"Humboldt, the founder of classical liberalism, his view was that education is a matter of laying out a string along which the child will develop, but in its own way."

Did he also advocate the teaching of grammar and the appropriate use of metaphor? Because that sentence could certainly use some.

If you're going to advocate changes in teaching, the first step is to make sure your own education has worked. Otherwise you become just another horrible example of all the things that a good education should be trying to avoid.

"Our natural environment is in ruinous or near-ruinous condition."

That's a pretty good indicator of a failed education right there.

G'day Jon J,
While your criticism may be reasonable, your aim is a little off. If you'd followed the link provided, you would have seen the excerpt was a direct quote from a dialogue between Chomsky and David Barsamian.
Blame Chomsky, not Tranter.
I'm afraid I was a little disappointed with this article, inasmuch as the contents didn't (IMHO) entirely live up to the expectations elicited from the title.
While I might agree with the paragraph “Our natural environment is in ruinous or near-ruinous condition...” I could hardly describe it as ideologically neutral.
Going on the title, I expected to read at least something about the advantages of diversity.
With a whole world full of diverse systems, it shouldn't be necessary to rely on ideology or theory. We should be able to simply observe the various systems objectively and see what works best. I quite like the look of the Finnish system, personally.
Single states should be able to adopt the system they think is most suitable, and other states can monitor and adopt the most effective.
Of course, even greater diversity could be achieved if if existing shires -or historical Koori nations- were states or nations in their own right...
Humans will not be free until they can freely move a minimal distance to join societies they feel comfortable with.

Daer Mr Pyne (re: "He said the national history curriculum played down the "non-Labor side of our history", despite the Coalition governing for two-thirds of the past 60 years.) Chris, that's because most historically significant social change over the last 60 years has been driven by Labour. Apart from the GST I can't actually think of many major changes implemented by Liberal/National Government. Anti-discrimination, Medicare, expansion of higher education, superannuation, redirecting Australia's foreign policy toward Asia, tariff reform, floating the exchange rate, banking sector reform, family law reform,land rights/Mabo, immediate post-war migration policy...the sorts of big social and economic changes you might study in a modern history course at high school we can "thank" Labour for. It doesn't matter whether you agree/disagree with the policies (I certainly don't agree with all of them) - that's not the point - its just that if we were to study the major (historically note-worthy) achievements of Liberal/Country/National Party government there actually wouldn't be much to study. This is not a criticism of conservative government in Australia it's just that - hell - they're conservative and by definition they don't go in for big social change. Oh wait, that's right,they did get us into the Vietnam War, oh yeah and Iraq and Afghanistan. That should be in a modern history course, of course. And, of course, they were the ones to start using Commonwealth money to fund private schools. But Chris, getting the budget back into balance and turning IR policy back a few decades is not really going to fill a history course my old chum. maybe if you don't stuff up Disability Care reform your party might get a para or two in the ACARA curriculum in the future.

Well, have to agree with bondi tram!
And can only add, that the new senate election in the west in around three-four months?
Is likely to be a referendum on the current govt, their performance, and just how many non-core promises will have to be broken following "the Audit", and the par for the course, blame and or kudos shifting?
Rhrosty.

There is no such thing as an ideology free educational curriculum. Anyone who pretends that there is such a thing has their head up their butt.

If you look at how "education" works in society it is really a kind of corporate propaganda industry. Conventional "education" is put to the service of political and social results of one kind or another that are all bound up with economics, corporate life, and government institutions.
It is all simply propaganda that produces the next generation of social and political participants in a programmed life dictated by governments, corporations and "religious" institutions. Its principal purpose is to train a robotized work force. This was certainly what old school "education" was about, and it is the kind of "education" that the one-dimensional hollow men with their heads stuffed full of straw at the IPA advocate.

No right or comprehensive transformation of life is promoted in the kind of "education" that the IPA advocates. Indeed it is designed to fit into the corporate world view as described by Malvina Reynolds in her classic song Litte Boxes (made out of ticky-tacky), and by Noam Chomsky (manufacturing consent), Henry Giroux and our own Sharon Beder in her various books. In This Little Kiddy Went To Market Sharon describes the powerful corporate forces that have been working behind the scene to accomplish the project to corporatise "education".

Meanwhile why not check out the work of Diane Ravitch in the USA especially via her truth-telling book Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger To American Public Schooling.

The most important thing to be done to the education system is to wrench it out of the hands of the feminists, who have gained control of it. They have continued to dumb down all technical subjects, & eliminate any testing of students understand & ability at the end of their schooling, hence universities having to run remedial math classes for science students.

Until we get back to testing students comprehension & ability in a subject in closed book examinations, our standards will continue to plummet, compared to Asian standards.

Getting rid of all the environmental propaganda, & teaching some real science would help, but is unlikely until the feminists have been banished.

Hasbeen … nominal determinism?

"There is no such thing as an ideology free educational curriculum. Anyone who pretends that there is such a thing has their head up their butt."

Bingo! Took the words right out of my mouth Daffy.

The stupidity of this article just defies belief. Kellie, the only logically valid argument you can make from your premise that education should be an ideology-free zone is to abolish government's involvement in it.

However Daffy your head is in the same location as Kellie's. How could compulsory education by the state be anything other than biased, political, ideological indoctrination?

In case you haven't noticed, it's not "corporations" dictating compulsory attendance of children at government indoctrination centres, compulsory contributions to pay for it whether you agree or not, or whether you have children or not, compulsory teacher qualifications of compulsory content dictated by government.

To blame this on "corporatism" is just typical left wing stupidity. Even if the argument were valid, since by the left's own stance there can be no such thing as an ideology free education, therefore the problem cannot be solved by government education in any way or form.

