful as the establishment would have us think. The hard way would be to write that education had been captured by ideological warriors who will cut down and dismiss politically 'insensitive' critics: perhaps people who criticise the establishment's fixation on environmentalism, on gender, on 'sorry' and on migration and multiculturalism. In fact, I suspect it's so hard to win a medal by challenging these views that it's never happened before.

You might of heard of the saying 'the cream rises to the top'; but to continue the analogy, when the cream thinks in the 'correct way' then it gets actively pushed to the top. I wonder if Mercurious has even won some sort of scholarship to the US for some higher degree? I know its important to ensure 'right thinking' people are in leadership positions, but after reading his articles on onlineopinion for so long, I was sure he would take a teaching job in a remote indigenous school and stay there for twenty years!! What happened, I wonder?

Alas, some of us receive the benefits of public education and then teach in disadvantaged schools, while some of us just preach the benefits and then head off to do bigger and better things.
Posted by dane, Monday, 11 February 2008 10:49:50 PM
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Dane, I would have thought that as an Australian you might afford some measure of praise for an education system that enables the younger generation to leave and strive for "bigger and better things", but apparently you'd rather use it to make some sort of rhetorical point. That's big of you.

Your personal speculations are both inappropriate and wildly inaccurate and I wish to correct them publicly. There is a range of family, medical, financial and personal reasons behind my decision to leave. The only reason that is pertinent to this discussion is that, contrary to your canard, I applied for several dozen schools over 7 months in what you might term "disadvantaged" areas. But since neither DET nor AMES saw fit to offer me a position, I confess that not being able to earn a living here forms part of the decision. After all, I'm not UNESCO.

Nor have I sought or been granted a scholarship. I'm doing this on my own money saved for the last 15 years, as I did with my HECS payments. You know, personal responsibility, initiative, discipline and all that, the sorts of things that you and others constantly bellow that my generation don't have? BTW I wonder how many of today's critics got their degrees without having to pay a cent?

Still, as you seem to be in on the secret about how easy it is to win honours and a medal, perhaps you'd care to demonstrate? You seem to know all about it.

I used to think the Tall Poppy syndrome was a nasty myth until I read your post.
Posted by Mercurius, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 6:37:02 AM
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"These thieves in the temple voice pious prayers to the secular deities of “choice” and “falling standards”, when what we really need is to bring our children together into a place that lets each learn, participate and express their identity without leaving their religion, language or culture at the front door. At stake is a socially cohesive future for this country."

Oh dear, we need God back in the classroom do we? But which god do we allow in in a multibelief nation?

In 1872 Victoria led the way with free secular education, followed by Qld in 1875. [Sir] Samuel Griffith was an architect of the Qld secular system. Edmund Barton, our first PM, knew the score too, and insisted on free secular public education.

Here in Qld we had that until 1910 when state schools ceased to be secular spaces. South Australia is no longer, if ever it was, a secular education space. No idea about the other states.

What we could do with is a return to the real 'education revolution' of the 1870s, in particular in Qld to the 1875 Education Act that started us down the path of a real 'smart state' not the number plate logo we now have, with properly funded schools, intelligent teachers, real school managers and a system not based on a hybrid jailcumfactory method of education.

Standards were never 'high', and we kid ourselves to think they were.

Schools were different, we suffered Latin, whereas none have to today. We all tipped caps and tugged forelocks and resented the coercive nature of school then, as students do today. Teaching was a path out of the working class then, as it is today.... only now teachers are less likely to get away with imposing themselves on young people.

The class system was the 'cohesive' glue no one challenged then. It remains as obvious as ever, but people no longer see it because, to a great extent, it was also sectarian and thankfully sectarianism has faded a little, except within the Liberal Party of course.

This essay is content free.
Posted by The Blue Cross, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 12:30:39 PM
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Mercurius

<i>we should all hope that Australia does not, in a revolutionary frenzy, abandon the public system of education that has served it so well for so many generations.</i>

The Australian people are already voting with their feet on the supposed transcendent “good” of public education. The flow out of the public system to the private system has been rising since the late 1970s, and today more than 40% of High School students attend non-government schools. Even Kevin Rudd has made it clear he has no romantic attatchment to the “public system of education.”

<i>KEVIN RUDD: I don’t care whether schools are government owned or non-government. What I am concerned about is the quality of education provided through those schools and their physical assets, infrastructure and the training of their teachers.</i>

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2089994.htm

<i>There is much to be done to restore public confidence in our education system</i>

What evidence do you have “public confidence” has fallen, and when did this decline begin?

