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Making an education revolution happen

By Peter West - posted Monday, 10 December 2007


Since retiring from my 37-year stint in teacher education, I have begun teaching foreign students English. These students are from countries like South Korea, China, Brazil and Indonesia. Of course there are various levels from what we term absolute beginners to those doing university preparation. Not only are most of them more skilled than my former teacher education students in grammar, knowing the names of tenses and writing in various modes from a letter to a script. But they want to learn. They welcome correction and ask for guidance. As a rule, teacher education students do not.

The foreign students give me attention and respect - far more than most students in teacher education. And it has become too hard to fail university students these days. It just makes more work, and many of them pass anyway - through appeals, complaints, or intervention by various parties - without ever understanding the work.

Teacher education has had about 20 enquiries in recent years but we continue to drift downwards. Every year we ask less of students. Wholesale subjects have been abandoned: it is some 12 years since all my primary education students stopped doing a course in basic Australian history. Oh, we’re only going to be primary students … Is this relevant to Kindergarten? Do we need to know this?

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Experienced teacher educators swear that they used to be in lectures and workshops five days a week, 9 until 5. These days students do most of their classes on two or three days, and then work at Maccas or the shoe shop for up to 20 hours. And they still complain of overwork! Better teacher education - a great idea. I wish the Rudd Government luck on this one.

Poor grammar in the media

The decline in literacy is not limited to the educational establishment. I have wearied of sending messages to the media about grammatical errors, even in the respectable Sydney Morning Herald. Of course we can’t expect anyone to correct the police spokesmen on TV, with their endearing use of tense: “I’ve seen him come in and he’s had a gun in his hand …” when the correct tense is simple past “I saw …”.

SBS might imagine it is above reproach, but there are many names badly pronounced (often Australian ones). There are frequent solecisms and redundancies - "innocent victims", "a young girl", "new initiatives" and so on, on both SBS and commercial TV (and there’s not much difference, these days). Nor is the ABC much better.

Our beloved local Member, Malcolm Turnbull was dubious, ABC news told us one night. I think they meant doubtful. When ABC Online reported on PISA it said that student’s reading levels were slipping. Perhaps this was an unintended irony?

The point is that we have lost a lot of ground in grammar. Grammar faded from most schools in the 1970s and it has never regained that ground. So who shall teach the teachers? Once again, I think the Rudd Government’s motives are laudable. But I worry about how much can be achieved. Without massive effort and determination, we won’t stem the tide of people who don’t know proper grammar, pick up the sayings of ignorant Americans and imitate speech patterns from the media.

So where do we turn?

In all this gloom, how can we hope for better reading among Australian kids? In my view, we ought to move in these directions.

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Parents
We can’t give up on parents. Schools have children for a few hours a week, about 40 weeks a year. Parents are the primary educators. Much needs to done to help mothers, and rightly so. But in my experience fathers need more encouragement. They need confidence and practice to raise children well. Father education needs to happen where dads are - in workplaces, pubs, around sport. Rudd could pick up a tip from Mark Latham about giving parents more help to raise children.

Childcare
The Rudd Government has properly aimed at improving standards in childcare. No other area is so important for laying down patterns of language. Yet the costs are so daunting and disproportionate. The Jesuits were right: get kids early and get them doing the right things. That means eating well, exercising sensibly and reading. Maybe here Ms Gillard can take action to get better child care happening.

Here the ABC can take a bow: Play School is far underestimated. Many a busy parent has put little Johnny or Jenny in front of the TV and found that the child picks up useful, practical English well presented in a no-nonsense way that children love.

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About the Author

Dr Peter West is a well-known social commentator and an expert on men's and boys' issues. He is the author of Fathers, Sons and Lovers: Men Talk about Their Lives from the 1930s to Today (Finch,1996). He works part-time in the Faculty of Education, Australian Catholic University, Sydney.

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