Jean Walker

Here tis: On one of his media releases he also mentioned a sense of hu,our should be taught!! And the best of British luck! MEDIA RELEASE $34.6 MILLION FOR VALUES, CIVICS AND CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION 11 May 2004 MINBUD 12/04 Australian parents more than ever are expecting schools to foster values such as tolerance, trust, mutual respect, courage, compassion, honesty, courtesy and doing one’s best. Every Australian child needs to have an understanding of values as part of their schooling. Schools can support our democratic way of life by helping students to be active and informed citizens. A values-free education risks producing values-free adults. To this end the Australian Government is providing $29.7 million to support values education in Australian schools and $4.9 million for civics and citizenship education over four years. The Values Education Study, published by the Australian Government in November 2003, showed that, while many schools in all sectors are doing good work in this area, comprehensive values education is still at an early stage in Australian schools. The Government’s values education initiative will help make values a core part of Australian schooling by providing funding for: values education forums in every school in Australia involving parents and the whole school community; champion schools to showcase best practice approaches in line with a national framework on values education; drug education forums in every school in Australia informing students about drugs, drawing on the experiences of students themselves. This is in addition to the $14.9 million which the Government is providing over the next four years for school drug education through the continuation of the National School Drug Education Strategy; curriculum and assessment resources for all schools to teach values; and national activities such as partnership projects with national parent, teacher, school principal and teacher educator organisations. Continued funding for civics and citizenship education will build on the Discovering Democracy programme which concludes in June. Funding will be provided for: curriculum resources through a continuing civics and citizenship education website; and

Crap is engulfing the world. If you want educational crap of the highest order, come to Australia. Dr Nelson our esteemed federal education minister has recently decreed: . all schools must have a flag pole and fly the Australian flag every day . federal funding will be tied to benchmarks and increased testing . wealthy private schools which are attended by a whopping 30% will continue to get more money . a mandated (by the govt) set of values will be taught in all schools . league tables will be introduced . an expensive and totally unnecessary inquiry in to the teaching of reading when we already know that a mixture of methods works best Now, that should really put us in the forefront of education.

No. However, I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one. We obviously come from very different points of view and are unlikely to see things from the same perspective. My comment was not meant to be a "throw away assertion" - I was simply amazed that you had so rarely come across bullying when it is rampant in so many workplaces and I could think of no other reason except you had been working in an untypical setting. I can only describe what I know to be true and have to deal with daily and I don't believe my comments were any more personal than anyone else's - they were simply observations of actual situations which happen so regularly and with so little support for the victims, that it is very difficult not to feel angry with such a system. I will try to stick to the "gravamen" of the discussion - although I believe my comments were pertinent. It is hard to know how the stress of having a pair of scissors stuck into you, could be subjective and differ from person to person, but perhoas it can. I'm sorry if I let my feelings get in the way of an objective discussion, but I find it excessively difficult not to feel angry about a system, no different here from there from what I read daily in the UK papers, which allows the sort of managerial behaviour which results in good teachers being made seriously ill, and driven out of the profession.

Then all I can say, Andy, is that you have worked in a very untypical environment for 16 years. And if you want to read about bullying by management in the workplace, log on regularly to the TES staffroom site and you will soon see that it is a very common problem in the UK just as it is here in Tasmania. And these people are not just those who cannot manage to balance work and life. Last year I saw a strong, sensible male primary teacher driven to a nervous breakdown and ultimate retirement from a profession he loved, by a bullying female Head. This particular Head was responsible for the breakdown of several of her staff. The DoE finally made a settlement out of court (tacit admission) and then promoted her into head office. I could describe in detail to you case after case such as this one - it is one of the things we as a union spend most money on: helping members to deal with bullying and intimidation from senior staff. In fact, it has become so widespread that we have this year employed a new officer who is a qualified lawyer because it was necessary to have someone with sufficient standing to fight for these people in the courts. You have either been very lucky in your work environment or you are burying your head in the sand. Also, if you become the victim of intimidation and harassment from students, as is becoming extremely common, the stress is certainly not of your own making. Almost on a daily basis we have teachers who are being regularly verbally and physically assaulted, threatened, abused and stalked. Last year I saw a teacher with whom I used to teach, again a strong, sensible, secondary Maths teacher, who was harassed and stalked by students to the extent he dared not leave his home and eventually took early retirement looking 20 years older than he was. We had another last year who committed suicide because he had been attacked by a child with a pair of scissors - he got almost no support from management who wanted a cover up (that is very common) and the stress of trying to get his case heard and believed, sent him totally round the bend. The police do almost nothing in these cases because they do not want to arrest minors and merely put them through anger management courses which the offenders simply laugh about. Parents support their delinquent children and lie on their behalf and management will often choose to believe them because it's easier than putting it through the proper channels and stops the school getting a bad name. I can only think you live in a part of England where you are protected from reality if you do not understand why teachers suffer from stress. In fact, I am beginning to feeel so angry about your lack of understanding, that I have to go before I say something rude.