<i>and the public discourse currently abounds with Cultural Revolutionaries who smash the tablets of public education without a thought for their heritage and value. These thieves in the temple voice pious prayers to the secular deities of “choice” and “falling standards”</i>

So you argue that while the public has lost confidence in the education system (presumably you mean public schools), you claim it is only “Cultural Revolutionaries” who blame “falling standards” and lack of choice. So you include people like Julia Gillard (the er, er, er Minister for Education). On choice, you include the NSW Education Minister and his recent decision to allow public principals to choose their staff? And the federal government’s commitment to continue funding private schools? And the state governments’ continued commitment to a class system of public education declining from the elite selective schools to the schools in upper-middle class suburbs to the suburban comprehensive detention centres.

OR are you suggesting that in fact standards are not falling and that “choice” is a non-issue among the confidence-less public?

And aren’t our cultural heritage and values EXACTLY what the “critics” are trying to preserve?
Posted by John Greenfield, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 3:01:37 PM
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<i>when what we really need is to bring our children together into a place that lets each learn, participate and express their identity without leaving their religion, language or culture at the front door. At stake is a socially cohesive future for this country.</i>

Ah yes, some good old-fashioned 1980s identity politics indoctrinated into our eight and fourteen year olds? But what “identity” do children have? Of course. “Religion, language, or cultural.” No mention of “Australian” we see. So you think the way to restore public confidence in public schools is to encourage children not to think of themselves as Australians, but as what their parents and grandparents left behind? But the money-shot is surely your claim this deliberate and evil inflaming of balkanisation somehow is the holy grail of achieving “a socially cohesive future?” A quick review of the dictionary on “cohesive” would have helped this article immensely.

So you think not being able to write or spell is a fart-in-the-bath? A beat up by “conservative cultural warriors” and the Murdoch press? What are you trying to say? That these unidentified “critics” are wrong, disingenuous, or irrelevant?

<i>And doubtless today’s Year 6 class will fulminate in 2050 that the youth of tomorrow can’t compose a Flash animation, program a Facebook application, or write a blog to save their lives.</i>

But wait, there’s more! Now, you are truly psychic. Flash animation and Facebook in 2050? ROFL!

While the US has a much greater left-tail of educational disadvantage which reflects great economic disparities and the depletion of social capital that attends high levels of multiculturalism/racialism, the US education system is far less sympathetic to your Freiresque Critical Pedagogy nonsense.

All that aside, you are clearly passionate about education and have achieved great successes. I hope you knock ‘em dead in the US and please keep us posted on your progress!
Posted by John Greenfield, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 3:02:30 PM
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Good luck Mercurious. I oft thought you were a twat, but after reading your last post I stand corrected. I feel your intent was pure. I hope that in time you will work here with us.
Posted by Voice, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 8:01:50 PM
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Mercurius,

It was nice to read a post where you haven't belittled and poured invective on a critic.

You confirmed two points for me:

Firstly, you qualified with honours, won the uni medal and yet didn't get a job? If honours in education and the uni medal aren't even valued by the education profession then how do you expect the general population to value education? A common canard of mine is that education is run by feminists who see all men as a threat to women and children, hence the falling number of men in the profession. You seem to be a perfect example of this. Educationalists constantly say they want more men in the profession yet when they have a supposedly perfect candidate they won't employ him.

Secondly, it appears you're doing a PhD. I thought by now you would have worked out that qualifications in Education don’t get you anywhere. But it seems you're determined. As an experienced teacher I will tell you what other should have but haven't. A PhD without classroom experience is absolutely worthless. Teaching is not a pure science: it is a mix of theory and skill. Even a uni that employed you as an academic would be grossly out of order. You cannot teacher teachers unless you have taught. A policy role in government would be an even bigger disaster. A major criticism of teacher ed courses is that they're out of touch with reality in the classroom. Your opinions support this criticism.

You have a lot of theory, and have heaped scorn on critics of your ideological view, yet as far as I know haven’t set foot in the classroom as a professional teacher. To point this out is not the tall poppy syndrome: it is a reality check. Your opinions will change as you develop as a teacher. As all of us have, you will find reality conflicts will theory and you will have to find a way to reconcile them to your particular circumstances.
Posted by dane, Thursday, 14 February 2008 10:42:15 AM
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