“The important thing is that our kids leave school with a passion for the acquisition of knowledge and the skills to make it happen. “

Is this used as an excuse that the teacher has to teach very little while the teacher is paid money to teach, but instead the student has to learn themselves.

Could a grade 12 student understand this:

“how to use a protein to transform fatty acids produced by the bacteria into ketones, which can be cracked to make hydrocarbon fuels”.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110323135635.htm

If not, then they may not have any idea how fuels will be made in the future.

Could a grade 12 student understand this:

“Next they identified affected vegetation using two different greenness indices as surrogates for green leaf area and physiological functioning.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110329150453.htm

If not, then they may have no idea how vegetation is being studied to determine what would happen if climate change occurred.

The above could be understood by a grade 12 student if they have basic knowledge about chemistry and biology, and the only way to ensure they have such basic knowledge is to test them.

Nicole, thank you for a fine article - insightful and balanced. Let's hope that Australian governments - particularly the Commonwealth - can begin to adopt a more thoughtful approach to what international evidence shows us about successful education policy.

A good article Nicole.

I will take issue with your claim that the 'three r's' are the starting point and not the aim of education. 100% agree that the three r's are the starting point, but I would also say that until a child has those basic competencies, moving on to other material is counterproductive.

We can't have students leaving schools without a fim grip of the basics and this must always come before everythingelse.

Fully agree that teaching to the test is the obvious outcome of standarised testing and ranking schools. What organisation doesn't direct their attention towards meeting their KPI's.

What a great article. It stands as a contrast to the silly reviews in the media over the last few days. Nicole, you have effectively set fire to Superman's cape.

Food for thought! Pertinent points raised Nicole.

I particularly agree with your following statements...

*Seeing education as a process of 'covering' material is an impoverished view of what should be going on in our classrooms.

*The critical thing is that students are curious about the world, have a sense of how much they don't know and can access and evaluate information when they need it.

*The important thing is that our kids leave school with a passion for the acquisition of knowledge and the skills to make it happen.

*The point is that what we need are structures that support all teachers to develop in their professional practice over the course of their careers, and structures that support the very small minority who are unsuited to teaching to exit the profession in a dignified manner.

Benji7
"have a sense of how much they don't know"

I think there are now many people who have a sense of what students don't know, and this is why we now have a skills shortage.

Teachers included in this, but it is surprising how many teachers want to be paid more for not knowing much.

I've seen the term 'neo-liberal' used in OLO a lot, but what does it actually mean? Does it refer to any specific schools of thought, or is it just a general term of abuse used by big-statists to mean anyone who is not as in favour of big government, as they are? And what's the difference between neo-liberal and common-or-garden liberal?

I too enjoyed this insightful article.
I believe the author was trying to say that we have good and bad teachers in the education system, just as we have good and bad people in all professions.

If we have guidelines as to what is acceptable and unacceptable teacher behaviour, or methods of teaching, then maybe we can at least limit the numbers of the few ineffective teachers we do have.

How often do we hear of teachers in schools who have 'been there forever', and that all students and their parents hope the kids won't be in their class?
Education of our kids is too important to support the ongoing employment of very ineffective teachers.

Peter Hume - Neoliberal is like 'postmodern'. The terms actually have no consistent defined meaning. Because of this they are often bandied about by those who like to appear to be up with modern thought and intellectual movements. Postmodern, for example, can have directly opposite meanings depending on which dictionary you look at. Neoliberal mainly a hip buzzword with some vague relationship to economics.

Throw either of these in an essay and you're well on the way to intellectual superiority, at least in your own mind.

I've been following some of what's been happening in the US, and it isn't pretty - teachers in public schools are being denigrated and are being subjected to harsh budget cuts. I hope this doesn't start happening here. My child goes to a wonderful state school - so far she's had great teachers. I help out in the classroom once a week, and I've seen first hand how hard it is to teach 20+ kids - some with behavioural and learning problems - it is an exhausting task that requires great skill and dedication. Teachers need more support, not teacher bashing.

“The important thing is that our kids leave school with a passion for the acquisition of knowledge and the skills to make it happen.“

Absolutely agree this is one very important outcome of good education and teachers who can inspire this passion and impart those skills are valuable gifted people.