For all you Computer nerds out there - a bit corny but appropriate. THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS Internet Style 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the Net, There were hacker's a surfing. Geeks? Yeah, you bet. The e-mails were stacked by the modem with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. The newbies were nestled all snug by their screens, While visions of Java danced in their dreams. My wife on the sofa and me with a snack, We just settled down at my rig (it's a Mac). When out in the Web there arose such a clatter, I jumped to the site to see what was the matter. To a new page my Mac flew like a flash, Then made a slight gurgle. It started to crash!! I gasped at the thought and started to grouse, Then turned my head sideways and clicked on my mouse. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, My Mac jumped to a page that wasn't quite clear. When the image resolved, so bright and so quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick! More rapid than mainframes, more graphics they came, Then Nick glanced toward my screen, my Mac called them by name. "Now Compaq! Now Acer!", my speaker did reel; "On Apple! On Gateway!" Santa started to squeal! "Jump onto the circuits! And into the chip! Now speed it up! Speed it up! Make this thing hip!" The screen gave a flicker, he was into my RAM, Then into my room rose a full hologram! He was dressed in all red, from his head to his shoes, Which were black (the white socks he really should lose). He pulled out some discs he had stored in his backpack. Santa looked like a dude who was rarin' to hack! His eyes, how they twinkled! His glasses, how techno! This ain't the same Santa that I used to know! With a wink of his eye and a nod of his head, Santa soon let me know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, gave my Mac a quick poke, And accessed my C drive with only a stroke. He defragged my hard drive, and added a SIMM, Then threw in some cool games, just on a whim! He worked without noise, his fingers they flew! He distorted some pictures with Kai's Power Goo! He updated Office, Excel and Quicken, Then added a screensaver with a red clucking chicken! My eyes widened a bit, my mouth stood agape, As he added the latest version of Netscape. The drive gave a whirl, as if it were pleased, St. Nick coyly smiled, the computer appeased. Then placing his finger on the bridge of his nose, Santa turned into nothing but ones and zeros! He flew back into my screen and through my uplink, Back into the net with barely a blink. But I heard his sweet voice as he flew from my sight, "Happy surfing to all, and to all a good byte!"

If I were to ask our two Membership Officers who deal with this issue on a daily basis, for the most common reason for early retirement or "enforced" retirement for teachers, they would both tell you that it isn't teachers burn-out because of their own work-aholic personality. There may be a few of those, but they would be like that in any organisation - it's intimidation and bullying from the system or from local managemnt, unmanageable student behaviour, unreasonable (for anyone) workload and insufficient resourcing. And if you wanted to statistically put them in order, it would be intimidation and bullying first, followed by being assaulted/attacked by a student. I'm sure the stats wouldn't ber much different in the UK.

http://ww12.e-tractions.com/snowglobe/globemail.htm This is an old one, but some people may not have seen it.

> > Jim and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they > > were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Jim suddenly jumped into > > the deep end. He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there. Edna > > promptly jumped in to save him. > > She swam to the bottom, pulled Jim out and brought him to his room > > When the hospital director became aware of Edna's heroic act, she > > immediately ordered that Edna be discharged from the hospital because > > she now considered Edna to be mentally stable. > > She went to Edna and said, "I have some good news and some bad news .The good news is that you're being discharged because you responded so > rationally to a crisis. By jumping in the pool to save the life of another > > patient, you displayed sound mindedness. The bad news is that Jim, the > > patient you saved, hung himself in his bathroom with his bathrobe belt > > right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead. > > Edna replied, "He didn't hang himself. I put him there to dry. How soon > > can I go home?"

