Frank, it is all very well to rail against the present system. I have no argument with you on that score. However, it would be nice to hear from you, some ideas about which some improvements could be made. Without that, your article is completely useless.

David

I'm with Veekay.

Having a whinge is a venerable and oft-employed tradition amongst those who are articulate, but terminally lazy.

Is it education policy that's to blame? If so, in what area is it falling down?

Is it the teachers failing to teach. or the educators failing to educate? Are they perhaps simply not up to the job? What should we do about it?

Are there too many/too few private schools? Should we just give every parent a voucher for their kids, and let them spend it on the school of their choice. Or if they can't be arsed, on the pokies?

Is it perhaps the pupils themselves, most of whom have iPods surgically implanted and a PSP superglued to their hands?

Inquiring minds need to be told.

But no point looking here, obviously.

Who wants a million "blooming" flowers.

Universities prime purpose is to provide the above average student with high level skills for the work place.

Only a very select few "gifted" individuals are nurtured to be the leaders of tomorrow.

The easy inovation has already been achieved, progress today by the gifted is on the back of thousand of competent skilled workers.

Trying to make innovative thinkers out of the majority of the university population is trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear

H O G W A S H

Yes, there are children stuck in classrooms demonstrating to themselves, yet again, that they are not academically inclined but they have no choice but to remain at school because factory jobs have gone to China, the Railways no longer use assistant station masters, or even station masters, bank clerks must be university graduates, Telstra no longer train apprentices, the railways no longer train apprentice boiler makers, fitters & turners, linesmen, neither do the privatesed electricity companies or Telstra, Optus.

There is not much point in a million blooming flowers if governments do not support innovation.

One example that immediately springs to mind is all the money invested in photovoltaic and renewable energy research at UNSW, and then to watch while the fruits of that labour and investment move offshore to China due to lack of interest in Australia.

I agree with much of what you say about the sausage machine mentality in schools and a system that allows students to be inventive or come up with their own ideas would certainly help foster innovation and a 'think outside the square' perspective.

As the parent of two older children I believe the high schools are doing a good job of preparing students for independent learning and innovate thinking - unless I am just very lucky in my location. They fall down in other areas but that is another topic.

But the reality is that this type of thinking cannot spring up without some foundation or knowledge; which has to include the basics of maths, english and science. To be sure there is room for creative thinking in all of these areas but you cannot write an imaginative story without knowing how to construct a sentence or have read some of the greats like Yeats etal.

I disagree with you Frank about the role of universities. Universities should be the centre of research and innovation not just about churning out job-ready students. The very thing you are railing against.

Our universities have become business entities and corporatised to the extent that some are even offering remedial english classes.

The old system of schooling that allowed a place for each student according to their own needs and talents in the form of apprencticeships, TAFEs, Institutes of Technology, Advanced Colleges of Education and Universities worked well.

The real problem is that now every institution has to be a university and every student is assumed to aspire to a university degree. This is bunkum.

Pelican speaks with a broadness and depth of understanding equal to the bill of his non-de-plume.

He's pretty well spot on. It is bunkum.

But .... I'd add kids today know that a fear of failure pervades all their endeavours to the point where innovation and independence of thought are stiffled.

What is needed is an active campaign by parents and teachers to overcome their own fears of failure, needs of security, safety and inadequacy in an endeavour to stop passing those attitudes onto their students and youngsters.

The attributes of courage, fearlessness and boldness need to be encouraged and returned to a venerated status within our educational systems and more importantly to parental attitudes.

ie get rid of the insipid need, we've developed and are passing on, for 'safety first' in everything.

Is that positive enough Pericles?

Eh?

>>Is that positive enough Pericles?<<

I'm not sure what I said to cause you to ask the question, keith, but I'll have a go at answering anyway.

>>kids today know that a fear of failure pervades all their endeavours to the point where innovation and independence of thought are stiffled.<<

Possibly even stifled.

But what exactly is causing the stiffling - er, stifling?

>>What is needed is an active campaign by parents and teachers to overcome their own fears of failure, needs of security, safety and inadequacy in an endeavour to stop passing those attitudes onto their students and youngsters.<<

And what exactly is the question, to which this is an answer?

Anyhow, who is going to provide the parents and teachers with the tools with which to achieve this - thoroughly worthy, but totally impractical - goal?

The entire litany is emotional. Fear. Security. Safety. Inadequacy. Sounds like a couple of years on the psychiatrist's couch might just about start to make a dent in it.

>>The attributes of courage, fearlessness and boldness need to be encouraged and returned to a venerated status within our educational systems and more importantly to parental attitudes.<<

Sounds more like Tom Brown's Schooldays than a modern education plan. But again, it falls flat on its face when you ask the question "how?"