However I find the writers somewhat offhanded remarks concerning FOUNDATIONS of education disturbing:

"... we need to understand that good literacy and numeracy is a starting point, not the big aim of education. Add to this an implicit assumption that good results on standardized testing equate with a good education, and we have a big problem. A nation full of people who can read, write and do ‘rithmetic is one thing, but if we want to be a nation that can genuinely compete in the international knowledge economy, we need much much more than that."

If a child cannot read, write or do basic math, despite advancing through primary school, he/she is highly unlikely to develop "passion for the acquisition of knowledge". Rather, frustration, disruptive behaviour, withdrawal, lack of confidence, low self esteem and resentment. Add likelihood of torment by peers or bullying in turn ... and so on. As for "skills to make it (ongoing learning) happen" - WHAT SKILLS? There's a bigger Problem!

As I understand, Standards Testing has resulted from profound concerns about children failing and being failed by the education system. No child of higher than retard level IQ should leave school unable to read & write - but they have in the past and still do. No child unable to cope with complexity of tasks at their year level should be progressed into the next. Every child deserves to learn BASICS well enough to advance further - at a slower rate if necessary.

I see tests as an indicator of the state of educational health overall and find objections by many 'educators' both puzzling and disturbing.

Sorry Nicole, but I believe we NEED to be "a Nation full of people who can read, write and do ‘rithmetic" foremost. Thereafter? Reach for the sky ....

One thing that all the so called educators today fail to realise, is that not all kids are going to have it easy in life. In fact most of todays kids are likely to have much more stressful lives than these educators do today.

One thing they all appear to want is to minimise stress & competition in students lives. This is totally wrong.

Kids should come out of school ready to handle life, in something other than a feather bed. They also need to have a reasonable level of knowledge. If I hire a kid with a VHA, [very high achiever] in secretarial studies, I at least expect them to know the format of a letter. When I find they don't, I shudder what a low achiever would know.

To fix this we need an annual externally set & marked exam in all grades every year. This test should arrive in each school on the day of the test. No one can teach to an annual test. We will find what kids have actually learnt in that year, rather than how well they have buttered the teacher.

Along with so many facts, I still know the weight of a gallon of water, & how many liters it is equivalent to. I know because I learnt it in first year high school science. I have used this, & thousands of other bits of information millions of times. It would be great if my kids would say something similar.

They can't of course, because today every topic is finished & abandoned just days after it is introduced. There is no reason for kids to really learn the topic, as they will never see it again at school.

Just for interest, with all the discussion of the Murry Darling basin, I asked my highly educated kids, [2 with degrees] to draw where these rivers are on a map of Oz. None of them came close. I & my school mates could, do it in third class at North Ward State School Townsville. That class had 45 kids, & a real teacher.

Morganzola
“I don't think that sending boys or girls to 'boot camp' would be effective in addressing bullying behaviour, quite simply because such places operate on bullying their inmates.”

Exactly.

How a so-called Australian university could pay the author money is almost beyond belief.

Or perhaps our feminist universities simply don’t like boys, and don’t believe girls can be bullies.

You want to know about girls and teachers such as the author.

Well in another article the author compares boys to girls, none of which was complementary to boys, and I think this was well addressed by an “eet”

“The sad thing is that you’re an ‘expert’ on boys’ education, yet you can’t see past a feminist perspective; a premises that boys are some type of deficient girl. What hope do boys have?”

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5119#61964

I personally would not regard the author as being an expert in men or boys, but I would regard the author as being feminist paid money by a university in Australia.

In my experience good teachers are rare, though I blame the education system more than I blame them. I'm persuaded actually that primary school is virtually worthless except for when families don't themselves support the fundamental three R's. The rest of primary school is a waste of time, wasted time and time spent indoctrinating the child into corporate institutionalism, whether the church or the neoliberal church the author exposes.
Unfortunately the masses don't realise they're the victims of a decades-long campaign to commodify the next generation of dupes. Literally to empower them (spuriously) so as to disempower them. Read "The New Spirit of Capitalism".
It is vitally important that the education system does not fall into private hands. Though even in public hands neoliberal ideology is all-pervasive these days. It's puppets on OLO are legion.

Like a lot of edubabble these days, this piece was more about making people feel good with motivational type throwaway lines (covered/ uncovered) rather than serious analysis. But coming from an educationalist, I think the most worrying part was...