> http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=WZ13102358 How about some cheerful e-Christmas Cards. I love this one, sent to me by a mutual dog lover.

And another stressor we've omitted is change. The rate of change in education on top of an already stressful job, is what can break the camel's back, especially in what is an ageing workforce. Here, the rate and size of mandated change in the last 12 months has been monumental and teachers are dropping like flies as a result. I am also finding, in my job as union President, that women in their late 40s to late 50s, who are in large numbers in our workforce, are at the most demanding stage in their lives - menopause, difficult young adult children, sick or elderly parents, the double shift of work and home, older husbands approaching retirement. I'm not saying men don't have any of these but they often fall more heavily on women - and on top of that because of broken service to have children, many women (and especially divorced/single women) don't have enough pension/superannuation to retire early. While I agree that many jobs ARE stressful, I also see people doing almost totally stressfree jobe - there are some here in my office I could name!! My present job is stressful in very different ways from teaching and I can't decide which is worse. For the first time in 30 years I haven't had school holidays this year and my body is telling me it hasn't adjusted!! Roll on next week and 2 weeks' leave during which I am going to do as little as possible, while my unstressed partner continues to work at his newspaper with not even Christmas Day off!

Two I will never forget: 1. When I was 15 and fashion was for stiffened half petticoats under full skirts - at a dance, doing the then fashionable progressive tango, I stepped down to the floor, stepped up and having put my stiletto heel through the bottom of the petticoats, stood up to find said petticoats standing on the floor by themselves, much to my embarrassment and that of the complete stranger whose hand I was holding. 2. Going back stage to ask for Joan Sutherland's autograph on my program, she sweetly asked me: And who is it for? (Meaning what name would she write) to which I repled in my nervousness: Oh, just for me. As sweetly as ever, she replied: I'm sorry, my dear, but I cannot remember all of my fans by name.

Nothing great, but, I'd like to have been able to ask Elizabeth I the real reason she never married. I'd like to have been a member of the Bloomsbury set, just for a while. I'd like to have seen the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace. And this is not really history, but I wish I had been in the right place at the right time to see Maria Callas's major performances.

Some more bad ones. 1. How Do You Catch a Unique Rabbit? Unique Up On It. 2. How Do You Catch a Tame Rabbit? Tame Way, Unique Up On It. 3. How Do Crazy People Go Through The Forest? They Take The Psycho Path 4. How Do You Get Holy Water? You Boil The Hell Out Of It. 5. What Do Fish Say When They Hit a Concrete Wall? Dam! 6. What Do Eskimos Get From Sitting On The Ice too Long? Polaroid's 7. What Do You Call a Boomerang That Doesn't work? A Stick 8.. What Do You Call Cheese That Isn't Yours? Nacho Cheese. 9.. What Do You Call Santa's Helpers? Subordinate Clauses. 10. What Do You Call Four Bullfighters In Quicksand? Quattro Sinko.. 11. What Do You Get From a Pampered Cow? Spoiled Milk. 12. What Do You Get When You Cross a Snowman With a Vampire? Frostbite. 13. What Lies At The Bottom Of The Ocean And Twitches? A Nervous Wreck. 14. What's The Difference Between Roast Beef And Pea Soup? Anyone Can Roast Beef. 15. Where Do You Find a Dog With No Legs? Right Where You Left Him. 16. Why Do Gorillas Have Big Nostrils? Because They Have Big Fingers. 17. Why Don't Blind People Like To Sky Dive? Because It Scares The Dog. 18. What Kind Of Coffee Was Served On The Titanic? Sanka. 19. What Is The Difference Between a Harley And a Hoover? The Location Of The Dirt Bag. 20. Why Did Pilgrims' Pants Always Fall Down? Because They Wore Their Belt Buckle On Their Hat.

