I love primary education

I love primary education.  I love primary schooling. I love primary school kids.  When I left school in 1944, I just wanted to get amongst the whole mix of teaching and go bush to teach young kids. My big brother would bring home stories about the kids at Nogo River in rural Queensland and it all sounded so fascinating.  

Rural school Queensland
 I eventually made it to Teachers College, and by 1947 I was the Head Teacher, of all things, of a one-teacher school. I loved it. My dream achieved.  For eleven years, I did my  apprenticeship in four  different localities. All of my one-teacher schools are closed now but I still remember the names of the pupils. Many have passed on and some are in their eighties. You see,  when I first started as a Head Teacher cum Principal I was eighteen years of age.  My two or three 'scholarship class' members were fourteen or fifteen years of age.  I now have a lot of former pupils. Love each one of them.

Now I love nostalgia
Rural Queensland
The years went on and the love for primary schooling and kids just grew and grew.  I now love nostalgia.  I love catching up with former pupils who remember me for the right reasons. It's the sort of feeling that only schoolies enjoy but can't explain; and is unique to those who care about kids. I thought that I shared these feelings with an endless number of others. I was sure that every primary teacher was the same way. I kept this belief for sixty years....that everyone in primary schooling loved kids and teaching them, as much as I did; and would go to the ends of the earth for them.
I was wrong - many don't care much about kids
Over tested kids!!
2008-17 has revealed that many employees in the field of primary schooling in Australia don't care much about kids. They care deeply about some kids, but not the universal kid. I had accepted, early in the piece, that Australian every-day adults, generally speaking, prefer to have as little as possible to do with kids, apart from coaching the local under-eights footy team.  Treehorn, when I found him, validated the view that all adults, including parents, teachers and principals prefer not to be bothered too much by what distresses kids. 

Dissapointed in school principals

Time to speak out!
I was disappointed ['floored' is a better term] to learn, in particular that Australia's  school principals don't have much interest in the 'generalised' school child, at all. They like their job and do it well and that's it. They  meekly and  publicly approve of the extreme. heavy, burdensome NAPLAN testing device because Julia Gillard told them to do so after she returned from New York, overdosed on Klein bullshit, which, they know all very well, destroys the learning spirit of the curriculum in the interests of data-gathering - just for the sake of data-gathering.  

Principal's associations know that. APPA was blatantly 'Stockholmed', replaced by AGPPA and then  'Eichmannised' .  They should have known that NAPLAN, under the pretence of being diagnostic and motivational, would destroy our system;  a system that once had the potential to be great. Sloppily, near tearfully,  I must say : They broke my heart by their desertion from reality.

Oz - lost the anti authority spirit
We should have said 'we don't do that sort of thing'.
When Julia Gillard introduced this crazy New York system of schooling based on the deliberate creation of anxiety and fear, they had a chance to say to her : "We don't do that sort of thing to school children." They didn't.
I know now what disappointment is.
Then, in January 2010, the Australian Education Union that represents the chalkface operators, unanimously supported a motion at its Sydney Conference that NAPLAN be banned!   I was over the moon. I was so proud of my association with some of the attenders. Amazed that such a thing had happened and so proud that Aussie teachers collectively, it seemed, recognised the implications of naplanising school children ....that they had assured the welfare of little Aussie learners to progress in a child-centred environment, that I did something that I had never done
NAPLAN testing distorts learning
before. It seemed to me like it was the wonder of the age....that our classroom teachers could be so wonderful, so glorious, so up-front.  I could see Cloud 9 way down below me; so I went to Mass on the following day to say thanks. [I'm a Mick. ] I am usually asking for a favour, but here I was doing something that I have reflected upon, often, since:  Going to church just to say 'Thanks'!!  That's not normal. Maybe I'll get the chance to do it again sometime...maybe when politicians  start thinking about what they are doing to children  and ban the stupid thing. 

 You see...ouch....The motion was at the AEU Conference was withdrawn on the same day and the notion of freedom abandoned.  Never learned why.   Very little mention of NAPLAN by the AEU since. Did the big boys capture Him, or was it the AEU? The big end of town seems to believe that it is  dominant enough  to do either. I may never learn what happened to the original motion.
I was super hopeful in the 80s
Those who know me, know that, back in the eighties I held super-normous hope for the future of primary schooling in Australia. I could see super-dooper schooling happening and, for some reason, I always thought that by about 2010 [no good reason for picking that year],
Learning not testing
Australia would enjoy an enormous network of public schools, to which children would burst a boiler to get to each and every day BECAUSE OF THE LEARNING HAPPINESS THERE....for no other reason. Enjoying a thoroughly holistic tailor-made curriculum, each would find real joy in extending their own abilities as far as they could and enjoy every moment of learning at their local community school.  

 They would not need any sexy inexperienced measurement sciolist from outside the school gate to judge their capacity,  and brand them with a number. Schooling would be real schooling, real learning. School leavers would not need an HSC score or NAPLAN score. Hirers would ask the school about their applicants and be given the full picture.
No matter what you might like to say, a progressive exam-free system is possible.
Well, things didn't live up to expectations. Once managerialism and the restructuring fad hit the fan in the eighties, one could see what was happening. We were destined to follow the path 'back to drastics'.  The last paragraph in my "Back to Drastics" [USQ Faculty of Education, 2006. P.87] was prophetic : "Hope persists. There are some great schools around and classroom teachers still have the real power. Once the teacher and the pupils move into their room together, the educational processes begin. Nobody in any self-important holy of holies has yet thought of starting from such a premise. Structural
changes are usually imposed from the politicial apex, downwards. We keep starting at the wrong end. Education 3000?"   At all times, the large and dangerous changes have been initiated by sciolistic ne'er-do-wells, who have had their decisions confirmed by the kinds of political party decision-making, for whom absurdity is not a handicap.

