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The Forum > Article Comments > Cannon fodder of the culture wars > Comments

Cannon fodder of the culture wars : Comments

By Kevin Donnelly, published 11/2/2005

Kevin Donnelly argues that politics should stay out of the classroom.

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Wayne Sawyer is an academic working in teacher education, who is an internationally renowned historian of the English curiculum. What is missing from Kevin Donnelly's piece is the fact that Dr Sawyer was,acting solely in his capacity as editor of English in Australia, the academic journal of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English, calling for teachers to reconsider the claims and influence of critical literacy given the current historical context in Australia. His editorial was not a call to teachers to indoctrinate students as to how to vote. The attempt to promote thought and discussion is, after all,an accepted function of an editor. The Australian population does not question, for example, the right of the editors of the major newspapers to recommend to them how they should vote on the eve of a federal election.

Dr Donnelly, and others who have entered the debate subsequently, take a curiously ahistorical view of English as a school subject.
Contrary to the strident claims of those pundits who have been quick to attack Sawyer, English has always served broad social, cultural and political ends.

To suggest, as many have this week, that the English curriculum has only recently been politicized flies in the face of the history of the subject. Given this history, to argue moreover that English has ever been solely about the cultivation of a ‘superior’ moral and aesthetic sensibility is plainly naïve, if not disingenuous.For example, according to the first official statement of the significance of English teaching, the Newbolt Report of 1921, the explicit political function of English was to bring a potentially revolutionary working class to heel and inoculate them against the insidious influence of popular culture through the great heritage embodied in the genius of English literature and the indelible beauty of the English language.

The timely and positive contribution Wayne Sawyer has made to the civic life of the nation is to call upon the English teaching community to not lose sight of the historically significant role the English curriculum plays in fostering democratic ideals and effective social participation.That does not mean pushing a party political line in classrooms and no where in his article did Sawyer suggest teachers should do this.He suggested, in all reasonableness, that a proper study of language will include the study of the language of our political masters.

What will those who would argue that Sawyer's position is a radical or unreasonabhle one advocate next? That the collected work of George Orwell, who had much to say about this topic, be banned from school libraries?
Posted by Mark H, Friday, 11 February 2005 12:33:53 PM
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No matter what quaint little spin Mark H puts on Sawyer's editorial the document is what it is - a bitter little piece of tooth-grinding elitist frustration at a result he didn't like.

If Sawyer (and Mark H) were serious and Sawyer & his cronies have been teaching "critical" english for the last 10 years then surely the assumption should be that all his students did indeed apply his teachings and voted accordingly resulting in the re-election of the Howard government? But no. Sawyer says that the teaching of English in this country has been a failure BECAUSE HIS PREFERRED POLITICAL PARTY WAS NOT ELECTED!! Does this strike anyone else as being not only ridiculous and arrogant, but as far away from academic thought as possible?

There surely is a war going on in this country on many fronts, education being only one. If we want to save our society from slipping back into another Dark Age arrogant elitists must be defeated.
Posted by bozzie, Friday, 11 February 2005 1:46:38 PM
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The author highlights the cultural war now occurring in the US education systems, and there has been ample evidence found that political indoctrination has been occurring in US universities at least, with many university departments now being made up almost entirely of Democrat or left-wing political supporters.

This has lead to a push to incorporate an Academic Bill of Rights into universities to help ensure more academic diversity. (EG …http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/abor.html)

It also becomes important to ensure that our own education systems do not become biased in some way, or begin to indoctrinate students into developing distorted perceptions. The signs are not all that good that our education systems are succeeding in doing this.

I see the new Girl TV program, but of course no Boy TV. I see the “Green Left” web-site, but nothing for the green right. I see quite a lot of media that derides marriage, but minimal media that supports marriage. I see so much biased social science research that it has become like a “junk science”, where nothing can be relied upon. I see consumerism run rife, where shopping centres have become like small towns. I see so much media that is obviously produced to just fill in the gaps between advertisements, or worse still, begins to mesmerize people into viewing that media again.

So eventually, I don’t think that our education systems are producing people who do see through all the hype and propaganda, and do seek more truth within society. So despite all the claims of the education system, those claims are not testing out very well.
Posted by Timkins, Friday, 11 February 2005 1:51:00 PM
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So, maybe this teacher went upto or even over the line?? Could this bloke, like many clear thinking voters,see that lying, mean-spirited howard was buying the election through blatant bribery. Howard and his cronies are total, unmitigated, foul, obscene liars in any one's book - and this can be clearly shown. Maybe he, the teacher was stunned that the decent Australian electors could believe and reward such blatant, shameful lies and corrupt pork barrelling. That these same decent Australian electors could be so easily bought or bribed. Howard is much worse than those who went before him, I speak as one bought up to vote liberal, Menzie's brand of liberalism, open, clean, decent,honest and uncorruptable, in the main. John howard cannot be believed whatever he says and he has the now,new greedy voter in the palm of his hand and he knows it! Children and young people need to be warned and not be fooled like their parents. I used to wonder how a man like hitler managed to gain power through the ballot box - of course it was lies, lies and more lies. He was right wing as well!!
Regards, numbat
Posted by numbat, Friday, 11 February 2005 2:59:07 PM
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Numbat, you're making the same mistake Prof. Sawyer has. If you managed to see through all the BS and realise what a worm Howard is then how come the majority of other people could not?
Posted by bozzie, Friday, 11 February 2005 5:49:08 PM
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Well said first time Bozzie, and exactly right second time. Numbat, you merely demean yourself by exposing your intellectual shortcomings when you use slurs and ad hominems against those who do not think the way you do.

Perhaps the greatest problem with Sawyer's thesis is that blind Sarah (oops, can I say that in this insanely politically correct world?)can see that the overwhelming majority of educators are leftist.

Therefore, even if we accept his view that kids should be 'educated' (brainwashed?) to think politically, the reality is that it will be all leftist indoctrination.

Hmmm....why does that ring a bell? Wasn't there such a monster created with the concept of "Hitler Youth"? And did not the political persuasion of those who created that 'education' program lean to the LEFT?

As in "National Socialists"---aka NAZI?

Wayne Sawyer fools with fire....
Posted by ozaware, Friday, 11 February 2005 6:21:32 PM
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