Our Schools Have Die-Back Disease

The State and Education Do Not Mix

The clip below is about a principal of a school highlighting a problem in the government education system.  The state system is premised upon a belief that government schools are both the authority and the expert when it comes to education.  The entire government school system is built upon the premise that parents are both incompetent and ignorant when it comes to educating their children.  The state is the expert.

In fact the opposite is the truth.  The government is thoroughly incompetent when it comes to education.  The less it has to do with the education of the nation's children the better.  In the (Christian) schools we have been associated with over the years, we have believed in and applied the Triangle of Pedagogical Power.  Effective, potent education involves three parties, and no more: the school teacher(s), the parents, and the pupil.  These three are equally vital and necessary.

The intrusion of any other power or authority in that triangle makes for ineffective, impotent education.  The involvement of the State is worst of all because it squashes and drives out the influence of parents, and their fellow-team members: the school, and the pupil himself.  The State commands, it does not "partner".  More and more the State looks to its educational institution (the government school) to be responsible for, and drive, the welfare and social programmes of the State.  Almost every social problem amongst youth has the Government pushing for more of its schools' involvement in the child's life--usually over the battered and crippled bodies of its parents.

Richard Hall, rector of Otago Boys' High School spoke out about these matters.

Another Dunedin school principal has publicly aired concerns about growing expectations that schools act as social as well as educational institutions.   In a recent Otago Boys' High School newsletter, rector Richard Hall said he agreed there had been a "definite increase" in the number of issues involving pupils outside school hours which schools were being asked to deal with.

Masters of the Universe At Work

Waste of Precious Time

We posted several days ago a piece profiling the bucolic but asinine pedagogical theory operating in "state of the art" schools in the UK and New Zealand.  We embedded a video of a school in Auckland which was doing its level best to practise pupil-centric education, where the pupil decided what, when, and how they would be taught, as in:

Adult Facilitator (aka, Teacher): "What would you like to do today, O masters of the universe?"

Pupil: "I want to play electronic games"

Second Pupil: "I want to make some cookies."

Adult Facilitator: "Wonderful.  It's so exciting to come to school to share in your wonderful creative instincts. Now, let's talk about how we can study these things today.  Any ideas?"

Just in case you thought that this Auckland school was an weird outlier, think again.

Rampant Positivity and Other Idiocies

Pedal Cars to the Rescue

The government education system is in a right royal mess, if the analysis of a professor at the University of Melbourne is to be given due regard.  The NZ government system is awash, apparently, with untested, speculative, high-risk novelties that pass as avant-garde, progressive, cutting edge educational practice.  Or, as Professor Stephen Dinham inelegantly puts it, the system has been " hijacked by fads, many of which he said had been either debunked or were unproven."

What are these fads that pass as leading edge pedagogical practice?  The leader of the misshapen herd of mongrel theories is the insistence on relentless praise, or

"self-boosting" where students were saturated in "rampant positivity".  "The danger with this is [students] get into the big, bad world and they find out they're not so good. This is a tremendous blow to their self-esteem," he told the Herald on Sunday.

He said a lack of honest, helpful feedback was leading to a confusion for children.  Giving children regular, constructive feedback about how to improve was a better policy, he said.  "We need to say to kids that they can do this, they can't do that but to move their learning forward they need to do this, that or the other. What we don't say is you're good or bad at something," said Dinham.

This reinforced a valuable message that effort brought reward. [NZ Herald]

We would add that it is not just a blow to self-esteem.

When the Old Becomes Startlingly New

At Last, Some Sense in Education

Every so often a piece is published which is like a ray of common-sense amidst a dark night of foolishness.  And so it came to pass on October 31st, 2014.  The Sutton Trust published some research conducted by Professor Robert Coe of Durham University and colleagues. The website blurb on the Sutton Trust reads as follows:

The Sutton Trust was founded in 1997 by Sir Peter Lampl to improve social mobility through education.  As well as being a think-tank, the Sutton Trust is a ‘do-tank,’ having funded over 200 programmes, commissioned over 140 research studies and influenced Government education policy by pushing social mobility to the top of the political agenda.

The title of the research is, What Makes Great Teaching? Review of the Underpinning Research.   The Sutton Trust, a co-sponsor of the work, provided an executive summary of what has become evident to the researchers:

This report reviews over 200 pieces of research to identify the elements of teaching with the strongest evidence of improving attainment. It finds some common practices can be harmful to learning and have no grounding in research. Specific practices which are supported by good evidence of their effectiveness are also examined and six key factors that contribute to great teaching are identified. The report also analyses different methods of evaluating teaching including: using ‘value-added’ results from student test scores; observing classroom teaching; and getting students to rate the quality of their teaching.

