Chrissy Pyne loves himself the phrase “part-time Education minister”, concluding most of his poncy press releases with the Julia Gillard smear. His latest effort is no different:

“Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being paid to State Government appointed contractors. Quotes are being inflated beyond all reasonable levels. School communities are being regularly sidelined as faceless bureaucrats dictate what will happen in their schools

[...]

“It is clear that this Minister has a set against programs designed at empowering parents and local communities, and prefers giving money to state education department bureaucrats. We have now seen the waste and mismanagement that naturally follows.

“Australia deserves better than this part-time Education Minister.”

Pyne took some time out of his busy leader-of-opposition-business-and-lobbying-for-leadership schedule to write this press release; a press release that readily admits that the Howard Government’s school infrastructure program ($1.18 billion) was “more modest” than the Rudd Government’s school infrastructure program ($14.7 billion). But, you know, what’s a lazy thirteen billion clams between empowered communities?

The Liberals have already asked you to write their jobs policy for them, and now they want you to write their education policy as well.

Teenage students teach Christopher how to write policy

Education For Australia is another lamer-than-lame Web0.6 effort to engage the electorate, containing nothing more than a short spiel from Chrissy Pyne and a plea for “ideas” about how to improve education in Australia. How this site will attract a single additional vote for Malcy’s ragtag collection I have no idea.

Anyway, my idea:

Ant’s interesting post on American rightard Andrew Schlafly led me to investigate his hOmEsKooLing empire - an educational behemoth where conservative kidz can get, like, good learning without evil liberal bias. There’s stuff on this fiasco all over the web and it’s interesting reading, and the best bits are condensed into this article at RationalWiki. Amongst Schlafly’s brilliance we can include:

• ‘teaching’ hundreds of kids, despite not having any credentials as an educator
• inferring that his courses are accredited, when they are not – and that they would allow students to claim college credit, when they would not
• proclaiming larger classes to be better (liberal teachers want smaller classes to make their sinister mind-control agenda easier to achieve) and claiming to teach the largest US History class in the ENTIRE WORLD, which is teh bollocks
• setting stoopid questions like “What do you find inspiring about Christopher Columbus?” and “Describe what you like most about the Monroe administration” and “Abraham Lincoln was homeschooled. Do you see any characteristics in him that might have reflected [this]…?”
• giving full marks for stoopid answers to his stoopid questions, e.g. to the Monroe question above, “The prosperity” (!?!) and to the Lincoln question, “That he was open to ideas such as growing a beard.” (!?!?1!!)
• putting each kid’s questions, answers, grades and teacher’s comments on the Intertubes for all the Conservapedia world to see
• telling students that sentences are not compulsory in essays
• telling students other clear and meaningful stuff like “You will spend a certain amount of time preparing for the midterm exam. Call that amount of time “x”. How you allocate that time to different areas of 1500-1877 will make a difference on how well you do on the exam. If you spend 90% of x on the period between 1500 and 1700, then you will do poorly on 90% of the questions, because they will be from the period 1700 to 1877. You would have done far better to spend the 90% of x on the time period that will have 90% of the questions”.
• proclaiming that girls are academically weaker than boys (”Think girls can excel in math as well as boys can? Liberals teach they can, which is teaching a falsehood“) and setting different curriculum to accommodate this gender difference
• and, of course, teaching a curriculum jam-packed with a blind, unquestioning allegiance to the conservative mind (if such a thing exists)

Note to Dr (sic) John ‘TingTong’ Ray, get out those diplomas, polish up that CV - there may be another academic gig for you after all.

UPDATE

Current topics up for discussion amongst Eagle Rock University’s study groups include:

1. Judicial Attacks on our Culture

(Bad. See Roe v. Wade)

2. U.S. Sovereignty vs. Globalism

(’Right’ vs. ‘Wrong’) 

3. Immigration and Border Security

(Shoot to kill and drive away the wetbacks)

4. How Candidates are Elected: Elections, Political Parties & Lobbying

(God)

5. Family and Life Issues: Abortion, Cloning, Feminism & ERA

(Sin) 

6. Guns, Gambling & Government

(Problem?)

When you think of the word “soldier”, what springs to your mind?

Fearless? Brave? Heroic? Fighting for what’s good and true?

When white supremacist group The Southern Cross Soldiers decided to hold a rally on Australia Day, they thought the beach would be their oyster, and the media their bitch. What patriotic, beach loving Aussie could ignore their call for immigrants to fuck off?

Sadly, it was not to be.

