BRILLIANT LETTER, articles, editorial in THE OZ!! July
10, 2012
See articles, Editorial below,
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Postmodernism to blame
Peter Wilson ("What's wrong with our schooling", 30/6-1/7), suggests that the lack of classroom discipline results from, at least in part, the changes in classroom management towards the student-centred learning model wherein direction, correction, criticism and discipline are all frowned on, if not banned.
With that in mind, I wonder what Bantick's answer to this question would be: could a truly knowledgeable teacher expect to impart his or her knowledge to a classroom containing ill-disciplined students, and with all of those students operating under the student-centred learning practices increasingly in vogue?
It's my view that only the very bright self-motivated students would bother to tap that knowledge base.
Bantick's ignorant teachers and Wilson's badly behaved students all arise from the idiocy of postmodernism and its idiotic corollaries: no one is to blame, nothing is absolute, all is relative, and no one is better than anyone else and therefore no one can tell anyone else they are wrong.
Did Bantick ever tell his student teachers they do not have adequate subject knowledge and they should undertake further studies?
The sooner these devolutionary anti-educational trends are reversed, the better, though I fear it is too late. Too many teachers have been brought up under the regime within which they are expected to function.
Graeme Osborne, Southern River, WA
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It hinges on the scientific method of observing, theorising and testing predictions through experiments and analysis. The basis of science is measuring results to establish facts.
Where there are unknowns, the aim of science is to identify and quantify them and find ways to make them known.
In science, everything is contestable except provable facts. In education, these fundamentals must be preserved if we are to maintain the integrity of science and education.
This is a serious matter because it is our growing knowledge of the world around us, through science, that has enabled our progress over millennia. And it is the fresh knowledge we seek through science that holds the key to our future.
Yet as national education correspondent Justine Ferrari has revealed today, the Queensland Studies Authority syllabus for Year 11 and 12 students describes science as a "social and cultural activity" that can explain the world through "mental constructions based on personal experiences".
It appears to be the latest example of the post-modernist approach overtaking our educational institutions. Even in the self-described "Smart State", students are urged down a path where all views are subjective and all facts are contestable.
This is not good enough. Sensibly, the Australian Council of Deans of Science has challenged this attitude, with its executive director John Rice declaring that the QSA statement seemed to describe scientific knowledge as "no more than the fantasies of a bunch of scientists".
Predictably, the QSA responded with the standard justification in such matters, saying it needs to make the "subject engaging and meaningful" for students in classrooms.
Professor Rice rightly highlights the danger in creating a perception that science is decided by consensus rather than proving or disproving hypotheses.
Science, especially at senior levels when students branch into physics and chemistry, must be a subject where questions and problems can be posed and answers judged upon empirical evidence.
Rigour is mandatory if we are to achieve the scientific discipline required to develop our future scientists, engineers, doctors and, it must be said, teachers.
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Experimentation on the science syllabus puts feelings before facts
- The Australian
- July 10, 2012
The description is contained in an overarching statement introducing the syllabus for physics, chemistry and biology for Years 11 and 12 entitled: "A view of science and science education."
"Science is a social and cultural activity through which explanations of natural phenomena are generated," it says.
"Explanations of natural phenomena may be viewed as mental constructions based on personal experiences and result from a range of activities including observation, experimentation, imagination and discussion.
"Accepted scientific concepts, theories and models may be viewed as shared understandings that the scientific community perceive as viable in light of current available evidence."
The view of science as outlined by the Queensland Studies Authority was utterly rejected by the Australian Council of Deans of Science, representing the heads of science faculties in the nation's universities. The council's executive director, John Rice from Sydney University, said it was a misleading view of science and misunderstood "the unique way in which science goes about understanding things".
"That statement makes scientific knowledge sound as though it's no more than the fantasies of a bunch of scientists," he said.
"That's quite wrong. It fails to understand the way in which science grounds itself in observation and testable hypotheses."
The Queensland Studies Authority said the statements concerning a view of science and science education should be read in the context of the entire syllabus and it was not, and was never intended to be, a definition of science.
The authority said the statement was "intended to reflect the complex nature by which scientific understandings have progressed".
"The extract is referring to a way of viewing science education that makes the subject engaging and meaningful in the classroom," the QSA said in a statement.
"The process of deriving scientific facts and empirical knowledge has occurred as scientists have observed, experimented, imagined and discussed their understandings. QSA's science syllabuses make clear that there is a body of conceptual knowledge and facts that underpin the study of subjects such as physics, chemistry and biology." The authority said all teams writing science syllabuses for Queensland included a practising scientist and science education academic and
were informed by research, the emphasis in tertiary courses and a review of practice nationally and internationally.
Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek has written to Premier Campbell Newman asking to refer the state's syllabuses and the QSA to the parliamentary committee on education and innovation.
Mr Langbroek said he recently met a group of teachers and academics concerned about the curriculum and the assessment of maths, science and physics in Queensland schools.
"The Newman government is committed to ensuring that Queensland school students receive the best education experience possible," he said.
"Part of that commitment involves reviewing all aspects of the department including those that affect the educational outcomes of Queensland secondary-school students."
Mr Langbroek said this included a number of statutory bodies within the department such as the QSA, as well as the department itself.
Professor Rice said the national science curriculum made a similar error, oversimplifying the idea of scientists proving and disproving hypotheses to suggest that scientific knowledge was agreed by consensus among scientists.
The national science curriculum for students up to Year 10 describes science as providing "an empirical way of answering interesting and important questions about the biological, physical and technological world".
"Science knowledge is contestable and is revised, refined and extended as new evidence arises." it says.
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School of thought on tackling bad behaviour
- The Australian
- July 10, 2012
Jenny Mackay helps younger teachers - and sometimes parents - learn how best to deal with troublesome students. Picture: Aaron Francis Source: The Australian
Dozens of schools in Victoria have hired Jenny Mackay to give them strategies to deal with bad behaviour, with younger teachers in particular lacking the skills to manage troublesome students.
"There isn't enough practical training in university, by any means," Mrs Mackay said. "They are having difficulties managing disruptive and challenging students because they just don't have the strategies to cope. They don't get the practical skills for when a child says, 'I'm not doing this' or 'I don't feel like doing that'."
Mrs Mackay's experience backs research showing four-year education degrees sometimes offer as little as a few hours on behaviour management issues, despite more challenging classroom behaviour increasing pressure on teachers.
The Victorian government has announced it will fund a group of public school teachers in a one-year course focusing on difficult behaviour and strategies to deal with it.
Mrs Mackay's book on successful interaction with students has been described as a survival guide, and one of the things she stresses is knowing how to respond to a student who is acting out in class and when a firm hand is warranted.
"If they step outside the boundary for acceptable behaviour because they can't cope or they're not feeling OK then I respond emphatically," she said. "But if they step outside the boundary and cause the rest of us problems, then I step in assertively."
Mrs Mackay said punishment was not the answer as it could often lead to an unconscious goal of revenge. "We're educators, not policemen, so we need to teach children about behaviour and how to behave within the social context of the classroom," she said.
"It's very much enabling the child to learn from what they've done wrong and put it right, not punishing them."
Her interaction with a school can vary from a half-day session to a relationship lasting several years, in which she sits in teachers' classrooms and observes before offering suggestions.
Mrs Mackay backed remarks from school principals that parents often influenced children's behaviour by failing to impart a respect for education.
She also runs parent workshops. "Some parents are incredibly demanding without thinking about the situation (of their child's teacher)," she said. "They are centred on their child. Parents have to keep a balance."
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