The State Government of Victoria (April 2009) has decided that the annual vocational education fee for studying, if you have an existing qualification, should rise from
$950 per year, to $1,500 and then to several thousand by 2012. All state governments in Australia
are shallow and myopic
when it comes to education and life long learning.
The federal Department of Education has enunciated the policy in a trite statement that rings hollow against actual action by governments.
"The lifelong learning policy agenda is built on assumptions about the importance of skills in the new economy.
Almost all industrial sectors are increasingly ‘knowledge-based’ and economic returns are obtained from a range of ‘intangible’ inputs,
one of which is workers’ skills. Participation in education and
training is increasing and economic rewards are flowing to people with high skills." (Source: Australian govermment, Department of Education,
"http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/higher_education/publications_resources/other_publications/lifelong_learning_in_australia.htm")
There is a history of "not so influential Ministers" occupying the education
portfolios, within the federal governments, states and territories, having the least performers which explains the Victorian government decision.
If a person already has one course then they must pay for all others. This is a very disappointing but not surprising decision.
The Brumby labor government, along with other governemnts and Australian industry and employers, are not all that innovative in thinking and
human talent development in Australia.
One might think that the Prime Minister's "education revolution", touted during the
election might have some substance behind it and that it might influence the staes but not so.
In Australia the states have the control of education the federal government only has the money.
One might think that having the
Deputy Prime Minister as the federal Minister for Education might mean that education is a focus and that life long learning could be an objective. Not so.
Th\e stupid labor governments of Australia, in 2009, want to levy charges on the people of Australia of tens of thousands of dollars in debt loans to educate themselves. This makes the
statements about a competitive Australia and en education revolution mere hollow words and drivel.
THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY THEORY - VOCATIONAL TRAINING IS THE ANSWER TO UNEMPLOYMENT
The myth continually
trotted out for two decades
October 2008, the Australian government has been confronted with the aweful truth.
Projected unemployment according to the governmet not three weeks ago, would be at about 4.8& in the new year. Howvere now this is not likely to be the case.
The economy is falling into a hole and unemployment is
expected to rise.
So what is the policy response of the government to meet this rising unemployment?
Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations; Minister for Education; Minister for Social Inclusion, Ms Julia Gilllard,
has again resorted to the
hoary labor proposition that the provision of training is one of the major ways to solve the problems of people who have just become
unemployed as a result of the world economic crisis. The governmemt is allocating an immediate $148,000,000 for training.
The annoying thing about this is that training has not delivered, to the Australian nation,
the claims made for it by
the Australian Labor Party since 1998. Yet they collectively persist in offering it up as a solution when confronted with economy, society and
lack of work availability opportunities.
"Training is an important adjunct to employment in a technological and rapidly-changing society,
but of itself it does not solve unemployment. Structural changes are required,
many of these uncomfortable to the majority who are in profitable employment. Various partial remedies
are reviewed but none of them on its own is found to be a full solution, neither is a reform of income distribution methods
found satisfactory. The conclusion is that there are many aspects of unemployment and the solutions to it are complex and many-facetted." (source:
Long-Term Unemployment, R. A. B. Leaper)
"Training will not solve the unemployment problem." (source: Work and Idleness: the Political Economy of Full Employment, by Thomas I. Palley
Series on Recent Economic Thought. Edited by Jane Wheelock and John Vail. Boston/Dordrecht/London: Kluwer, 1998)
" Vocational education and training (VOCED) continues to be a favored instrument of social engineering for achieving a
series of objectives, such as accelerating economic growth, reducing youth unemployment and benefiting from economic globalization.
This is in spite of a great deal of scepticism regarding its effectiveness. The article examines the arguments underpinning the great
hope on VOCED as a panacea for many social ills, and offers a series of alternative or complementary actions that would make VOCED more
relevant to the world of work and increase its effectiveness. Many of such actions lie outside the sphere of traditional VOCED provision,
pertaining to the macro-economic
environment, the general demand for labor and, paradoxically, to general (rather than specialized) education and training." (source:
Vocational education and training today: challenges and responses1
Author: Psacharopoulos, George1, Source: Journal of Vocational Education and Training, Volume 49, Number 3, September 1997 , pp. 385-393(9)
Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group)
The labor party theory regarding the proposition that training solves unemp0loyment, was first enacted
during the initial years of John Dawkins and Paul Keating period in federal government, in the late eighties and it accelerated in the nineties.
It was embodied in
Labor's Working Nation. Training has been the stalking horse of the Australian union movement for twenty years.
Industry Training Advisory Boards (ITABs) were created across the nation in the nineties.
Every state, and federal labor governmet, state, and federal, labor opposition has made this a focus of their election pitches
and their policy when in government, year after year after. According to the theory
people can be quickly trained to take up skill based jobs in industries where there are vacancies.
Never mind that the jobs are not in the localities where people live and the greater number of
Australians are not prepared to move. Ms Gillard repeats herself ad nauseum when questioned about the likelihood of unemployment rising in 2009.
The government is allocating more training places.
She tells us that the government has immediately allocated another $A148 million to new training places. So what?
She does not demonstrate how this proposition will perform differently to the past twenty years?
Vocational education has been the hobby horse of both governments and industry over and over. Decades ago industry complained that
Tafe (Training and Further Education) was not meeting their needs and the
curriculums were detached and disjointed. So a new regime was embraced. It was called Competency Based Training and it took root in the nineties in Australia.
In some ways it was return to the Technical College model.
We have had everything from Tafe and Industry co working programmes to assist the unemployed, specially created private sector Tafe enterprises,
School, and industry, cooperative programmes, embedded job training in high school curricula,
new facilities where kids learn to do a job while at school,
transition to work, revamped curriculums and internal registered
training provider status within factories and businesses. Still we have not gotten the right outcomes.
Workers
have to be imported because we either have the wrong skills, insufficient skills or people who do not want to
do the work that business needs - e.g fruit picking. Curriculums have been denuded of any deep learning and challenges, replaced by shallow,
narrow competency programmes and short generalist skills courses whereby providers can attract a government fee payment for each
completion. We have had privatised job search training and placement programmes where billions have been spent.
One outcome we have achieved in Australia, from all of this reform, and public spending is the casualisation
of some 20% of the labor force and another 25% as part time workers. A second outcome is that we have invited into the
vocational training sector all sorts of players whose primary motivation is to get some of the billions on offer.
Ms Gillard does not state how a new allocation for training programme of indeterminant length and content deals
with the individual problem of being unemployed. She does not explain what evidence there is to show that this
policy of allocating training money worked to solve unemployment for everyone, the last time we had large slabs of unemployment and a crisis?
Ms Gilllard does not explain why there are still, in October 2008, so many unemployed on Centrelink's books despite
vocational education training being made mandatory requirement for the receipt of benefits for the unemployed in the mid nineties?
There is a mountain of evidence to show that
the labor party policy, at state and/or federal levels, has not addressed skills shortages since 1990. Yet hundreds of millions of
dollars have been spent.
All education, and training, must by its nature contain elements of competency training. If one is to be an electrician,
a computer programmer, a brick layer or whatever obviously one has to learn the
fundamentals. But there are other skills that are required to prepare an individual for life long learning, work and transportability of skills.
Language, thinking and conceptualisation, communication, problem solving. Australia is served well by a plethora of
training, and education, courses of
various type and depth. Billions of dollars are poured in at state and federal level every year.
These programmes have existed for decades. So why is
another $148 M supposed to be impressive and what is the objective here? One may read into this that there is some
nebullous link between training and employment? You are suddenly unemployed so join a training programme.
Why is it that after two decades Australia still does not have a well trained, articulated workforce capable of moving
from one type of work to another? Why is it that everytime someone becomes unemployed they need to do a training programme?
Where are the jobs? They are getting ready to be employed. They are honing their skills, they are being productive, they are ... they are....
When the people who enter Ms Gillard's new training places programme graduate where will they get work in a nation where jobs are shrinking?
Why is vocational education the panacea to unemployment and not a university course? How does a short vocational training
competency based course assist those who have had their livelihood taken away?
