It is interesting tha the national 'debate' (or has the conclusion already been arrived at) about the common curriculum is of different quality depending where you focus.
The Language and Maths areas for example are very narrowly focussed on fairly mundane skills...grammar, adding up, multiplying, spelling...and so on.
The History area is really about evaluative interpretation. Long ago (when I was at school) I remember being told by someone who had not long been out of university that history was not about regurgitating dates. This was news to me. As it seemed that that was all it had been about up until then.
So 1066 is immediately recognisable as a date of significance, and indeed 1914-1918.
But get into it at any deeper level and it is apparent, even obvious , that the dates are not that significant.
They are of course easy to teach!
But what is important is the meaning and interpretation of events, words and actions.
This requires a level of critical skill which is far more important than being able to regurgitate the sucession of British monarchs from 1066 to the present day.
This is also true of English.While I do think that it's important to be able to spell, and to write relatively intelligble English. It's also vital that anyone is taught how to evaluate what is written as well as to spell it correctly.
And not just what is written. But also what is thrust at us in the form of advertising, the values that are promoted through TV and film, and the inevitable need to work out what on earth is the value of anything that appears on the internet.
Lest we think that all problems are solved with rote learning of grammar and spelling, we should I think try to address this some what more deeply and realise that that is only a start.
Maths is a bit more tricky. I am always amazed when I arrive at a checkout and am told that the cost is $7.15; when I hand over a $10 note and a 5 cent and 10 cent piece (thinking I am making their life easier) I am sometimes faced with a puzzled look.
This is because the cash register has told them that the change is $2.85 and they can't always easily work out what they should do when I give the extra 15 cents.
This is very low level stuff.
I think Maths is also evaluative. Statistics are used widely, but which of us can adequately assess what we are told unless we can sort the wheat from the chaff. (don't even start me about the use of metaphor!!)
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Heed the warnings!
I think by and large a national curriculum is quite a good idea.
It is not unreasonable to think that we should be able to say that if you go to school in Australia then there should be a capacity to say that if you have completed, say, 10 years of schooling then at least you have been exposed to the same general education in Tasmania as you might have been if you happened to have gone to school in Western Australia.
This is better than saying each State government, or worse each individual school , can decide what it likes about what is the core.
But this, of course, does not guarantee that everyone will be at the same level when they leave school. We still have to address the issues of scale, the problems of remote and small communities, and the ever-increasing disparity between private and public education. These are not, essentially, issues of curriculum...they are issues of resourcing, inequality and justice.
A national curriculum is "a good idea" if it is the genuine struggling of the educational community to grapple with what it means to "be educated" in 21st century Australia.
It is not a good idea if it is governments, politicians and/or bureaucrats making decisions about what is in the best interests of people and imposing that on the system.
This does not matter whether it is Labor or Liberal, Greens or Independents...while they are all entitled to their opinion they are not, cannot be, and should not be the only voices that are heard in this discussion.
So often they are. And of course there is enormous power and influence if you control the purse.
So much is immediately apparent in the opening salvos of the history debate.
Our politicians (eyes as ever on the polls) are already eyeing off public opinion and creating division about the curriculum..."too much aboriginal", "too much asian", "not enough British"....
Where, I ask, is the debate about what 'history' is?
One thing I know is that while history may often have been indoctrination (think of the way we have talked about WW1 and WW2 for example)...or what we now call 'political correctness'...that is, supporting particular political goal.
Education is ultimately about equipping a student to assess and evaluate situations for themselves. While this might require the gaining of certain fundamental skills (eg. spelling, factual information, numerical competency, language vocabulary etc....) it is not, in the end, being told what to think!
It is not unreasonable to think that we should be able to say that if you go to school in Australia then there should be a capacity to say that if you have completed, say, 10 years of schooling then at least you have been exposed to the same general education in Tasmania as you might have been if you happened to have gone to school in Western Australia.
This is better than saying each State government, or worse each individual school , can decide what it likes about what is the core.
But this, of course, does not guarantee that everyone will be at the same level when they leave school. We still have to address the issues of scale, the problems of remote and small communities, and the ever-increasing disparity between private and public education. These are not, essentially, issues of curriculum...they are issues of resourcing, inequality and justice.
A national curriculum is "a good idea" if it is the genuine struggling of the educational community to grapple with what it means to "be educated" in 21st century Australia.
It is not a good idea if it is governments, politicians and/or bureaucrats making decisions about what is in the best interests of people and imposing that on the system.
This does not matter whether it is Labor or Liberal, Greens or Independents...while they are all entitled to their opinion they are not, cannot be, and should not be the only voices that are heard in this discussion.
So often they are. And of course there is enormous power and influence if you control the purse.
So much is immediately apparent in the opening salvos of the history debate.
Our politicians (eyes as ever on the polls) are already eyeing off public opinion and creating division about the curriculum..."too much aboriginal", "too much asian", "not enough British"....
Where, I ask, is the debate about what 'history' is?
One thing I know is that while history may often have been indoctrination (think of the way we have talked about WW1 and WW2 for example)...or what we now call 'political correctness'...that is, supporting particular political goal.
Education is ultimately about equipping a student to assess and evaluate situations for themselves. While this might require the gaining of certain fundamental skills (eg. spelling, factual information, numerical competency, language vocabulary etc....) it is not, in the end, being told what to think!
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