You could tell it would be an exercise in idiocy from the moment the first little troopers arrived under The Clocks and began casting anxious eyes over the Australia Day parade rolling down Swanston St.

Chinese marchers with their dragons, Turkish dancers, new arrivals from Africa – the sort of people your typical Southern Cross Soldier wants to send back where they came from.

But outnumbered as they were, there wasn’t a peep out of these heroes, whose ranks swelled gradually to about 30.

Thirty? Sounds like a right proper army to me.

And at Mordialloc’s multicultural melting pot, well you just had to laugh. They congregated for a while at the foot of the pier like virgins at an orgy, glancing anxiously down the beach and at all those non-Anglo faces, who paid them no heed whatsoever.

When a couple of brawny Pacific Islanders ambled past, their silence was deafening.

[...]

When a Herald Sun photographer tried to snap their pictures, that was the moment to demonstrate courage. Fifteen on one, those are the sort of odds cowards like best.

There was a bit of pushing and shoving and lens-blocking, and one big kid struck a boxing pose and offered to punch some heads.

He didn’t and they drifted away on a cloud of obscenity to have another go at remembering the words to Advance Australia Fair.

It’s good to know John Ray has these guys on his side, because when the New Soviets come they will not be spared.

The Rudd Government last year splurged $10.4 billion on a package designed to stimulate the economy. After initially noting a rise in sales, unAustralian Of The Year nomination, Gerry Harvey, now reckons that sales are such that it’s like the stimulus “never happened.” (Mind you, it could just be the kind of rhetoric that makes it easier for Harvey to shut stores and shed jobs.)

In other news, Australia spends about $1,000 less per year, per public school student on buildings and equipment than Britain and the USA. For the relatively paltry sum of $2.2 billion per year we could bridge the gap and — dare I say? — start an education revolution that would deliver strong and positive long term benefits for this nation.

They’re Doing It Anyway

Critics of the AMA’s proposal for earlier sex education are ignoring the fact that currently many kids are having experiences long before their education catches up, writes Scott.

Read the whole article at newmatilda.com.

Scenario: You’re in a laboratory and your colleague’s shirt catches on fire. Within reach is a fire extinguisher.

Do you…

a) Grab the fire extinguisher and put out the fire on your colleague’s shirt; or

b) Debate with other onlookers the risk posed to your colleague’s health by the contents of the fire extinguisher.

At the Engineering department of the University of Melbourne, it seems the answer is ‘b’.

From: Stephen Beard
Date: 8 January 2009 5:04:50 PM
Subject: Safety Alert – Use of Fire Extinguishers

Dear Engineering Staff & Students

You may have heard that there was a major safety incident in December that resulted in an employee receiving a bad burn to his back. One of the incidents (sic) contributing factors was that some people were unaware if they could use a fire extinguisher on a person. Please follow this link http://www.eng.unimelb.edu.au/about/safety/alerts/FireExtinguisher.pdf to read more about the basic operation of portable fire extinguishers.

Lab Managers – Please discuss this Safety Alert with your groups at your next meeting.

Thanks

Stephen Beard
EHS Manager, Melbourne School of Engineering

Apparently engineers need lessons on how to point and shoot a fire extinguisher. Awesome.

Coming next from the University of Melbourne engineering department: How To Open A Softdrink Can

Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Sophie Mirabella, has had a bit of trouble reading a draft version of the new Early Years Learning Framework. Apparently all those big, big words are “incomprehensible bureaucratic jargon… aimed at intimidating parents into thinking that they are not capable of raising their own children.”

Hands up, parents of Australia, if you have read or are planning to read the Early Years Learning Framework document.

…

…

Right.

This document is written for professional educators and discusses professional practice, making it difficult for non-educators to read and fully understand. It’s just like how the general public and Leon Bertrand wouldn’t understand a policy document focused on the finer details of lawyerly professional practice.

But that hasn’t stopped Sophie from jumping up and down like a cranky toddler because paragraphs like this stumped her poor widdle brain.

Systematic reflection on practice provides critical insights from a range of perspectives to bring about change and continuous improvement. It allows us to ask difficult questions about the value and the ethics of our practices (page 12)

Sophie’s response to that:

“What?” Mrs Mirabella concluded.

At least Sophie’s admitted that she is incapable of getting across the detail of her portfolio, and the search can now begin for a competent replacement.

The whole idea of a secular school system is to keep religion out of the classroom. If parents want to instill religious values and teach religious history to their kids they can send them to a religious school or send them to church. School is for learnin’ and singin’ The Internationale.