- "The competency based approach consists of functional analysis of occupational roles, translation of these roles into outcomes, and
assessment of trainees' progress on the basis of their demonstrated performance of these outcomes
- It has become dominant at most stages of training
- Potential advantages include individualised flexible training, transparent standards, and increased public accountability
- If applied inappropriately, it can result in demotivation, a focus on minimum acceptable standards, increased administrative burden
and a reduction in the educational content
- We should be cautious of applying the competency based approach universally unless robustly defined higher order competencies are available."
(source: Competency based medical training: review,
Wai-Ching Leung, honorary lecturer in public health medicine.
Medicine, Health Policy and Practice, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ )
" The political decision to implement competency-based training widely throughout vocational education
systems in Australia, before rigorous evaluation through adequate pilot programs, was made because it was viewed as
essential for increasing skill levels and work productivity. Recent data indicate that Australia's relative international
competitiveness actually declined during 1994-97, suggesting an urgent need to reassess underpinning policies.
Despite the marked reluctance of the Australian National Training Authority to commission studies specifically
assessing the effectiveness of competency-based training, several independent studies have been carried out.
These and other commissioned studies indicate some major problems with competency-based training which has not
achieved stated objectives of increasing skill levels. Research also indicates that competency-based training has not
been adopted widely by business and industry. The appropriateness of using public agencies to implement innovations which
are untested, and may not be supported by the wider community intended to benefit from their introduction, is queried.
Revue / Journal Title, Australian journal of education ISSN 0004-9441"
"Competency-based Training: Evidence of a Failed Policy in Training Reform. Examines whether competency-based training is working in practice
in Australian vocational education and whether it is producing superior skill performance. Explores the ideological nature of the
competency-based training policy framework and the nature of
related research commissioned by government agencies. Reviews the empirical evidence that show problems with competency-based training.
(SLD)" (Source: EJ618238
Title: Competency-based Training: Evidence of a Failed Policy in Training Reform.
Authors: Cornford, Ian R.)
The Deputy Prime Minister may well not know of the inability of the market to allocate labour nor to clear labour inefficencies.
Hundreds of people are losing their jobs in manufacturing in Victoria. They tend to live in predefined locations.
" A disturbing feature of the labor market is its seeming inability to clear. At each instant in time, there are
both workers without jobs and jobs without workers. How can it be that productive resources are left unemployed in a
well functioning market economy?
Economists attribute the failure of the labor market to instantly allocate workers to jobs to various “frictions.”
These frictions arise because labor, unlike gold or oil, is not a homogenous commodity. The services provided by a plumber
are different from those provided by a lawyer—and even lawyers differ in the services they offer; some specialize in
constitutional law, others in private law. To match jobs and workers is far from a trivial problem. The heterogeneity of
labor services also makes it hard for employers to distinguish productive from unproductive workers.
And to complicate things even more, the mere process of moving labor services from one job to another is not costless." (Source:
The Economist's View: October 19, 2006, The Search-Matching Theory of Unemployment)
Author: Kevin R Beck, Dip. Teach 1980, Grad Cert Ed & Train 1997, Grad Dip Voc Ed 1999, MEd 2004)
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THE BENDERS AND THE SHAPERS
THREATS, THE BIG STICK AND
MEDIOCRE POLICIES ON EDUCATION
(August 2008) The Deputy Prime Minister, of Australia, Julia Gillard, has announced the Rudd government's objective to measure the
performance of our public schools in Australia. Never mind that education is the province of the states under the Australian Constitution and she is showing contempt for it.
Ms Gillard as thepurse strings. She is doing what the Howard government did. Teachers, and Principals, are the target of her policy statements and arguments. They can be sacked if they
are in under performing schools. The fact that this is abominably hard, if not impossible to measure and discern why, appears of little concern to
her and her bureaucrats who dream up the measurement systems. Teaching is a complex discipline.
Rather than target teachers, and principals, the Deputy Prime Minister might look to the "dead hand" of bureaucracy within her own department and that
of the states and territories, the curriculum boards who put out over loaded and sometime tripe ridden requirements, and the experts,
none of whom are to stand in a classroom and deal with the individual personalities of students and their parents. Why do we not test the performance of each and every public servant and board aginst every state
and territory?
She might also look at how much money each school is actually getting for what.
The highest performing schools are those that are funded well, that have quality resources, and facilities, and that
reside in socio economic locations that
support, and value,
education.
Every labor government, state and federal and territory, has for the last twnety years
blatherd on in their election campaigns about education. They deal in rhetoric and hollow bullshit basking in vapid theories and new ideas which are actually faied ideas
proved stupid, internationally, yet embraced by the myopic "arse end" of the world.
Ms Gilllard is to my mind another bender and shaper of one of Australia's governments who holefully will have a short career before she does irreparable harm to motivation, professionlaism and
communities. Alternatively she might consider
sacking bureaucrats instead of teachers, and principals, and giving control of the money directly to schools and not
the decrepit governments of states, such as labor NSW.
We have a federal government that is, so far, spewing out policies that are the private, or collective, fantasies of the benders and shapers.
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APRIL 2008: Australian Labor Party
Talks Big Rhetoric
on Education With Little History of Delivery
"Critics say politicians are failing to commit to ending years of poor funding, writes Anna Patty: Sydney Morning Herald, March 22, 2007
"WHEN Melbourne University's former dean of education, Brian Caldwell, said last year that hundreds of schools across NSW and Victoria were in such poor condition they should be bulldozed, Steve Bracks acted speedily.
The Victorian Premier pledged $1.9 billion to rebuild or modernise public schools within 10 years.
But north of the border, neither party has been so bold.
NSW Labor says it will spend an extra $280 million on capital works and $120 million over four years on school maintenance.
The Coalition has pledged to clear a $114 million maintenance backlog over two years, but has made no commitments for new buildings. It will look at private/public partnerships to build new halls, gymnasiums and libraries.
But public school advocates say neither major party has made a sufficient commitment to righting a 12-year record of leaky roofs, threadbare carpets, smelly toilets and crumbling classrooms." (end of extract).
"Schools promise hard to fulfill, Anna Patty, March 26, 2007, Sydney Morning Herald:
"THE (NSW) Government will be under pressure to fulfil the bold promise it made last week to
clear a quarter of the school maintenance backlog by the end of July this year.
The Minister for Education, Carmel Tebbutt, said the Government would spend a total of $857 million,
including an extra $120 million announced in the lead-up to the election, on school maintenance over the next four years.
Schools across NSW said they have been complaining for up to 10 years about unrepaired leaking
ceilings, threadbare carpet, blocked toilets and cracked playgrounds." (end of extract)
"Bulldoze ageing govt schools, says expert, article by Chee Chee Leung, July 5, 2006, The Age, Melbourne
"AGEING public school buildings across Victoria must be "bulldozed" and replaced by cutting-edge facilities to help stem the flow of students to private schools, according to an education expert.
Professor Brian Caldwell, a former dean of education at Melbourne University, warns that unless urgent action is taken to
improve public education, the majority of Victorian secondary students
could be at private schools within a decade.
"Across the country, and certainly more so in Victoria … we've got hundreds of schools that simply need to be bulldozed and
replaced by schools that are suitable for teaching and learning in the 21st century," Professor Caldwell said.
"You can visit schools in the state, and whether you are looking at toilet facilities or classrooms, they are appalling."
He estimated at least $4 billion would be needed to get Victoria's public schools — many of which were built in the 1950s
and '60s — to an acceptable standard.
Professor Caldwell's comments come as he launches his book Re-imagining Educational Leadership, in which he argues that leadership
in public education has "hit the wall". (end of extract)
Rudd vows education revolution, Phillip Coorey Chief Political Correspondent, January 23, 2007, Sydney Morning Herald:
"IN HIS first big pitch for the prime ministership, Kevin Rudd today will identify education as the most important
economic policy issue for Labor at this year's election.