The era of managerialism
Clearly, the managerialism era was the start of Australia's demise as a world power and of the standards of schooling that were once on the up and up. They are related; so, when Managerialsim and Restructurism made an easy path for the rabid Standardised Blanket Testing routine called NAPLAN because the wrong decision-makers were in the wrong positions, our system went haywire and has been that way for a decade. We cannot claim any growth in world stature in financial, industrial or political terms nor is there any indication of improvement in overall intellectual performance of any kind. We are waiting for the big boys to sort things out.  We maintain a mediocre ranking in world affairs, even though we have the ability [now being crushed] of fighting above our weight.

Need to face up to NAPLAN testing
The forces that keep us in this mid-to-low-level position are powerful, extremely powerful. WE NEED THEM TO GET OFF OUR BACKS. We need them to talk with Rupert and tell their mates, Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten that they are allowed to discuss schooling  openly, and not deliberately hide the mention of NAPLAN. Bring it out in the open! Schooling is not about
money. The 37 kids from my railway-fettlers' one-teacher school at Baking Board have contributed significantly to Australia's welfare as has every other school. Schooling is about the promotion of learning and that banking corporation called UBS, needs to let go of the hooks on our institutions that they use to control our schooling system, our politicians and our media

.The cone of controlled silence is too thick, as well.

NAPLAN is now a part of schooling
NAPLAN is now discussed as a generality, a part of schooling, a thing that happens at school, a thing to be feared or wondered about. Rupert and UBS have had their way.  UBS, controlling our top end of town might care to think more seriously about the real meaning of the word SCHOOL.  What is it? What is it supposed to do? Is it doing it? Do kids like learning? Do they do  well at all parts of the curriculum? Why blanket test them when they progress faster and better when teachers share the evaluation of their efforts with them at the time of learning?  If you want to know how well they are doing, why not have a system of mentoring and reporting by highly qualified, experienced experts with a yen for excellence and with pollen on their wings? 

 Why not just give the profession back to teachers?
Where are our mavericks?
The Australian education system, without any fear or doubt, is controlled by UBS and Rupert Murdoch [the schooling industry, in testucation mode, is worth $300 billion per year to him...at his last count].  UBS [this  banking corporation that paid the fares of bull-shipper Joel Klein down-under to show us what to do] seems motivated by a lack of appreciation for the ethics of the education profession. Big Bankers don't like us teachers. [We shouldn't have given up doing  school
banking for them] It does not seem to understand that  a profession can be based on altruistic principles.  UBS, a respected organisation within thee money-making professions, could do so much good for children if it was able to adopt a moralistic view of the treatment of children and a responsible view of the work of the caring professions.

I've tried with the help of Treehorn
In any case, I've tried for quite a few years with the help of little Treehorn and a remarkable Kiwi educator, Allan Alach, to try to help restore normal conditions for Aussie school children through the columns of The Treehorn Express. We didn't do any good. Treehorn is still that vivid green colour, because no one with any wit, has noticed him.

Powerful forces against teachers.
Rupert Murdock- educator?
The two superordinate forces [UBS, Murdoch] are just so enormously powerful and our decision-makers are so very easily persuaded and so very well controlled......They do not allow ANY political party to discuss NAPLAN.  The party doors are closed to reasoned discourse.
The mainstream press and the ABC aren't brave enough to investigate the history or worthiness of NAPLAN.  [Kids. You can rely on shock-jock Alan Jones for support, however. He's just got going.]Shaky state governments [e.g NSW] believe that, by adding to the ferocity of the NAPLAN notion by screwing around with a relationship to the HSC, something or other will be improve.  Fat chance.

The place has gone crazy
OMG. The place has really gone crazy and the standard of the whole gamut of learnings at school is fading - not just the naplan subjects. Kids just don't like school much.....for good reasons.

If only principals flexed their muscles.
We could end all the anguish in our schooling system if primary and secondary principals' associations flexed their ethical muscles and told the feds that their members will return to t
heir professional code OR if ACSSO (Australian Council of State School Organsations)  suggested to their members that they say NO to 'NAPLAN' OR  more mums and dads at home, thinking seriously about their child's future, would  refuse to allow their children to participate....... like the parents of those 337 out of 343 pupils at Kimberley College, Brisbane have done OR some political party members would just sit down and talk about the meaning of school.

Our test crazed system stinks.
We all know our test-crazed system  stinks, but who am I [with some aligned colleagues and friends ] to test the might of UBS, Rupert and Co. and tolerate sloppy politicising. We don't make the slightest impression,  it seems. They're too powerful. Little Treehorn looks like staying a vivid green colour for a long, long time. We live in an era when there is a serious disinterest in childhood.
I can't stand it any more. I quit. Thanks Allan and friends. Bye.
Phil