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.