06-22-2014, 03:59 PM
(Dan, you are a very naughty man!) :wink:
I note a couple of school teachers in our midst. Excellent - then I can "out" myself. I was (until 2009) a secondary teacher with Education Queensland. I started in 1984 teaching Art and German in Maryborough and ended up in a school in the south west of Brisbane failing to teach English and SOSE. For the uninitiated, SOSE is Study of Society and the Environment. The initiated will realise this must mean I was a junior school teacher by then (SOSE being a junior school subject area) and indeed I was. Years 9 and 10 and not in the least unhappy not to have senior classes and all the moderation involved. On the other hand, I did have NAPLAN, but that's another story. Don't get me started.
The closer I drew to my teaching twilight, the more disillusioned I became with teaching. Not the doing of it, but what it was becoming at the hands of politicians (and not just the partisan ones in Canberra or Brisbane) and the press and in the popular understanding. As an educator, I wasn't "leading" anyone "out". I was leading kids "in" - into uni, into vocational education, into employment. Forget a liberal education. What antiquated, elitist twaddle! (While you're at it, forget universities as places of light, liberty and learning). If you haven't trained your kids up for the next stage of their march into the workforce, you've (the teacher) failed!
But, here's the thing. What workforce - what jobs? That part of the world that offers gainful employment is changing at a dizzying pace. I defy anyone to meaningfully chart backwards (which is, logically, what has to be done) from projected job vacancies in the years "x to z" to required learnings now (assuming you're happy to accept "education" is the same as "training" - I'm not).
As an old language teacher, I'm only too happy to tell anyone who'll listen (not many) of the benefits to human beings of learning a language other than your mother tongue. And any experienced educator would agree without issue. It doesn't really matter whether it's Ancient Greek or Mandarin. And it has nothing to do with employability - no matter what the public has got into its head, kids don't walk out of Year 12 classrooms and straight into jobs centred around an ability to read and write in a foreign language just because they got a VHA in Indonesian or Mandarin or some other "really-useful" modern language. It just doesn't work that way. And not always does studying a foreign language at university level open that magic door.
Intuitively, every educator since the year dot has grasped the purpose of education. To create brighter human beings. To enact a process whereby those of each new generation make better decisions about themselves, their fellow-travellers and their world than did those of the preceding generation. To have open-mindedness, gentility, decent dealing and co-operation energise human society - not dogma, conflict, exploitation and insularity.
I don't believe that making Latin and Ancient Greek available to secondary school students will set back the true cause of education any more than promoting the study of "useful modern languages" (or favouring Maths/Science) will advance it. I do, however, believe the ladies and gentlemen of the establishment press - particularly those who influence Queenslanders - should get their brains in gear before pumping out cringeworthy nonsense.
Damn - that felt good to vent!
Cheers
Howard / SPC
I note a couple of school teachers in our midst. Excellent - then I can "out" myself. I was (until 2009) a secondary teacher with Education Queensland. I started in 1984 teaching Art and German in Maryborough and ended up in a school in the south west of Brisbane failing to teach English and SOSE. For the uninitiated, SOSE is Study of Society and the Environment. The initiated will realise this must mean I was a junior school teacher by then (SOSE being a junior school subject area) and indeed I was. Years 9 and 10 and not in the least unhappy not to have senior classes and all the moderation involved. On the other hand, I did have NAPLAN, but that's another story. Don't get me started.
The closer I drew to my teaching twilight, the more disillusioned I became with teaching. Not the doing of it, but what it was becoming at the hands of politicians (and not just the partisan ones in Canberra or Brisbane) and the press and in the popular understanding. As an educator, I wasn't "leading" anyone "out". I was leading kids "in" - into uni, into vocational education, into employment. Forget a liberal education. What antiquated, elitist twaddle! (While you're at it, forget universities as places of light, liberty and learning). If you haven't trained your kids up for the next stage of their march into the workforce, you've (the teacher) failed!
But, here's the thing. What workforce - what jobs? That part of the world that offers gainful employment is changing at a dizzying pace. I defy anyone to meaningfully chart backwards (which is, logically, what has to be done) from projected job vacancies in the years "x to z" to required learnings now (assuming you're happy to accept "education" is the same as "training" - I'm not).
As an old language teacher, I'm only too happy to tell anyone who'll listen (not many) of the benefits to human beings of learning a language other than your mother tongue. And any experienced educator would agree without issue. It doesn't really matter whether it's Ancient Greek or Mandarin. And it has nothing to do with employability - no matter what the public has got into its head, kids don't walk out of Year 12 classrooms and straight into jobs centred around an ability to read and write in a foreign language just because they got a VHA in Indonesian or Mandarin or some other "really-useful" modern language. It just doesn't work that way. And not always does studying a foreign language at university level open that magic door.
Intuitively, every educator since the year dot has grasped the purpose of education. To create brighter human beings. To enact a process whereby those of each new generation make better decisions about themselves, their fellow-travellers and their world than did those of the preceding generation. To have open-mindedness, gentility, decent dealing and co-operation energise human society - not dogma, conflict, exploitation and insularity.
I don't believe that making Latin and Ancient Greek available to secondary school students will set back the true cause of education any more than promoting the study of "useful modern languages" (or favouring Maths/Science) will advance it. I do, however, believe the ladies and gentlemen of the establishment press - particularly those who influence Queenslanders - should get their brains in gear before pumping out cringeworthy nonsense.
Damn - that felt good to vent!
Cheers
Howard / SPC
Spurius Papirius Cursor (Howard Russell)
"Life is still worthwhile if you just smile."
(Turner, Parsons, Chaplin)
"Life is still worthwhile if you just smile."
(Turner, Parsons, Chaplin)
