I am of Don Aitken's vintage. My solution is more radical than Don's.

The curriculum (designed by experts for experts and delivered by non-experts often), its teaching, its value, its impact ... is the essence of a problem. But the major problem is that secondary schooling is compulsory.

The system, a social construct, fell apart in NSW, when Henry Parkes,in a grab for power, did a deal with the RC rump of the Legislative Council and allowed the RC schools to co-exist alongside state schools (and the untouchable very elite). Then, in the 1920s the success of primary schools was sought to be replicated with secondary equivalents.

It worked in the short term. Reading success rates rose yet it wasn't until the end of WW1 that the NSW government enforced the 1880 act that included compulsion - 17000 kids started for the first time in 1918!

Society regards school as a 'good' and yet it may not be. School has effectively removed the responsibility for the most important decisions from parents (who have been educated!)and we now claim that parents won't take responsibility.

The world of work is quite different from what kids were to be protected from in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

We could do it so cleverly but we waste an incredible amount of money attempting to force-feed kids 'our learning style [and the accopanying curiculum]'. Why?

Surely we can do better: parents must share decision making processes; kids should have more say; education could be so different. Seymour Papert (The Children's Machine) calls it a buggy on a super-highway. Adults and adolescents CAN learn together and it is so much more natural! Schools are not that.

We have it wrong ... the true victims sit at desks, the very opposite to their preferred learning style and are told that this is their opportunity that they squander. That sets their future as failures and it takes many of them much more to reveal their true worth.

Education is good; school could be. It seems to prop up inequities and legitmise them; particularly over the last decade.

Don, a great article with a lot of sense. What are the roles of not only the govt (and the F is for funding word) plus what parents can deliver, plus a broader outlook on "education" for one and all. As you say, being precocious at one thing doesn't make for a genius in later life and our education system, being based on the military system, does not cater for all and certainly does not equip one for the mainstream unless that student is well adjusted anyway. We can all have a go at a few things before finding one's forte in either employment or talent. Having had more career changes than Barbie, I've still dragged the essence of my skills around and built on them. My pastimes and talents are also rather different than what they were 20 years ago (thank the lord), which all goes to show that any student, regardless of educational, parental expectations etc. should not be put into a box and have the lid shut. Don't you just wish that you knew all this stuff when you were a student?

I've now read both Don's articles and I'm disappointed that they do little of what the title promises – to 'rethink education'. They state something I agree with – that all humans have great potential abilities, that these are of different types, and that our education system does a poor job of finding out what each student's potential abilities are, and an even worse job of helping everyone develop those abilities. Having agreed with all that, I looked for practical suggestions on how schools and universities could do things better and found very little suggested. The only solution implicitly offered in article one was to ban all private schools – but quite apart from the impracticality of that, the article did not even spell out how it would help even if it were practical.

To 'rethink education' in ways that will actually help everyone to realise their potential you need to discuss practicalities: things like what should schools do to find out far more about the nature of each student's potential than they presently do; and how schools could then organise things so that students in the same class could be helped to develop their different potentials. Do we, for instance, want a battery of tests based on Gardner's 8½ types of intelligence? Does one exist? How would it avoid all the problems of IQ tests? How much choice should children get on what skills they wanted to spend time on? How could teachers cope with a variety of choices in the one class? Would it be good to stream groups according to different types of intelligence? etc. etc. etc.

Huxley's final novel, 'Island' offers some interesting practical ideas on how schools could identify and develop the variety of different intelligences that humans have. I would be interested to hear Don's ideas. What changes would he actually make to school and classroom teaching and learning practices if he found himself with the power to change our education system in ways that would achieve what I agree with him would be well worth achieving?

I enjoyed both articles and agree with Don in many regards. Australia (and probably the rest of the world to some extent or another) is run on "..the persistent human tendency to rationalise inequality if one is the beneficiary of it" - it is probably at the very heart of modern capitalism. Look at the property boom of the last decade and see how much our community has changed. People who were previously happy with a modest family home, a car that got from A to B and kids at the local school now frantically aspire to giant eco unfriendly houses with more rooms than they know what to do with, eco unfriendly 4 wheel drives and private school educations for their kids at the expense of our state school system. I wonder what it'll be like in 2050 if we don't start to make changes to the education system starting now?

I also agree with aka-Ian's reference to Seymour Papert, who has been described as the intellectual father of educational computing. I think that digital technology hints at giving the access to missing knowledge that those kids with the errant parents/carers, Don mentions in his articles, are not getting. The internet at least gives us all the opportunity to join online communities (like this one)that can be so much more supportive and intelligent than the consumer crazy real world. I'm hoping that digital technology and the internet will accelarate our educational progress to get us to where we need to be before 2050.

I am really disappointed to see such an uninformed article in Online Opnion. Unlike Don Aitken, I have not been living in an ivory tower for the past years, I have been raising and educating my profoundly gifted child on the pension while reading often in the media that such children and circumstances as ours do not exist.

