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!
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.
Apologies for my delayed response Piper, thank you for your contribution! Yes, schools have in a way become their own kind of worlds haven't they? Detached and distant at times from the communities in which they are centered as we regress to the mean of standardised knowledge.
It's less uncomfortable to believe that there is such a thing as a general curriculum, some standardised knowledge-rich content, and an apolitical way of approaching education.
Ultimately, it removes responsibility from the teacher to reason what they do (only in terms of the reasons for teaching certain things, they're still held responsible for not doing it!). It almost feels like this is one of those hidden-curriculum type things, where students might actually come to implicitly learn that we don't need to be responsible for our actions, but it is always up to someone else to make the call (unless we become that "someone else") 🤔
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 hear you. Which raises the next question, whose fault is this?
Although, you never know the whole story do you? Maybe these parents actually do spend real quality time with their children at home and all we see is the time when parents get a chance to get to their messages, emails, etc.
But I do believe we risk outsourcing too much education in early years, assuming that it is simply the job of childcares and kindergartens.
I would argue it is simplistic to suggest this entire complex system is the fault of one actor, or even many. The systems we live in are built up from the millions of decisions made in one direction or another. We strive to explain but sometimes perhaps there is no satisfying explanation.
I would highly recommend the Leonard Sax book 'The Collapse of Parenting' on that last point.
When the world was simpler, we did one thing at a time. Someone was always at home with the child until they could be passed onto the formal education system, with the gift of 5 years of one on one communication of an adult with their best interests at heart - in the knowledge that often that wisdom suggested a sanction, a redirection, a firm hand rather than an attempt at an age-based peer friendship approach. Sax explains this much better than I can.
The enormous changes in our society we are witnessing are multifactorial, as everything is. Shy away from anything that claims to be the one answer - all perspectives add to the richness of understanding.
But gentle parenting can get fucked. A tiiiiiiny percentage of parents can pull it off because their EQ is off the chart. For the rest of us, what worked for 250,000 years of human evolution - natural maturation with guardrails - is a promising course.
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 to hear from you and apologies for my delayed response!
To add to your first comment, we could extend that to assuming that NAPLAN results mean that students will keep/use such knowledge moving forward.
In response to your last point, I feel this is where we need the teacher to engage with the political aspects of their work. At least from what I'm seeing, academics and teachers alike are pretty done with media/think tank judgments of NAPLAN and are speaking out more. The more teachers speak up against these narratives, challenging the compliant expectation placed upon educators, I believe there will be more pressure to change things (maybe a little too optimistic!).
Your advocacy in the field of education is so valuable, please keep it up!
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!
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.
Apologies for my delayed response Piper, thank you for your contribution! Yes, schools have in a way become their own kind of worlds haven't they? Detached and distant at times from the communities in which they are centered as we regress to the mean of standardised knowledge.
It's less uncomfortable to believe that there is such a thing as a general curriculum, some standardised knowledge-rich content, and an apolitical way of approaching education.
Ultimately, it removes responsibility from the teacher to reason what they do (only in terms of the reasons for teaching certain things, they're still held responsible for not doing it!). It almost feels like this is one of those hidden-curriculum type things, where students might actually come to implicitly learn that we don't need to be responsible for our actions, but it is always up to someone else to make the call (unless we become that "someone else") 🤔
Thanks for getting me to think!
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 hear you. Which raises the next question, whose fault is this?
Although, you never know the whole story do you? Maybe these parents actually do spend real quality time with their children at home and all we see is the time when parents get a chance to get to their messages, emails, etc.
But I do believe we risk outsourcing too much education in early years, assuming that it is simply the job of childcares and kindergartens.
I would argue it is simplistic to suggest this entire complex system is the fault of one actor, or even many. The systems we live in are built up from the millions of decisions made in one direction or another. We strive to explain but sometimes perhaps there is no satisfying explanation.
I would highly recommend the Leonard Sax book 'The Collapse of Parenting' on that last point.
When the world was simpler, we did one thing at a time. Someone was always at home with the child until they could be passed onto the formal education system, with the gift of 5 years of one on one communication of an adult with their best interests at heart - in the knowledge that often that wisdom suggested a sanction, a redirection, a firm hand rather than an attempt at an age-based peer friendship approach. Sax explains this much better than I can.
The enormous changes in our society we are witnessing are multifactorial, as everything is. Shy away from anything that claims to be the one answer - all perspectives add to the richness of understanding.
But gentle parenting can get fucked. A tiiiiiiny percentage of parents can pull it off because their EQ is off the chart. For the rest of us, what worked for 250,000 years of human evolution - natural maturation with guardrails - is a promising course.
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
Hi Margaret,
Great to hear from you and apologies for my delayed response!
To add to your first comment, we could extend that to assuming that NAPLAN results mean that students will keep/use such knowledge moving forward.
In response to your last point, I feel this is where we need the teacher to engage with the political aspects of their work. At least from what I'm seeing, academics and teachers alike are pretty done with media/think tank judgments of NAPLAN and are speaking out more. The more teachers speak up against these narratives, challenging the compliant expectation placed upon educators, I believe there will be more pressure to change things (maybe a little too optimistic!).
Your advocacy in the field of education is so valuable, please keep it up!
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 🙏