Page 3375 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 September 2005
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this document who are said to have had this view are summarised in one single reference to one vaguely learned paper.
So we do not have traditional courses any more. We do not have a traditional syllabus that provides teachers with information about what they should teach, or students with details of what they might expect to learn. No, instead we have 36 essential learning achievements that are listed in the document “Principles and framework for the preschool to year 10 curriculum: every chance to learn”. A fat chance to learn!
What are they? They fall into four basic categories. First are the essential learning achievements, which make motherhood sound controversial. They include, for example, this one “The students know how to learn”. It sounds like a splendid idea. “The student applies methods of inquiry” is even better. But I particularly like this one “The student makes plans and carries them out”. Perhaps the student is organising a lunchtime smoking session behind the bike sheds. Who knows! All the document says is that the student “sets clear goals, identifies resources and determines timelines to achieve goals and complete tasks”. Lunchtime is at one o’clock; we have a packet of fags and a box of matches; there is the bike shed; who is on for a smoking session?
The second category vaguely approximates the more traditional curriculum that we would expect. For instance, we have things like “The student understands and applies numbers”. It goes on in detail. “The student understands the meaning, order and relative size of numbers”; the students “estimate results of their calculations and judge the reasonableness of these in the given context, meeting needed levels of accuracy”. I would have thought that a study of arithmetic, geometry and algebra used to meet this learning achievement. But I have to admit that these subjects did require a certain amount of rote learning, which are strengst verboten in this new educational order.
Students are also set the learning achievement of speaking coherently and confidently, that is to say, communicate information, ideas and feelings effectively to a range of audiences for a variety of purposes. There is nothing wrong with that, you might think. And indeed there is not, though you may have thought that mastering coherent language was predicated on elementary reading and writing, which are no longer particularly in the curriculum. Elementary reading and writing are not in the curriculum, and the reasons for that can only be understood by a professional educationalist.
It is true that another of the essential learning achievements is that “the student reads and writes effectively”. But this does not refer to the old-fashioned, middle-class constructs like spelling, grammar and punctuation. No, this is critical literacy. Students “construct meaning and respond to texts, interpreting and using the vocabulary, language styles and genres appropriate for particular purposes and learning ideas. Students apply critical thinking to the contexts, meanings and intent of written texts.” I do not know a six-year-old who could recognise a genre.
To get some idea of what it would involve for students in the ACT, we need only look at what is happening currently in Victoria. According to the new draft VCE English course, students in years 11 and 12 need only read one book a year. And that book could be a film script. The other so-called texts—and they only need to study one of those a year—include CD ROMs, websites, political blogs, computer games, movies, videos,
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