Peter. Although I am a Godless person, your metaphor makes perfect sense to me.

If it were possible to begin one's education with a certain attitude of mind (no brainwashing) - then the process of learning would also become the gathering of wisdom. That is always a personal journey and quite beyond the scope of the gatekeepers who measure progress with yardstick and compass.

To me, it's a case of heading off into the trackless bush. It's no good if we are given a bitumen highway. The point has been missed and the beauty will never be appreciated.

With a basic grounding in English comprehension, math and ethics, a child will make his/her own way through the bush. These things are akin to warm socks, stout boots and a nutricious lunch. Never give them a map and compass, or they will all arrive in Sydney.

Being an old miner, I appreciate the metaphor of the alchemist. The alchemists knew that the effort to produce gold required a transmutation of the self. Isaac Newton was an inverterate alchemist. He produced no gold, but his personal transmutation shines as a beacon for us all.

In a way, our education system has lost it's faith in our children's latent abilities.

ChrisShaw;

You seem to be able to rationalize things, a bit. Can you expand, though?

You finished by saying that the 'system' has lost faith in the kids. That obviously cant be right. A system has no conscience, no living force per-se.

So, it needs to be looked at in real terms. What part of the 'system' has actually lost faith? Keeping in mind that the system is populated by humans, could you explain which bits of the 'system' are incorrect.

'If we know what the student is expected to learn then we can assess it.' 'Free, that is, from the ideology that is bound to creep into any attempt to sum up a learning outcome.'

thus

'If we really want to know what is wrong with education then we must look at the hopelessness of contemporary culture.'

Is this correct?

I am fairly sure the writer can not distinguish between competency based education (CE) and outcomes based education (OE) so the article is probably opinion without content. It is CE that starts with " after completing .. you will be able to.." or some such

OE and CE are opposite ends of a spectrum. OE is broad, ie using diferent disciplines together rather than doing maths, english chemistry as separate quite distinct subjects. CE is based on learning a skill. TAFE type subjects are all so described.

I think it worthwhile for a little research before sounding off. Various keywords would be "competency based" and "outcomes based" but I would recommend research into "transfer of learning" as that is the main problem OE seeks to address

There is very interesting debate about these different philosohies but I always have found it quite strange that CE has been adopted, without debate, for some years - to education's detriment- but OE has a very stormy passage. I suppose competencies fit with the right wing agenda whereas I guess OE is more left. Who knows? But I would hate to see OE blamed for CEs failings

Trust Peter S to come at things from a different direction! Where most people criticise OBE (wrongly, in my view) for being too woolly, unaccountable and unmeasurable, Peter S sees it as rail-roading students into a pre-determined, ultra-rationalist, managerial view of learning.

Thanks for the thought-provoking essay Peter, but I think your criticisms miss the mark.

Here is a small taste of the outcomes for “by the end of this course, the student will be able to …” from the current NSW Japanese HSC course…
---
- applies knowledge of language structures to create original text.
- describes, narrates and reflects on real or imaginary experience in the past, present or future.
- structures and sequences ideas and information.
- identifies and conveys the gist, main points, supporting points and detailed items of specific information.
- summarises, interprets and evaluates information.
- understand aspects of the language and culture of Japanese-speaking communities.
- recognises and employs language appropriate to different social contexts.
----
And so on, in this vein, for about a dozen more such points.

I think these points throw down a challenging, rigourous and sound set of hurdles for learners to clear (are you OBE critics listening?), but I don’t agree that anybody embarking on a “sermon” addressing these points would be heading for a pre-determined or managerialist outcome. These outcomes leave enormous room to maneuver, and allow the teacher to tailor their lessons to the level and needs of their class.

Peter, I’m also unconvinced that a sermon is a good analogy for what teachers do, or should do, nowadays. By conceptualising the teacher as delivering a sermon from a pulpit, are you not simply repeating the old transmission-based, fill-up-their-empty-heads model of teaching?

And Chris Shaw, our current curriculum places enormous faith in children's latent abilities. That’s why we don’t deliver “sermons”, and why the current paradigm of teaching is to “start where the learner is at”.

Thanks for the stimulating discussion.

Richard,
I am chastened by your comment. I had some idea that I would come up against educators who knew much more about the current teaching philosophies. Of course competence based methods are important otherwise we would have bridges falling down and bad diagnosis. This article was written from outside of the profession with the sneaking idea that there was something amiss. If I have got the nomenclature wrong I apologise but I think that my point about the essential nature of education, particularly in the arts, holds.

Mercurius.
I can see your point about the Japanese language class. However, you miss my point about the nature of sermon writing. Unfortunately preaching is vastly misunderstood, it is not simply the imposition of one person’s ideas on another. The point that I am trying to make is that about the freedom of the intellectual exercise. This applies just as much to research in natural science as it does in writing a sermon. One does not know where one is going to end up. It is that openness that must be guarded. We must be open to accepting what we find and have the courage to discard or preconceptions.

Mercurius writes, "I think these points [OBE syllabus] throw down a challenging, rigourous and sound set of hurdles for learners to clear.

Hmm. I'm sure there's a lot more to the Japanese language instructional specification referred to above than is presented here - at least I really hope so - but what's missing is the height of the hurdles. How high does the learner have to jump to clear the bar? What's missing are the standards. Who sets the height of the bar? Individual teachers? Student ability and their personal needs?

Without specified standards, teachers will have different ideas of what constitutes satisfactory completion.

And finally, how are the outcomes tested for successful achievement?

I have read many such lists of so called outcomes and far too many of them are a lot of waffle without specific targets defined. Do any standards exist for this course?