The Opposition Leader will call for "nothing less than a revolution in education" and warn that Australia's prosperity will
hit the wall unless the quality and funding of education - from childhood to adulthood - is raised substantially." (end of extract)
Editorial comment on policy, and action, conflict by Kevin R Beck, Dip. Teach, 1980, Grad Cert Education and Training (Melb, 1997), Grad Dip Voc Ed and Training (Melb. 1999), Master of Education(Melb, 2004)
Education in Australia's governments is generally a soft portfolio, usually given to lower level members of the state, and territory,
governments with little clout in Cabinet. They tried to gloss up reality now and then with higher profile senior party members but generally
budgetray allocations came bhind the Premier's pet projects. When Steve Bracks (an ex teacher) became Premier of Victoria in 1999 there was an expectation by the union and profession that things might change.
They did not. There was fanfare about rehiring the teachers sacked under the myopic reign of the state liberal and national party prior to his election.
John Brumby succeeded Mr Bracks. He made education a priority in his state of the union message.
Little effect.
So can we expect any different in the near, or medium, future?
Education at the
federal government level under Kevin Rudd, falls within the portfolio interests of the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Kevin Rudd has
promised an
education revolution.
There is litle tactical, and directed funding, substance to that rhetoric. The promise is problematic given that education is the province of the state, and territory, governments. The only clout that the federal government has is in money handouts.
Labor has a rich history of spruiking education reform and training as key to our future. Yet they are tight fisted on the money spend. They appear to be of the opinion that if the curriculum is glossy and "smart state" packaged (under the "spin" guidelines) all else naturally follows.
Never mind that shitty, and dangerous conditions, rotting schools, sweltering class and freezing cold venues are a deterrent to learning.
Studies about student academic achievement and building condition conclude that the quality of the physical environment significantly affects
student achievement. 'There is sufficient research to state without equivocation that the building in which students spends a good deal of their
time learning does in fact influence how well they learn' (Earthman, G 2004:18).
Desirable designs include having 'friendly and agreeable' entrance areas, supervised private places for students, as well as public spaces that
foster a sense of community, with particular attention to the colour used (Fisher, K 2000 in McGregor, J 2004:2). Today's schools must create spaces
that students want to go to, similar to the way cafes attract people, rather than the space being purely functional (Bunting, A 2004:12).
Other research has acknowledged that 'student achievement lags in shabby school buildings' but go on to say that this research 'does not show that
student performance rises when facilities go from ... decent buildings to those equipped with fancy classrooms, swimming pools, television studios
and the like' (Stricherz in Higgins et al 2005:36). In one study the significant improvements in the learning environment were attributed to the
better attitudes to
teaching and learning the improvements in the physical environment created amongst all users (Berry in Higgins et al 2005:14)."
"There is a plethora of research that examines the effect of the physical conditions of teaching spaces (which includes seating, furnishings,
spatial density, privacy, noise and acoustics, climate and thermal control, air quality, windowless classrooms, vandalism and play-yards, light and colour) on students' engagement, attainment, attendance and wellbeing (Keep, G 2002; Higgins et al 2005; Lackney & Jacobs, 2004; Gump 1987; McGuffey 1982; Earthman 2004; Sundstrom 1987; McNamara & Waugh 1993; and Weinstein 1979).
Some interesting contentions about the physical aspects of learning spaces include:
• Temperature, heating and air quality are the most important individual elements for student achievement (Earthman, 2004: 11–16).
• Chronic noise exposure impairs cognitive functioning, with numbers of studies finding noise-related reading problems, deficiencies
in pre-reading skills, and more general cognitive deficits. (Higgins et al, 2004:18).
• 'Colour remains the topic of some of the most optimistic claims about morale and efficiency' (Sundstrom, 1987:751). According to
some research, the choice of the best use of colours is dependrnt on the age of children (brighter for younger students, more subdued for adolescents), as well as differences between males and females (males – bright colours, females – softer). Much research findings about colour is conflicting, and remains hotly debated (Higgins et al, 2004: 21–22).
• Using visual displays in classrooms breeds success because 'students are provided with specific examples of how success is obtained'
(Culp, B 2006:14)".(Extracts from: "The Effect of the Physical Learning Environment on Teaching and Learning,
Victorian Teaching Institute, http://www.vit.vic.edu.au/files/documents/1137_The-Effect-of-the-Physical-Learning-Environment-on-Teaching-and-Learning.pdf"
The research dates back decades and yet all Australian state, and territory, governments have continued to impede student
progress through their neglect. Private schools and elite government schools are well catered for. The majority are forced to endure conditions more incolined to developing world nation states.
Governments waste a fortune on bureaucracies, glossy advertising, spin and misrepresentation whilst their own policies, and budgetary spending, create conflicts that serve to
neutralise the public investment overall.
Given the evidence, the greatest impact that Australia's Prime Minister, and
Deputy Prime Minister, can have on the Australian system and on academic performance, whilst delivering a revolution, is to provide
$A10,000,000,000 direct to Australian public schools for their facilities in the May 2008 federal budget.
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Go to the KEVINRBECK Mosaic Portal Education, Teaching and Curriculum Support
Services Web Site
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There are a number of editorial type commentaries below on significant issues in Australia. These may have resonance with
international educators and local scenarios where you teach or where others interested in education, teaching and training may interact. Below in the body of this site are
links and resources for educators anywhere in the world.
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Give teachers creative freedom they need to educate and innovate without the shackles
of ideologically inspired curriculae and the bondage imposed by vested interests.
A semi - educated population
It is my (Kevin R Beck) opinion, for what it is worth based on my very limited
scope of awareness, and experience, that most western nation governments, and their state publoic agencies, may overstate
the quality of the education systems in their respective countries. These are politically driven motives.
In the debate about the "dumbing down of curricula" and the quality of teaching in Australia,
we may tend to lose sight of whose fault it is that
the Australian position in the world ranking of educated nations is not what it should be. Similarly it may be the case in your country that governments and agencies adopt a blinkered approach and
claim that all is well. These measures are largely irrelevant. The politicians refuse to state
plainly that the real blame lies with the individual citizen, the parents, the child and even the teachers. It rareoly lies with a bloated and overblown bureaucracy, out of touch, nor with the
always, protective teacher union officials. Denial is everywhere except perhaps in the classroom
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Editorials and Commentary
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Editorials and Commentary
In Austalia people are quite simply lazy, with regard to
their self education and life long learning.
They appear to want, at every age, primary, secondary and tertiary learning, to do it on the cheap and quickly. On the
cheap being a focus on less effort and less discipline. Shallow, quick and not too taxing. If they are paying, it must be as cheap as possible.
The nation is besotted with "consumerism", with technology
trinkets and the notion that their lives should be comfortable and easy. They worry more about their mobile phone and their
aspiration for "wealth" than about the value, and health, of their mind. Too many believe that they can get rich without
having to put in and study and educate thesmelves. They want to be self employed doing beauty, aromatherapy,
food, sales engaged in a range of industry sectors that are not the foundation building blocks of society.
The tsock market, the telephone, companies the merchant bankers and a totem pole of
parasites on the economies of the globe, moving money from one place to another never leaving it there long enough to
build sustainable and valuable enterprise, that employs many and grows the talent base.
We meekly accept that there is no longer just a job for life.
We are at the mercy of paper money. Systems created by people who are
totally consumed with guessing when the bubble of the
market may pop.
The political proposition that the voters usually get it right, and the market usually gets it right,
is quite simply clap trap when it comes to education. The potential customers of deep education are disengaged, fickle and literally unable to distill the complex
policies and propositions with which our governments dabble. A marginal number of people study for more than one deep qualifiaction. The focus of our education system is on
technical - competency skills for human
endeavour at work.
The curriculums at all levels have been hijacked by vested interests. Yet this itself can be irrelevant also. What is relevant is that many western nations, especially Australia, have no culture of
life long learning. From the very that a child enters our school system they are in a world which is narrowly focused on preparatioon for work - as quickly as posible. This fundamental failure to build such a culture is
jointly owned by parents, citizens and the politicians. Thus they can squabble about whether one government ro another has failed, they can
argue about the science of teaching and then spin these arguments into vested interested campaigns, bu the truth iswe are predominantloy myooic and lazy as to how own enquiry and
and the politicians are cowardly in not stating this emphatically to our faces. How can they accuse us of being lazy, when so many of them set such bad examples in their own self development?