A terrible Christmas joke. The Raindrop A Russian couple was walking down the street in Moscow one night when the man felt a drop hit his nose. "I think it's raining," he said to his wife. "No, that felt more like snow to me," she replied. "No, I'm sure it was just rain," he said. They were just about to begin arguing with each other about whether it was raining or snowing when they saw a Communist Party official walking toward them. "Let's not fight about it," the man said. "Let's ask Comrade Rudolph whether it's officially raining or snowing." As the official approached, the man said, "Tell us, Comrade Rudolph, is it officially raining or snowing?" "It's raining, of course," he replied, and walked on. But the woman insisted, "I know that felt like snow!" To which her husband quietly replied: ... .... ..... ...... ....... ........ "Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear

While I'm sure there are such teachers, I could also ask how many teachers are caused stress by managers who expect them to be workaholics, because they themselves are. I know of many teachers here who are intimidated by management into coming into school at weekends, doing excessive work at home etc, otherwise they are obviously not a good enough teacher. Teachers' workloads and the responsibilities imposed on them by society and bureaucracy are totally unrealistic - that is the bottom line. They are made to feel responsible for curing all the ills of a fairly sick society, and in return treated like navvies in their own schools, disrespected by society and comparitively poorly paid compared with IT boffins, accountants, stock brokers etc. On the TES website there is a discussion among teachers about how many teachers who are still teaching after 60. The answers suggest it is very, very few - they are largely burnt out and retired by then. Can you say that about people working in other govt areas, or in private enterprise? Possibly police, ambulance drivers and emergency workers, but they have similar conditions to teachers. My partner is a desk journalist and he is happily working long past when he coukld have retired because he loves it, it is not stressful and it is well paid. Teaching used to be like that but it aint any more.

Some more intersting stuff about PISA and TIMMS Author: Jennifer Buckingham, Schools editor Publisher: News Ltd Publication: The Australian, Page 016 (Mon 13 Dec 2004) Keywords: Australian (1),Education (1),Union (1) Edition: 1 - All-round Country Section: Features Trumpeting PISA results a little hasty THE PISA results for 2003 released last week can be viewed in a couple of ways. It is certainly pleasing that Australia's results are among the best of the 40 countries surveyed. In raw rankings we were fourth in reading, sixth in science and 11th in maths. But even these ranks may underestimate Australia's performance, because in some cases scores were so close as to be statistically inseparable. It is also pleasing that Australia has made progress in alleviating the effect of socio-economic status on academic performance (as predicted on this page in September.) Some have taken comfort from these results. The Australian Education Union has used our literacy performance to question the necessity of the national reading inquiry. One can make the relevant points about averages masking the proportion of kids failing, and the tragedy of the indigenous literacy results, but there are additional reasons to take the PISA results with a grain of salt. While it is true that on the PISA assessment we look good compared to other countries, it is worth considering whether this assessment is comprehensive, and whether the comparisons are exhaustive. First, there are serious concerns about the PISA definition of literacy. At the back of the Australian report of the 2000 assessment was the statement that children were not marked down for errors of spelling and grammar. Many people would object to a definition of literacy that does not require accuracy in communication. Likewise, the PISA 2003 Australian report uses the words spelling twice and grammar only once. On page 101, in the section on reading literacy it says ``answers with mistakes in spelling and/or grammar were not penalised as long as the correct point was made.'' Yes, the test is for reading literacy, not writing literacy, but one has to wonder if performing well in a test that marks this answer from a 15-year-old as correct -- ``because before than it disapeared completly and at that time it reapeared'' (sic) -- is a dubious honour. The other major international study is the Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS). It is run by the IEA (International Association for Evaluation of Educational Achievement) and differs from PISA in important ways. Where PISA tests skills rather than knowledge, TIMSS is curriculum-based and therefore tests both knowledge and skill. TIMSS also has several countries that do not participate in PISA, including Chinese Taipei and Singapore, both of which were in the top three countries in maths and science in TIMSS 1999. Comparing TIMSS and PISA is interesting. Countries that do well in PISA do not always do well in TIMSS. Finland, for example, was a high flyer in PISA 2003 -- ranked first in science and second in maths. In TIMSS 1999, however, Finland was placed 10th and 14th. On the other hand, Hungary was an average performer in PISA 2003 -- ranked 17th in maths and 25th in science, but had been third in maths and ninth in science in TIMSS 1999. In the years since then Australia has embraced educational concepts that prioritise the development of skills over content knowledge -- ``learning how to learn''. Specific subject disciplines are often eschewed in favour of cross-curriculum learning, in some states to a greater extent than others. This sits well with the PISA assessments, but since TIMSS also tests subject knowledge, we may see a division. The 2003 TIMSS results will be released this week. It would be nice to think that our grand experiment in curriculum and pedagogy has not worked against us and we'll still be on top of the world. SPEAKING of accuracy, last week I (perhaps optimistically) wrote that the most recent published national literacy and numeracy benchmarks are for 2002. The most recent national benchmarks are for 2001, and 2002 results are expected to be published next year. * Email automatically generated for Profile "Australian Education Union"

