This education thing needs to be seen in the context of the revolution that Australia is undergoing. Until the advent of the Whitlam goverenment, Australia clearly understood who it was.
Since then Australia has been de-industrialised. Thus the secondary eduaction system has too the greater extent been acting as a detention centre : amusing a disparate audience to keep the same off the streets. The second movement in Australia is multiculturalism which is a right-wing policy - never mind the bleatings that Pauline Hanson and her One Nation were too grotesquely right wing for credibility's sake. Nevertheless multiculturalism holds and will hold Australia in an identity flux until who knows when.
Now the meat in the sandwich is education curricula and until Australia becomes mature again - through another Gallipoli? - education curricula will continue to be debated apparently aimlessly and without end.

Poor old Julie Bishop, with interventions from Dr. Nelson, she feels threatened, so do what any blue blood would do, take it out on the peasants.

Good old teacher-bashing seems to be raising its ugly head as ever.
Today's teachers have to contend with all the issues of multiculturalism, the "history wars", an apparent general decline in English grammar, and the poor rewards and status of their position, relative to other professions.
They also have to contend with the new media, and the breath-taking speed of change in the way kids are using the Net mobile phones with text-message language
Instead of drumming in the "facts" in a traditional way, today's education is more about encouraging kids to THINK, to use and evaluate a variety of sources of information, and ways to communicate.
Teachers are also expected to function as defacto social workers, in all the challenges and problems confronting today's young people.
The idea of reforming education, and a centralised curriculum from Canberra sounds Orwellian - are teachers going to have to spout some orthodoxy from the Howard government, and stay off contentious topics? Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.net

Two of the above, have it wrong. Well wrong.

The problem with the Left today is that they see it as their appointed and annointed duty to bash the Liberals. Even unto death.

They off course, dont have that mandate, except in the States. But, like the above examples, all Marx/Union/Leftys beleive that everything in life is/should be politicised. Probly in time, as the omnipotent Autocratic Council of Totalitarian Underdogs grows under state encumbancy, we will see child politics. We already see it now in schools, althought it is disguised as bullying. In Left/Labor/union terms it is the 'bring back the biff' scenario. A sort of nazi bully tactic which Bonhoffer tried to warn the world about.

Did you know that in a certain region, there was a left-wing outfit residing in town that used ferals and druggies to access school kiddies? These animals would go around passing out leaflet propaganda, and other elicit stuff. One was even rumoured to be pedaphile. And the parents had a devil of a time trying to be rid of them; and the pious State gov didnt do a thing. Why, because they were running under 'Arts' grants funded by the State.

Howzat!

Growing up, I moved around a lot, so I ended up going to school in 3 different states (and 1 year overseas). In SOSE classes I was very rarely taught facts (I had to learn those of my own accord), but I was always asked to express my opinion.
May I put it to the education establishment, that to have an opinion, one should be aware of the facts on which that opinion is based?
So I advocate cold hard fact teaching for the majority of education (say K-9), and then in 10-12 students should be asked to provide, clear, intelligent insights into what they have spent the first 10 years learning.
For example, it is ridiculous asking a 13 year old what her opinion of the Stolen Generation is if she has never read unbiased and/or first hand accounts of that period of Australian history.

I did my high school education in NSW, and finished my five years in the last year of the Leaving Certificate. What followed was the six year Wyndham Scheme which led to the Higher School Certificate. That was, in NSW at least, the beginning of the decline in standards. Since I did my university part time I was a few years down the track in classes with Wyndham Scheme products, and it became apparent to me even then how little advanced material they had learnt in science and mathematics.

However I believe there are substantial advantages in the way education is presently delivered. I have a daughter who is in her second year at Melbourne University, and doing very well. She is, I believe, one of a very small percentage of the population for whom the present educational method is very well suited. She has a great thirst for knowledge, so perhaps she would have done well under any system; but I suspect under the more rigid system I was a part of she would have done less well.

My point is that the people who support the present educational methodology do themselves have a point. But the system is only better for a small percentage of very bright students who are blessed with inquiring minds - I would guess this to be about 5% of the population. I am fortunate, because as I have said my daughter is in this small group. The problem is that the vast bulk of the population are worse of under the present ideology, and that is why it should be changed.

Dear oh dear Gadget. Such venom against the poor old "Lefties." Such hatred leves me to wonder which of the religious cults you belong to? Exclusive Brethern, Assembly of God or maybe the Hillsong Church?
The problem with education these days is simple. Total lack of community respect for those that attempt to educate our young. Learning maths for example, is to many young students a slow and very boring process. In fact, many students find the whole school system a complete waste of their "precious" time. To learn means you have to concentrate, but that's impossible when you have too many toys to distract attention away from the teachers, such as malls to hang out in, mobile phones to play with, gameboys, x-boxes...the list goes on and the teachers are powerless to do anything about it. They can't lift a hand against a child now or some do-gooder parent will be pursuing litigation. I think Gadget, what we need is to bring back a "bit of biff" in schools. Nothing like the fear we knew as kids to make you sit up and pay attention. I once learned a whole new song in just one hour, the alternative being beaten by an old nun with a specially hand made leather "gat." Time to ignore the do-gooders in our spoiled society and bring back the sound proof Head Masters/Mistreses room. Defiant child goes in, humble child (willing to learn) comes out. The first do-gooder to whinge about it gets the same treatment in a very public place. Only then can we get back to the three basics...reading, writing and arithmetic.

