The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Rethinking education - Part one > Comments

Rethinking education - Part one : Comments

By Don Aitkin, published 15/4/2005

Don Aitkin argues that all Australians have the potential for many different careers, pastimes and sports.

  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All
While on some levels this may seem a good piece, Don still seems to be falling into the trap that going to university should be the goal for everyone..
There is two ideas here that often get mixed up.
1). A Childs opportunities should not be dependant on his/her parents income. This is a cultural principle that many of us subscribe to.
2). Any child can be anything thing they want to be. This is often confused with the first point when used as a positive affirmation of the principle. Unfortunately this myths is well and truly been discredited.

I believe we need to change our education systems so that anybody regardless of their social economic status can attain whatever level of education they are able. I further believe that people should not be judged on what level they attain.
Posted by Kenny, Friday, 15 April 2005 12:56:58 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I think Don says much what you say Kenny. Do you think that the best society allows everyone to float to their own level?

What I think Don has said is not that university is for everyone, but that in the perfect society it would be. It doesn't matter to me what somebody chooses to do with themselves, but everyone, having had the same oppurtunities by age 5 would be capable of doing well at uni, if that's what they want.

Even if you wanted to be a plumber, there is nothing wrong with going to uni and doing an aprenticeship, uni then apprenticeship or the other way around. Education as Don puts it should be more focused on the general well-rounding and balancing of the individual, an enriching experience, whether one chooses to make a vocation out of it or not.
Posted by Penekiko, Friday, 15 April 2005 9:52:40 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Don had me on the edge my seat for three quarters of this article. Then it finished, and I was left wondering what else Don is advocating apart from abolition of parental choice. Pardon me? Abolition of parental choice, in this, the era of choice? I would have thought the opposite - let's give real parental choice to ALL parents regardless of class and social status.

Vern Hughes
Posted by Vern Hughes, Monday, 18 April 2005 2:14:07 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
And how would you do that, Vern? How do you give every parent in Australia real choice and still manage to fund it?
A friend of mine was once working on the School's Commission and a woman from a particular ethnic and religious group presented an argument why her small group of parents should be funded to set up a school. When it was pointed out that a number of such schools existed already nearby, she shed a tear and said "Yes, but not from my village." How much choice is enough?

As Don points out, we must get over the idea that education is about parents and remember it is about a country maximising the potential of the next generation, all of them, not just those with rich parents, middle class parents or concerned parents.
Sometimes choice bewilders and bedevils people. I work in advertising, and we are seeing how too much choice is actually counterproductive. It paralyses people and renders them so anxious they refuse to decide. I think we will soon see a similar response in parents. Already the most fraught discussion parents have with one another is the which-school-are-you-sending-precious-to, one.
Posted by enaj, Monday, 18 April 2005 5:44:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It’s good to see Don is still writing and driven by the progressive principles that kept me enjoying his pieces decades ago. And again I find myself agreeing with his general thrust. He points out that we won’t get far with improving the schools “until Australians understand that they are - all of them - capable of many different careers, creative pastimes and sports, and that capability applies to the newly born as well.”

Let me suggest a possible first step for changing the understanding and attitude of the people. If we take Gardner’s multiple intelligences and give the theory far more research and discussion in the national public forum, while also showing how limited and limiting the IQ theory is, there might be some progress in the average parent’s understanding. Inevitably there will be a big political aspect to this, and there will be extremely vigorous reaction by the old guard in academia, the educational bureaucracies and government.

I can’t yet provide a blueprint for action, but, as Don apparently already realises, Gardner’s psychological theories are a good starting point.

On this point, people may be interested in reading one of my articles published in OLO sometime ago. [http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2192 ] It called for a national enquiry into the nature of intelligence, and rests heavily on the contrast between IQ theory and Gardner’s multiple intelligences.

This discussion is worth perpetuating, both here and elsewhere.
Posted by Crabby, Monday, 18 April 2005 9:59:10 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Interesting article – the significance of “nurture” as a facilitator to “learning”, I believe, cannot be underestimated. Disruptive children do not learn because they tend to lack the sense of “personal security” (which would allow them to listen peacefully) that comes from parental nurturing (ask Lenin – he did the experiment and found his “socialist commune children”, lacking the love relationship with natural parents, produced at best the mediocre).

The purpose of education is, largely, to empower individuals to evaluate circumstances and construct resolutions to challenges for themselves and thus to become self-sufficient. Some things may well benefit from academic learning, if there is, as is suggested, 8 ½ “kinds of intelligence” we should attempt to allow children to be assessed and “streamed” into the kinds of "intelligence" which best suits them as "individuals" and not assessed on a single measure. This is similar to certain issues facing the assessment of commercial undertakings – “triple bottom line” type measurement – instead of simple “profit performance”

A good society will might people to float to their own level and a better society will simply embrace the individual regardless of where they float within it.

Having said all that let us never forget – if you want to employ a philosopher or a CEO, you are likely to be trampled to death in the stampede of applicants – but just try finding a plumber. We can still sleep whilst planning to find a leader but not many can sleep in earshot of a dripping tap.

Like Vern I was a bit dismayed with denying parental choice – education is not isolated from the common realities of life and “choice” and “competition” are what drive “performance” … except where some shooting star turned into a deadbeat but had first secured academic tenure for life and the rest of us end up paying for their insular security.
Posted by Col Rouge, Tuesday, 19 April 2005 9:37:18 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy