Tuesday, May 04, 2004

POLITICALLY CORRECT AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS

In Australia, its not indisciplined minorities that are the big problem in public schools but rather teaching theories that are nothing but Leftist fads and a curriculum that is preoccupied with Leftist indoctrination. That's a large part of the reason why a third of Australian High School students are sent to private schools. But even the private schools have to toe the line on curriculum and teacher certification so that is only a very partial escape. My very bright son goes to a private school but reached his final year of High School without ever even hearing of great English poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge -- but he had been made to study fourth-rate "indigenous" Australian poets. When I realized what had happened and read him some Wordsworth etc he really enjoyed it. The following is another account of Australian education (some excerpts):
"Nations that perform best in international tests include the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Singapore and South Korea, and they forsake outcomes-based education in favour of a syllabus approach. Unlike Australia, curriculum in such countries is discipline-based, measurable, incorporates high stakes testing, relates to specific year levels and enforces system accountability with specific rewards and sanctions (under-performing schools are identified and successful teachers are rewarded).

The flaws in Australia's outcomes-based approach to curriculum are manifold. As a result of adopting such fads as whole language, where students are taught to "look and guess" and to work out the meaning of words from their context, generations of students, especially boys, are placed at risk. As a result of fuzzy maths, where primary students are allowed to use calculators and where basic algorithms such as long division are no longer taught, many students are unable to do mental arithmetic or to recite their times tables. The very skills most needed if students are to master higher order thinking.

Teaching history has also suffered. As a result of the culture wars, not only is the focus on teaching politically correct values and beliefs, especially in areas such as multiculturalism, the environment, feminism and the class war, but many students leave school with a fragmented and superficial knowledge of the past. As Monash academic Mark Peel noted in a submission to the national inquiry into history teaching: "Indeed, their sense of the world's history is often based on intense moments and fragments. The 20th century is largely composed of snatches, moments that rarely gel into a longer narrative."

By focusing on process instead of content and by dumbing down academic subjects to make them immediately attractive and accessible, the end result is that many students leave school culturally illiterate, unable to write a properly structured essay and with a misplaced sense of their own academic worth."


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