Wildcat,
In the good old days we peasents were seen and not heard, the blue bloods reigned supreme. Things have changed ever so slightly, we are still on starvation wages, however thanks to the brave men who stood under the tree of knowledge and defied their "masters" and the A.C.T.U was born, we had a voice at last. Gadget would like to silence us permanently, and I would like to return to the 1930's when we waited for the "evil" bosses and gave them a touch up, mind you there were some great bosses, Gadget would not recognise one though, not made of the right fibre.

Never, ever, ever confuse education with training. Education is the equipping of young people with skills so that they are still learning when they are old people. Training is what many teachers have done and continue to do to this day – show them how to do it and then make them do it over and over. Education is difficult and demanding. Training is much easier and favoured by the lazy. It is not the educators who have failed our kids but the trainers. And no wonder the educational authorities are asking questions! How many many many millions have been squandered in the name of education? The public has been duped! We paid for our kids to be educated but the arrogance and laziness of the trainers won out. While the rest of the world embraces education we are been held back by the twisted elitism of those who gauge their success by how well they have trained someone to sit for an exam.

The sky is falling! We’re only ranked fourth for literacy, seventh for science and ninth for maths in the entire world (OECD, 2003). As Australians, shouldn’t we come first in everything, like we do in the soccer, the cricket, the rugby?…oh, hang on a minute…

The fact is, Australians perform far better in the educational stakes than we do in sport…only a few nations play our favourite sports, and we can’t even come first in them most of the time. But in the whole developed world, we’re consistently in the top 5 or 10 for every subject.

James Ridd’s claim about declining maths standards in years 11 and 12 is specious, because in this generation 75% of students go on to year 11, whereas 30 years ago, it was less than 30%. So all those decades-old maths results that everybody likes to dust off to make up their chicken-little stories were drawn from the top 30% of academic high-fliers in generations past. These days, every Tom, Dick and Jane goes on to year 11 and since, by definition, 75% of the population cannot be exceptional, then the results we are getting are only to be expected.

In the postwar years, the poor, the ill-disciplined, the disabled and the just plain slow were simply excluded from the system. These days we strive mightily to educate everybody. Nevertheless, even though we’re no longer drawing our HSC students from the top third of the population as we used to, Australia still ranks in the top 10 in the world, which is a fantastic achievement.

So retired teachers like James Ridd and Kevin Donnelly should stop snarling and sniping from their armchairs and recognise that these days teachers are educating kids that, in generations past, were considered to be ineducable – and getting world-class results.

Teachers should get medals for working in a comprehensive system that means they have to deal with every single kid that comes their way. Instead, all they get is buckets of bile from retired teachers who are safely out of the firing line. Thanks for nothing, James Ridd.

The first OLO thesis this morning immediately gets one thinking about sleazy political points.

1. Surely every Aussie Sid and Sal should be questioning the right for a democratic government to try and alter the substance of a syllabus on our Australian history.

2, It is blatantly political, especially with the Iraq controversy alone having got most of our public fed up with the increasing US military disorder there, thus wanting to bring our troops home.

The long-running argument on Iraq, which unfortunately has sucked in terrorism as well, has got us wondering whether our leaders really know what they are doing? Meaning that following America is like the blind leading the blind - especially as it looks like with Blair near gone, Britannia is on tyhe way out. Indeed, we might wonder with things in such a mess, what will happen in the long run to Johnny Howard?

Further, before we get on about the weak opposition, including minor left-wing parties like the Greens and Democrats, for the Howard government to have stayed in so long, we could possibly be now regarded by Howard as in a wartime situation and forced to honour that unipolar order from the White House above - if you are not with us you are against us.

However, as Howard uses the “I” so much rather than the partisan “we” in his speeches, we could suggest he is imagining himself as a Churchill, or maybe even a George WB.

As if destiny is trying to make it even more tough for John Howard, in the West Australian Opinion column today, Brian Toohey edits the section with the heading - Rudd Gambles with God Talk.

Toohey begins by suggesting that a 5000 word essay of
Kevin Rudd's in the October issue of the Monthly Magazine could create risks for his future career.

Be that as it may, as an ardent philosophical researcher myself was much more interested in what Mr Toohey said in the next paragraph

Thanks, Mercurius. You said much of what I might have said. My father, a maths teacher,used to respond, when I proposed one or other addition to the syllabus, either, 'There are only so many hours in the school day', or 'What are you proposing to take out?' My guess is that today's young people are much better rounded and educated than my generation was, and that's because about 50 per cent of them will go to university and have done what is necessary to get there, compared to the 2 per cent in the early 1950s. And we were not the brightest of our cohort, only the ones whose parents thought that completing high school was absolutely imnportant, despite the easy availability of jobs. The world is such a different place!

Bushbred Part Two

It says Mr Howard’s dinner speech marking the 50th Anniversary of Quadrant Magazine poses few risks for his position because of three people who long ago attracted his admiration for their moral clarity.- Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II.

Toohey was possibly himself confused because he did not line up Mr Howard’s three historicl favourites properly. But choosing Pope John first, Toohey’s depiction of John Paul’s character, was simply more like a good crack at the character of Howard.

Further it seems that John Paul would never have been an admirer of John Howard seeing that he was not only against the 2003 war on Iraq, which Howard still argues was a moral cause, but also he was a stern critic of the robust form of capitalism espoused by both Reagan and Thatcher.

It is also interesting historically how much Margaret Thatcher virtually despised Nelson Mandela, and also how Ronald Reagan was also a supporter of the South African white Supremists.

Reagan called such support “constructive Engagement” similar to his US support of Saddam Hussein when Iraq attacked Iran in 1981.

