Page 4752 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 13 December 2005
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up with skateboarding and footy cards. Just think of the contradiction. On the one hand, the document states that young people between the ages of 11 and 15 are a distinct group and they suffer, we are told, from powerlessness, social estrangement, meaninglessness and normlessness—I am not quite sure what that word is, but it is a word in the document—and yet they are to be treated as adults, deciding on the direction of their own education.
In what other field would we accept such nonsense? If we are learning to drive a car, do we co-construct with our instructor when to use the clutch and change the gears? Think of any area of national activity in which elitism is not only tolerated but encouraged to the point of fanaticism. Do sports coaches co-construct with their charges an exercise regime or rules to the game? What would you feel about a medical student negotiating with their lecturers on how best to perform an appendectomy? Yet with adolescents we are told that teachers must try to connect with students where they are at. And where exactly are they at? The document tells us that they are in a youth culture where there is a low premium placed on textual analysis but a high premium placed on other forms of immediate communication—TV, video, computers, films, magazines, music, text messaging, creating and broadcasting online zines, web sites, and video clips. When they become disengaged or alienated, we are told that this is because “the work is too difficult” or “the work is irrelevant to students and/or does not connect with their world”.
It follows, of course, from this that traditional teaching and learning programs are hopelessly outdated; it says so in the document and it says that there is research to support this. We know this because we are told that the research shows it. Of course, there is no reference given to this research and certainly no reference to research that might show the exact opposite. But asking for evidence is itself doubtless a fuddy-duddy and outdated norm, as outdated as basic literacy and numeracy.
This is not just a nice debating point, though. In the section on “key issues” the document does actually address the most obvious question about the whole business of co-construction, namely, “Are students likely to abuse their position of relative equality and involvement in planning the curriculum?” And the answer? No, not according to the literature. The literature, like the research, has no references. What literature? Not only is this one of the most elementary fallacies in existence—the argument from authority—but this is not even supported by authority. Such is the intellectual rigour of those who presume to control our children’s education.
But, never mind, we are assured—yet again from the gift horses mouth—that “despite the scarcity of hard data so far on the success of middle schooling in improving students’ academic achievement, student engagement represents a valued outcome in itself”. This document actually says, in its own words, that, despite everything that is written in here, there is a scarcity of hard data about the success of middle schooling—in other words, there is no evidence to support any of the proposals—but getting adolescents to make up their own curriculum seems like a good idea anyway, so we will go ahead and see what happens.
Our children’s future is not something that we can afford to put at the disposal of wild theories and passing academic fashion. In saying this, I am not advocating what members on the other side will misrepresent as conservative traditionalism. Obviously, pedagogy develops over time and it is essential that we prepare students to participate in a world
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