There is an abundance of research and literature on the pedagogy of gifted students which contradicts the statements on which Don bases his conclusions. It looks, from his article that he has read none of this research and yet he is an academic. As the parent of a gifted child, I can not afford the luxury of being so ignorant of the facts. Because of the special needs of my child I have had to (home)educate him myself with absolutely no government or private sector funding or assistance whatsoever. The poor young man (now 14) has been accruing a debt with the tax department for his uni education since he began there at the age of 12. Articles like that written by Don do absolutely nothing for children like my son who works his proverbial off and can not find any program to support his education. I am more likely to cop public abuse for raising him to be such an outstanding character than given any support, moral or otherwise. I think that it is disgusting that this country makes children pay for their own university education because people are so ignorant of the needs of children such as my son. I do not know whether my son will stand out from the masses in a decade or so or not but I don't think that he should have to in order to justify an appropriate education.

I thank those who commented. I have no monopoly on truth or argument, and always try to learn from what others say.

To aka-Ian, I confess that I'm not sure what your more radical solution is, though plainly we share some attitudes and possibly experiences.

To Di, yes! I wish I had known a lot of this when I was a student. I've seen such a lot of negativity (eg 'I can't sing a note', 'I can't draw for peanuts') that is self-fulfilling and leads to the people feeling bad about themselves. It's so easy to encourage; I wish we did it automatically instread of criticising and putting others down.

To Tchamala, I did not intend to offer new policies so much as to get readers to think a counter-intuitive thought: that we are all talented and intelligent. If that is accepted, then we can ask what a good education system would look like. That's stage 2. I'm still arguing stage 1. But I'm prepared to have a go at stage 2 soon. First we have to shift the foicus on winning.

To Rosie, I haven't been in a ivory tower for twenty years, and as a vice-chancellor I have been able to help 'gifted' children like your own find intellectual work that keeps them stimulated. They have acute problems, which you know better than I do. But I did say that there could be correct policies for such children without disturbing the central point, that all children have intelligence and capacities, and that it is government's job to find the best way to develop them, in the interests of us (and them) all.

I am sorry ... in reducing the length of my comment I may have removed my solution ... or failed to explain it.

Among the suite of actions I propose for schooling is to reduce the age of compulsory schooling to, say, 13. The elemental fact is that many kids respond poorly to compulsion and we, with our blithe spirits, convince ourselves that it is good for them and that it will 'make' them. The world of work has changed so much and the society has changed yet we are stuck with an inflexible monolith that hides self-interest.

We can do better for them and with the dollars - the risk of course is that governments will withdraw the funds and use them for something else ... my key obective is to return reponsibility to the student and their parents ... I believe that coerced learning is a poor lesson.

aka-Ian

Congratulations, Don, on a comprehensively thoughtful article. In reply to Rosie, I must say that there is more than one type of 'ivory tower'. The other type consists of those, regardless of socio-cultural background, who do not consider an issue from a position of objectivity. While, I agree that education should cater for children such as your son, Don's article was less specific, considering education from a base level for all - including your son. Firstly, as Don pointed out, education is not solely an academic persuit, as per "Gardner's 8½" intellegences, and academic pursuits chiefly cover two of these. Does your child possess quantities of the other 6½? There are ample examples of people lacking in some of the less "academic" intelligences, whose contribution to society is questionable.

Secondly, your "poor" son is somewhat higher up on the equality ladder than many. Assuming that you don't live in a "ivory tower", I am sure that you are aware that there are still exceptionally "bright" children who are not able to enter University because of financial or other restraints.

I, too, am forced to pay University Education costs, and I, too, agree that these should be free - for everyone - not just your son. I come from a background where both my home life and school experiences were abominable due to myriad circumstances involving both a birth defect, bad teachers and an irrational maternal figure forcing me to leave home and school at a very young age. I am now an HD student! The point is that there are many with even worse backgrounds - I was lucky.

Don's article highlighted the general rather than the particular, discussing futuristic directions for evolving educations domain towards creating a more equal and school-ready population, attempting to improve perceptions of children's significant others (i.e. caregivers). Parenting education and parental involvement in schools as well as programs such as the "Volunteer Schools Program" are moving education towards this goal. May the trend continue into the future!

Ah! Now I see. Yes, aka-Ian, you have a point. We assume that more years of education must be better than fewer years, but that won't be the case if the student is browned off or badly situated. Dropping in and dropping out ought to remain a possibility - and in Australia, broadly speaking, that has been the case for a century. Universities will take people in as mature-age students, focussing on what they have done (and can now do) , rather than on their HSC result. As others have pointed out, we develop various capacities as we grow older.

We all do. Even those who do well at school and university have a lot of other capacities to develop, as Basil pointed out.

My starting point in all this is the search for a true basis for equal respect in a democracy of equals. Education is not just school and university - it is (now) available in all sorts of ways at all sorts of ages. I think this is a good thing!