It is interesting that so many Humanities’ tutors tell students to give both credit and criticism where they are due. So it is also understandable to hear them say that John Howard has the political knack but not a good knowledge of history.

Going by the above, maybe Johnny Howard just suffers from a poor memory.

George C, Mandurah - WA

Gadget, you are right on the money.

Wildcat, you sound like you're a teacher or have a deeper insight into day to day teaching in secondary schools than most others. Taking some of your arguments -

"Total lack of community respect for those that attempt to educate our young." The reason for this is that most public school teachers are doing a woefully bad job of it. I speak from personal experience as a father.

And, "In fact, many students find the whole school system a complete waste of their 'precious' time. To learn means you have to concentrate, but that's impossible when you have too many toys to distract attention away from the teachers..." Yeah right! So teachers have competition to grab the learner's attention - big deal. Good teachers use their personalities to infect their students with enthusiasm. Anecdotes, jokes, humour, multimedia, illustration and exciting dialogue are basic tools in a good educator's toolbox.

If teachers are having trouble generating interest in schools, the chances are that the teacher is boring. Basic principles - if a student is demonstrating apathy, educators must firstly assume they're at fault and analyse themselves and their methods, then modify and experiment.

Teaching is about showmanship and salesmanship. Timing is essential, but at all costs, the show must be entertaining and the message of the sale (subject) must get through. The teacher must entertain and infect the student with his/her own passion for the subject. If the teacher is dispassionate, so too will be the learner.

You won't need to lift a hand to a student or fear litigation if your show is entertaining. Think about it. In public schools today it's mostly the singer and not the song that's the problem.

Although, second thoughts, the lefty song in public schools today really isn't worth listening to. That's why I pulled my kids out of public school. So it ends up being both the singer AND the song. Public school teachers = a boring act. You guys need new talent and new material and it's about time you had new management too!

John,

QLD is not alone. I remembered this story from 3 years ago ( http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/04/1067708212432.html?from=storyrhs ) Unfortunately, although the SMH is too politically correct to say it, it has much to do with the social engineers who were unhappy with the way girls were comparing with boys. Girls had been out performing boys in many disciplines but not in the hard sciences. So our gallant educationalists did the only sensible thing - they changed the rules making physics more like a social science so girls could do better.

One quote:
"The head of physics at the University of UNSW, John Storey, said the HSC syllabus, for which exams were first held last year, was an "interesting subject - but it's not physics"."

For those people who lament the decline in the status of teaching I can only suggest the first step in haling this decline might be for teachers to spend less time being social activists/advocates and more time teaching what parents (ie society) wants them to teach.

Perhaps the problem is that all the people who know how to run the country are driving taxis, and all the people who know how to run the education system are too busy posting on OLO...

That's an interesting suggestion eet that teachers just teach what parents want them to teach. Which parents? Christian Bretheren parents? The ferals up at Murwillambah? The good burghers of the lower north shore? All their kids are at our schools. We have to teach all of them. Or by "parents", did you just mean "me"?

How would it work if we applied your statement to that physicist you admire - John Storey - what if he just taught the physics that parents wanted him to teach? Or does being a university professor give him some special status that doesn't apply to high school teachers, who can be kicked around at will?

I've got an idea, why don't teachers teach what is suggested from the corpus of thousands of international and Australian articles in peer-reviewed literature, the results of conference papers; and then engage in rigourous and ongoing curriculum reform in response to years of data and feedback about the existing curriculum, as implemented, gathered from teachers, parents and students.

Oh wait, we're already doing that.

Dear Ms Wilcat, & Shonga.

A: Mind not my allegiances, for they are with you.

B: You might have better said I am not of your 'left fibre'.

The overheads of delivering education are too high. There are too many administrators and too few teachers delivering the services to students. Because there are too many administrators, they do things that get in the road of delivering the services.

As far as education is concerned, the federal government is all care and no responsibility.

I am aware of the goals and policy of the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training, however in fact it produces very little apart from brochures. If the department were disbanded tomorrow things would probably operate a bit better. That is as much an indictment of our system of government as anything else.

As regards the State education departments, I cannot see any reason why a small nation like Australia has as many curriculums and curriculum development units as there are States and Territories. Where is the efficiency in each jurisdiction reinventing the wheel, unless you are one of the senior educational administrators who need a job that is?

As a parent with several children now in secondary education, I have seen first hand some of the PC bumph that masquerades as educational policy and the 'busywork' invented by educational administrators that claims hours of teachers' time each week.

I have also witnessed the loss of many fine male teachers and the erosion of the confidence and motivation of new teachers, who came to teach but were quickly exhausted by the petty politics that result from too many administrators at school and departmental level.

I think it is nonsense that continual change is required to curriculums and teaching methods at primary and secondary levels to keep up to date. We should be concentrating on fundamentals and that is not as simple as just teaching the 'three Rs'.

Our first priority should be to return resources to the sharp end - more teachers and better pay. At the same time we should very open about the overhead management costs because that is where the economies should be found.

Maximus,
I half agree with you public schools do need more resources, multi-media would be a great help as a prop for some teachers. Sadly the percentages are not good for education with the federal education budget disproportionately distributed. Approx 70% of students attend public schools, federal education budget appropriates them 30% of the funding, while on the other hand the approx 30% of private school students attract approx 70% of Julie Bishop's budget, even you Maximus can see how egaletairian in nature this formula is surely.

Overestimating personal qualities is not synonymous to being really IT.