Meanwhile the student brings home her/his school report. It is quite simly a
document of fluff. A paragraph or two of drivel, a diagnostic description of how well
he/she participated. There is no indication as to whether she/he was,
by the teacher's assesment at the top, middle or bootom of the grade
incomparison to any realistic measure. There are glimmes of information such as he/she
cannot write coherently or makes too many spelling errors.
The rest is useless social commentary. It may well be a document about a particular place in time decsribing human behavioural capabilities amongst her peers. She communiactes well. By whose definition beacuse that is one of her major weaknesses. She cannot get to the point and
cannot use large descriptive words. His/her communication is as lucid as text messaging. The theory that underpins our economy, markets and society,
extolling the virtue of competition asthe river of performance seems to have no place in the world of Australian education.
Competition inherent in human behaviour is muted down to theories of equality and nurturing.
This is a style often riduculed by commentators as one of left wing leanings. The propositionthatthe world is full of unequalness. A curriculum driven by political correctness. Rigour is replaced by social engineering.
The three "r"s are no longer taught by rote even though it is proven that such rote learning engineers the brain for complex thought and reasoning.
He/she wastes precious minutues trying to discren, whilst screwing up the features, what might be the answer to 9 times 8? Instead he/she is invited to discover the answer in his/her own time and methodology.
After all the aim of every good curriculum is to address the
imbalance of power and resources - capitalism. The problem is that on their own, without the co-operative group assisting them they are dumb as to the answer.
They need to call their facilitator teacher and be given a real life
problem whichinvolves working out 9 times 8. They acnnot simply jump their brain to the
highorder response leve. The teacher, driven by the faceless people below, is shackled to
a "dumb theory of how we learn".
One of the most annoying aspects of the education debate in Australia are the rats in the dark. The Education bureaucrats, who
are never accountable. They are the ones who dictate the style of learning in our schools. In doing so they neuter any
real chance of creativity. I can write to them and if they deign to answer I will
get shallow, and off topic, response as if they cut the response from one of their senseless
brochures that pass for
an annual report. They are invariably insuting for the letter will presume to lecture me at the basic
level of assuming I have no knowledge of the toic at hand. Further tyhey assume that I have not had the
foresight to read and examine their clap trap web sites, publications or
myriad of papers
that puportedly justify why they have adopted the approaches they have.
These people (a mere handful) hide from justification, and forensic examination, behind the impenetrable walls of
state bureaucracies. They have embraced "outcome education philosophy"
and in doing so have collectively contributed to the dumbing down of Australia's
education curriculums. They manage their respective Ministers with a mastery.
These political puppets, instead of challengng the bureaucrats, publicly to justify
their offerings, meekly trot out sub standard policy founded on ideological theory.
There is no commitment from the political class. Just
a gladiatorial positioning for self interest.
Imagine the proposition of holding the office of Minister for Education, as a poitical
career, in order to add real value to those who voted them in. We do not get to chhose our Ministers and there is no rigorous
test for such important office. The state Premier makes a choice basedon factional interest and political self interest.
The Minister for Education in Victoria was transferred in 2007, after the state election,
to the Transport portfolio. This is particularly inept on the part of the Premier, Steve Bracks. One might presume
that external parties interested in education might ask a question or two.
What does that say about the political leader, Premier Steve Bracks',
commitment to education, longevity of vision and the notion of
building a solid foundation for education in the state?
It doesn't say much even though in a previous career he was a teacher.
We are in a "progressive education model"
student centred, processs droven and defintitely non competitive. The outcomes are at best hazy and there are measurements based on rigorous and common
foundation. Eevery sate and territory in Australa has its own education recipe and system.
This quite simply is stupid, ego driven parochialism. Given that most people understand a number (your child got 74% of the test right) it is far more perefrable for the
education bureaucrat, assiduously avoiding accountaibility, to write a short essay. Tere is a high probability that
the recipient of the school report has poor language, and cognitive, skills.
Based on statistical analysis of the nation's education pass rates and holdings,
the parents, as the children, are invariably poor readers. The progressive approach to reading and language is one of "looking and guessing".
Thus when a teacher told me that it was acceptable that a student chose the word "street" rather than what was written "road" because they had gotten the gist, I laughed at them.
It would all come with time I was informed. Stuff the progressive, whole language, approach and teach rote spelling,
phonics, phonemics and direct letter identification, sounds and syllables. Teach them howlabguage shapes a nation from the past to the
present. Let them see through this window, just how dumb, and ignorant, they are
by comparison to those who have gone before shaping civilisations. The whole language apprioach presupooses that reading and writing is as easy as learning to speak.
Listen to the modern generation and to some of our business, community and politrical laeders. Have they learnt to speak intelligibly? There are few intellectuals in our parliaments.
Intellectualism is frowned upon in Astralia and is derided through suspicion.
Give them decent books to read that tax their brains, and minds, rather than just letting
them pick on the basis that they
can learn to read themselves. They will choose magazines, comics and other such lazy instruments,
if they are permitted. Popple cock the notion that the curriculum is immersing them in "rich contextual environments". They cann read, write and spell when they arrive in my place of work.
The majority, particularly males, regardless of age, cannot talk intelligently at school, at
the pub, at the
dinner table or in any multi-social environment. They cannot readand write when they arrive at the training institute or on their first day in university.
There is an essential body of knowledge they must acquire iof we are to be a learning nation of the future.
On balance, the majority of Australians are not well educated, and culturally, literate which is one reason why politicians can get away with
having a values debate.
What we learn involves both content and process, not just process. We need to imbue doscipline and hrad work into our curriculums as they were in eras past.
The basic skills of numeracy, literacy and communication are subject specific.
They are objective, structures of a disciplined education system. Something the handful of bureaucrats, and mediocre
politicians Ministriers of State Education), have eroded.
Professor Bob Birrell, a Monash University demographer, published reserach in February 2007, pointing out that almost fifty percent of
international (fee paying) students obtaiing degrees through our universities could read or speak english to the basic level requird dfor such degree completion. Thissent shock eaves through the
bureaucats and the Ministers of Education. They immediately challenged this cliam. This was farcical given their propensity for spin, and generality, versus Bob Birrel's life long learning model for deep and critcal research.
Professor Birrell had outed the universities, the bureaucrats and the Ministers of our governments,
for their lies, and misrepresentations, as to the quality of Australia's higher education. They bleat that
suhc statements damage our reputation. It is not the
statement that does. It is their collective action over time, eroding quality that will do the damage. The Ministers for Education and the Premiers of our governments, during the period 1990 - 2007,
have forced univerities to prosititute themselves to get money to survive. Under federal, and state funding, mdels and the
policies of competition and globalism, we sell degrees.
Let's not coddle the issue in cotton wool to protect the guilty. The universities, in respect to
under graduate degrees, and the training institutes similarly, for certificates of competency,
are down to survive. The universities do not test students for english prior to entry. So they have no idea as to the qialty of the applicant and this affects quality assurance.
A test for every appliant would expose thelevel of quality (or not) of
our primary, and secondary, education systems.
The politicians will not fund tests
because that would expose their role in the degradation of Australia's failing system.
Professor Birrell's contentions from his research, are supported by Professor Miles Lewis from the Universitry of Melbourne.
The governments of Australia do not measure quality. They measure process. Their reports are like the primary school report, I criticised ion the opening.
"Sets of standards are not prescribed, externally". If they were then those who are interested could measure them.
The current pursuit of a standard curriculum and of basic measurements by the feeral government is dangerous for the stats. If such standards were introduced we would be a much closer step to knwoing full well that
our Ministries of Education are a dangerous, and under performing, lot offering little value, but lots of negatives,
to the development of Australia as a "knowledge nation". (Kevin R Beck, M.Ed (Melb 2004), Grad. Dip (Voc Ed(, (Melb 1999), Grad Cert (Voc Ed IT), (Melb, 1997), Dip Teach (MCAE, Charles Sturt, 1980), Cert. Teach (Bathurst Teachers College, 1970).
