HE SAID. SHE SAID. I BLAME TEACHERS!
Catharine and Duncan have been together 15 years and have two boys aged 10 and 12. This week they’re talking about exactly what the kids are learning at school –  the three “Rs” or “life skills”.
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HE SAID.
Our eldest son has a new obsession – and it pains me to say it has nothing to do with opening the batting for Australia or playing breakaway for the Wallabies.
Starting several weeks ago he has become the world’s greatest neo-hippy, whale-hugging environmentalist.
He scans the house with the grim determination of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2 looking for power points to turn off (which is just bearable for the toaster, not so great for the computer full of un-saved documents).
He constantly fishes anything paper, however minute, out of our garbage can and resolutely places it in the paper-recycling bin. We’re talking old receipts for cups of coffee, ATM withdrawal slips, even Kleenex.
It’s like living with a small version of Al Gore. Hell, he’s even starting to look a bit like Leonardo DiCaprio.
And do you know who I blame for this crazy behaviour? Our schools.
And do you know why? Because you can bet that some bunch of bureaucrats in the Department of Education (most probably guys wearing socks and sandals and with beards – not cool hipster beards but 1970s nerdy beards full of crumbs from their daily Vegemite and toast) have decreed that all kids today have to sit through several weeks of tedious lectures (also given by bearded socks and sandal wearers) about the environment.
These lectures are squeezed in at the end of the school day after the sex education classes, the anti-bullying classes and the express your inner beauty through creative modern dance classes.
Bad luck if you want to learn old-fashioned nonsense like how to read and write and add up. We can’t possibly fit that in when we have to race you off to How to Protect Yourself From Facebook Stalkers class.
Look I don’t want to sound like a Neanderthal like Tony Abbott. And I think it’s great that kids are learning to be great 21st Century citizens.
But as the late great Kerry Packer said to his son James when asked if he should go to university: “What for? All that’ll teach you is how to smoke dope.â€
Which reminds me. I think the kids have drug education class today.
SHE SAID.
Are you done, Tony… I mean Duncan? Or do I need to send you to one of the Respectful Relationships classes our kids are doing where they teach you not to speak over the top of girls?
OK. I have to agree it is a teensy bit irritating having a 12 year old who you spend your life cooking for trying to turn the fridge off to ‘give it a rest’. And yes I was a little embarrassed when he started turning off power points in Westfield last Saturday. And no I am not making that up.
But overall I think it’s a good thing that schools have diversified their curriculum from the three basic R’s to take account of all the other skills people need to get through this increasingly complex world we live in.
Let’s take the social media classes you were ridiculing. And while we’re on the subject of things to ridicule – it just so happens to be an area I do academic research into.
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17 Responses to this article
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amd September 12, 2012
Amusing piece. Have to say though, I worked at a school for five and a half years (as a TA in Learning Support) and the one thing I would completely overhaul is the constant jumping from one subject to another, it is time wasting and pointless. You should spend a couple of weeks with a year 3 class, the amount of time thrown away going from one subject to another, getting changed, getting pencil cases, getting instruments, walking from one place to another is dreadful. They literally waste HOURS every week on this nonsense.
And yes, from P-3 just the basic academics, Art and Music (at their desks) and Sport. Nothing else is required for little children.
Another time wasting exercise – get rid of extra music lessons (the ones parents pay for) during school hours. Yes, I know you think little Jenny is a budding Andre Rieu, bottom line is she is probably not and even if she is, do it outside school hours. Kids miss a LOT of lessons this way. Secondly, make ALL specialist teachers travel to classrooms, not the other way around. The HOURS wasted each week with children trekking from science to art to music to LOTE in Primary school are utterly ridiculous.
Did you realise that some really basic and important English and Maths concepts are only covered in a couple of hours of lessons most terms? They will teach the concept for a few hours at best, then go back over it at the end of term. If you miss that concept, you are most likely going to struggle until you somehow fill that gap. I have seen it happen, time and time again.