What sort of education resulted in importing a professional workforce from an appropriate biological backgrounds

Mercurius,

I wasn't talking about Christian Brethren or ferals up at Murwillambah. However, if we're going to play stereotypes, I wasn't talking about the Chardonnay socialists and latte sippers who have seized control of the educational bureaucracy either.

You needn’t believe me though. Look at the statistics and you’ll find parents are voting with their feet. They’re leaving a public system full of apparatchiks who believe their job is to foist a politically correct worldview on children. A system run by people with a smug sense of moral superiority, stupefied by the ignorance of the masses. And the masses just don’t get it when it comes to multiculturalism, refugees, immigration, and the Aboriginal holocaust. God helps us, some of them even vote liberal! Can you imagine it?

Not that I would suggest someone who calls himself after Mercury, the messenger of the Gods could come across as smug.

Your point about peer reviewed educational literature is interesting. Let me be blunt: peer reviewed garbology is still garbology; while a Professor of Physics at a first tier university is still a Professor of Physics at a first tier university. I know it seems hard to believe, but lots of people think like me, and to discount them all as religious fanatics or drugged out hippies betrays much more about you than it about me or them.

Glad to see eet isn't indulging in stereotypes about the "apparatchiks who believe their job is to foist a politically correct worldview on children". I've met and worked with dozens of these "apparatchiks" and they don't believe any such thing. They're honest hard-working professionals who have a mortgage and kids and try to make ends meet, just like the parents of the kids they teach.

And glad to see eet hasn't a shred of smugness in dismissing the collective works of tens of thousands of internationally accredited education doctorates as "garbology".

And 'Mercurius' is not a reference to the Roman god Mercury. It has other, more recent uses.

Nor did I suggest people who think like eet are religious fanatics or drugged out hippies. To paraphrase Hazlitt, Eet's slowness to understand makes him/her quick to misrepresent.

I was merely making the fairly uncontroversial point that a public curriculum has to cater for families from all walks of life. A public system will of necessity represent a compromise and a diversity of views. This is the nature of public life.

But if you want your kids to grow up in a little cocoon of like-mindedness, then by all means "vote with your feet" and go private.

Of course, there's nothing 'politically correct' about private schools which promise that "if you send your boy here, we promise he'll grow up to be exactly like you" and "at <college>, we turn out a very uniform quality of girl." These are verbatim quotes to my family from principals of two private schools you HAVE head of. Anybody else feel sick?

Mercurius,

Wrote, “Anybody else feel sick?”

I’ve upset you now. Was it the quip about liberal voters?

I noticed you used the third person. When you debate someone in online forums feel free to address him or her directly. I mean even if we disagree, we’re unlikely to come to blows. But maybe I wasn’t your intended audience after all?

In any case, I take back the remark about you being smug; you’re smug and conceited.

In Queensland the argument about falling standards, particularly in Maths, has picked up a great deal of momentum since there has been an expectation that teachers provide students with non-exam types of assessment. It was a simple thing to prime students pre-exam. Even the harder “process” type questions that were designed to separate the better students from the pack were often only slightly different from questions practiced in class. Non-exam assessment brings up questions about “Authorship of Tasks”. This is a teacher responsibility.

The appalling bias shown by the panels entrusted to ensure quality of student work has reduced the status of non-exam assessment to little more than compliance exercises. These assessment items are treated with scorn by many a Maths panellist.

Consider the amount of conversation, assistance, guidance and drafting that is required to be awarded a university degree. Many of those who obtain these degrees then insist that their students sit exams as the major form of assessment. “How else can we ensure high standards?”

I teach English, history and geography, three of the subjects referred to in John Ridd's article. I do so in Victoria, and his account of modern education simply does no match my experience.

Victoria has outcomes-based education, thankfully not the WA version. Some stated outcomes are clear; other are not - but basing an education system on outcomes seems to me to make obvious sense. Victoria has dumped the abomination of SOSE (introduced by the Liberal Party here) and restored the traditional disciplines of history and geography.

Despite Professor Lidstone's comments, I teach the fundamentals of geography, such as the formation of mountains and the rainfall cycle.

I teach both facts and themes in history - ancient civilisations, the feudal system, the gold rush, World War One, World War Two.

I teach grammar, punctuation, comprehension and essay-writing in English.

The new Victorian reporting system being phased in tells parents the actual level of achievement of their children: if your child in Year 8 is achieving a Year 6 standard, the report will say so.

The picture painted of a giant left-wing conspiracy running education is false. The system is far from perfect. There is some trendy rubbish in it - some from the Left, but just as much from the Right - but the system simply is not the disaster painted by the critics.

eet, I haven't addressed you directly until now because you seem incapable of directly addressing any of my points. Instead, you misrepresent my remarks and (smugly, conceitedly) assume you know what I'm thinking and go off on some pre-determined (stereotypical) tangent/rant.

I don't speculate on who you are or what you believe, as I have no evidence with which to do so.

You thought I felt "sick" or upset because of your remarks. Not the case. It was the two principals' respective remarks that made me feel sick, because I happen to believe any schools' job is to do more than turn out a batch of "mini-me" kids. I also feel sick because I visited a private school where the deputy showed me around for 45 minutes and talked the entire time about the school buildings and the facilities. He did not once mention the children. Any teacher who can talk that long without mentioning kids needs to take a good long look at themselves.

I know of several unassuming suburban public school staffrooms who in late 2001 were in near-unanimous agreement that turning back the Tampa was the best thing John Howard ever did. Many of them vote Liberal. I have voted Liberal myself on 3 occasions, twice for the current government. You made false assumptions to the contrary.