But that’s not good enough for the Christian lobby, who believe that all kids should have Christianity shoved down their throats in school. In Victoria the various Christian denominations are the main users of a rule that public schools must allow accredited religious instructors of any faith to teach students who don’t opt-out.

So despite the secular nature of public schools, the Christians get to preach inside them. You’d think they’d be happy, right? Wrong. They’re now pissed off that an atheist group has gained accreditation to teach “humanist” lessons to school kiddies.

VICTORIAN state primary school students will soon have an alternative — religious education lessons taught by people who do not believe in God and say there is “no evidence of any supernatural power”.

The Humanist Society of Victoria has developed a curriculum, which the State Government accreditation body says it intends to approve, to deliver 30-minute lessons each week of “humanist applied ethics” to primary pupils.

[...]

Fundamentalist Christian group the Salt Shakers panned the idea of humanists being given religious education class time.

Research director Jenny Stokes said: “If you go there, where do you stop? What about witchcraft or Satanism?

“If you accredit humanism, then those things would have an equal claim to be taught in schools.”

Andrew Bolt, of course, sees an anti-Western conspiracy…

Much teaching in state schools is already predicated on the death of God, and religious education classes are the last, tenuous link many students would have to the religious culture that produced the society they now enjoy – and risk frittering away.

…and blows his Muzzie dog whistle.

Afterthought: will Muslim students in state schools also be taught there is no evidence Allah exists?

If the Humanist society asks to teach in those students’ schools, and those students’ parents don’t opt-out, then the answer is yes. Put the whistle away, Bolta.

For a religion that teaches tolerance, the Christians don’t seem to be very tolerant.

In one fell swoop, Overland editor Jeff Sparrow* slaps down Miranda Devine, the “populist Right” and the Young Liberals, whose “undergraduate” bleatings about Left-wing bias in universities and schools were rightly dismissed as “farcical” at the conclusion of a Senate Inquiry last week:

But the Young Libs are, at least, authentically undergraduate. Miranda Devine, on the other hand, is old enough to know better. Yet she too threw her weight behind Make Australia Fair – and with accusations that were even more risible. Why, there’s a Brisbane school, don’t you know, that celebrates Mao Zedong as a “freedom fighter”, right next to George Washington and Mahatma Gandhi – Liberal Senator Brett Mason popped in once and caught them in the act.

Devine’s revelations about Brisbane’s Long March High are not just nutty. They, like the Make Australia Fair campaign, epitomise the peculiar brand of petulant victimology that now grips the populist Right. The Young Liberals’ education campaign website reads, in fact, like one big pity party, a compendium of stories of youthful Tories oppressed by mean teachers, and books with which they don’t agree and posters they see on university walls.

“I have found the constant liberal-bagging, jokes and Labor pushing agenda threatening and frustrating,” confesses one disconsolate young reactionary. “In class discussions I constantly feel like my opinions aren’t welcome and quite often I do not say anything.”

But hang on a second. Aren’t the Liberals the champions of individual responsibility? Don’t the Young Libs themselves proudly proclaim their opposition to the “nanny state” and declare that “while we believe the government should provide the individual with the best opportunities possible, we recognise that the onus is on the individual to seize the opportunity”?

Didn’t, in fact, Ms Devine herself devote her next column to an attack on the whole notion of government intervention?

And there’s plenty more gold where that came from. Read it and weep, wingnuts.

* Writing, in this instance, in Crikey, which I can’t access because I’m a tightarse non-subscriber.

It’s no secret that public schools, rather than being houses of education and discipline, are hotbeds of pernicious leftist indoctrination. And if there was any doubt left about this fact, a teacher resource book I found in the library today is the final and definitive proof.

Here’s the question posed by the textbook.

And here’s the suggested solution that is clearly designed to brainwash students into thinking pernicious leftist thoughts.

“But that’s not leftism!” I hear you scream. Au contraire, ma petite choux-fleurs — just check out the genius of horseshoe theory!

So I’m a member of this reunion/social networking site, right, that used call itself ‘Schoolfriends’ but has since changed its name to ‘Friends United’ or something similarly wankified. And it was all very funny a couple of years ago when all you could do is scroll through the list of names of those from your school, prompting vague but slightly amusing memories of all the underwashed, mullet-sporting boys and Cyndi Lauper-lookalike girls with whom you used to share a classroom. Back when I set up a profile you could message people on this Schoolfriends thingame – but that required paid registration, which kept the bogans and the quasi-stalkers at bay.

Until now. Now, anyone who sets up a profile can send messages to anyone. For free. Oh the humanity. Yesterday in my inbox, I received notification that ’Jane’ (name changed to protect the certifiably insane) had sent ‘Bridgit’ (ditto) a message via Schoolfriends.