The Australian federal Minister for Education, Julie Bishop has followed the path of former Minister Brendan Nelson in
challenging the
quality and management of education in Australia
largely in the primary and secondary sectors, which operate under the control of the state
and territory governments. The new federal government
funded Technical Colleges. Curriculum content in tertiary institutions and higher education are
a cooperative regime between the Commonwealth, States and Territories and self registering entities such as Universities which operate under state legislation but with majority
federal funding. The Prime Minister John Howard has questioned the
quality or lack thereof in history and other curricula. The Australian government is playing an ever increasing role in the funding of all
education including to public and private schools where fees are paid by parents. The funding of
public versus private
school education is a long running
debate.
Joining in the debate on quality, and performance, but adding little relative value is the federal labor party spokesperson Stephen Smith:
" In a TV interview, Mr Smith indicated that "we are entitled as a nation to make sure we get value for money out of that [Australian Government
funding] and we are entitled to get the highest possible educational outcomes. So obviously I want to be looking at the standards
of education throughout the nation, both at primary and secondary and tertiary levels. The Commonwealth is entitled to have a
view about those things, but that is obviously best done in cooperation with the States. The States have traditionally run primary
and secondary education and there is no point in coming in with a sledgehammer. These things are always best done by talking
with the State colleagues and doing that in a cooperative and intelligent and sensible manner.’ Mr Smith has also claimed that
he supports the rights of parents to choose the best school to meet their children’s needs, regardless of whether the school is a
government or non-government school. He claimed that ‘I’m much less concerned about the label on the archway on the school
when they walk in than I am about the quality of the education when they walk out… I’m very [sic] strong believer in choice –
whether kids go to private schools, religious schools or secular schools. My very strong belief is that the commonwealth [sic]
must fund schools on the basis of need and on the basis of fairness.’ Mr Smith has also indicated that he support the ideas of
merit-based pay and of the introduction of a nationally-consistent curriculum. Source:
The Advertiser, Xanthe Kleinig, 12/12/06"
The education debate is
hotting up,
fuelled in part by the Austraian Newspaper and Professor Donnelly.
Mr. Smith's comments would no doubt rile the Australian Education Union and the Independent Teachers' Association.
My first response is that Mr. Smith, like many politicians, may not think about the import of such statements.
Is he saying that school Principals are not doing their job.
Are they not the first line of a teacher's performance assessment and learning culture? Smith would deny he implied asuch criticism.
Perhaps he simply let his mouth run without having put his brain in sync with his verbal commentary.
Grasp the momment regardless of the implication. A golden rule in the Australian political handbook of gladiatorial, and imflammatory,
contribution to national debate. A textbook for the unthinking politician. Of late these guides are published by the respective political
parties at state level. Mr. Smith may be more suited at that lower level of politics,a where damage can be inflicted to a greater degree in
valuable portfolios such as school education.
Sydney Morning Herald, Anna Patty, 11/12/06, says "Research has claimed that school principals have a key responsibility in helping to raise the educational standards of the
students in their schools. A study conducted by the University of Woolongong found that school principals who are able to play
an active role as educational leaders were able to influence student results more than those who were ‘bogged down in
management and administration tasks’. The study claimed that good principals were open to change, were informed risk takers,
were friendly and approachable and were able to develop a positive school culture. According to the study, they ‘constantly
remind students, staff and the community that the core purpose of the school is teaching and learning"
How would this assessment of performance touted by Mr. Smith be done? Externally and by whom, and at what intervals, in what depth and
at what cost and imposition? It is all very well for the uninformed to blather but what about somesubstance instead of theory and
populism?
"International assessment expert Professor David Andrich
has recommended to the Curriculum Council that "Levels" and
the "Direct Levelling" method are useful ONLY for broad
administrative purposes. They are invalid for the determination of students'
Tertiary Entrance Rank, and are unsuited for reporting to students and parents.
Professor Andrich has also determined that the use of "Bands within Levels"
is totally invalid statistically. A subsequent report by Professor Jim Tognolini agreed.
We call on the Curriculum Council to accept and implement all of Professors Andrich's
and Tognolini's recommendations, fully and immediately."
Source of the above quote:
People lobbying against teaching outcomes
debate on education quality in Western Australia"
"While most parents, employers and students like to have a
clear idea of standards and where students are placed
according to ability, the AATE (Australian Association for the Teaching of English) believes otherwise.
Not only does the English teacher body consistently
argue against ranking students, but the AATE also argues against state-wide
or national literacy testing. The Australian Council of Deans of Education
also argues against tests and examinations on the basis that it is wrong
to make students learn correct answers and to put students in a situation
where they have to compete, one against the other"
(Kevin Donnelly, 12 August 2004).
" If ever there was an example of double standards in politics,
then the recent announcement by Education Minister Lynne
Kosky about establishing an elite sports academy in the western suburbs
of Melbourne takes the guernsey.
Kosky is reported as agreeing to establish a
specialist sports school, to be opened in 2007, on the basis
that such a school would allow sports-minded students to train at the highest level.
One can only assume that existing government schools fail in
this regard and that the Bracks Government now agrees that
a "one-size-fits-all" approach to school education has failed.
So much for the ideal of comprehensive secondary schools
where the needs of all-comers are met with the same curriculum,"
(Kevin Donnelly, April 7, 2005).
"Indigenous educational outcomes in the Goulburn
Valley region of Victoria are very poor compared
with regional, state or national averages according
to a new University of Melbourne study. The study by
Dr Katrina Alford,
a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Population Health,
is to be published in the International Journal of Learning
(Denying Aboriginal Identity in South-East Australia:
the failure of the assimilation model in schools. Volume 10, 2003-04).
"In Victoria the system is failing our children.
There is significant evidence from the experts on
the frontline (parents, teacher and primary school principals)
that Victoria fails to deliver universal access to quality preschool education -
the critical first step of our children’s formal education,"
Parents for Preschool Education
, 31 March 2006)
"Australia’s education system is currently dumbed down, politically
correct and under-performing. While those with a vested interest
in the status quo pretend that standards are high and that
parents and students have nothing
to worry about, the reality is that our education system is in crisis,"
(Education, the way forward)
"Labor’s ‘Building Tomorrow’s Schools Today’
program has become the ‘Building Tomorrow’s Schools
Tomorrow’ following the withdrawal of the sale of
the Snowy Hydro, the Shadow Minister for Education,
Martin Dixon, said today,"
(Martin Dixon, parliamentarian
"Particular attention is paid to our promotion of
legislation that is relevant to
and inclusive of disadvantaged communities, who continue to face multiple and
diverse barriers
to education and training participation and achievement. This focus is
concomitant with The Smith
Family’s dual generational approach to education and community support,
whereby we consider
learners within the wider context of their families in order to strengthen
the social cohesion and
interaction between the generations,"
(The Smith Family, May 2005)
"Bruce Wilson, the CEO of Australia’s national curriculum
body (Curriculum Corporation),
freely admits that Australia’s approach to designing curriculum is inherently
flawed and represents an ‘unsatisfactory political and intellectual compromise’,
• a commonwealth government commissioned survey'4 concluded that almost
half of the academics interviewed agreed that the standards of first
year students had declined over time,
• a 1994 ANOP survey of civic knowledge ‘found a high level of ignorance of
citizenship issues among young people’5,
• the 1996 national literacy tests showed that approximately 27% of year 3
students and 30% of year 5 primary school children were illiterate6,
• as outlined by the Australian educationalist, Ken Gannicott7, the 1975
the literacy test; by 1995 the figure had risen to 30%,
• politicians, such as NSW Premier Bob Carr8, applauding the favourable
results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (2000) test,
even though students were notcorrected for spelling, grammar and punctuation
mistakes (if students had been corrected, many Australian students would have failed),
and
• the rise in remedial courses to teach basic literacy and numeracy skills at our
tertiary institutions.
