Vic Toria (working interstate), Comment 52 of 62, Five teachers a day assaulted

Vic Toria (working interstate), Comment 52 of 62, Five teachers a day assaulted by students, Callie Watson, Adelaide Now, 16 July 2012: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/five-teachers-a-day-assaulted-by-students/comments-e6frea83-1226427544788 Historical link preserved from the original page.

All I have to show for a life of hard work are horrific memories.

I have been reading your website for six years...

for months I was afraid to go out to the letter-box and collect my mail...

all I have to show for a life of hard work are horrific memories...

your website is excellent...

(Email to the Bad Apple Bullies website Editor)

Peter Wilson writes in The Australian: 'student-centred learning' has led to underachievement by hundreds of gifted Australian students. Historical link preserved from the original page.

Peter Wilson, an agronomist who left the CSIRO 12 years ago, has since taught in state, independent, non-denominational and Catholic schools.

He taught short contracts in 13 schools in four states.

He says that some schools were superb.

But most schools were failing.

Peter Wilson writes in The Australian - Historical link preserved from the original page.

Australian Government school teachers are reluctant to speak up for fear of censuring by their employers; and independent school teachers fear feeding the tall poppy syndrome. Historical link preserved from the original page.

He argues that schooling in Australia comes down to student behaviour.

Period.

Teachers have surrendered power gradually as part of the collateral damage inflicted by the postmodern social revolution.

He noticed a significant loss of this power in the 1990s, the decade between him leaving the class as a student and returning 13 years later as a teacher.

This era coincided with the expansion of student-centred learning, a concept in which the student takes control of their education; a kind of existentialism whereby teachers must fit into and become a subculture of the student's world.

It works exceptionally well in psychology and with gifted, focused kids in well-resourced schools but is completely destructive otherwise.

Children need outright directing in their early years.

To think a child's interest in, say, atomic structure is driven enough that they will research off their own bat until they discover the neutron for themselves is folly; but that is what the model wants us to implement.

Children, by nature, are going to take the path of least resistance.

Self-discipline is rarely self-taught.

We compete in sport, in business and in life, yet when it comes to schooling we shy away from competition between individuals and institutions because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

All that outcome-based education achieved was a generous amount of paperwork for teachers and underachievement by hundreds of gifted students.

In this utopian ideal, equal opportunity equates to equal outcome.

What nonsense.

Another issue is that Australian society does not hold education in high esteem, compared with countries that outpace us. Historical link preserved from the original page.

Unti we confront this fallout of such a cultural attitude we can never, ever expect to excel academically on the world stage.

Ever.

The energy that teachers in Australia exhaust on grasping at credibility could be much better spent.

Finland is worth mentioning as a comparison, as it continually tops the world on all recognised international education standards.

Not only is a Finnish child's education highly esteemed from a very young age by society at large but the profession of teacher is highly competitive (one in 100 applicants enter university) and the country has an early intervention program such that no child is left behind.

Not one, in a nation of five million.

And good on them.

They use technology in the classroom to astoundingly good effect.

In Australia we need to stop sugar-coating our education systems.

Call the failures for what they are, recognise the decades of trends we have endured and turn our focus instead on what happens at home.

Those schools in Australia whose outcomes buck the national trend are those that have resisted education fads of the past.

They have retained uniforms; their students recognise the value in manners, respect for all, punctuality and responsibility for their actions.

When a young child has these building blocks in place, then developing any sort of curriculum is possible and the outcomes exceed the national standard. I have shared in this success at two of our nation's finest schools.

What is stopping the government from turning to such institutions and asking the hard questions: "How can we improve? What do we need to bring back? How do our schools get re-empowered?

But to suggest such a thing is so un-Australian; and instead the debate between government and independent schools is all about funding and an apparent elitism. Historical link preserved from the original page.

In my experience there is no elitism.

There is simply brilliance in education being executed by a very few; and an inheritance by others, often only in the next suburb, of a social experiment that, in some cases, has gone horribly wrong.

It is the education revolution itself that has spawned a classist society because it has stalled our nation's learning to a standstill.