"Academics in their ivory towers are far removed from classroom reality" yes lets not listen to Kev.

Could someone please remind Mr Donnelly that we are now in the 21st Century? Does he seriously expect us to communicate with kids using references from the KJV?

Once again, genuine conservatives find themselves being embarrassed by pseudo-conservative rhetoric that attacks anything deemed 'politically correct' for the sake of supporting some allegedly macho 'politically erect' set of policies.

Our academics are paid off to shut their mouths and maintain a apolitical position.

The academic system and the education of it, is riddle with unknown agendas and their associated executive.

Remember money and power are in control. Australia is only a small country and it sticks out like canine testicles.

Even China have realised that the division between rich and poor since it has opened to western trade is having an effect on the peasants which is moving away from their communist belief of anti-capitolism.

At least the Chinese have the courtesy of calling their people peasants whereas our we are fooled by our label of citizen.

It has been proved that the students of today know less than what the students knew 30 years ago.

Now isn't that telling you something? Think about it?

Suebdootwo - "It has been proved that the students of today know less than what the students knew 30 years ago."
I am not convinced - please could you provide a reference.

In terms of measuring student abilities - I think that we need to look at absolute student numbers as well.

It is conceivable that AU is

a) educating a larger number of people to a higher level
(as measured by years-of-learning)
AND b) experiencing a lower level of ability in graduates overall
AND c) still increasing the number of "high ability" researchers

Without meaning to sound elitist at all - as University education becomes more mainstream, one might reasonably expect average ability of graduates to drop.

After all - if you look at some of those other countries, only a very small percentage of their population get into University. These are usually the "cream of the cream" academically speaking - plus a sprinkling of financially fortunate but less able colleagues.

Having said all that... I agree - some research topics sound pointless. At the end of it all, if I was hiring a post-grad I would look closely at their research topic and maybe even peruse the thesis.

Where can one start with another ridiculous article by Kevin Donnelly? As I rhetorically asked in my blog petaldavid.blogspot.com , does he have an "off" button?!?!?

"it should be obvious that many of the projects are more about political correctness than helping teachers."

No explanation whatsoever as to what he actually means. Doesn't Kev realise that the very term "political correctness" is actually kind of old-fashioned now?

"Ignored is the often violent and nihilistic nature of hip-hop music and the way it further segregates society."

Rather than sounding like the progressive thinker he fancies himself to be, KD just sounds like a cranky old man. I don't think this fact is "ignored", Kevin - to the contrary, the (largely conservative) media harps on about this aspect of hip hop music ALL THE TIME.

"Travelling through outback communities such as Ernabella, in South Australia, and seeing the destructive impact of imported hip-hop music on Indigenous culture should also be cause for alarm."

All of a sudden destruction of indigenous culture is "cause for alarm"? What happened to the "black armband" view of history? Weren't Kevin and his crew fond of sneering at the Black Arm Bandits? And HOW has hip hop music managed to do this?

"an added weakness in many of the ARC-funded education projects is that they are inspired and managed by academics far removed from the realities of the classroom."

I think that Dr Donnelly's words reach a wider audience than these academics - how far removed is HE from the "realities of the classroom"?

"One reason overseas students do so well is that there is a greater reliance on rote learning and memorisation."

And a lesser reliance on thinking.

"researchers and academics should understand that public funds are not inexhaustible and that such funding must be justifiable."

However, if you are running a private school you can just get the money and not have to justify anything because we "just know" you're doing it right, anyway!!

Wake Up,

Those very academics in their ivory towers were given the opportunity by having parents who could afford to send them, adequately provision them, and allow them to study.

This day and age you can get to uni, but you are forced to work thus your study time waivers, your fatigue is greater and you are flat out trying to feed yourself, have some social time, study and attend uni.

Dont kid yourself, we have smart and savvy people there moreso than in the past, as these kids have the choice to study that many did not in the past due to financial burdens, but these days they are forced to work, just pass the grade ('p's get degrees, many say) yet this has no reflection on intellect or ability.

Academics in their 40's and 50's have been sheltered all their lives. They dont recognise the difference between importnat and trivial studies and many view them in the same light.

They are intelligent people, no doubt about it, but i feel we will see the disintegration of academia in this society as private enterprise will mean that academics are hired by default, by being the 'last students standing', and by being the studnets who are not ready to enter the real world as they are comfortable in their university bubble, most also adequately provisioned.

No need for any further research into education issues - Kevin has the answer to every problem, just ask him and he will put out another paper.

I am with Realist on this one, his arguement reeks of logic and common sense {a 20TH Century concept}.

sajo,
Of course, if you were intending to discover the facts on any subject, you would ask Billy Blogs down the road, who didn't finish Gr9, not an acedemic, who went through Uni, got a degree, wouldn't you. I mean when I get sick I ask my neighbour that she thinks is wrong, I would never ask a doctor. Your post seems to come from the planet Zircon, it may make sense to some poor misguided soul, but not to me. I still live in Realist's world, of logic and common sense. We may not always agree on everything, however I find great knowledge in this place, from people such as Realist, David Boaz, sometimes even Col Rouge has something sensible to say. For you, I am still waiting.