The impact of the culture wars and the political correctness movement
• a 1998 commonwealth government survey10 related to teachers teaching civics
and citizenship showed that 60% of parents expressed ‘concern that teachers are
either not well-enough trained or professional enough to teach this program (civics)
without bias’,
• such was the public outcry against the left-wing bias of the Queensland
Studies of Society and Environment syllabus that the government was forced
to establish an independent committee to evaluate it, and
• impact of feminism on boys’ education and the world of men; evidenced by
lack of male role models, low self-esteem, behavioural problems, high drop-out
rates and poor literacy.
Low staff morale
• a survey of Australian teachers’ morale11 discovered that some 50% to
60% of teachers said they would change to a different career if they could
(the international average was 10% to 25%),
• a 1999 survey12 of some 20,000 Australian teachers, of whom half replied,
highlighted that some 26% intended to leave the profession. 24.8% of those
surveyed also said they would seek
retirement at the earliest possible age of 55 years, and
• according to a survey13 of NSW teachers carried out as part of the Vinson
Report, 60% of teachers responding expressed moderate to very low satisfaction
ratings with teaching, and
• on surveying Victorian teachers who had been in schools for five years or less,
an Australian Education Union (Victorian Branch) survey14 reported that 21.4% saw
themselves leaving the profession within five years."
Source: A nation at risk
By comparison to the Kennett liberal government of the mid nineties, which cut
teacher numbers and the
education budget dramatically, the Bracks' labor
government has spent a fortune. They had to recover the lack of maintenance
and capital funding made by a liberal government obsessed with ranting about labor's
debt burden
from the labor Cain and Kirner years.
All very good for the media but pretty lousy for children
particularly from disadvantaged areas. So we might reduce
liberal Shadow Minister for Education, Martin Dixon's
claims, above, to scepticism for their
political objecties rather than altruistic care for the education system and the children.
However spending mega dollars on teacher numbers (note that Bracks did not reinstate tenure for teachers, new ones get short term contracts
and have to beg for their jobs again the next term or year. This is the policy of a labor government obsessed with surplus and economic
conformance to a rigid ideology. Premier Bracks, and Treasurer Brumby, like the liberals,
are captive to arow minded market theory and greedy fools in the investment sector. The government is also captive to
a fat and self assured bureaucracy and the hacks of its parliamentary wing and administrative structures.
There are a lot of closeted workers here some of whom are former teachers. Steve Bracks is a former teacher, so he probably thinks he knows a bit about education.
He obviously did not find it a rewarding career and there are no stellar reports of his time in that vocation.
Quite a number of fifteen year olds in Victorian public
schools cannt count their tables, spell and read with any precision and accuracy.
They have no grounding in history or geography or
classical literature.
They have hwoever been grounded in studying the shopping centres of thye city,
as part of their social studies programme. They
interview people about how much they spend on retail, in what shops. They learn to
read a tram and train timetable. They study television and print advertisements to discern target audiences and
manipulation. They do a lot of froth and bubble work that is not too taxing for them.
They are semi literate and lack rigour through Victoria's low grade secondary school curricula.
Mr. Bracks, and Education Minister Lyn Kosky, who know a bit about education do not like
to be told it is sub standard. They and their bureaucrats, advisers and the hangers on,
who would not be fed in
the private sector,
dismiss the body of evidence above and more. They create curriculum and programmes that have as much challenge and the 4Rs as a magazine.
Steve Bracks, and the mediocre ;labor party of Victoria, go to an election in November 2006. Such is the state of Victorian politics
and democracy that
a government mired in corrupt electoral practices with worthless members
sitting on the benches of parliament will get back in. This security of tenure
breeds hubris, and disdain, for
contrary opinion and makes the government lazy and easy as she goes. Build bridges and have Commmonwealth games, roads and
simple things, but the hard stuff well that is a problem, particularly when the
parliament is mired in mediocrity.
The voters of Victoria should give both sides of parliament (labor and liberal)
a fright and vote in a mix of independents
and choose their representatives carefully and wisely. For example only people
totally uncaring of the quality of their
democracy, public policy and administration,
would vote George Seitz and Peter Batchelor back into parliament.
The existence of these two and others in the peoples' house, supported by Steve Bracks, should lead Victorians to wonder what sort of
person the Premier and what standards and values he has? The quality of
education in the state is reflective of the
quality of governance of the Victorian labor party.
In 1996 the liberal party, lead by John Howard, came to government. One of their first acts was to abolish the labor party's Working Nation initiative, closing the Commonwealth Employment Agency offices across the nation. They privatised the operation of employment services to Employment National and the Job Network agencies. The government appointed board of Employment National, under direction of Minister Tony Abbott, did not perform well and Employment National went broke. The Howard government does not allow economic, and social, evaluations of its performance by the public service or any public agency and controls the office of the Auditor General through contracting out and limitations on funding. Thus, there can be no strong independent critique of their administration by anyone who has access to real information. Job Network has similarly gone broke on a number of occasions.
Apart from the substandard performance of the government's planning and administration of public agencies and monies, the additional negative impacts have been a loss of training focus and degradation of Australia's skills base. The government stripped out the $1,000,000,000 allocated by labor to training people. It also stopped state further education and training agencies from participating in employment services delivery. It was ideological bastardry, not a decision based on careful evaluation and thought. It is typical of the Howard government. Incompetency is masked and results fabricated until the truth is out. A government of continual lies and hypocrisy that is abusive of its oath of office.
Then it created the masterful idea of Technical Colleges. These twenty four newly created institutions, run by private enterprise, industry and quasi community partnerships, would solve the problem. They would compete against the state and territory owned institutions. Guess what? There were no takers, industry was not interested because the government assumes that it is the party of entrepreneurialism. The technical colleges have all but failed to materialise and they have definitely not delivered.
"New technical colleges in crisis
Samantha Maiden, Political correspondent
April 25, 2006, The Australian
JOHN Howard's vision for 24 federally funded technical colleges to tackle the skills shortage has unravelled, with the Government threatening to strip some regions of the training centres promised at the last election.The vocational colleges, which fall largely in marginal electorates held by the Coalition, from Darwin to coastal Queensland and regional Victoria, are being set up in competition with state-run TAFE colleges."
The government minister Gary Hargreaves was told that the initiative would fail, as was Minister Peter McGauran and other senior members of Australia's federal government. The thing is they do not take any advice that contradicts their view on board. They dismiss criticism,
or alternative, opinion.
For them critics are coming from an opposing political side, not from
knowledge or experience.
They see bias where it does not necesarily exist. Their dismissing of others, tells us so - "plain wrong" is the common phrase of a federal minister, in retort, regardless of the ministers own capacities to present a coherent argument. They are not swayed by well researched argument or by people more experienced, and intellectually capable of reasoned analysis, than they are. The public service has learnt to tell the minister what she or he wants to hear and they do so accordingly. Despite evidence to the contrary pointing to ultimate failure, they go ahead, lose a million, tens of hundreds of millions. Then then they will roll out the spin doctors to tell us lies as to the intention and the outcome.
The bureaucrats used to rig the Job Network figures, to please4 their political masters,
till they were caught and then they simply stopped reporting the statistics. Without statistics of worth we cannot critique policy in action and demand accountability,.
The early warning signs are taken away because they add risk to the world of
politics and government. Statistics can be manipulated and so are often treated with scepticism.
What is in their place, nothing! As a result ten years on, Australia's skill base is fragmented and the nation importing skills. The government's training agenda has been lampooned by education experts and now by industry. Still they persist incredulous that everyone does not embrace their ideological stupidity. (The author Kevin R beck, is a Master of Education, University of Melbourne 2004 and holds to other post graduate qualifications in education and training from the same University, 1997 - 1999 and a Diloma of Teaching from Mitchell College of Advanced Education, Bathurst Australia, 1980).
Editorial: Teachers, the crap and rewards they endure
Teachers, like nurses, are paid a pittance by comparison to some pretty average careers, that add little social value. Take for example the computer geek, the boring accountant, the anal retentive lawyer, among many others, including the low value bureaucrat, and politician.
For their miserly wage they have to put up with the parent who thinks their kid is an angelic genius, rather what they really are. They have to teach all types including the disadvantaged, in overloaded class rooms with resources, if they are lucky, set by mean spirited bureaucrats, and suspect politicians, who spend more on their own salaries, benefits and advertising their own prowess than on actually educating.