I entirely agree with Don's main point. The idea that some people are 'bright' and everyone else isn't is a conspiracy by those of us who are academically gifted to define that as intelligence to the exclusion of other types of ability. Academic intelligence is not always transferrable outside the formal context in which it is exercised.

To address the problem we need, firstly, to find out at a much earlier stage what each child's potential strengths are. Then we need to guide the family towards educational opportunities (and make sure they are available) that will capitalise on those strengths. This will require a much more diverse educational system than the 'one size fits all' one we have all grown up with.

I’m fully onside with Don’s general thinking, and with some other comments in this forum. Yes Basil, I can see there has been some movement “towards creating a more equal and school-ready population”. But if we want “to improve perceptions of children's significant others (i.e. caregivers)” significantly with respect to Multiple Intelligences – as opposed to IQ Theory – then we must face the huge problem of satisfying the many people who insist on quantitative data and objectivity in assessments and planning.

Gardner’s theory is qualitative: it focuses on different kinds of intelligence. The traditional view, epitomised by IQ theory, is quantitative: it centres on measuring the amount of intelligence of an individual in comparison with other people’s. The prevailing assumption is that if you can’t measure it (preferably along a single continuum) then it is just airy-fairy. This is the thinking behind all the cries for school reports to give marks, position in class, etc. It’s also the essential thrust in government testing programs across all schools in at least some States.

Quantity versus quality – an age-old point of contention. It’s extremely complex and I don’t have any solution as yet. But if a debate about the nature of intelligence can be promoted through all of our society there might well be some progress.

"How do we get there? My advice is by talking it up and encouraging everyone, adult or child, to become a real person with interests and developing talents."

Don I think this is wise advice. One way of developing talent (and locating it) is through healthy competition. I think I see your tension with the idea of too much emphasis on "winning" and school "dux" and I was once very anti-competitiion. Tensions like this plays out in school grounds with winners of school events often being "put in their place" by students of lesser ability in that particular area. A lot of the negativity towards competitiveness has to do with attitude. Bill Bowerman the renowned (you have never heard of him have you?) coach and some of my own life experiences changed my mind. Bowerman is an athletic's coach who taught that it is not about winning but trying to run faster than the others. He frowned upon talented tactical runners who just raced to win. He argued that the athletes goal is to be the best that they can and as a consequence the winner will bring out the best in others. Put simply, competition is really about helping each other do our best. Have you ever noticed how some USA athletes and entertainers who have finished first clap along with the audience when being awarded their prize. It looks as if they are being big-headed yanks and clapping themselves but it is an American tradition to honour the other competitiors and fans who have made their success possible and meaningful. For a student competition can be a good thing and help develop and locate talents.

This brings us to the talented child of Rosie and the likely lad/lass who doesn't "give a s@#t about education an' all that useless crap" and the problem of equality and fairness. How do you convince the likely lad/lass that education is important when the Australian people (their parents) keep voting for people like John Howard who refuses to invest decent amounts in educating even the brainy ones (unless they are rich)?

I'm not opposed to competition, just to an undue emphasis on it. All human life in society seems to me to be a mixture of competition and collaboration, and getting the balance right is important (and hard). Be the best you can - yes. Cheer others when they do well - yes. But do not assume that because you didn't win that you must be a loser. I am about developing for everyone a proper self-confidence that comes from knowing that you really are quite talented and that you can do a lot of things well. Since we are all different, no one else can quite do all the things that we can. The stress is always to be placed on the positive side, never the negative side. But I see so much of the latter about.

How do we convince people? Slowly. So much has to be done through education and mentoring, and that takes time. But the leap in the past fifty years has been stunning. We just need to keep doing it.

Yes we agree. Thanks for your insight.

I know of a religious, sectarian school with a large team of religious education teachers, who themselves failed to complete their secondary education or undertake approved university studies, with religious
education for 2 to 3 hours per day. It is a school with classes from Kindergarten to Year 12. The schools
alumni include medical practitioners, medical specialists, lawyers, engineers , accountants etc. Its Year 12
results place it near the top of the range for the state.
However, not all the schools students are given the chance to complete Year 12. A minority are encouraged
to cease their secular / academic studies at the end of Year 9 and undertake religious studies only. They then
undertake studies at the religious organizations theological colleges in Australia and overseas. These boys are told that there is
no need to undertake professional education / training. Their income will be provided from heaven. They are told that they can make a living through share trading or small business. Boys encouraged to take these religion only classes often have fee relief.
The report "A hand up not a hand out" by the Community Affairs Committee of the Senate of the Parliament Of Australia, in Chapter 7 (see http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/clac_ctte/completed_inquiries/2002-04/poverty/report/c07.htm) states:
"Education is fundamentally important to the life chances of individuals and plays a key role in social and economic mobility from generation to generation.
7.1 Education and training are critical pathways into employment and social participation and a means of escaping poverty.
Education is absolutely crucial in terms of future employment. People with low levels of education are more likely to be unemployed and to be unemployed for longer."