Great article, Tom. I love that the Canadian teacher says, "I don’t understand why you guys are in crisis all the time. Things are pretty good here.” So true. Get this on LinkedIn asap let's get it circulating! Love this: "The faith that improving teacher quality (however defined) will cure societal problems seems to blind many to the possibility that such problems lie beyond the control or responsibility of the teacher."
Thank you for the encouragement Mel! Yes, I enjoyed chatting education to him and hearing his insights after starting to teach here. Somewhat related, spoke with a colleague who was originally from Hong Kong, who is really impressed by the work-life balance in Australia: “it’s so good that students and teachers have time to go home and do other things that they enjoy.” He was stating how in Hong Kong, students and teachers don’t really have lives outside of school. He said students are worked to the point where they get minimal sleep, in any given lesson there will be at least one student asleep in class and the teacher just keeps rolling with the lesson. There’s a lot to be learned from those on the ground in other countries!
it's always bothered me that the responsibility for the child's education is perversely placed squarely on the shoulders of their classroom teachers. It's a case of mismatched incentives… The teacher isn't the one that benefits if the student learns more and therefore has a better quality of life… It's the student themselves and their immediate family and friends. So Shirley their community has an important part to play? Parental responsibility for education in the crucial first five years of life seems to be missing from public discourse in Australia. Why? Is our society so hooked on "specialisation" that we don't place an expectation on Parents to get this right? i've seen no end of students who's home life is a barrier to anything I could do for them in the classroom. A full-time teacher might only have as much one on one interaction with one student as that one student might have interaction with their phone in one single evening after school (I've done the maths). Who is pulling that lever?
Great thoughts Ben, it makes me think about the financial pressures that parents are currently experiencing that take them away from the educational opportunities for their own children in those formational years. We’re increasingly outsourcing education to “someone else” (I find myself guilty of this too at times myself). So there is more pressure upon early childhood, kindergarten to also “do more”.
yes the dual income household and longer work hours definitely play apart. But I'm not convinced that explains all of it… Think of how many people you see wandering around shopping malls who are not talking to their young children. The amount of language you get exposed to from the ages of 0-5 make a huge difference to your cognitive capacity later in life
I’m reminded of Diane Reay arguing simply that education cannot compensate for society. The strange and disturbing thing, however, about our times is that we’ve seemingly adopted a perverse and irrational, indeed schizophrenic, interpretation of this statement. Schools are expected to not only compensate for society but pretend that society doesn’t really exist. I would describe this as the frightening result of decades of social erasure by neoliberalism, acculturating us to not think or question, the presumption being we exist in an ahistorical vacuum of sorts. Depoliticising teachers and teaching to ensure that kids are drilled with approved standardised curriculum through pedagogical practices designed explicitly to deny agency and hammer out creative thought will only make us all dumber. But I guess that’s not an ideological objective, but only pragmatic.
Thanks for sharing this, Tom. That line “students must have as much knowledge and skills stored in their long-term memory as possible before they leave the school if they’re to succeed in the world” really jumped out at me. It honestly feels like we’re stuck on repeat; as if being “taught” something means it’s automatically learnt and remembered, when real life just isn’t that simple.
What stands out to me (and your post picked up on it) is how the media leaps from announcing the latest NAPLAN results straight into crisis talk. Every year, there’s a wave of reactivity: more testing, more standards, and, inevitably, more teacher blame. It’s the same news recycled in each new year’s headline.
I reckon readers are experiencing real fatigue with this perennial storyline. There’s only so many times people can be told we’re in crisis, followed by another round of quick fixes and blame and the government saying we’re onto it with these strategies including ‘upskilling’ our teachers. The way NAPLAN gets interpreted and reported isn’t just tiring; it’s shaped by a system and environment that seem to keep generating these unpalatable readings, feeding a sense of endless emergency instead of looking at what’s really going on in education.