Your lazy assumptions and prejudiced approach to this topic make your remarks increasingly error-prone and fantastical.

I may be smug and conceited, and you may go on playing the man instead of the ball for as long you like, but you've yet to offer any substantive rebuttal of any of my points. My experience, and the experience of thousands of teachers, some of whom post here, refute your claim about teachers being "apparatchiks" trying to mould children into some sort of politically-correct view of the world. Tired recycling of a whole lot of meaningless stereotypes does not an argument make.

But by all means, continue on in the same vein; as you were. I'd wouldn't want you to experience the discomfort of having your prejudices challenged by the evidence.

Regrettably, all subjects you teach, Chris C, do not make technical progress substantially better:

<I teach English, history and geography, three of the subjects referred to in John Ridd's article. I do so in Victoria, and his account of modern education simply does no match my experience.>

OK, cool it. The discussion about public v private is nothing to do with John Ridds article. His contention is that all syllabi are made by a state/territory Board of Study and that all schools irrespective of type have to follow those syllabi. Furthermore the Ridd article is a clear attempt to demonstrate that opposition to current syllabi/practices/theories is across the board. A self confessed 'dyed in the wool' public school man he quotes a Catholic Principal and the Skeptic magazine.
Another issue which I think is irrelevant to the article is the suggestions of a central nation wide set of syllabi. Ridd makes it clear that he is calling on governments (plural) to do something. presumably he means the State/territory governments.

eyejaw,
I agree I think that a meeting of State and Territoty Education Ministers to hammer out a uniform standard should be done asap.

What could our respective state governments do then? A good place to start would be to call on those who have been given the authority, time and salary increases to bring about curriculum change to justify their continued employment. I’m of course talking about the school based curriculum leaders – Heads of Departments and to a lesser extent Deputy Principals.
Forget about what the current syllabi contain, in many Queensland High Schools the last set of syllabi were never implemented the way they were intended to be anyway.
Why not? Well that might require a change in teaching practice, a change in class organisation and, heaven forbid, a change in staff.
Comparing the teaching practice in some of our children’s classroom to the stated intention in the syllabus is like comparing……. well a northern England assembly line circa 1958 to the current productive output of some of our North-West Pacific Asian neighbours.
It’s time to cut loose those self-appointed protectors of “high standards” and get on with the job of educating our children.

For someone who doesn’t speculate on who I am or what I believe, you do ok:

Mercurius
“you ….go off on some pre-determined (stereotypical) tangent/rant”

Mercurius
“Your lazy assumptions and prejudiced approach to this topic make your remarks increasingly error-prone and fantastical.”

Is this what you mean by playing the ball and not the man? Or maybe you just dislike being confronted with your own prejudices.

You know not one but ‘several’ staffrooms where teachers agreed with the PM on the Tampa issue. They were even ‘suburban’ AND ‘unassuming’. Wow, what’s your point?

Teaching is one of the most unionised professions in Australia. I’m not sure about the AEU in particular, but in general the unions have a 50% vote in the Labor caucus (recently lowered from 60%). Unions provide the majority of Labor Party funds. Are you seriously suggesting your staffroom sample is indicative of the education profession? With a research methodology like that you could be an education PhD.

Your ‘feel sick’ soliloquy followed a similar flawed logic. So two principals made these remarks. What’s your point? Are you suggesting the remarks of two principals are indicative of the private system? Of course, by implication you are. A bit of a lazy assumption but hey, we’re talking about education; lets call it evidence based research.

And, no I’m not disparaging all educationists, just a good number of them.

Mercurius
“I'd wouldn't want you to experience the discomfort of having your prejudices challenged by the evidence.”

The evidence is people are losing faith in public education and leaving for the private sector. The evidence is the status of teaching is declining; it’s even seen as a fall back profession by some. The evidence is teaching is struggling to attract high calibre entrants. The evidence is our children are suffering.

eet,
Opinion pollsters do not normally report on the voting preferences of occupational groups, probably because the sample size is too small, but the Herald Sun of 30/10/1995 reported on a survey of 1000 randomly chosen teachers. In 1992, 32% voted Liberal and 29% voted Labor, while 29% preferred not to answer. For the 1996 election, 22% intended to vote Liberal and 31% Labor, while 38% preferred not to answer. We can only speculate on the exact percentages for particular third parties and on why many did not answer, but if you work out the percentages of those who did for the major parties, they show for 1992, 52% Liberal and 48% Labor; and for 1996, 42% Liberal and 58% Labor. The same poll showed that 61% thought that the cuts of the previous five years (two years under Labor and three years under the Liberals) had reduced the quality of education, while 28% did not.

Teaching remains a highly unionised area, though the AEU in Victoria at least is not affiliated with the ALP. I think one reason that teachers still support the ALP and the professional solidarity of unionism even though Mr Kennett has gone is that they well remember Liberal rule in this time in their lives. Two other reasons for the high rate of union membership are teachers' experience of bullying by principals and the collegiate nature of how teachers work.

The problem that I see has to do with Priorities. The Labor Governments first priority seems to be to those that want to come into this country and are from NESB (non-English speaking backgrounds), not to those that were born here or have been brought up here.

Priority in education is for NESB students first.

The Labor Government in relation to employment neglects the education of Australians, even in relation to developing skills, and then wants to bring in those from abroad.

I believe the Labor Government needs to keep bringing in those from abroad to boost their votes and as a result standards have dropped.

Liberals always looks after their own better than Labor. I know which one I would prefer.

Chris C

The poll is a strange result. Why would people who vote Liberal join a union? Trade unions and Liberals don't really have much in common.

