By Allan Alach
The corporate dream of online education via
streamed video instruction (Khan Academy) should be well known. The next
version of this lunacy has been developed by News Corp (yes, Murdoch’s empire)
under the oversight of one Joel Klein, the self appointed expert in raising
children’s achievement through stringent testing regimes. Klein’s name will be
well known to Australian, as it was his influence with then education minister
(and now Prime Minister) Julia Gillard that resulted in the scourge of NAPLAN
being imposed on primary schools.
Klein’s latest brainwave is the development
of an instructional program for tablets, such as iPads, and New Corp’s own
product.
‘Amplify is creating
exciting new curriculum offerings that reinvent teaching and learning in
English Language Arts, Science and Math. These products combine interactive,
game-like experiences with rigorous analytics that align to the Common Core
Standards, all driven by adaptive technologies that respond to individual
students' needs as they evolve. These new learning experiences are being
developed by a team at Wireless Generation, together
with some leading partners
such as Lawrence Hall of Science and Lapham's Quarterly.’
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.
This week’s homework!
A
Civilised Society
OK, so this isn’t a reading. However it is a
must watch for anyone who wants (needs?) to know about the neo-liberal takeover
of New Zealand education in 1990. The battle we are presently fighting started
way back here and the ‘spin’ (to be polite) that was used to justify this is a
serious threat to one’s sanity. There are lessons here for other countries as
well.
‘This
documentary looks at the new right ideology that transformed public education
in the 80s and 90s and the schism it caused with teachers. Interviews with
parents, teachers and unionists are cut together with archive footage of
treasury officials and politicians advocating that schools be run as
businesses. There are vexed board of trustees' meetings, an infamous deal
between Avondale College and Pepsi, and teachers take their opposition from the
classroom to the streets.’
‘Plus ça change, plus
c'est la même chose.’ (The more things change, the more they stay the same.)
Whoo-Hoo! Occupy the Schools
An
article by US educator Susan Ohanian (another excellent person to follow) about
the Common Core Standards, that are frighteningly similar to New Zealand’s
National Standards. This sentence, in particular, should send shivers up the
collective spines of New Zealand teachers:
‘Lots
of school watchers believe the sole purpose of the Common Core State (sic)
Standards is to drive the national test which has been on the corporate agenda
for more than two decades.’
The significant difference is that New
Zealand is developing an online system (PaCT) to rate each child’s achievement
from ‘data’ inputed at regular intervals by his/her teacher. This has the
potential to be far worse than a test regime. One would also have to wonder
whether New Zealand is being used as the guinea pig for this approach to
testing, before it appears in other countries. As a small country, with only
one unified education system (unlike the separate states in Australia and USA,
for example) it would be much easier to develop and trial this online system
here. Watch this space.
Schooling
the World
Must be video week…. Here’s the trailer to a movie that needs
really demands to be watched. Have you ever really thought about the drive to
bring education to the world? Just whose definition of education is being used?
‘If
you wanted to change a culture in a single generation, how would you do it? You
would change the way it educates its children.’
And…
‘Generations
from now we'll look back and say, 'How could we have done this kind of thing to
people?'
Occupy
Your Brain
 |
| 'We dont want your mind control' |
A blog article from the Schooling the World
site:
‘The
problem with this scenario should be obvious: who gets to decide what the world’s children will learn?
Who decides how and when and where they will learn it? Who controls
what’s on the test, or when it will be given, or how its results will be
used? And just as important, who decides what children will not learn? The hierarchies
of educational authority are theoretically justified by the superior
“expertise” of those at the top of the institutional pyramid, which qualifies
them to dictate these things to the rest of us. But who gets to choose
the experts? And crucially, who profits from it?’
How
George Orwell might explain school reform
 |
| George Orwell |
There are many w ,,,,,,,,,,,,
Sugata
Mitra: Slum chic? 7 reasons for doubt
While TED Prize Winner Mitra has indeed
demonstrated some intriguing things about the way children can learn
technology, we need to beware of seeing him as the way to the future, following
on from a previous TED Talks ‘star’, Salman Khan. The reformers will leap on anyone
whose message can be subverted to their needs.
Principal:
‘I was naïve about Common Core’
Here is an honest and open disclosure from a
New York principal. All credit to her. I wonder how many Australian and New
Zealand principals would have the same courage and integrity to do likewise? I
wonder how many have the educational insight to see behind the surface fluff? I
will happily publish any letters from down under principals along this theme.
A
Letter to Mr Pyne
Last week I linked to an article where the
Australian Liberal Party spokesperson on education was quoted as calling for a
return to didactic teaching.
He
said, “we would immediately instigate a very short term ministerial advisory
group to advise me on the best model for teaching in the world, how to bring
out more practical teaching methods based on more didactic teaching methods,
more traditional methods rather than the child-centred learning that has
dominated the system for the last twenty, thirty or forty years…”
Here’s the response from a large number of
highly qualified Australian academics, not that Pyne and his fellow ignoramuses
will be open to any research based evidence. This article has value for
educators all over.
Rearranging
The Deckchairs
 |
| Send the experts down with the ship |
‘What if the so-called “world class” education systems
that have been so painstakingly under construction in countries like the UK and
the USA turn out to be very similar to the Titanic?
* Made from the very best
materials
** Designed by the best
architects
** Constructed by the very
best craftsmen and builders
** Crewed by the very best
professionals
** Fundamentally flawed in
their basic concept
** Completely doomed through
unfitness for purpose and disastrous leadership.’
How
Children Succeed - grit, curiosity, and the hidden power of character.
.JPG)
Excellent post by Bruce Hammonds, reviewing
the book of the same title.
“Schools
these days seem to becoming focused on closing the ‘achievement gap’ by means
of tests centred around literacy and numeracy ‘but what’, Paul
Tough asks,’ if we’re wrong?’”
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