Comments on: Pop songs are weird science — The Australian

By: ninglun

ninglun — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 07:21:52 +0000

The syllabus is almost certainly what is being practised, as any teacher not teaching it would be disciplined or sacked.

On education the media seek sensation and division because that sells papers or boosts ratings. The hard slog many teachers do and the good news stories never rate.

By: Lexcen

Lexcen — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 06:17:08 +0000

ninglun, thank you, I appreciate your elaboration. I sincerely hope that your opinions on OBE are a more accurate reflection on what is happening in the education system. I respect your opinion as an experienced teacher. On the other hand, I also have to take into account the comment posted on my article by:

suffering teacher said…

OBE will be the death of education in WA.
I would sooner have a doctor that can perform heart surgery with competence and be a complete bastard than a doctor that doesn’t know why anesthetic has to be used but can empathize with my feelings.
(I can’t say for a fact that the commentator is a teacher).

Personally I wonder if what is outlined in the syllabus, as per your link, is in fact what is being practiced when I read the news article that began this discussion.

By: Worried about outcomes based education? « Neil Whitfield’s English and ESL

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 11:50:17 +0000

[...] Following a story in today’s Australian, I have posted a rant on the subject, Pop songs are weird science — The Australian , on Lines from a Floating Life. Having read a comment there, and its associated blog, I added to the post. I now place those theses here too. [...]

By: ninglun

ninglun — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 08:14:11 +0000

Outcomes-based education: much misunderstood. It’s a long story, and the concept did not come from the left, as a matter of fact. Jim Belshaw rightly explains where it came from in a series of posts on public administration: here for example. It does not necessarily affect curriculum content at all, as it is really about programming and assessment. That is just one confusion. At the level of programming it simply makes teachers more precise in determining what students will be able to do at the end of a sequence of lessons, replacing pious aims and guesswork. The downside is that not every outcome, especially in my subject, can be “measured” — love of poetry, for example; one still, of course, hopes that will be an outcome. Today’s Australian story, whatever one might think of it, has absolutely nothing to do with OBE. In English OBE (or criterion referenced marking) has replaced “impression marking” and does have the advantage of being less subjective, so long as the “benchmarks” and “criteria” are well designed. At first I hated it, but after using it for a while I am kinder about it.

Donnelly is simply wrong about it; I guess you know how after 40 years of teaching I regard his book on Australian education as possibly the silliest I have ever read, don’t you? He distorts evidence and filters everything through an ideological commitment to privatising education. There’s a link on the right to my rant on that. I think he is simply one of the worst things to happen to Australian education in decades, no matter whether one thinks of Liberal or Labor administrations. I simply cannot understand why people take him seriously.

The HSC English at the top is as good as it ever was, perhaps even better. The lower end did not even exist when I began teaching; none of those people were at school then. So in my view much of the worrying about a decline is misconceived. Naturally, I am talking about NSW in this.

My experience of school as a student fifty years ago is much the same as yours. Some were brilliant, many were not. I had the world’s worst Maths teacher in my first year of high school, but one of the best, and most entertaining, science teachers. It is amazing, on reflection, how good teaching really is a product of personal qualities rather than actual qualifications. The same pattern of best/worst was even more so at university, if anything.

NOTE: I have expanded the post as another way of dealing with the issues you raise, Lexcen.

By: Lexcen

Lexcen — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 07:52:56 +0000

ninglun, Julius Sumner Miller – a legend. He was indeed entertaining but he was a scientist down to his bone marrow. I hope you’re not suggesting that he would have been party to the OBE fad if he was still alive.
I can reflect back on my school years and say that I had the privilege and honor of being taught by some teachers that inspired me and gave me a thirst and love of knowledge. There were others (and sad to say this includes most of them) who were boring and lacked the skills to make learning an enjoyable experience. This only shows that these teachers shouldn’t be teaching. If the education system has failed it is because of the poor quality of these teachers. Putting the emphasis on “entertainment” vs “boring” only highlights the deficiencies in the teacher. Going for the soft option of “entertaining” is to abrogate responsibility as a teacher. Has education become so obsolete nowadays that it is subservient to other priorities?
BTW, I have read Kevin Donnelly and other critics of OBE and am inclined to agree with them. I don’t expect you to agree with me but I feel that discourse is healthy.

By: ninglun

ninglun — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 02:46:37 +0000

How you concluded this from that article I have no idea; I may or may not have liked those Queensland lessons, but I really can’t tell as the article gives no context for them. I have no idea what level of ability we are talking about here, for example. There is simply not enough information given to evaluate those lessons fairly. Did you read my other post on the English and ESL blog?

The “entertainment” vs “real teaching” split is a false dichotomy. What about the late Professor Julius Sumner Miller? A good teacher, especially of adolescents, has many of the skills of an entertainer — audience awareness not least. Is dulness necessarily virtuous? Is Gradgrind of Dickens’s Hard Times the very model of a great teacher?

As for the “sociology” versus “science” charge, it seems to me, not knowing where these lessons led, that they may well have led on to real “science”. You don’t favour the idea that science is totally divorced from real life, do you?

I have to say, though, that the choice of songs seems to reflect the age of the teacher. To most of his/her students, these songs may as well be Beethoven.

By: Lexcen

Lexcen — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 01:11:37 +0000

C’mon ninglun, education isn’t about “entertaining” the students. I too read this news article and was appalled by the fact that education is no longer “education” but simply masturbating. Science is about dealing with facts, science is about understanding nature, science is about the nature of inquiry and experimentation. If you want to teach sociology then don’t call it science.