To improve pupil attainment there are two key factors which must be at work:

The Return of New Math

Common Core’s Newer Math

A return to mathematical ignorance

By David G. Bonagura Jr.

January 17, 2014 12:00 PM

National Review Online  

["Common Core" represents an attempt by the powers-that-be to standardise (and thereby control) schooling in the United States.  We have seen all of this before.  Certainly in New Zealand where the State holds a virtual monopoly on education.  The outcome, if Common Core is successful is therefore predictable: a burgeoning ignorance of the general population.  David G. Bonagura Jr. illustrates how this will eventuate, using maths as a case study. Ed.]


The following sentences from the New York Times could have been written today in homage to the Common Core Standards Initiative, the recently adopted national standards for the teaching of mathematics and English-language arts in grades K–12.

“Instead of this old method, the educators would stress from the earliest grades the new concept of the unity of mathematics and an understanding of its structure, using techniques that have been developed since the turn of the century. . . . The new concepts must be taught in high school to prepare the students for the type of mathematics that they will find when they reach college.”

But the century in question here is the 20th, not the 21st. This article, written in 1961, is not about today’s Common Core, but about New Math, the program that was supposed to transform mathematics education by emphasizing concepts and theories rather than traditional computation. Instead, after a few short years of propagating ignorance of all things mathematical, New Math became the butt of jokes nationwide (the Peanuts comic strip took aim more than once) before it was unceremoniously abandoned.

Pitiable Johnny

He Can't Read, Write, or Do Maths

For years we have been told by the education establishment that the New Zealand government education system was one of the best in the world, and that pupils were getting a first class education, highly ranked in the OECD tables.  We have always taken such claims with a big grain of salt.  Now we hear that New Zealand kids are ranking well down the scale in maths--one of the subjects in which we were supposed to be doing really well.

This from the NZ Herald:

Educators and Education

Modern Imposters and Gargoyles

What the the role and calling of a teacher?  One Trent Kays deigns to give us ordinary mortals the answer.  Trent describes himself as a "writer, teacher, provocateur, activist, consultant, and rhetoric & writing studies PhD student" so we know we are waist deep in the good oil here.  

For some reason Trent's answer to the question on the role and calling of a teacher has appeared in the NZ Herald.  Why?  No idea.  Maybe the paper thought that his opinions on the matter were of significance.  There is probably some warrant to this notion.  His own promotional page at the University of Minnesota website claims, "He often writes about society, technology, culture, and higher education issues, and he is in the process of founding a new venture dedicated to practical and progressive ideas for changing education."

Great stuff.  So what progressive pedagogical revolution is about to descend upon us?  Same old, same old.  The same tired old cliches that progressive and post-modern liberals have been prattling on about since Michel Foucault first said, "Well, I'll be darned!"

Here is Trent in full cliched flight:

The End of Education, Part #4

The Gradual Descent into Meaninglessness

There is another destructive and devastating trend in state schools: psychobabble has entered pedagogy and is taking over. Children, we are told by state educators, need to be affirmed.

Years ago we attended a "prize" giving at a small primary school. It lasted quite a long time. Why? Everyone was awarded a prize. There was a prize for the biggest smile; for the neatest hair; for helpfulness to the teacher; for kindness--you get the picture. The rationale was that it was vital to the well-being and development of the child that no-one was left out, everyone be affirmed. Disappointment was banished from the school.

Again, you ask why? Clearly this is not reality impinging upon the classroom. Once again, state schools see themselves as preparing children to be model citizens in our Western secular democratic societies which are, as we have seen, pluralistic and multi-cultural. Since nothing can be excluded, philosophically or religiously, everything must be accepted.

These days a few political leaders in the West (Angela Merkel and David Cameron) have been bold enough to declare that multi-culturalism is a tragic failure, a mad experiment that has not worked. Its ramifications do not work in state schools either.

Meaningful learning cannot get far if "A is not non-A" is ignored. Modern education must affirm both "A" and "non-A", since to speak of "non-A" is implicitly discriminatory and negative. Pupils that embrace both "A" and "non-A" must be told they are wrong, incorrect if they are to be educated. But that does not accord with the "affirmation narrative".

In recent decades it has become common to regard children as fragile, emotionally vulnerable things who cannot be expected to cope with real intellectual challenge. It was in this vein that in April 2007 UK teachers were instructed by (Education Secretary) Alan Johnson that they should routinely praise their pupils. According to guidelines, teachers ought to reward children five times as often as they punish them for disrupting lessons. . . . Increasingly the therapeutic objective of making children feel good about themselves is seen as the primary objective of schooling.
Frank Furedi, in Robert Whelan, ed., The Corruption of the Curriculum, p. 8f

The New Zealand curriculum has swallowed this psychobabble hook, line and sinker.