Report on PISA from Australia Barry McGaw, an Australian, said the assessment of 276,000 15-year-olds in 41 countries, published this week, showed Australia was "right up there" with the world's best. "I think we've had a fairly good education system, despite the domestic debate about whether standards are falling," he said. "Unless you get this international data, you can't get a comparison. "The Australian school system seems to be pretty good, because of the strong national focus on standards and an agreed curriculum framework." The OECD 2003 program for international student assessment showed only a handful of countries performed significantly better than Australia in problem solving, and mathematical and scientific literacy. Just one country, Finland, had a clear lead over Australia in reading. The assessment, which included 12,500 Australian students from 321 schools, revealed the Australian students' strength in problem solving. Dr McGaw said the Asian countries that performed significantly better - South Korea, Hong Kong-China and Japan - were leading the way in innovative mathematics teaching that challenged students to work out problems rather than memorise facts. "The moral is they teach problem solving, they don't teach rote learning. The teacher education focuses on quite specific ways on how you teach subjects, but it's clearly problem solving." Finland ranked with those Asian countries in problem solving and topped all categories. Dr McGaw said Finland's dominance in the 2000 and 2003 assessments could be partly attributed to its highly skilled, six-year trained teachers. "Teaching is as hard to get into [at university] as medicine," he said. Dr McGaw has worked for the Paris-based OECD for six years. He was in charge of the 1997 review for the NSW Government that led to the overhaul of the Higher School Certificate. After the 2000 international student assessment he warned that the gap between Australia's highest and lowest performing students in reading required policies aimed at disadvantaged students. In the recent assessment, which focused on mathematics, this gap was lower than in reading three years ago. But there was still 14 per cent of 15-year-olds who could not do basic maths such as multiplication. Dr McGaw said mathematics was learnt almost solely at school, so social background had less effect on academic performance. This differed from reading, which was learnt at school but was enhanced by parents reading to children at home. He said the reading debate in Australia - and the alleged downgrading of teaching phonics - was occurring in other countries such as the United States. Research overseas showed that "a balance of methods" produced the best reading results. The federal Minister for Education, Brendan Nelson, said he ordered a national reading inquiry after concerns raised by academics such as the Macquarie University professors Max Coltheart and Kevin Wheldall that "the way in which we are teaching reading is not based on best evidence". "That's disputed by an equal number of eminent experts in the field," Dr Nelson said.

There's a good discussion going on at the moment on the TES chatline about primary education - is the UK prescription in primary school doing more harm than good? Are children being forced into the basic skills too early? Do Steiner/Montessori schools have the right idea about early education?

Continuing from the other thread about what is education, how about a discussion on what would constitute the ideal school? What should be the size, content, skills and structures of the ideal school? Should secondary school be differently structured from primary? If you were setting up a school and cost was no object, what would it look like?

PS After re-reading my last post, I realise I have omitted to say that the schools I mention as retaining traditional elements are all building the new standards, framework values, skills and outcomes into their structure (that IS compulsory for all schools here because the assessment and reporting procedures are mandated in that way) but they are doing it by incorporating them into a sequential, knowledge/subject based curriculum in a fairly traditional timetable structure. Other schools have completely unitised their curriculum from K-10, with the skills and outcomes being developmental and sequential, but not the content. I hope this is making sense - it's not easy to explain in a short space.