Shonga - a very strange response to a simple request - have you got the wrong poster? If not then we are obviously are on different planets!

>I am with Realist on this one, his arguement reeks of logic and common sense {a 20TH Century concept}.

Reeks, certainly. Reeks of sterotypes, cliches, and non-sequiturs. It's just a rant against research titles he doesn't like the sound of. Donnelly's arguments are based on the construction of an imagined idealized past which has been corrupted by what he thinks is post-modernism or political correctness. But what was this past? When the boys did maths and science and the girls did home-ec?

It is useful to have a gadfly such as Kev - even though some of us are getting weary of his constant carping of the efforts of teachers and teacher educators. But let us be positive. If not research on those esoteric-sounding topics then what? I imagine that a research project surveying what practioners think should be researched would be highly valued if done well. What do education deans, teacher educators, teachers, and parents think we need to know, what among these topics is viable in terms of rigorous research, funding available, and time lines that fit into a researcher's career?

There seems to be so much mudslinging at intellect these days especially towards social studies, makes one wonder about even the dinkum native intelligence of most of these bods.

This online contributor left school at the beginning of the Great Depression to drive a wagon team, even though the student's marks according to a school inspector warranted a scholarship. In those days helping to hang onto the family farm was more important than studious intellect.

Having been particularly pleased to beat amart-arse college kids during WW2 in army education gave one incentive later to study history and international relations during retirement from the farm, graduating from Curtin University with Honours in the same topic, and given special credit from an American tutor for insightly essays.

The above case in point, is certainly not the only case, especially in the bush, and maybe it is better to grow up the tough way, without early education as many had to do during the Great Depression. Maybe such a beginning even driving a wagon team, makes one learn to think more deeply, not so much making international relations as a career with a well paid retirement, and feeling posh that they have done their bit, but to be ready to analyse and pray more in a non-religous reasoning way till their dying day with no reward, to pray that the people running our world, especially right at present, are doing it for the true good of the people of this world, rather than for the good of themselves

"Indigenising" hip-hop (LOL)! Now heres an idea, as unpopular as it might seem, how about helping ALL children to learn how to read,write and spell effectively. Until this is solved how about we consign hip-hop studies to the toilet?

Kevin,

if you don't like the projects that people are doing, then your real complaint should be with the ARC. As I'm sure you are probably aware, the ARC grant system works not unlike a Lotto, and even when you do win the prize at it never funds you long enough to do decent longitudinal studies that would be of great worth in education. Nor does it give you the type of money needed -- grants are always cut back. It isn't really surprising then that people propose projects that can be done in a timely and quickly manner that lead to some output that can be written within the limited time of the grant. This is just the way the grant system works.

I also doubt that doing yet more academic bashing is really a productive thing. As you might know, the average level B academic earns only slightly more than the average wage. Yet they are supposed to be good at science, teaching, marketing, computing, and administration. The conditions in Australian universities are also quite frankly extremely poor. Thanks to years of trading off pay rises for benefits, almost everywhere lacks all manner of support staff and the infrastructure is falling to pieces. If you think you can create a better university system and find the staff needed for the pay on offer, then I am sure everyone would love to hear it. Indeed, even if you could find the staff needed to replace the large number that are going to retire in the next 10 years, that would be a great accomplishment also. As the idiom goes, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Poor quality projects and education are just a by-product of this.

We cannot have learning in our schools without discipline or respect.In the past some schools went overboard with discipline and rightly there was a reaction against this,but now there is almost no consequences for bad behaviour.

Just recently I was speaking to a yr 10 boy who couldn't handle the discipline of his old catholic school.Casually I asked him what his new Public High School was like.Well he told me how cool the school was because the students could call their teachers by the first name and they could swear at their teachers and the teachers swore back at the students.Work was optional.Now this is not a school in the western suburbs of Sydney.No wonder parents have voted with their feet and fled the Public system.

It seems that many teachers in our Public system have become passive minders because our legal system has made it almost impossible to discipline.Many of our teachers are only there to collect the money and anticipate the the holidays.

Arjay, do you KNOW any teachers? There are several public school teachers in my family and in my group of friends, and none of them are just 'waiting for their holidays'- they are very dedicated and usually very over-worked.

Back to Mr Donnelly- it seems like another month, another whine on OLO about how terrible teachers and schools and education generally are these days, and how he'd do it all so much better. Constant Repetition.

Keep going Kevin, there are still far too many people saying that our naked academics are wearing beautiful clothes.
One day even the Australian Research Council might get embarassed.
Alternatively we could hope that our cowardly Education Minister insists on putting some people with common sense in there.
The Council of Deans won't be happy until everyone in Australia is attending University for the whole of their working lives.
I do agree with them about research on professional education, though.
How about some cost/benefit analysis?
I am sure that would demonstrate that we have far more academics than are useful.

