I'm ridiculously busy this week so I'm going to cheat and repost my article from Sunday. I really need to organise my life better. I'm working six days a week at the moment and having to do articles and newspaper stuff on top of that. It really stinks.
In fun news though, I'll be on ABC radio in Adelaide tonight between 7:30 and 8:30pm with Peter Goers. He's a tremendously entertaining man. Have a listen if you have time.
I have it on my list of Things To Do to properly arrange a schedule so that I can post at least once a day. My vision is to focus a lot more on feministy type things and the meeja. It may also include a site redesign. If you have any great desire for certain things to be covered (eg movie reviews of shit films from the 1980s) then don't hesitate to leave them below. I've neglected this blog for too long, and I'm growing desperate to pay it some more attention.
Until then, please feel free to check out the following two blogs. They have both made me laugh greatly in the last week.
The Whole of Her Sermon - I particularly recommend the post titled 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair'.
Right After This
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AS anyone who's ever found themselves thrust into far-off kingdoms, fantastical adventures or grim kitchen sink dramas knows, the journey home can't be made without forging an unbreakable bond between reader and book – one that allows the reader to open the book to any page and re-enter at will.
Quite simply, it's the most valuable passport you will ever own. The best part? Applications have no age limit.
Yet, despite the international bacchanal we held over the spell Harry Potter casts on young readers, it seems there is still cause for concern.
As part of the Rudd Government's education revolution, national testing of literacy and numeracy levels began on Tuesday for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. According to Julia Gillard, the Federal Government will use the results to inform an "evidence-based approach to literacy and numeracy programs and teacher professional development".
But, in a move welcomed by most educators and their representatives, Ms Gillard is now declaring league tables of the testing's results won't be made available despite the Government's election promises.
In less boring poli-speak, this means the public won't have the opportunity to read a list of schools ranked from best to worst and subsequently assess our own superiority or lack thereof. It's a shame really, because if there's one activity we Australians like it's getting tipsy on the schadenfreude.
With such a divide in standards between upper-crust private schools and the ghetto-style crack dens that make up their counterparts (not to mention the immediate attention that needs to be paid to indigenous education), who can blame us?
Sarcasm aside, the idea of a league table system troubles me, primarily because it will result in obnoxious talkback callers indulging in another of Australia's favourite sports – trash-talking teachers. Unhelpful at best, stupid at worst.
While it's true the wacky yet currently popular rubbish of whole language learning spawned from the acid trip that was the '70s is a giant waste of time for those who want to learn to read properly, it's not the root cause of the problem.
Blaming teachers entirely for poor student performance fails to take into account some educators are forced to teach children who were clearly raised in a pigpen. A friend teaching in England came to her classroom one day to find someone had deposited the contents of their bowels on the floor (not just a Summer Heights High joke). Another friend who has recently begun teaching in an SA primary school had to explain to some of her students why making jokes about rape isn't funny.
It is not the responsibility of schools to be the sole educators for generation next. Squawking about the widespread failure of teachers is a very convenient way of alleviating responsibility when it comes to a parent's own role in childhood education; namely, to encourage learning in the first place and to raise children into engaged, enquiring adults.
It is completely unreasonable to expect an overworked teacher to effectively cater to the needs of 30-plus students of varying abilities without some pretty firm building blocks already in place. If you want your children to be literate, exercise some parental responsibility and teach them to read before they even step foot in the classroom.
Teach them by rote to recognise the alphabet. Sound out phonetics with them. Read to them every night even when they hit primary school. Have them read to you. Treat them to a book as often as you can afford it and let them choose their own. Have the patience to do all this and more, and your battle will already be half won.
But for those who simply send their children off to school expecting the hard work to be done by someone else? As far as I'm concerned you have no-one to blame for your child's inadequate literacy level but yourself.
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Peace out (speaking of books, I cannot recommend Marisha Perl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics more highly. I'm about halfway through and forcing myself to go slowly because it is such an enjoyable reading experience - funny and clever with just the right amount of literary pretension thrown in.)
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Cheater cheater pumpkin eater
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6 apples:
nice article audrey. i'm a teacher in a remote aboriginal school, and i get so frustrated with the fact that everyone has an opinion on teachers and how shit we are...
another problem with this benchmarking and ranking (apart from the social, linguistic and cultural bias of the tests) is that if performance-based pay does in fact become a reality, no one will work in these disadvantaged schools. i certainly wouldn't!
REALLY GOOD teachers and librarians do make such a substantial difference though. Sing ho for a teacher, as Pooh would say (not that kind of poo - I mean, ick).
As a parent currently schlepping around looking at primary schools (because apparently we schlep these days, it's not at all acceptable just to throw your child at the local school and then let them make their own way home), I must say the x factor in schools is completely intangible and totally relative - our local is completely feral (think spending half the year outside in humpies) which will suit our Frederique down to the ground, but I could see how other kids could have nervous breakdowns there. The school 15 minutes drive away has an electronic whiteboard in every classroom - but as the principal said, it's just another learning aid.
Having said that i write novels for a living and I'm still vaguely illiterate - I can't tell if it's a u or a v in the word verification string thingy.
Just to clarify the context of my comment - it would never have occurred to me to ask about the schools performance in testing etc. For me it's more about whether or not my child will be nurtured by the environment to want to learn.
Yes - obviously it is the responsibility of parents and guardians to look after their own children and education. But school league tables, made public, will allow many to make more effective decisions about their children's education!
Unsurpisingly, the Rudd Government doesn't like parents making decisions for their own children like that. Let the education devolution begin!
Wow. That's so cool that you promoted me and drove all this traffic to me site — thank you! — but now I have inconveniently had a nervous breakdown and can't make new, impressive posts to convert my new traffic to loyal readers because I've GONE BONKERS. But, really, thanks.
If my brain was intact I'd also have heaps of brainy things to say about education that would BLOW YOUR MIND but unfortunately, well, nervous breakdown issues again. Viscous circle, innit?
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