I suppose what bothers me about the new skills based curriculum, is that many of its proponents assume it is fine to teach snippets of subject matter, in no particular order and for no particular reason except to reach the "outcomes" and teach the "skills of learning". Here, for instance, a student may go through 4 years of high school, and may very well learn about historical evidence, document analysis, research skills etc etc , but may never do any Australian history. They may do units on the Ancient Egyptians, but unconnected to any other ancient history. What is the use of having amazing historical research skills, being "able to ask the right questions", "knowing where to find the answers", if at the same time you have not the faintest notion in your head of the chronology of world history or the development of your own country? Cross-curricular, multi-discipinary units are useful to understand that knowledge is not confined to subject boxes and skills can be transferrable, but if they become the only mode of delivery as is happening here (where in some schools science is no longer compulsory except as a small part of a stand-alone cross-curricular unit), are we developing in students, a coherent and deep understanding of subjects such as science or are we teaching them that subject matter is inferior and subserviant to skills acquisition? I cannot find anyone here in my state who will answer these questions clearly and frankly. All I get is rhetoric about outdated knowledge, outcomes frameworks and skills for the 21st century, with no clear or consistent picture of what that actually means in terms of classroom practice. An interesting side development of the introduction of our new standards beased curriculum is that schools in high socio-economic areas are not adapting it wholesale because their parent bodies are not supportive of it, while schools in low SE areas are, because the parent bodies do not understand it, are not connected with the school, and don't have the power to oppose it. We have another interesting example of two high schools in the same town - one retaining its traditional subjects and the other teaching entirely in multi-disciplinary units. I will leave you to guess to which one teachers are sending their children, and which one has a falling population. Answers on a postcard, please. The other unpleasant side of all this, is that it causes educators to fall into camps about it, and it is now very unwise here to publicly criticise the new system - you will definitely not gain promotion if you do, and you will certainly be deemed a dinosaur. The thought-police are very powerful and intellectual debate is not welcomed. As a union leader, I am one of the very few who can publicly air my concerns without retribution.

Dear "Ted" Could you tell us what you DO believe would be worthwhile "modernisation" in schools?