As someone who recently emerged from the purgatory that is the New South Welsh HSC, I can do naught but agree with Dr Donnelly. For me, I have very few complaints about my education until the tentacles of the Board of Studies began to influence it. This occured not only in my finals two years - as its pervasive influence was felt earlier due to the necessity on training students in answering questions in a particular way - but also in the influence it had on some of my teachers, or some of the curriculi with which we had to deal. Fortunately, my education was largely a traditional one: traditional disciplines, rote learning, and drilling the basics until etched permanently into our hearts and minds.

Next to every single complaint I do have stems from one of three problems: political correctness (I know it's unfashionable to use this word but there is no other term), teaching methods based around motherhood statements like "facilitating individual learning", and so-called 'Critical Theory'. For me, it took two years of pedantic marking by my senior English teacher and then rote learning in my own time to undo the damage of having an English teacher not give marks for spelling and punctuation earlier. For a strong student, to have a gap in one's knowledge as large as how to properly spell the English language is a problem in any book. I learnt more about spelling English through Latin and Greek than through English.

The crisis is most deep in the education of boys, and the trend, at least in Sydney's non-selective schools, is very clear: schools with strict discipline, traditional methods, male teachers and mandated sport do better. Not only are politically correct doctrines simply incompatible with good education, their very existence is demoralising, especially for a boy. To have to read the turgid, meaningless prose mandated by the BOS was simply oppressive. These are problems not caused by a lack of money, but rather a mode of educating to which girls respond better than boys, though girls' response to it is still relatively poor.

Now, tutoring students of my Alma Mater who are learning under teachers and curriculi far more influenced by the BOS, I can see a futher weakening in what I would denote areas of concern. Basic problems with addition and multiplication hold backs students with the nous to grapple with complex maths (which, fortunately, still exists in the 4 unit course in NSW). A lack of exposure to the masters of English - especially Australian English - has lead not only to poor spelling and grammar, but also a disconnection from the traditions of European thought and art... and all this to study Aboriginal hip-hop, chocolate bar wrappers, and teen magazines and reflect them through the lense of defunct Theory.

This is not conservative ideology, nor is this "teacher-bashing". Young teachers will admit that they are not ready for teaching because they cannot discipline their students and use methods which are just common sense, and many of those with the experience feel constrained and hindered by "innovative" curriculi. This is a simple recognition of the influence of ideology and petty fashion on education, and how it has caused enormous gaps for all students, with the worst results amongst boys and weaker students irrespective of sex.

To many it seems that Dr Donnelly's articles simple harp on about his pet hate, and it seems that my responses to his articles can be accused of the same offence. To those, know that there are real, tangible results of these changes, I and they are results to which I can testify, and to which most teachers would testify. The simple fact is that there is a crisis in education, a crisis which reveals itself more in the education of boys than of girls due to the nature of the cause of the crisis. Simply put, the experiment with education has to be wound back where it has caused problems, and a failure to do anything will be a failure of the current generation.

"Young teachers will admit that they are not ready for teaching because they cannot discipline their students and use methods which are just common sense"

Which methods would those be? Corporal punishment? Here we go again ...

I was fortunate to be one of those teachers (I don't teach now) who had the benefit of being a student DURING the abolition of corporal punishment. I can tell you it was a huge relief to know that they "couldn't hit us now". As a teacher I found it a doddle, once I'd learned the various "tricks" - in fact I gave a few seminars on behaviour management shortly before I got my new job.

I hope sincerely that you are not referring to corporal punishment as a method which is "common sense", because it's not.

Well Laurie,I know one ex teacher[being myself] and many others who used to teach in the western suburbs of Sydney in the 1980's.At some schools behaviour was really feral then and from what I have gleened since ,they cannot get normal humans to teach in some of those schools now.A school principal back in 1996 in the last two years of her internment had to have a security guard escort her to and from her car at a primary school in Sydney's west.We don't hear about this feral activity since Govts cover it up by penalising the dobbers.

I've known teachers to have every second Monday off because they were too hung over to attend work.Many now just use all their sick leave and when that runs out,go out on workers comp because of stress.Public servants have three times the rate of claims in workers comp as compared to private enterprise,and it is the private system that generates the taxes for our NSW State Govt to exist.Is it any wonder that NSW has the lowest growth rates in Australia!

Workers Comp is indemnified by the NSW Govt and currently it is $3 billion in the red.Private enterprise is now footing the bill in the form of increased premiums.When a claim is made your premium increases over three yrs to equal the amount of the payout.Is it any wonder that many businesses in NSW are going into liquidation?

It is time to make the Public Service in all it's forms,more accountable.

As a Govt HS teacher of 14 years, I can only agree with Kevin Donnelly.
Why is it my students have not been taught how to read and spell? Why don't my High School students know basic mathematics?
When academics at the top end of education adopt a "wholistic" approach, we may be able to move away from purely left wing feminist revisionism which dominates teacher training.
Until then I guess I'll have to somehow manage my classroom where students know more about butterfly gardens than times tables ...