Important English and Maths concepts should be taught and re-taught all throughout the term, not a couple of hours at one end of term and a couple of hours revision at the other.
And the bottom line – keep kids in their OWN classrooms from P-6. Stop sending them off in groups, stop wasting time going from place to place. If you really cannot cover a primary curriculum on your own (though as my Primary teacher covered Art, Science, English, Maths, History, Geography and Sport all on her own I don’t quite see why) and need specialist teachers make them ALL go from class to class (sport being the obvious exception). Much more time friendly to have one teacher walk from place to place than a whole class.
This is a genuine problem. It is an easy fix. Yes, there would be bleating and whinging at management level, but it is absolutely doable. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
And one last thing, which will never happen, classrooms should have 15 children or less in them. Anyone who disagrees is simply wrong. Irrelevant how good the teacher is, irrelevant what you are teaching. 15 children or less would make an enormous difference to the quality of education of all children. It will never happen, purely down to money – and that’s a shame because it would work.
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amd September 12, 2012
Re-reading my post, I realise it may have sounded like I was aiming at teachers. I am not. They have little choice on what they are forced to implement and nearly every teacher I assisted was hard working and caring and did the best they could with what they were given. Changes need to come from above.
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Penster September 17, 2012
amd you are so right – and that’s EXACTLY what my kids classroom teachers told me. The kids spend so much time going from one classroom to another and it wastes a lot of time resettling them and regaining the flow. Way too many subjects, excursions, incursions and ad hocism and not enough sitting on bum learning the basics. She said we don’t have time to properly teach the curriculum. They are also not learning to concentrate.
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anon. September 12, 2012
My kids grew up afraid to eat nut because of all the talk about allergies. It took years to convince them they weren’t some kind of poison. I know they ARE to kids who do have allergies, but for littlies the constant and scary messages about not bringing nuts to school in case they kill someone turned a healthy snack into a phobia for my two… (maybe we could turn this strategy around and apply it to chocolate… hmmm) Maybe the message needs reworking a little…
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Janet Georgouras September 12, 2012
I am so happy your son is taking the renewal of resources and sustainablitiy seriously. He is paing musch more attention to what our best scientific minds have been saying for years. So who lacks the education, your son or your husband? Which education will he need for the future- Maths for creative accounting and English for spin-doctoring, or creative knowledge about how to deal with an environment that will be increasingly hostile and a media that refise to deal with reality because it might offend their advertisers?
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Siobhan September 12, 2012
I imagine if he’s come home obsessed with saving the planet, those lectures can’t have been all that tedious! Obviously something’s sinking in. A diverse curriculum that teaches things like citizenship, ethics, social responsibility also supports the traditional curriculum. It uses and reinforces their skills in literacy, hopefully in maths, and even more hopefully – critical thinking.
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Louise Smithers September 12, 2012
I THOROUGHLY agree with amd about the wasted HOURS and HOURS treking kids physically to different lessons – and also in High school when they need mentors, role models and passionate teachers we do it even worse. with multiple venues and faces per day. When humans find something fascinating they research and explore it thoroughly as a continuum – not in allotted timeslots!
I passionately believe this – AND I WAS A TEACHER!! -
amd September 12, 2012
Thanks, good to know I am not the only one who saw this, sometimes it felt that way
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Brendan September 12, 2012
Knowing about the environment IS GOOD even if your only point of view for education is improving ones ability to earn money as the ECONOMY is a wholly owned subsidiary of the ENVIRONMENT…no environment (and we are using it up much faster than it can take) no economy…it really is the ONLY GAME IN TOWN…go young fella!
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Glenis September 12, 2012
I am a high school teacher and if you knew all the extra stuff that we have to teach besides the basics in every subject it would make your head spin. We are told what we have to teach and what we have to highlight….I just do it and try to do it with some enthusiasm to get the kids hooked and thinking for themselves.
I love teaching BUT it is getting tougher every year that passes that is for sure.