Teachers have to assist children, and youth, whose parents cannot be bothered or cannot cope. They have to put up with a pompous, and rather worthless bureaucratic structure above them, that is distant, and disengaged, from the coal face. They have to tolerate the self opinionated expert who is
flavour of the month
with the politician. They must remain silent least they be prosecuted, and sacked, if they speak out when a Premier, Prime Minister or President or Minister of a government, with little credibility and a (criminal) spin meister at their side, talks drivel about education, quality,
curriculum
whilst denigrating what they are teaching and their efforts. These ignorant parasites, on the public purse, destroy teachers' motivation. The teachers do not set the curriculum the "experts" do. Teachers have to put up with pompous professors, deans, principals and some very average academics and colleagues.
Teachers have to put up with hormonal life changing situations, drugs, alcohol, deviance, bullying, thuggery and violence in the student population. They have to tolerate tantrums and the wonder of puberty. On top of this is the sanctimonious politician who undervalues their efforts, criticises their output and takes every opportunity to point score for some political gain. The comments are hardly worth the space the media gives them.
For some inexplicable reason teachers love their calling. Their reward is the respect, and performance, of their charges. Teachers are worth a lot more than governments, and local authorities, pay them. What a weak, and ignorant, lot we the voters are, to allow teachers to suffer this crap and be treated like this. Do we own the governments, the politicians and the bureaucrats or do they own us?
Kevin R Beck, owner of the Mosaic Portal on the web, Master of Education (2004, Melbourne, Australia), Grad. Dip. Vocational Education & Training (1999, Melb), Grad. Cert. Ed. & Train (IT),(1997, Melb), Dip. Teach (1980, Charles Sturt, MCAE, Australia), Teach. Cert. (Bathurst Teachers, MCAE, Australia, 1970).
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Same story - different country, does the material below resonate with you?
Professor Kevin Donnelly is an Australian education
"expert"
who has come to public prominence under the Howard federal government particularly during Dr. Brendan Nelson's time as federal Minister for Education, Science and Training. Mr. Donnelly writes in Australian print media and an article appeared in the Weekend Australian, February 18 - 19, 2006, where he theorises that parents want their values taught and not the values of teachers. This is an interesting proposition. What if teachers taught the
"values of executives"
who are parents, such as those at One Tel, Australian Wheat Board, Commonwealth Bank, Enron and the
"politicians and people at the Australian Department of Immigration"
to name just a few.
Mr. Donnelly claims, as to others that teachers are under the thrall of the Australian Education Union and politically correct and obsessive new age curriculum and methods designers. I would put another proposition that might go some way to explaining the more complex world of the Australian teacher.
International practitioners might find some relativity with their own situation.
At the the heart
of the matter is a teacher's preparation for, and capacity to sustain, personal identity and integrity in a world that demands radical shifts in roles, and in emotions from moment to moment. " (Adapted from Berquist 1995)
In this paper I am not implying the way we teach is only fraught with danger. There are extrordinary rewards and persobnal satisfaction.
However, teachers can be placed in adversarial posuitions by parents, administrators, politicians and experts.
The standard of education in many countries, Australia, United States, United Kingdom and so on, is as an average of the population, quite low.
In Melbourne Australia, on a weekday morning commercial radio show,
the talk back commentator reflects the educational ignorance of a great number of the listening audience and the population.
The tone of the commentary is a carping and cultural one.
The radio host seeks to justify his failure in personal educational pursuit not completing
university by arguing that education too often imbues arrogance. Why bother to educate yourself if you can eran a very large salary being ignorant?
The radio jock is intellectually lazy. He denigreates "academics" and his opinions are not isolated from the norm. They are not
informed by learning but by perception and
feelings.
External parties ever seeking an interest or advantage may seek to implement change, or raise issues, that threaten the security of habit of an institution and its people. In this case the institutions are the sate, and territory, departments of education and training and the primary and secondary schools sector. There is some relevancy in the higher education sector. Actions could have wider implications and impacts depending on the practitioner and may question the relevance and commitment of bureaucrats, their own institutions, ministers of governments and the very foundations of the system.
In an era beset with rapid change and upheaval the self interested, the well prepared, the skillful and the resourceful may come to enter, even for short periods, and bring an ever lasting change to the very nature of the institution of education. Teachers, grappling with their own inner conflicts and doubts are caught up in cultural and political battlegrounds, often not of their making.
THE PITFALLS OF REFLECTIVE ACTION
A Shift from Paternalism
Berquist (1995) postulated that teachers find it difficult to relate laterally with colleagues, vertically or upward to outside regulatory and accreditation groups. There are many reasons for this. The structure of the modern organisation consists of tenured teachers, contract teachers, sessional teachers and other visiting lecturers from industry. Teachers are organised into schools of disciplines and organisations appear to be vertically rather than horizontally organised. Teachers may also be at variable levels of maturity within the system and at various cultural points. They are focused on their charges (students). There is a tendency for academics to tolerate the system rather than risk their students being disadvantaged by internal power plays and ruckus. Concentrating on these of their students can result in the teacher being focused there rather than on inter personal collegiate relationships.
Over the past decade there has been a shift from paternalism to more autonomous forms of authority, exerted not through personal power and influence but through rules, procedures and standards derived by consensus. There are many players and bibles in the field of rules. These rules are slanted towards maintaining the power of the bureaucracy and the creators. Such bodies are the Victorian Institute of College Directors and Administrators (VICAD). The National Framework for Training (NFROT) and the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) now abolished, the Office of Training and Further Education (OTFE) and of course the ever present Department of Employment Education Training and Youth Affairs (DEETYA) abolished and replaced with the Department of W9orkplace Relations and Education, Science and Training, to name but a few. Each has its own agenda, politics and regulatory regimes but some, like the Victorian OTFE and Schools departments, also control the conditions of employment
The policies delivered and enacted upon us, by the above bodies, force us, as administrators and teachers, to become introspective. Government policy is that (institutions) will be funded on quality outcomes. This is a difficult dilemma given that all of the administration and navel gazing within institutions is geared to measure inputs and not outputs. There is a fundamental premise from state and federal treasury that education, as it exists, is too expensive. Institutions and teachers are psychologically shamed and must examine their institutions and its internal operations to determine the nature and extent of their flaws. This shift from external constraints and punishment, under the old paternalistic models, to intense control and shame, through such mechanisms as the published comparisons of institutional costs by OTFE, provokes internal ambiguity, anxiety and fragmentation within institutions. (Sennett 1981).
I believe that this is no less demonstrable in the general society at large and the models of government within Australia. The nation must do more, make more sacrifices and pursue social and economic reforms. We must accept what we are told from those who know better than us. Governments are elected with mandates. The mandate, as they seem to interpret, is to change and restructure. Teachers and the nation are exhorted to conform, creating uniformity of standards and curricula, equity and funding, at the expense of diversity, creativity, professionalism and identity. There is a move to mass customisation of curricula for unit costing and for ease of conversion to multimedia. Since the bureaucrats and the governments seem to be bereft of creativity and invention to deal with the ever increasing complexities they seem hell bent on destroying the foundations of our creativity, by starving the institutions of funds, resources and even the physical premises in which to work. They enforce social experiments
upon us in education and employment, and remove our own self worth through shaming us, creating feelings of isolationism and insecurity.
On the one hand the government bemoans literacy levels and on the other demands more training is needed to address unemployment. All while reducing the tools we use to address these things. The implementation of short-term contracts of employment is one example of this measure of isolationism and reduction in security and self esteem. Fear of loss of livelihood mollifies our resistance. The feeling of isolationism in professional practice can be extreme, and opposition from administration and from the bureaucracy, grows to our enquiries and our viewpoints. Retention of status quo arguments abound. Teachers are at different stages of awareness, maturity and power. Things may become too hot to handle as administrators respond that they did not expect all of the upset, the reaction, the cost, the time and the effort involved in the reflection of our professional practice. There is a schism between roles. Managers have a perspective of implementing policy and meeting budgetary targets. Their agendas are
different. Being career public servants they are not likely to challenge the status quo. Issues raised by teachers can be contentious and Councils may have a strategy, which appears to ignore teachers concerns.