Great article, Tom. I love that the Canadian teacher says, "I don’t understand why you guys are in crisis all the time. Things are pretty good here.” So true. Get this on LinkedIn asap let's get it circulating! Love this: "The faith that improving teacher quality (however defined) will cure societal problems seems to blind many to the possibility that such problems lie beyond the control or responsibility of the teacher."
Thank you for the encouragement Mel! Yes, I enjoyed chatting education to him and hearing his insights after starting to teach here. Somewhat related, spoke with a colleague who was originally from Hong Kong, who is really impressed by the work-life balance in Australia: “it’s so good that students and teachers have time to go home and do other things that they enjoy.” He was stating how in Hong Kong, students and teachers don’t really have lives outside of school. He said students are worked to the point where they get minimal sleep, in any given lesson there will be at least one student asleep in class and the teacher just keeps rolling with the lesson. There’s a lot to be learned from those on the ground in other countries!
it's always bothered me that the responsibility for the child's education is perversely placed squarely on the shoulders of their classroom teachers. It's a case of mismatched incentives… The teacher isn't the one that benefits if the student learns more and therefore has a better quality of life… It's the student themselves and their immediate family and friends. So Shirley their community has an important part to play? Parental responsibility for education in the crucial first five years of life seems to be missing from public discourse in Australia. Why? Is our society so hooked on "specialisation" that we don't place an expectation on Parents to get this right? i've seen no end of students who's home life is a barrier to anything I could do for them in the classroom. A full-time teacher might only have as much one on one interaction with one student as that one student might have interaction with their phone in one single evening after school (I've done the maths). Who is pulling that lever?
Great thoughts Ben, it makes me think about the financial pressures that parents are currently experiencing that take them away from the educational opportunities for their own children in those formational years. We’re increasingly outsourcing education to “someone else” (I find myself guilty of this too at times myself). So there is more pressure upon early childhood, kindergarten to also “do more”.
yes the dual income household and longer work hours definitely play apart. But I'm not convinced that explains all of it… Think of how many people you see wandering around shopping malls who are not talking to their young children. The amount of language you get exposed to from the ages of 0-5 make a huge difference to your cognitive capacity later in life
I'm a Kiwi & everything you discuss in this article is applicable to NZ. Alas, I think we are further down the ideological road than you guys.
Thanks for sharing Cristina, keep speaking out challenging the assumptions where you can!
I'll do my best. Appreciate your work, Mate 🙏
I’m reminded of Diane Reay arguing simply that education cannot compensate for society. The strange and disturbing thing, however, about our times is that we’ve seemingly adopted a perverse and irrational, indeed schizophrenic, interpretation of this statement. Schools are expected to not only compensate for society but pretend that society doesn’t really exist. I would describe this as the frightening result of decades of social erasure by neoliberalism, acculturating us to not think or question, the presumption being we exist in an ahistorical vacuum of sorts. Depoliticising teachers and teaching to ensure that kids are drilled with approved standardised curriculum through pedagogical practices designed explicitly to deny agency and hammer out creative thought will only make us all dumber. But I guess that’s not an ideological objective, but only pragmatic.
Thanks for sharing this, Tom. That line “students must have as much knowledge and skills stored in their long-term memory as possible before they leave the school if they’re to succeed in the world” really jumped out at me. It honestly feels like we’re stuck on repeat; as if being “taught” something means it’s automatically learnt and remembered, when real life just isn’t that simple.
What stands out to me (and your post picked up on it) is how the media leaps from announcing the latest NAPLAN results straight into crisis talk. Every year, there’s a wave of reactivity: more testing, more standards, and, inevitably, more teacher blame. It’s the same news recycled in each new year’s headline.
I reckon readers are experiencing real fatigue with this perennial storyline. There’s only so many times people can be told we’re in crisis, followed by another round of quick fixes and blame and the government saying we’re onto it with these strategies including ‘upskilling’ our teachers. The way NAPLAN gets interpreted and reported isn’t just tiring; it’s shaped by a system and environment that seem to keep generating these unpalatable readings, feeding a sense of endless emergency instead of looking at what’s really going on in education.
Rgds
M