I remembered at once who ’Jane’ was: the meanest, cattiest, most devious princess-bitchface in my year level at school. This girl modelled herself on Jai’me King before there was a Summer Heights High; she was an Internet bully before Al Gore invented the Internets. She was vain, self-loving, boastful, manipulative, gossiping and snobby. She intimidated the teachers as much as the students, once skipping an exam to go somewhere with her dropkick boyfriend and, when caught, having her parents threaten the school with legal action for not believing her completely implausible story. She was naturally spoiled rotten - back in Year Eight she used to bring a new CD to school every week when the rest of us were barely subsisting on hatcheted TDK mix-tapes hastily recorded from Triple M’s ’top 40′. And of course her triumphalist parents bought her a car after she’d passed Year 12 (not by very much, if I remember rightly).

Anyway, the last time I’d seen ‘Jane’ was at our ten-year reunion a few years back… and nothing seemed to have changed. She was still under-dressed, over-made-up, a cigarette in one hand and a glass of Omni in the other. Loud, attention-seeking, a right royal pain in the arse. And now this message from her, which read in full:

hi ‘bridgit’!!!!!!!!!!
how have u been luvly?? things are grate with me, last wk [her husband] Tim got a new position at [company] and next yr they are looking to send him to Singers for six months….
(blah blah…delete six sentences talking about how great her and her dopey husband are and how good she currently has it)
so anyway, u wanna catch up for a coffee? heres my mob, give me a call it would be grate to relive the old dayz at [school name]. luv u!!!
‘jane’

What are my options here, Grodsters. Ignore her? Write back and tell her to fuck herself? Contact her and opt out with an excuse that’s just as much bullshit as her own personal stories? Hire a hitman? One thing’s for sure, I’m getting the hell out of that Schoolfriends website.

What Are Teachers Being Taught?

Schools have been told to go “back to basics” with English grammar lessons, but it’s universities that need to pick up their game.

Read the whole article at newmatilda.com.

Breaking news from the trenches in the war against illiteracy:

Monash University will teach its first-year students grammar and punctuation after discovering that most lack basic English skills.

Baden Eunson, lecturer at the university’s School of English, Communications and Performance Studies, and convenor of the new course, said about 90 per cent of his first-year students could not identify a noun. “If you ask them to identify adjectives and other parts of a sentence, only about 1 per cent can manage,” he said.

His comments come after Monash colleague Caron Dann said the majority of her 500 students in communication were strangers to English grammar.

“Marking essays, I discovered the majority had no idea how to use apostrophes, or any other punctuation for that matter; That random spelling was in and sentence construction out. About half thought plurals were formed by adding an apostrophe-s, as in apple’s and banana’s.

“Marking the final exam, it emerged that few could write neatly: From bold childlike printing to spidery scribblings in upper case, it is obvious that handwriting is a dying art,” she said.

There’s a million theories why this is but my preferred thesis is the abrogation of responsibility, which usually starts with “It’s not important…” and finishes with “Someone else can fix it”. Unfortunately I cop this all the time because I’m usually the one who’ll send your copy back with a gazillion alert flags and a  comment saying “Fix the spelling and grammar on this steaming pile of moose droppings”.

And doesn’t the indignation come fast from 21-year-olds who think they’re great writers just because they’ve got a BComm and they once scored an A+ for a reflective piece in Year 10 English. And I’ve heard them all too. “Noone worries about grammar anymore, I’m writing for the SMS generation.” “Our system should have spellcheckers…” (it purposely doesn’t).”It’s just my job to report, it’s your job to worry about the quality of writing…” (fucking WHAT?!?) and “I’m only in print media until I score a gig on radio or TV…” (not if your arse gets sacked, bucko). I’ve even heard the “English language is a wonderful dynamic creature…” argument before.

The standards have definitely fallen and they continue to fall. This morning, an e-mail from someone way up the food chain that expressed a desire that certain people should “…get there shit together”. I cried. What hope have us grammarians got in such cruel, unforgiving world?

Went to camp and got a severe dose of kiddie flu. Also got really hungry because I refused to eat at a dinner table that bore this sign.

Trust me, there was more than one teacher

I was also arrested by security guards at a wildlife park for attempting to vandalise the following signs.

Death to all grocer’s

Not. A. Plural.

Then I got home with an incompletely-healed dislocated toe which, together with the flu, forced me to withdraw from last night’s almost-certain-to-win GroupThinkFC match. I’ll let Ant fill you in later. I’m too depressed.