In view of the above discussion, I'd be interested in comments on the following two "stories" about learning. The context is a debate about an outcomes/skills based curriculum framewrork, using selective and non-sequential thematic cross-curricular learning units, versus a more traditional sequential knowledge based curriculum with skills-learning built into it. Story shared by DGE at TN Conference 2002:The Classroom of the 21st Century – A Paradigm Shift, 29 & 30 May 2002. SABRE TOOTH CURRICULUM There was a man during the Paleolithic age who was very dissatisfied with the ways and standard of living in the tribe. One day as he looked at the children playing aimlessly with stones and sticks, he thought to himself that, “If I could only get these children to do the things that will give more and better food, shelter, clothing and security, then I would be helping this tribe to have a better life. When the children grow up they would have more meat to eat, more skins to keep them warm, better caves in which to sleep, and less danger from the sabre tooth-tigers.” Having set up the educational goal he went about constructing the curriculum. He decide that the children needed to know how to catch fish with their bare hands from the creek, how to club woolly horses so that they will have wool for their clothings and blankets, and tactics to scare the sabre tooth tigers. He taught these subjects to some children and over time it became obvious to the whole tribe that these children were better prepared for life. Schools were set up and every child in the tribe went through this systematic education and learned the three fundamental subjects of “Fish-grabbing”, “Horse-clubbing” and “Tiger-scaring”. The tribe would have continued to prosper and remained the envy of the neighbouring tribes in the region if the conditions had not changed. A new ice age was approaching from the north. A great glacier crept closer and closer until it finally melted into the creek. Dirt and gravel brought down by the glacier turned the once crystal-clear creek into a pool of muddy water. It was no longer possible to see the fish and, moreover, the fish were able to hide among the boulders brought down by the glacier. It was no longer possible to catch fish with bare hands. Even those who majored in fish-studies in the university were baffled by the problem. No matter how good a man’s fish-grabbing education had been, he could not catch fish when he could not find fish to grab. The glacier also made the ground marshy and soft. This forced the woolly-horses to move to the dry, open plains in the east. Their places were taken by little antelopes who came down with the ice sheet. But these antelopes were shy and speedy and had a keen scent of danger. So no one was able to get close enough to club them. Day after day, the horse-clubbers came back empty handed. The new dampness in the air gave the sabre tooth tigers pneumonia and many succumbed. The survivors decided to move to the deserts in the south. However, this did not mean that the tribe had no dangers. With the glacier came the ferocious glacial bears who were not fearful of the tiger-scaring tactics. The tribe is now close to extinction. There was no fish for food, no wool to keep them warm and no safety in the night. One very hungry man stood at the brink of the muddy creek, tried all the best techniques he learned in school, but could not catch any fish. In despair he rejected all that he learned and looked around for some new way to catch fish. He saw some stout and slender vine hanging from the trees, pulled them down and fastened them rather aimlessly. But as he worked, haunted by the crying child in his cave, his vision of a net became clearer. He worked hard at it, improved the design and found that he was able to catch more fish with the net than the whole tribe could in a day using the old fish-grabbing technique. In similar desperation, another man used young springy trees to fashion snares which he used to catch the antelopes. A third tribesman, determined to protect his family, dug holes around his cave and found that, lo and behold, he was able to trap the ferocious glacial bears. As knowledge of these new inventions spread, more and more members of the tribe began to learn how to make nets, set antelope snares and dig bear pits. A few thoughtful men in the tribe began to ask, “These new knowledge of net-making, snare setting and pit-digging are indispensable to modern existence. Why can’t they be taught in school ?” The safe and sober majority, particularly the wise old men who controlled the schools, smiled indulgently at this naive question. “That wouldn’t be education. It is mere training. Anyway with all the intricate details of Fish-grabbing, Horse-clubbing and Tiger-scaring - the traditional core subjects - the school curriculum is too crowded already. We can’t add these new fads and frills. What we need to do is to give our young people a more thorough grounding in the fundamentals.” “But how can any person with good sense be interested in such useless activities ? “ exploded one of the radicals. “What is the point of trying to catch fish with bare hands when one can catch more with the net ? How can a boy learn to club horses when there are no more horses left to club ? And why in the hell should children learn to scare tigers with fire when the tigers are dead and gone ?” “Don’t be foolish, “ said the wise old men. “We don’t teach Fish-grabbing to grab fish; we teach it to develop a generalised agility which can never be developed by mere training. We don’t teach Horse-clubbing to club horses; we teach it to develop a generalised strength in the learner which he can never get from so prosaic and specialised a thing as antelope-snare-setting. We don’t teach Tiger-scaring to scare tigers; we teach it for the purpose of giving that noble courage which carries over into all affairs of life and which can never come from so base an activity as bear-killing.” “Furthermore,” the old men added sternly. “if you have any education yourself, you will know that the essence of true education is timelessness. You must know that there are some eternal truths, and the sabre-tooth curriculum is one of them !” They had noticed before that their domesticated sheep did not like being too near the fire, so they thought: Hmmmm, maybe if we all sleep round the fire, the tigers won’t come close. So they did, and they were right. The tribe is now bigger and smarter than it ever was. They had done what man has done for centuries, in order to have survived and developed into what we are today – they took what they already knew, thought about it hard, looked at examples around them, came up with solutions that made it possible to continue despite the adversities of nature. A different version of the Sabre Tooth Curriculum SABRE TOOTH CURRICULUM There was a man during the Paleolithic age who was very dissatisfied with the