Sunday, November 19, 2006
Just who are you calling airhead?
The problem with catch-phrases is that while they are attention-grabbing, they can quickly turn around and bite you on the bum. I am thinking here of the fun punsters have had on the front of t-shirts with the Nike ‘Just Do It!’ slogan, or the ironies some Australian comedians have found in the advertising slogans state governments have dreamed up to promote the attractions of their particular part of the country.
A week or so ago, The Australian gave space over to an extract from a new book by a former deputy editor, Shelley Gare. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20876,20735845-28737,00.html
Gare’s book is called The Triumph of the Airheads - and the Retreat from Commonsense. In the extract she pushes a familiar line, decrying the influence on education of poststructuralist deconstruction, postmodernism and constructivism. The usual sweeping generalisations are made: standards are lower today, grammar is no longer taught, kids can’t spell…. and so on, ad infinitum.
Gare reserves the soubriquet ‘airheads’ for those who ascribe to these theories. These deluded individuals, she suggests, are the enemies of ‘common sense’.
But is this not a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
As with much educational commentary in this country in recent times, Gare tends to offer anecdote as verifiable proof of a larger social trend. Where data exists, for example the PISA results relating to the reading comprehension of 15 year olds, she criticises the test instrument for not doing what it was never set up to do (ie test spelling and grammar). This is a line that The Australian has been running for some time: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20658123-2702,00.html
I am not sure when ‘informed commentary’ became a synonym for vacuity in this country’s media. However, in the spirit of post-modern ‘playfulness’, something which well and truly gets Ms Gare’s back up, I am willing to fit with the times, embrace the trend and give it a go myself.
Here are two short pieces about subjects that have recently been on my mind.
Venerable Educational Institutions Have Failed the Elite
Talking to a German newspaper reporter earlier this year, the leader of the free world, Harvard educated President George W. Bush says, "The point now is how do we work together to achieve important goals. And one such goal is a democracy in Germany.”
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Laws, slides into postmodernist relativism and declares that a promise can be either ‘core’ or ‘non-core’.
Leader of the Opposition in the Australian parliament, Kim Beazley, a product of Oxford University, confuses Karl Rove with Australian television personality Rove McManus.
Prominent international socialite Paris Hilton, who attended the ultra-exclusive Dwight School in the US, explains that French is the only language spoken in Europe.
Eton educated Prince Harry wears a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party for a lark.
Do you see the trend?
Throughout the western world, prestigious educational institutions, many charging exorbitant fees, have been producing generations of ignorant, insensitive and hapless clowns.
One can only ponder how things might otherwise have been for these poor individuals if they had been exposed to the rigours of a spell in an under funded state high school or regional redbrick university.
Action is needed, and it is needed urgently. Let us not forget the fall of Rome and the collapse of the Ancien Regime in France. We ignore the lessons of history at our peril.
I say bulldoze the ivy clad institutions responsible for the intellectual decline of our social betters.
What is needed is a voucher system that would give the rich and powerful access to a decent, state funded education. Market forces alone have clearly failed to ensure that some of our oldest and most prestigious institutions provide a high standard education.
OUTRAGE AS OECD TEST EQUATES LITERACY WITH COMPREHENSION
Deluded educators who have suggested that Australian students are amongst the most literate in the world have been discredited by incisive criticisms of the OECD PISA reading test.
The much vaunted claim that Australian students are amongst the most literate in the world has been cast into doubt by the shocking revelation that this test ignores the fundamentals of spelling, and instead promotes the lunatic idea that reading comprehension is a necessary skill for success in life.
The idea that reading comprehension, understanding written texts and applying that knowledge, is important has been dismissed by journalists as modish faddism- a ‘new age life skill’. It is a significant ‘failure’ on the part of the PISA test that it ‘does not examine the correct use of language’.
At the time of writing, it was yet to be revealed how a test that is run in 40 different countries and in a number of different languages could assess correct spelling.
The fact that Italian, for example, has about 45 different letter-sound combinations, and Spanish even fewer, while English has over 300, has been dismissed as post-modern relativism, designed to discredit the international standing of the English language.
What do Australian educators have to hide when they suggest, as one did at a recent conference of English teachers, that past a certain level, Italian and Spanish schoolchildren rarely make spelling mistakes, while in English some remarkably intelligent people, who on every other measure are highly literate, remain poor spellers?
Pointing out that many renowned authors, including Jane Austen, Charles Darwin Robert Lowell and Scott Fitzgerald, have been poor spellers is mere humbuggery.
Spelling by itself can, and should be, taken as a measure of literacy. Constructivist approaches that let our children be creative in their spelling need to be replaced by historically proven methods, such as drilling in word lists.