Learning is inseparable from it social and cultural context. Students learn best when they feel accepted, when they enjoy positive relationships with their fellow students and teachers, and when they are able to be active, visible members of the learning community. Effective teachers foster positive relationships within environments that are caring, inclusive, non-discriminatory and cohesive.
"Effective Pedagogy", The New Zealand Curriculum, p.34.

When this is applied to particular subjects, heuristic chaos results. Take history. "I think Hitler was not a bad chap," says one student. "It is good to have structure and order."  Teacher: "Well said. We must care about Hitler's memory. We must not discriminate against him. We are all human beings and we must pull together. Excellent point."

An exaggeration? No. It's that bad. In both the UK and in New Zealand, the subject of terrorism has recently been thrust to the fore of history curricula. Materials to help teachers cover this topic have been hastily assembled.

This material being promoted presents terrorism as its victims as having, broadly speaking, equal points of view. After all, "new history" is about "value relativism"--all views are equal since history is all a matter of opinion. A pack . . . contains 13 sources. Four of these are about Osama bin Laden, including one source that provides extracts from his own words across a range of topics and another source that transcribes his words about the September 11th attack. These two pro-Bin Laden sources are "balanced" only by a fairly neutral biography of Bin Laden and by a copy of the FBI Wanted Poster for him.

Across the other nine sources two are pro-US, two are anti-US and four are, broadly, neutral. The final source provides 16 quotations from the world press on the third anniversary of 9/11. Eight of these press reports come from the Islamic world and are largely hostile to the West. The other eight are from Europe and Asia. Five of them are critical of the US. The US press is not represented.

What is clear is that these teaching materials include substantial evidence to justify terrorism.
Chris McGovern, The New History Boys, Whelan, op cit., p.63f.

This idiocy is a direct result of the psychobabble of affirmation, affirmation, affirmation. Objectivity means that anything is acceptable to someone. Affirmation means that any views must be accorded respect.

Teaching history has become "New History". Wonderful. The achievement of "skills" rather than knowledge now drive the subject.

Teach what content you like. It really does not matter. "New History" is not reliant upon any specific content.
Ibid, p.67

It is important to realise that this is not a sudden development. This process of "using" the subject of history (or social studies) as a pretext to build "model citizens" has been gathering steam for over forty years. There can be no turning back now. The West long ago relinquished the one meta-narrative that gives a framework to reverse this drift into irrational meaninglessness. Just how meaningless becomes clear when perspectivalism rears its ugly post-modern head.

The current UK National Curriculum document in the UK requires that history be taught "perspectivally". Every perspective is equally valid.

. . . children must be taught history through four "diversity" perspectives--"the social, cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity of the societies studied". In addition, perspectives on "experiences", on "ideas", on "beliefs", and on "attitudes" relating to each of men, women and children must be taught--"the experiences and range of ideas, beliefs and attitudes of men, women and children" in the "periods and societies studied". This amounts to another 12 perspectives. . . .

Although the National Curriculum document does not always use the word "perspective" there are, in effect, 24 of them. . . . The obsession with "political correctness" in most of these perspectives is clear. Take any landmark personality or event in history and start applying these perspectives to its teaching and we see how the familiar and famous can easily become the unfamiliar and the uninformative. . . .

These perspective act as a kind of filter. It a battle is taught it is as likely to be through a "social" or "gender" perspective--conditions on board HMS Victory or the rule of women in World War II munitions factories--than it is to be about military events at Trafalgar or El Alamein. When children learn about Elizabeth I they are as likely to learn about how she dressed and went about her daily life as they are about what she did. The unfolding narrative of what happened across the Tudor period does not have to be covered.
Ibid., p.71f. Emphasis, ours.

There will be some who argue that this will be a pendulum phenomenon. The irrationality and idiocy of New History will generate its own counter reaction, and things will move back to a meta-narrative of our "unfolding story". Don't hold your breath. What story would that be? The West in its headlong rush to deny the Living God has been forced into a relentlessly sceptical position where meaning is what we say it is.

But the relentlessness is not finished yet. Meaning is what "we say it is" has now gone still further. Meaning is now what I say it is. Hence the emergence of constructivism--the latest pedagogical fad, which is the most consistent end-point of scepticism yet seen. Since truth is radically relative and perspectival, it is also individual. Therefore, each pupil needs his or her own personally constructed curriculum. (Incidentally, we believe this is why the teaching profession lusts after having the Internet available in classrooms.  It has little to do with teaching and educating.  Rather, its attraction is that it facilitates students to construct their own "thought-world".) 

We will address this in the next piece in the series. Meanwhile we reiterate: state schooling appears irretrievably lost. Given the philosophical, religious and cultural forces arrayed against the state education system, it would appear the entire edifice can only go one way--from failure to ever greater failure.