Teachers are at the coalface. For them the imperative is to deliver learning and support. Those teachers who have been in the system for an extended period and who may have tenure are more likely to peruse issues more doggedly. The size of the Institution is also relevant and its industry support. For example the government sought to amalgamate William Angliss Institute of Tafe, a small single purpose tertiary education entity of 3,500 students. The Council mustered strong and influential support from industry for independence and succeeded. Colleges such as Northern with 60,000 students were extremely influential in the Victorian system.
But it is not just from management and bureaucracy that we meet hostility and resistance. The very people that teachers seek to help and empower, to advantage through their efforts will not necessarily be supportive to teachers. They often suspect the teacher's motives. They are products of the Australian community and there is evidence that they have anti-social values inbred from: home, ethnic (community, political and media) labeling, poor basic education and family and social circumstance. Mr. Donnelly does not tell whether it is these values that teachers are to embrace?
In searching for answers teachers often reinforce the fundamental epistemological distortion. This distortion holds that someone, or something out there, has the knowledge that constitutes the answer to our problem. (Brookfield 1995) And thus we engage in endless search for the solution to our problems, as we perceive the or for the secrets of success. Talking to colleagues about what we do unravels the shroud of silence in which our practice is wrapped. It exposes our frailties and our concerns. Participating in critical conversations with peers opens us up to their views (Brookfield 1995). We begin alone and then discover there are others with the same experiences. We might even reinforce the myth that `everything depends on the teacher' (Britzman 1991).
Teachers who subscribe to this theory believe that students lassitude or hostility is the result of lack of enthusiasm on the part of the teacher. Practitioners, the like of Dewey and Kolb, have referred to the moral, cognitive and experiential learning that suggests students realise that they are experiencing things that they may prefer to leave untouched and therefore they resist and rebel. They actively oppose learning. We may translate such plausible arguments to our teaching experiences. Descarthe conceived the mind as being hidden or private - a realm of consciousness totally divorced from the physical world. Descarthe implied the futility, which prevents those who work in our field from understanding the very problems they try to solve because our charges actively keep the reasons or their motivations hidden.
Teachers are caught at points of political contradiction. The inner worlds of institutions have their own political frameworks and these are impinged upon by external political forces and agendas of self interest, which practitioners are often at pains to reconcile and understand. Politics uses up our emotional energies and diverts us from our fundamental cause and goal - the education of our charges. `Being critically reflective may well bring us into direct conflict with organisational priorities and hierarchies of power. As we start to question institutional definitions ... as we suggest alternatives.. We are threatening a way of living and thinking that is comfortable." (Brookfield 1995, pp40-41) and threats to someone's position of power brings anger, punishment, retribution and the fight for survival. "In the dance of experimentation we are compelled to act and change our institutions and ourselves", (Brookfield 1995).
The operation of power dynamics is overlooked in the simplistic propositions tha
t unions are controlling the system and what is taught. Human nature is fraught with dynamics and there are a myriad of interest dynamics at play not least the ego and self-delusion of politicians, bureaucrats and experts. A "power dynamic that is oppressive and unhelpful has crept in to influence the organisation, its... a dynamic that is submerged. The person that you (yourself) observe may not be as familiar as the one you imagine yourself to be." (Brookfield 1995). In dealing with students some teachers take the view that one of their tasks, in is to expose to students these processes and create space for them to become aware of how these processes work (Brookfield 1995). Critics argue that this is some form of left wing agenda. They argue that their values, of conservatism, or mainstream value theory, are faultless. Unfortunately under our models of institutional and government management this is hardly the case. In the daily lives of our politicians and in their belief structures there are no faults
in the things they create. There are no faults in their social experiments such as the jobs network, the funding models, the higher education systems, the standardisation and the competitive market place. There is managed cooperation and consultation and even less evolution. There is overburdening micro management.
According to Brookfield 1995, if teachers engage in action arising from reflective practice they risk cultural suicide.
· `Many of us go through our teaching lives fearing that at some unspecified point in the future, we will undergo a humiliating public unveiling. We wear an external mask of control, but beneath it we know that really we are frail figures, struggling to make it through the end of each day.' (Imposters from a text, Brookfield 1995, p230).
Those who engage in action may be
`labelled as subversive troublemakers, making life as difficult and uncomfortable as possible for those around them. Their raising challenging questions can lose them friends, harm their careers and turn them into institutional pariahs. Teaching is a political thing. And often our dilemmas have no solution within our scope of abilities. ( Jackson 1992).
In maintaining the impetus we must be cognisant of what Brookfield (1995) termed `incremental fluctuation'. The two steps forward, one step back, four forward one back effect. `When these apparent regressions to earlier ways of thinking and acting take place, they are felt as devastatingly final' (Brookfield 1995)
For many teachers there is no inner support. The stable assumptive clusters had evaporated, but no substitutes had solidified to take their place. This was the moment when his confidence drained away. (An adaptation of Brookfield 1995, p244).
Crashing is a predictable moment of critical process, not an idiosyncratic event. (Brookfield op cit, p 244).
Government, bureaucrats, policy makers, top management of educational institutions and the critics such as Mr. Donnelly, typically focus on the learning environments for students, but what of the learning environment for teachers? In institutions, critical conversation is tolerated, only to the point that it did not question the direction that the "managers" have set. It was under the Kennett Liberal government of the nineties that teachers faced sack if they spoke out publicly.
Staff were told in mass meetings that it was expected that they get behind the agenda. 'Those who swim against the tide often find the current too strong' (Brookfield 1995). In the educational debates, teachers are not heard because they don't speak. And they do not speak because they are part of a culture that silences them by a set of oppressive mechanisms such as over work, class sizes, low status and a defined standard for performance. (Rickert 1992). If the union speaks out they are derided as out of touch, self interested, as reactionary dinosaurs. They are an impediment to the unhindered exercise of corporate power.
'If you want to change people's ideas, you should not try to convince them intellectually. What you need to do is to get them into structures where they will have to act on ideas not argue about them.' (Horton 1990). In today's education industry government and bureaucracy `hides' disclosure and stifles debate. They enact a culture of secrecy and actively discourage reflection that involves questioning. Knowledge is power and in the modern Australia, something that is to be privatised or purchased by the individual at a very high cost. Information is doled out or used to `garner allegiance' (Brookfield 1995) `Education does not exist apart from other institutions in our society. It is guided and shaped by societal forces and, often, can exert little influence on them. Education must often sit back as a force batters it. At other times it can respond while force is operating.' (Thompson 1973). These external forces are so great in times of rapid change. But for teachers the imperative is in the space
of a small classroom, the day-to-day dilemma. Teachers are individuals and for many the system is crushing and the task soul destroying particularly when viewed through narrow prisms of ideology and theory, narrow mindedness, uninformed thinking, bigotry and mistrust.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Harnessing the Winds of Change - Brochure, William Angliss 2000 Pty Ltd
Berquist W H, Quality Through Access. Jossey Bass, California 1995
Sennett R, Authority, Random House Publications 1981
Brookfield S D, Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, Jossey Bass, California 1995.
Britzman D, Practice Makes Perfect, Journal of Higher Education, 1994 65(2) pp 183 - 193.
Britzman D, Beginning Teachers, Journal of Higher Education 1991
Kriesberg, Transforming Power: Domination, Empowerment and Education Uni of NY Press 1992
Nemiroff Reconstructing Education: Towards a Pedagogy of Critical Humanism. Westport Greenwood Press 1992
Horton Miles
Jackson Understanding Teacher Development NY TC Press 1992.
Richert A E Voice and Power in Teaching and Learning To Teach SU Press NY 1992.
Author: Kevin R Beck
Master of Education (University of Melbourne, Australia, 2004)
Graduate Diploma of Vocational Education and Training (Melbourne, 1999)
Graduate Certificate of Education and Training (Melbourne, 1997)
Diploma of Teaching (Mitchell College of Advanced Education, Australia, 1980)
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