(c) Copyright 1999: Antonia Feitz - 18th February 1999.
Literacy, or rather the lack of it, has been in the news of late with the federal government's plan to make unemployed people attend literacy classes to enhance their employability (for non-existent jobs). Many people are incredulous that anybody could possibly be illiterate after eleven or so years of schooling. So what is the problem? Teaching children to read should not really be such a big deal as parents and teachers have been doing it for millennia now - and without BAs, B.Eds or Dip.Eds too. The high illiteracy rate in our society is a symptom of a much deeper malaise in education. Consider the following story:
A few years ago I ran into a man called Seraph Bondarenko who had been a classmate in primary school. As the son of post WW2 Russian migrants he probably did not speak much English when he started school, but picked it up rapidly the way children do. Despite his name, Seraph was no angel. He was not very bright and was frequently in trouble for his boisterousness. We attended a Catholic school run by the brown joeys and they were quite uninhibited about caning children. Seraph was so silly he once gave a bamboo stick he'd found to Sister Veronica - and he was the first to cop it!
He left school early and became a petty criminal. When I met him he was facially disfigured and walked stiffly. He told me he'd been in a car accident (while on a job) and that his life of crime was over as a consequence of his injuries. But he was happy. He said things were really good: the detectives were nice to him and said, "Hi, Bondi!" whenever they saw him. This chuffed him greatly. But what gave this poor man his greatest pride was the fact that he was literate. Out of the blue he said to me: "But I can read and write. Lot's of these others can't, you know. But we were properly educated, weren't we. We can read and write". Possibly he read no more than the TV guide, and had no occasion to write - but he was literate and proud of it.
Why did Seraph - in today's parlance a 'slow learner' - learn to read while so many now cannot? What is the difference between then and now?
In the lower primary classrooms in the fifties there was a clear hierarchy: the teacher had authority over the pupils. The curriculum concentrated on reading, writing, and maths, but also included social science (geography and history) and art, craft, singing as well as religion and sport. If a child was not progressing with his peers he could be 'kept back' to repeat the year. Children practised their writing and did their sums in exercise books, and neatness was expected. There was quite a bit of rote-learning: spelling lists, times tables, capital cities and poems. The phrase 'self esteem' had not been coined and the idea of it would have been dismissed as an absurdity. People in the fifties regarded esteem as something freely given to others in honour of their achievements and/or character. While it's good for people to grow in self confidence, only fools esteem themselves, especially for no reason.
In passing, note that the word 'pupil' has been replaced by the word 'student'. The change speaks volumes about the changed atmosphere of the classroom: 'pupil' has overtones of being a minor, of being instructed; 'student' however, has overtones of being self-directed. Few little children are students. Few big ones are either for that matter.
Though today's classrooms are much brighter and happier places, they are failing the Seraphs of the world dismally. Building the 'self-esteem' of the slow learners is considered essential, but it puts the cart before the horse. The only way to attain genuine self confidence is though achievement, and this is finally being recognized.
The Los Angeles Times' Richard Lee Colvin reported: "Having high self-esteem certainly feels good, psychologists say. But, contrary to intuition, it doesn't necessarily pay off in greater academic achievement, less drug abuse, less crime or much of anything else. Or, if it does pay off, 10,000 or more research studies have yet to find proof.... Fretting about students' feelings has become an unhealthy classroom obsession, researchers declare in academic journals and elsewhere. Better, they say, to spend more time on something children can justly be proud of - acing algebra or becoming a super speller.... Teachers ... were stunned a year ago when only 12% of their fourth-graders were reading at grade level. Out went the three hours they spent weekly on counseling and self-esteem classes. In came more attention to the basics. Up went test scores. Last fall, 64% of the students passed. And self-esteem soared." (25/1/99).
Surprise, surprise!
Academics and progressive teachers routinely dismiss 'mere' rote-learning as worthless, but it is actually a very sound educational tool: firstly it builds knowledge; secondly it is an excellent memory training exercise; thirdly it is useful, and lastly it delivers the very thing the progressives want - a sense of achievement. US researchers are now 'discovering' what common sense already knew: children LOVE to know things. To know your tables, to know how to spell the words in your spelling list, to recite a poem or name the Australian capital cities - Melbourne on the Yarra; Adelaide on the Torrens; Perth on the Swan etc - is fun! And desperately needed. I was told that just today, a TAFE student could not accurately place Darwin on a blank map of Australia, but put it on the west coast of Western Australia. The same student put the ACT as a large state midway between Adelaide and Darwin. That this can occur after eleven years of schooling is a disgrace.
But process has replaced content in education. It is said ad nauseam that children don't need to know anything; they just have to know how to look things up for themselves. Only mindless dolts could assert such a stupid notion. Without an understanding of a topic - i.e. without being taught the facts - it would be impossible to begin to know what to look up! Discovering a smorgasbord of facts about, say, Anzac Day is no substitute for reading a well-researched, well-organized and well-written account of it. Only after a student knows the facts of the matter can he ask any intelligent question that will require him to look it up for himself.
Another problem in the modern primary classroom is the reduced time given to the basics, possibly the result of all the extraneous matters now required to be covered by schools - drug education, sex education, stranger-danger education along with brainwashing into correct attitudes about sexism, diversity, multiculturalism etc. And self esteem of course. As well, the overuse of photocopies, where the child fills in missing letters instead of writing the complete word, has resulted in a lack of practice in writing with the lamentable results that are only too common. It's simply not true that handwriting doesn't matter. With competition increasingly fierce for job-seekers, many large companies are evaluating prospective employees by such qualities as handwriting and even table manners.
Although there are many fine teachers in the profession it is unarguable that the quality of teachers has declined. Traditionally, teaching was the entry profession for the bright children of the poor through scholarships. After Whitlam abolished tertiary fees suddenly there was a widening of opportunity, and the students who formerly would have become teachers naturally took advantage of it. Consequently the entry bar to teaching was lowered, in some years so drastically that institutions scaped the bottom of the barrel for students. This combination of mediocre students and courses corrupted with PC ideologies has resulted in the production of poor quality if well-meaning teachers.
People would be surprised to know how many blatantly ideological courses students can take during their study. For instance consider the unit description of EDST 348: Curriculum and the Social Context of Schooling offered at UNE: "The unit aims to promote development of critical reflective practice by identifying links between schooling and the socio-cultural contexts; examining regressive values and behaviours such a racism and considering the initiatives required by developing inclusive, equitable and socially just schooling."
Regressive values? Regressive according to whom? Would the defence of the traditional family be considered 'regressive? Or the defence of traditional sex roles? Or the refusal to accept homosexuality as merely a lifestyle choice?
Then there's a unit called "Gender and Education" where: "Gender theories will be analysed and evaluated within an educational context. Dominant and contesting masculinities and femininities will be contrasted and linked to equity policies. The relationship between policy and practice will be illustrated through an analysis of attitudes to homosexuality in schools...." It is pure feminist and homosexual propaganda. 'Feminanities' is more like it.
This is the biggest change between the classrooms of then and now. Then, teachers upheld traditional morality and were proud of Australia's history and achievements. Now, the ideological movers and shakers, particularly feminists and homosexuals see the classroom as a promising battleground in the Great Cultural Wars. They despise traditional morality and they hold Australia's history and achievements in contempt, as something to be ashamed of.
When that's the agenda, who cares if children don't learn to read?