grodscorp@grods.comEducation as a pawn in Howard’s culture wars
 | Posted by The Editor on Tuesday 7 November 2006, 11:44 am Categories: Education, Politics Tags: civility, CultureWars, JulieBishop, manners |
Congratulations to education minister Julie Bishop for calling on schools to teach civility and manners. We’ve long ago given up on laying any responsibility for children’s upbringing with parents and with civility and manners completely absent from public institutions such as parliament it is our schools that are now the last line of defence against values-neutral and bad mannered kids.
It’s simple, according to Headmistress Bishop. All the kids have to do is wear a uniform, respect society’s institutions, and take part in the singing of the national anthem as a normal and solemn part of school life.
And final proof that John Howard’s newest General in his culture wars has never stepped foot inside a classroom:
Some people might think that it doesn’t matter if children are taught manners and encouraged to say please and thank you and apologise when they have wronged another, but if we are to institutionalise civility we must ensure that schools are reinforcing community standards and common values.
If it wasn’t so serious it would be funny.
GrodsThink Ep.29 (26/8/08)
Tuesday 7 November 2006, 12:23 pm #pip
Heh. So true.
State high schools actually train children in rudeness, don’t you know?
Tuesday 7 November 2006, 12:48 pm #J, The
Bring back the cane. There’s nothing a good whipping can’t solve.
Tuesday 7 November 2006, 2:34 pm #Bob
Agreed, J, The.
“Grown-ups” being violent towards their kids work in enforcing rules. You know, like how being violent towards, say, Iraq, brings democracy.
Wednesday 8 November 2006, 6:02 pm #Adam
Firstly I’d like to say “what’s the problem that this is supposed to fix?” Ms Bishop’s last proposal (involving giving control of curricula to the federal government instead of state governments) was heavy on grandstanding and hot air (Mao Zedong ideologues preaching to our kids, anyone?) but light on what the actual problem was. Is there any evidence of a crisis, or looming crisis, that can only be fixed by giving the Federal government the power to write curricula? If there is, I haven’t heard anything about it, and I don’t think she did a very good job of presenting the problem if one even existed.
Secondly there was the “values test + learn English” immigration changes the government brought up. Petro Georgiou stated afterwards that after reading the government’s own discussion paper on the issue, that he found no evidence of a problem and no evidence that the proposed changes would fix any problem, if one existed.
So my question re Ms Bishop’s latest proposal is “What’s the problem?” Is there actually any evidence of a decline in manners, or is this some token issue that conservatives like to bring up and gripe about every so often? (Kids these days, no respect! etc)
I don’t think anyone would argue that learning to be more polite, patient, tolerant etc to each other is a bad thing. However, I don’t see simply telling kids “be nice to each other!” as being a particularly effective way of doing this. More drumming of stale facts into our kids heads is, in my humble opinion, not the way to go. However, taken a step further I think we might be onto something. What about teaching our kids values in school like empathy, respect for others’ differences, self respect, honesty, etc amidst a wider curriculum of free and critical thinking? “What do you think?” would be the central question. Telling people to be nice to each other is one thing, but getting people to think and realise for themselves why “being nice” is a good thing is something different. Thoughts anyone? ;-)
Wednesday 8 November 2006, 8:44 pm #J, The
I think you are right that these are important things for kids to learn. However I think they are of a type of thing that can only be learned by behaviour modelling - and that goes for modelling the behaviour of parents, government leaders, tv stars, teachers and other students. You learn how to be nice, empathetic and compassionate from the people around you and the dominant messages in society as to what kind of behaviour is ok.
That said, there is certainly scope to incorporate or emphasise the behaviours that model empathy etc into curriculum, such as taking compassionate or kind role models and teaching about them in history or social studies, or getting kids to do projects on community leaders, or perhaps inviting the kids from the local detention centre to a soccer game, that sort of thing; or perhaps to critically evaluate government policies using a compassion or inclusion index. Wouldn’t that lead to some interesting results?
Thursday 9 November 2006, 12:08 pm #The Editor
You’re spot on, Adam. It’s all just one giant wedge in Howard’s ongoing culture wars. Bashing public schools is desirable because conservatives think they’re staffed by dirty lefties, and easy because everyone’s an education expert by having been to school. ”I turned out okay and back in my day there were times tables, cuisinaire rods, the cane and respect for our elders.”
Teaching values in the way suggested by leading educational theorists such as Howard, J., Bishop, J., and Nelson, B. is a total furphy. As both you and J,The have pointed out there’s so much more to teaching values than solemnly singing the national anthem and making kids copy the definition of mateship into their work books.
Matthew Lipman, a recognised expert in the teaching of thinking skills, defines five types of thinking that are relevant to the teaching of things such as values:
Affective thinking
The indignation one feels as the result of someone innocent being hurt. A moral sense of justice and a clear understanding of right and wrong.
Appreciative thinking
To appreciate what is of importance in a given situation. To value nature or art, personal qualities, or the attitudes of different societies.
Active thinking
To conserve what one cherishes. To support a cause or belief that involves the action of people to better a circumstance or situation.
Normative thinking
Comparing the actual situation with the ideal situation. Considering what ought to be, and desiring to achieve this vision of idealism.
Empathetic thinking
The ability to put yourself into another person’s situation and feel the emotions that they would feel as if they were your own.
Have a read through those and you’ll probably conclude that normative thinking is the kind of thinking that Howard’s values education would develop. You might also conclude that active thinking is the kind of thinking most likely to lead towards action in addition to intent, and also be the hardest kind of thinking to teach.
A colleague of mine conducted a small-scale study into a group of grade two students to see how successfully they practiced each type of thinking. Not surprisingly, the students practiced normative thinking in 100% of the situations in the study while they practiced active thinking in only 69% of the situations.
I’m all in favour of teaching values as long as those values come from within the students and the communities in which they live rather than being dictated by the government for political gain. And if we’re going to teach values we need to develop vastly different teaching methods than we’re generally using at the moment.
Saturday 11 November 2006, 8:14 pm #J, The
What kind of teaching methods would you have to use, Ed?