In Australia, the UK and the US, schools seem to be the last bastion of fundamentalist socialism.

The Economist newspaper reports this week that:

QUOTE
THE step is small, but a revolutionary principle lies behind it. Since the beginning of the year, Denver's school district [in Colorado] has been running a new salary system, ProComp, which is implicitly based on a simple notion: that some teachers do their job better than others, and should be paid for it. America's teachers' unions have long considered this idea heresy, but a majority of Denver's teachers backed it after several years of pilot projects convinced them that the right kinds of performance would be measured and rewarded.
END QUOTE

Naturally, the same system should be extended to Australian teachers, and to Education Department bureaucrats - get rid of any who are so incompetent or obsessively ideological that they were promoted in the hope (applying the Peter Principle) that the further from the coal-face they are, the less harm they can do.

Shakespeare's Tempest was written around 1615, more than 100 years after Columbus has discovered the so-called "New World". Even so, while it contains strong political themes, it has nothing to do with colonialism in the 16th century.

Are students really supposed to envisage Caliban and Ariel as African or American natives, and Prospero as a slave trader?

Spare me!

Since the Year Dot 'School" has always been about conformity.
That is what "school learning" is about, to teach students to conform to be like their teachers.
Tell me anyone in this world who has succeeded by not conforming? No one
Tell me anyone who has not succeeded because they conformed. The vast majority.
All our leaders are conformists. All their followers are conformists.
Isn't school a wonderful place.

I agree that the reality is that school and university are both about getting the marks to get the good job. Learning is very much a side issue, despite all the talk that it's the main focus.

I'm also quite wary of all the post-modern nonsense. Personally, I think the past fifty to one hundred years in western thought and culture have been a decline.

I just think the problem with education in English speaking cultures is an overarching problem of willing ignorance, hostility and aspiration to mediocrity. I haven't found this amongst all cultures, however.

In my teacher training and experience in schools (both here and in the U.K.) I haven't really found many people who have much knowledge outside their area of speciality, and this seems problematic to me when we consider that most of the humanities and social sciences require a broad social and historical context. Personally, I found it a little strange when students would ask me why I talked about history or etymology in a psychology class. Losing marks for confusing effect and affect is only the tip of the iceberg. I haven't really met many teachers whom I would consider really well educated people, and I don't think I'd even class myself as one, even though I possibly know a lot more than many.

Also, I think there's a real problem with the knowledge students bring to the classroom. The most striking (if not absurd!) example of this was when, a few years ago, I was teaching a sociology class to sixteen and seventeen year olds in the U.K. These were English, middle class students, so (stupidly!) I assumed a basic level of knowledge. We were talking about Marxism and Communism and I mentioned that the U.K. was a democracy. One girl asked what a democracy was, so I put it to the class. After two minutes of silence, one offered, "is it something to do with voting?" Where do you start with that as your basis? I'm serious when I say that high school is 95% a waste of time.

Shorbe, dead on. I'm reminded of the T.V. host/comedian Jay Leno. He does a bit called Jay Walking. He takes a camera to the streets of Los Angeles, Ca. and asks people questions taken from high school texts on history, science, social studies. The level of ignorance is astounding.

I am also required to teach occasionally, adults. I find it especially difficult as they lack the ability to think critically. It's as if their brains are wired differently. Their level of frustration comes out in childlike behaviors, name calling, sulking, tantrums. Some days I wonder if it's worth it.

We haven't much future as a society if we don't do something to raise the level of ability to learn and think. The desire to learn, the need to relieve ones own ignorance, is an internally generated need, which must be inspired from outside the individual. If I ever figure out how to do that I'll be sure to share that trick with the rest of you.

Shorbe, I agree with you there on the problem of a "culture of mediocrity"... one need look no futher than all the intellectuals deeply discussing the Big Brother phenomenon to see that the priorities are naval gazing rather than educating.

Tutoring students in years 8/9/10 at my old school in Mathematics, I can see that students with excellent mathematic knowledge are being held back from higher level mathematics by a lack of basic understandings of timetables, resorting to the calculator for even the most basic of sums. Tutoring in English, I can see that basic spelling, grammar and ability to learn off by heart plague intelligent students. The amount of times I have crossed out "should of" rather than "should have" is probably something you can relate to, Shorbe. Simply, if a student can learn poems by heart at a young age, the confidence and self-assuredness that arises - as well as a strengthened memory - will set them in good stead. It also makes literature more than just a game with theories, and makes it a personal and profound thing, as something learnt by heart is something taken to heart.

It is true that literature makes you think, and it is true that "literature affects people, and effects thought" (the mnemonic given me by a year 7 English teacher to teach me the different between affect and effect). That doesn't mean that you teach people how to think, and teach people how it affects other people. You teach the literature, and it does that itself. Otherwise, you cheapen it.

Patty: I honestly wonder what benefit (other than providing free baby sitting) high school provides to most people and society. Most high school graduates can barely write an intelligible sentence, have a very narrow vocabulary and poor grammar (either spoken or written), have no understanding or love for literature, have little to no knowledge of the humanities in general or of national or international events, likewise for an understanding of our political institutions and processes, have opinions on scientific matters that are blatantly wrong, function mathematically (only with the aid of a calculator) at or below grade six level, can't speak another language, cannot play a musical instrument or express themselves adequately artistically in other ways (let alone have any knowledge of the histories of such disciplines), and can barely string together a valid argument (let alone have any idea about the history of thought).

I think we are indeed heading towards dark times. I believe it's important to have education at a personal or spiritual (in a religious or non-religious sense) level, as well as civic. However, it's also necessary economically. Clearly, the future for the developed world lies in a skilled and educated economy, yet what basis have we for one? How long will it be until Asians come to their southern third world neighbour for cheap holidays and shopping?

DFXK: I'm sure we could compare very, very long lists. I agree entirely. Learning by heart provides the foundation for other things. Bought instead of brought is my current pet peeve.

When I did my dip. Ed. I actually tutored some future primary teachers in grade six level mathematics, which was a bit of a worry...

To be pedantic, shouldn't "the amount of times" be "the number of times"? Presumably, you would (if you could remember) measure such times as a precise quantity. Amount versus number is another of my pet peeves.