Australia does not need children who can think about, understand, evaluate and apply what they read. The future prosperity and security of this proud nation rests on a citizenry which can recite what it has been told to recite.
A week or so ago, The Australian gave space over to an extract from a new book by a former deputy editor, Shelley Gare. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20876,20735845-28737,00.html
Gare’s book is called The Triumph of the Airheads - and the Retreat from Commonsense. In the extract she pushes a familiar line, decrying the influence on education of poststructuralist deconstruction, postmodernism and constructivism. The usual sweeping generalisations are made: standards are lower today, grammar is no longer taught, kids can’t spell…. and so on, ad infinitum.
Gare reserves the soubriquet ‘airheads’ for those who ascribe to these theories. These deluded individuals, she suggests, are the enemies of ‘common sense’.
But is this not a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
As with much educational commentary in this country in recent times, Gare tends to offer anecdote as verifiable proof of a larger social trend. Where data exists, for example the PISA results relating to the reading comprehension of 15 year olds, she criticises the test instrument for not doing what it was never set up to do (ie test spelling and grammar). This is a line that The Australian has been running for some time: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20658123-2702,00.html
I am not sure when ‘informed commentary’ became a synonym for vacuity in this country’s media. However, in the spirit of post-modern ‘playfulness’, something which well and truly gets Ms Gare’s back up, I am willing to fit with the times, embrace the trend and give it a go myself.
Here are two short pieces about subjects that have recently been on my mind.
Venerable Educational Institutions Have Failed the Elite
Talking to a German newspaper reporter earlier this year, the leader of the free world, Harvard educated President George W. Bush says, "The point now is how do we work together to achieve important goals. And one such goal is a democracy in Germany.”
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Laws, slides into postmodernist relativism and declares that a promise can be either ‘core’ or ‘non-core’.
Leader of the Opposition in the Australian parliament, Kim Beazley, a product of Oxford University, confuses Karl Rove with Australian television personality Rove McManus.
Prominent international socialite Paris Hilton, who attended the ultra-exclusive Dwight School in the US, explains that French is the only language spoken in Europe.
Eton educated Prince Harry wears a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party for a lark.
Do you see the trend?
Throughout the western world, prestigious educational institutions, many charging exorbitant fees, have been producing generations of ignorant, insensitive and hapless clowns.
One can only ponder how things might otherwise have been for these poor individuals if they had been exposed to the rigours of a spell in an under funded state high school or regional redbrick university.
Action is needed, and it is needed urgently. Let us not forget the fall of Rome and the collapse of the Ancien Regime in France. We ignore the lessons of history at our peril.
I say bulldoze the ivy clad institutions responsible for the intellectual decline of our social betters.
What is needed is a voucher system that would give the rich and powerful access to a decent, state funded education. Market forces alone have clearly failed to ensure that some of our oldest and most prestigious institutions provide a high standard education.
OUTRAGE AS OECD TEST EQUATES LITERACY WITH COMPREHENSION
Deluded educators who have suggested that Australian students are amongst the most literate in the world have been discredited by incisive criticisms of the OECD PISA reading test.
The much vaunted claim that Australian students are amongst the most literate in the world has been cast into doubt by the shocking revelation that this test ignores the fundamentals of spelling, and instead promotes the lunatic idea that reading comprehension is a necessary skill for success in life.
The idea that reading comprehension, understanding written texts and applying that knowledge, is important has been dismissed by journalists as modish faddism- a ‘new age life skill’. It is a significant ‘failure’ on the part of the PISA test that it ‘does not examine the correct use of language’.
At the time of writing, it was yet to be revealed how a test that is run in 40 different countries and in a number of different languages could assess correct spelling.
The fact that Italian, for example, has about 45 different letter-sound combinations, and Spanish even fewer, while English has over 300, has been dismissed as post-modern relativism, designed to discredit the international standing of the English language.
What do Australian educators have to hide when they suggest, as one did at a recent conference of English teachers, that past a certain level, Italian and Spanish schoolchildren rarely make spelling mistakes, while in English some remarkably intelligent people, who on every other measure are highly literate, remain poor spellers?
Pointing out that many renowned authors, including Jane Austen, Charles Darwin Robert Lowell and Scott Fitzgerald, have been poor spellers is mere humbuggery.
Spelling by itself can, and should be, taken as a measure of literacy. Constructivist approaches that let our children be creative in their spelling need to be replaced by historically proven methods, such as drilling in word lists.
Australia does not need children who can think about, understand, evaluate and apply what they read. The future prosperity and security of this proud nation rests on a citizenry which can recite what it has been told to recite.
# posted by Mark H @ 10:35 am 