This leaves only one option: getting rid of the brainwashing of children, and cultivation of intellectual parasites by government.

Do that, and you will find that the corporate propaganda you allege children are being brainwashed with, is coming from the compulsory government education you are in favour of.

Kellie, government paying for universities can be nothing but ideology and therefore should be abolished. Your advocating physical attacks by government on Australia people to fund compulsory government indoctrination of children is completely inconsistent with your opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan.

All conceivable arguments for government schooling are refuted in this article: "Archipelagos of Educational Chaos" by Benjamin Marks:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/19_2/19_2_5.pdf

I suspect good education, especially primary and secondary, has little to do with the facts that one feed the children.

Surely it is more about teaching children how to think. How to question,. How to search for facts themselves.

Maybe this is why, kids in year one, are not taught how to Google. H

I see that kids this age, are expected to research and compile a three minute speech, which they give to the class. Are expect to have a working knowledge of Power Point, ti illustrate what they are talking abut. This in grade one.

Choice of topics, along the lines of "I have a dream..." How hard to be a child.

No, education is not about rote learning. Not about indoctrination.

It is about learning to think. To seek truth.

The kids need to be given the tools to achieve this outcome

All that needs to be done is to show the stastics of income and employment opportunities of students who specialise in the traditional courses of Math B, Math C, Physics, Chemistry, English and Latin as compared to those who undertake the 'more eightened' modern subjects. Then let parents decide.

Hi Flo,

It 'ought to be', but many children are not aware, not brought up to be aware, whatever, of what schooling is about. They don't understand what reading is about, so they don't 'naturally' learn to read.

You and I may have been lucky, we had parents driving us, we had books, we had a literate-type conversation going on around us all the time, but many children don't. Reading does not come naturally to them, and surely we have know many such children in our classrooms, if we have been teachers. We tend to ignore those kids, and unconsciously focus attention on the 'bright' kids who are no problem to teach.

But surely a teacher's job is to make sure that the 'slower' kids, those who don't understand what the hell is going on, what they are there for, that they are brought up the the level of the capable kids ? Those kids need not just a teacher's attention but also repetition, to lay down the memory tracks, in all manner of imaginative ways as well as straight, boring repetition.

Reading is NOT natural. Dinosaurs didn't do it. Gorillas don't do it. Our tribal ancestors didn't do it. But we do, we have too, and so do every one of those kids. Ideally, yes, of course, all kids should be at the level where they can read for meaning, for enjoyment, but so many never reach tat level, thanks to a myriad factors, including the attitude of teachers.

So phonics + repetition + moving towards reading for meaning and enjoyment as soon as possible - yes ! Indoctrination,no, and I don't know why you couch the debate in these terms. Rote learning is NOT indoctrination. Learning one's tables may be rote learning, it may be boring, but it also can be made more enjoyable with a bit of imagination. But it is NOT indoctrination. We all need to know our tables - it is painful to see young people completely baffled by anything mathematical. Don't deprive kids of skills they will need for life.

Joe

The ideology that will be pushed by the Coalition is one that turns students into capitalist sheeple by giving them vocational training rather than the education (as in being taught to THINK and QUESTION)!

In the capitalist world being established by the U.S. and the monied gentry and the Corporations, thinking is banned. What they want is to train people to do a job, then get their pay and run down to Harvey Norman and spend it as fast as they can.

Kelly, thanks for your fine article. The Flat Earthers won't understand it of course so busy are they promoting a world of endless war and consumerism and white supremacy.

Loud mouth, you missed what I said. I said that kids need to be given the tools to learn how to question.

That year one child could not use the computer to Google and use Power Point, unless they have learnt to read first.

That is not indoctrination.

Yes, some learn to read easy. Others find it hard. That goers for maths and other skills that one needs to be a functioning adult in our society.

"Our natural environment is in ruinous or near-ruinous condition."

Typical of the green groupthink that the author promotes.

I really think that Kellie is less concerned about making education << an ideology free-zone>> than she is by/with the possibility that any changes may impinge on what she and like thinkers have long considered their exclusive domain.

The humanities faculties at most of our universities have long been dominated by one-eyed left-wing ideologues

Flo,

With respect, I think you missed what I said too. Of course, ultimately, children need to be provided with the tools to think and reason and learn meaningfully, but as any teacher knows, there are many children who don't know what they are there for, who don't understand what reading is and who need a lot of attention to bring them around to grasp what the letters and words mean, and to see the value in reading.

Of course, the goal is to get kids to the level from which they can enjoy reading for meaning and understanding the world around them, but even so, they will still need to grasp the basics of reading, from basic words which have some 'oomph' - I don't mean small words per se, like 'a' and 'the', but punchy words like 'kiss' and 'jump' and even (as Sylvia Ashton-Warner noted) 'helicopter', 'crocodile', 'punch', words which do have expressive meaning for kids.

I was lucky, perhaps you were too: when I was eight, an encyclopedia salesman came around and offered my mum a set of Richard's Topical Encyclopedias on time-payment. She took them and never saw him again. I suppose we still owe a hundred pounds for them. But in a house before TV, they were gold-mines and I would go through the fifteen volumes every day, with pictures and short articles. So certainly reading for meaning, yes indeed.

But so many children have not a single book in the house. I lived for some time in an Aboriginal community and I don't think anybody had a single book in their house. Reading was off their radar. That wasn't how people learnt anything, although you and I would say, of course it should be. But that's how it was.

No child should be left behind and the task for early-primary teachers is to ensure that every child is firmly on the path to learning for meaning, reading for meaning - but that isn't a one-leap process. For many kids, it is a painful and baffling process to get to that stage.

Joe
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