You summation about industrial relations issues is probably accurate. At the end of the day, teachers are people and need to have a fair industrial system too. However, where I disagree with the unions is when they use their industrial might impose an ideological agenda on the community. I guess I see the close affiliation of the unions with the Labor movement as making them political rather than educational bodies. So sometimes I feel they illegitimately fight political battles under the pretence of education. You see what I mean - an unfair mixing of hats.

I would be much more comfortable with them if they either stuck to politics and kept out of education or stuck to education and kept out of politics. But perhaps I'm just being utopian..

eet, declaring that "the evidence is...", is not evidence.

eet, if you won't accept my evidence as primary evidence, what will you accept? The unsubstantiated opinions of newspaper columnists? You can dismiss verbatim quotes and opinions from real, live, classroom teachers if you want. Your evidence so far is....a series of assertions and opinions backed up by....nothing.

1. "The evidence is people are losing faith in public education and leaving for the private sector."
Intersting phraseology. What about 'the evidence of a media search reveals that the federal government has been busy undermining public faith in the quality, standards and values of public education for a decade'. One year they're accused of having a 'value-free' system, the next year apparently we are to believe it's nothing but left-wing values being taught. What gives?

2. "The evidence is the status of teaching is declining; it’s even seen as a fall back profession by some."
The evidence is that for decades, teachers have consistently scored higher ranks of public-esteem and approval in surveys comparing different professions. It is almost always police, nurses, teachers and the like who score highly in such surveys. Teachers certainly score much higher for public-esteem than do the politicians who spend so much time attacking them.

3. "The evidence is teaching is struggling to attract high calibre entrants; it’s even seen as a fall back profession by some."
The evidence is that 90% of education undergraduates at Sydney university (and there are hundreds of them), are in the top 10% of the state for their HSC. As for a 'fall back' profession, you must be referring to the hundreds of highly-qualified professionals from law, finance and the sciences enrolling in post-grad diplomas to become teachers. That sounds like fantastic back-up to me.

4. "The evidence is our children are suffering."
The evidence is that according to the OECD (2003), Australia ranks fourth in the world for literacy, seventh for science and ninth for maths. The evidence is that according to PISA (2006), Australian schoolkids are second only to Finland for problem-solving and analytic ability.

I just don’t understand why adults don’t just ask the students what they think is wrong?

I know what my children will tell you. They would tell you that Depending on what school they have been at they have been suffering even though they got high marks. They will tell you that some Public Schools are good and some Catholic schools are good and that some are terrible. Same with the teachers.

They will tell you that they want to learn things that they don’t already know and have information presented to them at a level they find interesting and challenging and they want to understand why they need to know the information and how it relates to them. Otherwise it is hard to focus, get motivated and become engaged in learning.

They will tell you that they thought they were going to school to learn but instead the focus is on competing for marks and that despite the fact that they are smart and they get high marks they are not enjoying their education.

They will tell you that students should not have to compete for access to education. That they compete at the end for career placement is another story, but during their 'education' equal access to information at all levels should be available to all that wishes to try so that the competition for career placement is fairer.

Why do they make the kids fit into certain classes instead of designing the classes to fit the kids and catering better for all?

Jolanda,
The Liberals always look after their own better than Labor.

This is a serious site for politically minded people, not comedy hour at the zoo.

Pity, I thought Jolanda was talking good sense.

The kind of curriculum Jolanda described has been well-described, investigated and documented in education academic journals (what eet calls 'garbology') for 30 years. It has paraded in various guises as 'student-centred learning', 'mastery learning', 'intrinsic motivation' and so on.

In other words Jolanda, what your kids described is an education system consistent with theories devised decades ago by such eminent scholars as Bandura, Piaget and motivation researchers Deci & Ryan. Aren't your kids smart to think of the same thing so intuitively? They're right, of course.

But Jolanda, there are plenty of people who will tell you that a curriculum along the lines of what you outlined is completely debased, and dumbed-down, and 'not real education'. Actually, that's kind of how they describe our curriculum now.

For these concepts have also been widely incorporated into curriculum documents and education policies in states around Australia. You can find them online - they're public documents from the respective state education departments. Yes, they're the same curriculum docments that so many have been shrieking about as infiltrated by leftists and postmodernists.

Jolanda, you will find what your children described set out almost exactly in the following article of scholarship. Why don't you share with them the fact that they're as smart and insightful as these folks?: Harackiewicz, J., & Barron, K., & Pintrich, P.R., & Elliott, A.J. & Thrash, T.M. (2002), Revision of achievement goal theory: necessary and illuminating. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(3), 638-645.

MichaelK,
I do not undersatnd your point about the subjects I teach not making technical progress substantially better. If you are implying that humanities subjects do not help with technical progress, I would have to disagree, because they teach thinking among other things and thinking crosses the borders of subjects.

eet,
I would put your question the other way: why do unionists vote Liberal? But it is not one I can answer.

I think the teacher unions do focus on education. But that is invariably political because most teachers are employed by governments and education is a hot political issue.

After 33 years of listening to people who do not know how schools work or what teachers actually do go on and on and on about education, I have passed boiling point and entered a parallel universe of cold determination to fight back in this and other forums. I do not dispute the problems that exist. They are many, and many of that many are the fault of the same type of person whose relentless criticism dominates the public discussion. The economic rationalists wreaked destruction throughout the Victorian education system - and I will not let that be forgotten.