ways and standard of living in the tribe. One day as he looked at the children playing aimlessly with stones and sticks, he thought to himself that, “If I could only get these children to do the things that will give more and better food, shelter, clothing and security, then I would be helping this tribe to have a better life. When the children grow up they would have more meat to eat, more skins to keep them warm, better caves in which to sleep, and less danger from the sabre tooth-tigers.” Having set up the educational goal he went about constructing the curriculum. He decide that the children needed to know how to catch fish with their bare hands from the creek, how to club woolly horses so that they will have wool for their clothings and blankets, and tactics to scare the sabre tooth tigers. He taught these subjects to some children and over time it became obvious to the whole tribe that these children were better prepared for life. Schools were set up and every child in the tribe went through this systematic education and learned the three fundamental subjects of “Fish-grabbing”, “Horse-clubbing” and “Tiger-scaring”. The tribe would have continued to prosper and remained the envy of the neighbouring tribes in the region if the conditions had not changed. A new ice age was approaching from the north. A great glacier crept closer and closer until it finally melted into the creek. Dirt and gravel brought down by the glacier turned the once crystal-clear creek into a pool of muddy water. It was no longer possible to see the fish and, moreover, the fish were able to hide among the boulders brought down by the glacier. It was no longer possible to catch fish with bare hands. Even those who majored in fish-studies in the university were baffled by the problem. No matter how good a man’s fish-grabbing education had been, he could not catch fish when he could not find fish to grab. However, most of the young men of the tribe were intelligent, just like their teacher, and he had taught them well, so after a while they decided to hold a meeting and pool their common knowledge about the problem. They thought really hard because that is what human beings can do quite naturally. One of them said: the fish might still be there, it’s just that we can’t see them. We might be able to catch them a different way. So, they all sat around and thought about it and discussed it. The tallest one said: We catch flying birds to eat by using a net and fish fly through the water like birds through the air, so perhaps we could get a bird net and put it into the pool and see what happens. So they did, and lo and behold, they caught lots and lots of fish. The glacier also made the ground marshy and soft. This forced the woolly-horses to move to the dry, open plains in the east. Their places were taken by little antelopes who came down with the ice sheet. But these antelopes were shy and speedy and had a keen scent of danger. So no one was able to get close enough to club them. Day after day, the horse-clubbers came back empty handed. But fortunately, some of the women of the tribe had noticed that when they had spilt seed from the wild wheat they gathered on the marshy bits of ground, it seemed to magically grow into more wheat, so they were able to reap the wheat and have a more balanced diet of both fish and bread. For some time now, the women had been domesticating wild sheep and had been killing them for their meat and throwing away their woolly coats because woolly-horse coats were a prettier colour and didn’t show the dirt quite so much, but luckily they had kept a lot of the old coats of the sheep they had eaten at the back of the cave, and were able to keep out the cold with them. So, although one or two caught pneumonia and died while the women were making enough clothes, the majority of the tribe, having used their brains and come up with a solution, lived happily ever after. The new dampness in the air gave the sabre tooth tigers pneumonia and many succumbed. The survivors decided to move to the deserts in the south. However, this did not mean that the tribe had no dangers. With the glacier came the ferocious glacial bears who were not fearful of the tiger-scaring tactics. However, now that they had the confidence to realise that if they used the knowledge they had and thought about it long enough together, and especially they had learned now to get the women involved, they would probably find a solution, for after all, how had the old teacher come up with the ways to grab fish, club horses and scare tigers. He must have worked those things out on his own or with the help of others, so they should be able to as well. And the old man who had taught them said to himself: I have taught them well. I have given them sufficient knowledge and good examples of how to do things, to make it possible for them to think, experiment, reach conclusions and find solutions, for that is how man’s brain has developed since earliest time to the present day. And if only he had known that in the coming centuries, people like Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison and Bill Gates would astound the world with inventions that they made because they had had a sound, traditional and knowledge based education. And what ever would he have thought if he could have come forward to the 21st century and discovered that people had thought up a skills and outcomes-based education system without having had one themselves. He would really have been amazed by that. But lo, perhaps he would have been able to have a really good think about it and ask himself whether people who have lots and lots of skills, but a very scrambled, patchy and disorderly knowledge, understanding or appreciation of the literature, history, scientific developments and art of the past, might just end up being arrogant young people who think they know HOW to do everything, but in fact are cultural barbarians who may after a few millennium, end up back in a cave, because they don’t know that’s where we came from in the first place.

Yes, I've just finished reading the PISA report. Finland was the only country to outperform Australia in literacy, only four other countries outperformed us in mathematics (Korea, Hong Kong, Finland and the Netherlands), and three others outperformed us in science (Finland, Japan and Korea). We performed equally or better than OECD level in all areas. And guess what - we have no inspection system, no exams until Yr12, no league tables, no national curriculum, no literacy/numeracy hours and much less testing than the UK. However, we do have a very large private system highly funded by our federal government, so interesting to know if that is a factor or not. Also, depressing news is that the newly re-elected right-wing govenment is about to start on all of those above mentioned "reforms" which have been proving so disastrous in the UK, so we may not do so well in the future!!