I know, it is very warm and fuzzy to imagine that we can all suddenly turn all new-age and in-touch-with-our-inner-lion, but where on earth do you start? And simply saying "well, you have to start somewhere" doesn't help either.

Look keith, "being positive" is all very worthy, but as my white-haired old granny used to say, it don't butter no parsnips.

On the one hand we have a long whinge of an article, full of disparaging comments but totally short on focus. Now we have a suggestion that we put the entire country's parents on the couch, to teach them courage.

No wonder the education system is in a mess.

Pericles,

Thank you for the spelling correction.

The stifling of our youngsters is occurring precisely because the attitudes exhibited and once taught through the literature of the likes of Tom Browns Schooldays is seen as repugnant. I guess you think it just doesn't cut it in the modern 'safety first' era of todays education.

I don't think in terms of 'inner lion'. I think in terms of natural inquisitiveness and a quest for adventure. When I grew up such things were quite normal and your post merely re-inforces the general down-grading and our loss of those values.

I didn't suggest anyone consult a psychiatrist. That is entirely consistant with the 'safety first' modern attitude you exhibit. I'd prefer to think a little more concentration on the 'older out of date' attitudes you dismiss as 'Tom Browns' stuff might do the trick. ie Turn out students who are not 'safety first' focused sausage machine morons.

Recently one of my son's friends visited and was shocked to hear I had done a solo coastal passage to Hervey Bay among the migrating whales. 'That's dangerous and you could have been killed by a whale' she said. I dryly asked when was the last time she'd heard of someone being killed by a whale and why she dared drive her car. She is a professional pharmacist and in my opinion is one of those many kids who has had the stuffing knocked out of her.

That puts it all in perspective, keith, thanks.

>>I'd prefer to think a little more concentration on the 'older out of date' attitudes you dismiss as 'Tom Browns' stuff might do the trick.<<

Have you actually read the book in question?

"Tom Brown's Schooldays" is about as relevant to education in the twentyfirst century as the abacus.

Here's an excerpt from that book.

"Tom, as a new boy, was of right excused fagging for the first month, but in his enthusiasm for his new life this privilege hardly pleased him; and East and others of his young friends, discovering this, kindly allowed him to indulge his fancy, and take their turns at night fagging and cleaning studies. These were the principal duties of the fags in the house. From supper until nine o'clock three fags taken in order stood in the passages, and answered any prepostor who called "Fag," racing to the door, the last comer having to do the work. This consisted generally of going to the buttery for beer and bread and cheese (for the great men did not sup with the rest, but had each his own allowance in his study or the fifth-form room), cleaning candlesticks and putting in new candles, toasting cheese, bottling beer, and carrying messages about the house; and Tom, in the first blush of his hero-worship, felt it a high privilege to receive orders from and be the bearer of the supper of old Brooke."

This would provide some insight into why today...

>>the attitudes exhibited and once taught through the literature of the likes of Tom Browns Schooldays is seen as repugnant<<

But perhaps I'm reading the wrong bits.

What did you have in mind?

Oh dear oh dear Pericles,

'>>The attributes of courage, fearlessness and boldness need to be encouraged and returned to a venerated status within our educational systems and more importantly to parental attitudes.<<

Sounds more like Tom Brown's Schooldays than a modern education plan.'

Then you replace this bold assertion with your facile quote from the Tom's book which sets out to totally reject your original assertion.

What's it to be Pericles ... consistancy or crass opportunism?

I don't know that you are reading the wrong bits ... simply because your statements and positions are so conflicting. I think your initial assertions showed you understand my what I had in mind and your second opportunistic quote shows you'd go to any crass lenghts to undermine those ideas.

As you would of course.

You let your assumptions override your ability to follow the bouncing ball, keith.

When I said "sounds more like Tom Brown's Schooldays than a modern education plan", that did not for a moment suggest that there was any merit in the TBS approach.

Or even that the TBS system did, in fact, encourage "attributes of courage, fearlessness and boldness"

It only believed that it did. What it was, as depicted so graphically in the book, was a repressive, depersonalizing and corrupt system that lived for bullying and mindless conformism.

Which was why I quoted that - highly typical - paragraph.

If you would like me to quote the bits where it believed it was - quite literally - God's gift to the world, I'd be happy to do so. But only so long as you don't jump to the erroneous conclusion that this reflects my own beliefs.

Deal?

I never quoted anything and have no intention of doing so. You made two references to Tom Brown's school days ... with the impact of your two references totally contradicting the other.

The starkness of your contradiction remains despite your wordy justification.

And your 'explaining', sounding very much like K. Rudd babblespeak, indicates you're leaning towards crass opportunism..

Fact is fact you've been caught out in wanting to keep your cake and eating it.

Stop twisting and answer my question: What's it to be consistancy or crass opportunism?