"We could argue forever about the little bits of knowledge that are essential for our children to have.... but it's a pointless exercise."

This sort of nihilism is really damaging our society. Information is not knowledge and all knowledge is not equal. Shakespeare has withstood the centuries because he speaks about universals of the human condition. Sex in the City and 2pac don't. They won't be remembered in 400 years.

This leads to the next point:

"The important thing is that our kids leave school with a passion for the acquisition of knowledge and the skills to make it happen."

Knowledge about what? If we don't teach them what is important, what has shaped the way we are today, how will they know what is or isn't valuable?

How can people like this train our teachers? They don't understand or value our culture.

Perhaps the epitaph of this article would be the following:

"AUSTRALIA'S international competitiveness is under threat because up to eight million Australian workers don't have the reading, writing or numeracy skills to undertake training for trade or professional jobs."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/millions-behind-on-basic-skills-threatens-australias-international-competitiveness/story-fn59niix-1226032957469

So take out 8 million, and who is left to pay teachers more money?

From vanna's link:

'The report says "the situation looks as if it could be getting worse, not better" in terms of the language, literature and numeracy skills of workers.'

Literature? Seriously? I can just see the interviews now, as would-be workers line up for trade training courses:

"And tell me a bit about your background in literature. Have you read much Dickens? Dostoyevsky, perhaps?"
"No."
"NEXT!"

I suspect that it's not just tradies whose literacy is a bit behind.

In all seriousness, though, the link is a valid addition to the debate and supports what many are saying in opposition to the original: that it's all well and good to put lofty ideas into the heads of students, but we need to focus on the essentials first.

It's just a pity vanna chooses to introduce it with such counterproductive vitriol.

Vanna's problem is that she doesn't know what she's talking about.

She doesn't like the current global consensus on how best to teach children, but she doesn't want to go back to the tried and true methods of the past either.

She seems to think she has a third way, based upon her unearthing of the unique skill of asking questions. Teachers could teach students by simply asking them a stream of questions deftly calculated to impart the maximum advantage. You would know when a student was doing well because they would have no answers left. Then you win.

Its interesting that Vanna didn't disect the supposed '8 million' who have substandard skills into boys and girls. Perhaps it was too muuch of a stretch for Vanna to claim that they were all boys.

She seems incapable of understanding the true dynamic of the workplace and the role her own department has in it. If she can't understand something so close to her own experience, how can she expect to undertand something which is clearly so far away.

Otokonoko,
I have regular contact with some students in a number of other countries, and I am still surprised at how advanced they are, and this has been noted by university lecturers also.

To do many tasks, there are set exams to get the tickets necessary to do the task. Right now I have to carry three tickets on me at all times when I go onto a worksite.

If I do not have those tickets, I cannot perform certain tasks or operate certain equipment, and I can also be fined if I am operating equipment or doing tasks without those tickets on me.

If people cannot adequately read and write, or they do not have adequate numeracy skills, they will not be able to pass the exams to get the tickets, and some of these exams require 100% pass mark (or no mistakes).

That is the reality in the workplace, but the reality in the classroom is becoming totally different to the reality in the workplace.

Interesting observations. Why were they directed at me? They had absolutely nothing to do with my own comments.

Otokonoko,

The situation is quite simple.

If there are few people earning much money, there are few people paying much tax, and less money can go to anyone who receives income from the taxpayer.

If there almost 1/3 of Australians “don't have the reading, writing or numeracy skills to undertake training for trade or professional jobs”, there are few people paying much tax, and less money can go to anyone who receives income from the taxpayer.

So unless teachers can reduce the 1/3 of Australians who “don't have the reading, writing or numeracy skills to undertake training for trade or professional jobs”, there are few people paying much tax, and less money can go to teachers who receive income from the taxpayer.

Now the important point is that unless teachers can reduce the 1/3 of Australians who “don't have the reading, writing or numeracy skills to undertake training for trade or professional jobs”, there are few people paying much tax, and less money can go to teachers who receive income from the taxpayer.

In other words, unless teachers can reduce the 1/3 of Australians who “don't have the reading, writing or numeracy skills to undertake training for trade or professional jobs”, there are few people paying much tax, and TEACHERS WILL RECEIVE LESS MONEY.