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Gabby September 13, 2012
I am a 47 year old woman who is a mum and an econazi. I recycle everything, do everything I can DIY, and pick up other peoples rubbish in the park. I admit I am mad in some ways, but I dont care who thinks that. I am hardwired to be a econazi and nothing can change me. I dont think I learnt this in school thou, I just became it.
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Carolyn September 12, 2012
Yeah, let’s just send teachers yet another message about what SHOULD be taught in schools. Spend a week in MY shoes….oops, sorry not long enough. A year might do, to convince those out there who still think teaching is a cushy job, and that we actually have the time to fit all these things into an alrealdy overcrowded, irrelevant ( sometimes) curriculum!!!!!
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Keryn September 12, 2012
Everyone’s a critic! I am a teacher, not specialist, but know many who would find it very difficult to meet the kids in their class. Our wonderful music teacher who teaches percussion to the junior classes cannot possibly bring all percussion instruments to all classes. And the librarian cannot bring the books to the children and the sport teacher cannot bring the outdoors/gym/beams and tramps to the class. Let’s be practical people!! A couple of minutes in transition time is not a big deal. And why can’t the “3 r’s” be taught in the context of the information being branded as unnecessary? Surely he can WRITE about saving electricity, DEBATE about the usefulness of this, READ and RESEARCH the information and critically analyse, COUNT or WEIGH the difference between the recycling and the bin to go to landfill etc etc. We just did an integrated unit on the Olympics. We timed ourselves running the same time as Usain Bolt and then measured our distance and compared the differences, we wrote to the athletes, we built an Olympic village from 3D shapes, we created a mascot and had to justify our decisions based on national symbols. A waste of time? No, a completely enjoyable way to learn the 3 R’s within a contemporary context!
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Helen September 12, 2012
Just wanted to say that I went to a state school and I did fencing!
Meanwhile, today I taught as a relief teacher again and again I hardly got through any ‘work’. We covered 40 minutes of English then had to go to Gym with visiting experts. Next we fitted in a little maths and spelling before we had to go to combined assembly. After lunch conbined singing practice. Teachers are required to teach kids how to use an asthma puffer, how to cross the road, how to avoid being bitten by a dogm how to choose healthy food, how to brush their teeth, how to avoid stranger danger, how to save the environment, how to handle bullying, how to wipe their bottoms! Seriously the school day is no longer that it was 50 years ago but add to this a great deal of very bad behaviour, and when do teachers have time to teach the 3R’s, to read to the class, to encourage them to love reading? When do they have time to inspire kids? The curriculum is so overcrowded that much of the inspirational in teaching has been replaced by ‘busyness. -
Rusty J September 13, 2012
What Helen said! Our eldest is 28 this year. When he first started school I was somewhat taken aback by the amount of parenting the school did. I still remember feeling concerned that they were taking away my job as his mother. It was my job to teach him those things. My job to teach him how to tie his shoe laces, be neat, kind to others etc, etc, etc. When number 4 started 8 or so years later, the Principle even made a reference to it at the end of year assembly. He said that it was unfair on teachers and students because of the time constraints.( number 4 is 20 in Nov)! How much worse is it now? It seems that education , like so many things, is becoming over complicated. Also the constant change in policy, curriculum etc can’t be good for teachers and as a direct result, the kids. If teachers are being drowned in paper work and having to jump through new hoops every week because there is a new idea that will “revolutionize education” is it any wonder the quality of education suffers? Just a thought………
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mandy September 17, 2012
So the dilemma is a son who is obsessed with a constructive and positive (if slightly annoying) pursuit like recycling? blaming school for that?
Hear parents across the land telling you YOU HAVE GOT IT VERY GOOD INDEED, no hiding in dark rooms, grunting uncommunicatively, no out-at-all-hours-doing-drugs, or arriving home drunk, or not at all, no failing school, no bullying other kids, no lack of self esteem, no endless sitting in front of the TV or games console, no fatalistic why bother appathy? Congratulations, your state school (and no doubt you as well), have helped to nurture a perfectly well adjusted, community minded, positive young person….I’m sorry, what was there to complain about
Another job well done state education.