I share concerns that many others have expressed about academic standards, but there are tens of thousands of teachers striving to meet high standards every day. They teach facts and themes and ideas and so on. They do not deserve the abuse that is heaped upon them. They are not part of some left conspiracy to fluoridate our children's minds into being agents of the UN in order to destroy Western civilisation through a cunning plan to deny them the ability to read. I went to LaTrobe University in the nineteen-seventies. I know what a real Maoist is - and I believe the ones in China itself were even worse.

Mercurius
“federal government has been busy undermining public faith in the quality, standards and values of public education for a decade'”

To some extent I agree. I’m speculating but faced with union intransigence at every turn, I guess the government grew tired and decided to encourage private schooling instead. The unions seem to feel government education reform is somehow illegitimate. The government has won three elections in a row and been in power for ten years, they have a right to implement their agenda.

Mercurius
“The evidence is that 90% of education undergraduates at Sydney university “

Less prestigious universities have less demand for places. They can’t pick the best applicants; they pick what they can to maintain funding.

Mercurius
“As for a 'fall back' profession, you must be referring to the hundreds of highly-qualified professionals from law, finance and the sciences”

There aren’t hundreds but tens of thousands of teachers in Australia. If they were all ex-lawyers, finance workers and scientists who graduated from USyd or UMelb we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

“ according to the OECD (2003), Australia ranks fourth in the world for literacy, seventh for science and ninth for maths..”

OECD reports have a minimal impact on public perception. And rightly or wrongly people form their opinion – and their reality – on perception. A poor perception is undermining confidence in the profession and becoming self-fulfilling as quality applicants shy away. Do you really think teaching is consistently ranked above medicine, law, dentistry, architecture, engineering, computer science or the hard sciences (physics, chemistry, biology)?

At times changes affecting the status of teaching have been unavoidable. Othertimes, teaching is at fault. For example, only 50-60 years ago women were considered genetically less intelligent; boys outperformed girls in every respect. Now the opposite it true. What happened? Has there been some rapid Darwinian degenerative process? Why has boys’ education been sabotaged? Similar debates about outcomes based education and whole language versus phonics have seriously damaged perceptions. The latest fad is ‘child-centred and contructivist’. Put that in any university essay and you’ll pass; omit it at your peril.

Mercurius. It won’t surprise my children if I tell them they are smart. They are always telling me what they feel is wrong at school and why things should change. Often they expect me to do something about it and it doesn’t make me too many friends.

We have 4 children and I have seen the difference in the curriculum and in relation to attitudes from when my eldest started Primary back in the year 1996 and my youngest started primary in 2003. My two girls have been accelerated one year, for one it made no difference at all, she needed radical acceleration. For the other who was already young it worked well, she will be starting high school age 10. It wasn’t and easy path to obtain or take.

The curriculum has improved at Primary level (the most important time) and the understanding of children that are advanced is a little bit better, but still it is not at a level appropriate for students individual needs. The problem is that the curriculum is only challenging and engaging if it is pitched to the student at the right level and pace. You don’t have to be as gifted as mine to be suffering. Even those that struggle are suffering. With such big classes and students placed into grades on the basis of their date of birth it is very difficult to cater for so many different needs.

They need to re-assess the method of providing education and place students into classes and levels, in the different subject’s areas, on the basis of their interest, ability and need taking into consideration their circumstances. Placement should not be based on the basis of their age and NOT on the basis of their test marks.

Equal access to education for all at whatever level and pace suits their needs. When children are all at a similar wave length and level then they are more likely to interact and engage in what they are learning.

Jolanda,
I suggest you lobby your Liberal Federal Govt to provide funding to State Govts to do exactly what you are suggesting.

What is a point to waste money on educating those already born to be, regardless of their real professional levels, managers for all NESB (and ESB from non-Anglo-background - ESBnAng) ?

NESB and ESBnAng should become good skilled slaves, doing manual jobs well for peanuts– and that is a realistic priority for an accustomed way of living enjoying by the A U S T R A L I A N S.

“The problem that I see has to do with Priorities. The Labor Governments first priority seems to be to those that want to come into this country and are from NESB (non-English speaking backgrounds), not to those that were born here or have been brought up here.

Priority in education is for NESB students first.

The Labor Government in relation to employment neglects the education of Australians, even in relation to developing skills, and then wants to bring in those from abroad.

I believe the Labor Government needs to keep bringing in those from abroad to boost their votes and as a result standards have dropped.

Liberals always looks after their own better than Labor. I know which one I would prefer.
Posted by Jolanda, Wednesday, 11 October 2006 9:38:51 PM "

MichaelK. You didn't understand my post.

What I was trying to say is that there are so many people already here in Australia who need to be a priority, they are not becoming well educated and they are on welfare, they are taking drugs, they are having children when they are teenagers, they are not living a wholesome and healthy life that is self sufficient.

The priority should be on those that are already here first. Then bring in those from abroad when we have dealt with the issues here that affect Australians and is creating poverty and mental health issues.

When NESB get priority over Australians I have a problem. It should at least be equal.

Interesting discussion, and I suspect people have been bemoaning the state of the current curriculum ever since we've had one. As a parent, I don't get too hung up about curriculum, my girls ( one on a gap year between school and uni, the other in year 10) seem to have learnt at their ordinary comprehensive public school more or less what I did 30 odd years ago. They read well, think well, have good social skills, have and can argue their opinions, are better at maths than I ever dreamed of being. The awful HSC distorts things a bit, particularly in english where they seem to be rewarded for bad (read academic) writing rather than good,plain, engaging english - but they know its a game, play it and learn their real writing skills on my space. They have learnt how to learn, how to mix, how to think and how to laugh - particularly at themselves - and that is all I would ever have asked.
just a couple of other thoughts - contrary to one posters contention, girls have outperformed boys at school ever since they started going to school in any numbers, for at least 100 years. its just our prejudices were so deeply ingrained about girls and boys that we simply didn't believe the evidence of our own eyes until second wave feminism in the 60s and 70s pointed out the gross unfairness.
Secondly, I heartily agree with the poster who pointed out that standards may appear to have fallen because so many more kids now go on to year 12 and uni than ever did in the past. This is for good economic reasons, half of the full time jobs for teenage boys have disappeared in the last 20 years, and an astonishing two thirds of full time jobs for teenage girls have also gone. No wonder they stay at school, what else is there for them?

Oh and before anybody jumps at me, when I said when NESB (non English Speaking background) get priority over Australians what I meant to say was whe NESB Australians get priority over non NESB Australians then I have a problem.

It should at least be equal as everybody has a certain level of disadvantage and NESB students actually go to year 12 in seriously higher numbers than non NESB and are often signficantly more successful.

They dont need priority.

Jolanda,

Yours explanations of 13 October 2006 12:50:48 PM

(MichaelK. You didn't understand my post.

What I was trying to say is that there are so many people already here in Australia who need to be a priority…

The priority should be on those that are already here first. Then bring in those from abroad when we have dealt with the issues here that affect Australians and is creating poverty and mental health issues.

When NESB get priority over Australians I have a problem. It should at least be equal.) perfectly testifies to YOUR misunderstanding of MY post because one cannot even imagine that NESB could participate here and know perfectly what a PRIORITY they have in a land of racists.

The rodent has $10 billion in budget surplus, why don't you tories urge him to spend some of it on improving education.

MichaelK., We might be living in a land full of racists but the racists here in Australia are very generous with their money (welfare) and when there is money there is always abuse.

Just because I believe that Australia is multicultural enough to remove the labels and value us all equally it doesn't make me a rascist.

SHONGA said “The rodent has $10 billion in budget surplus, why don't you tories urge him to spend some of it on improving education.”

Ignorant rodents like you SHONGA should engage their brain before posting! It’s the states who are in charge of education not John Howard! He gives them more then enough but they just piss it up the wall. The only thing that needs changing about education is the amount teachers are paid. We should be giving teachers financial incentives to work hard at improving the student’s grades and with the higher pay encouraging more highly qualified people to take up a career in teaching

Yeah, Jolanda, I have read and so you could read “Friendliest Racist Nation” in The Age, appeared days after my posts.

And I must not be blamed for any if any, abuse of “generous” handovers: this is what a system pays to have her bureaucrats functioning, the privileged employed and receiving the loyalties to get more and more. It takes in migrants, it pays, so the system is running well.

I am finding your whole NESB discussion confusing. Education systems throughout the country provide additional funding to schools for students who have come from non-English speaking countries so that they may catch up with native speakers. In Victoria, students who have been here five years or fewer are funded for English as a Second Language teachers. There is a sliding scale that provides more funding for those who have spent the least amount of time here. In addition, there are language centres outside of mainstream schools to get those with no English started. This expenditure of more money on some students is fair to give them the same chance as other students.

There is also additional funding for schools with larger numbers of students from poorer backgrounds, irrespective of their language skills. This is also fair as a way of compensating for a more difficult start in life that some students have had.

Whether the amount allocated to these purposes is sufficient is another question. Even ignoring special needs, the basic funding formula for schools is too low, leaving the state more than 2,000 secondary teachers below the number that the pupil-teacher ratio of 10.9:1 provided 25 years ago.

Outcomes based education needs more inputs if students are to have a good chance of actually learning.

Chris C,

Thank you for clarifications. It seems, what is really confusing for NATIVE speakers is understanding how "generous" system works de facto: people from around a globe have been lured with Australian opportunities to find themselves in a trap of a poverty upon generations as employment is for Anglo-Saxon mates only and some manual jobs throughout “family relations” for ethnics/NESB. Therefore, provided perpetually funding for so called NESB ended up in pockets of mates privileged to be employed for providing “services” - teaching or simply policing by JobNet/Centrelink, in exchange for their pro-royal votes.

In Australia, recent racist tautology called “Citizenship is not application only” or something, dealing with naturalization, is a next stage of legitimisation of modern slavery based on biological origin.

Look at the Arab States and take their approaches to working slaves as a background for such Australian local “democratic developments.” Regrettably, Islamic feudals seem to be more honest on this issue particularly.

There is a difference between NESB students and ESL (English as a second language)students.

I agree that ESL students need alot of support and help but why should an NESB student (Non Enlish speaking background) get priority just because a parent speaks another language at home. These students are the most over-represented in higher education and Selective Schools. They are not really disadvantaged by their parents speaking another language at home, it is actually beneficial. Even if they have only been learning English in Australia for 4 years, usually they also learnt it in thier own Country and there are many of them that are tutored extensively. I just cant see the disadvantage the NESB student have to warrant any priority. Of course ESL is another story.

I hardly catch difference between "NESB" and "ESL" definitions: to me, all these students are only from a non-native-English-background. That is why their parents and they naively suppose that local degrees could open them a door out of ethnic ghettos people are de facto fixed into in Australia.

What I really agree with you, their non-Anglo-Celtic background must not be a reason for paying the mates speaking a particular English accent more for supposedly teaching this accent to already enough proficient in English: I witnessed lessons in English to middle-aged native speakers-managers unable read and write native English.