Is this the right post

Norman · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 11

What a wank this newgroup has become.

Not a bloody thing regarding Australian education.

Whats gone wrong!!

Norman

Archived from group: aus>education

Leith · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 3

"Norman" wrote:
>What a wank this newgroup has become.
>
>Not a bloody thing regarding Australian education.
>
>Whats gone wrong!!
>
>Norman
>
>

Mate, I've got an educational question for you. Do you support
the new outcomes based education which has just made its way
into Western Australia, or are you a fan of the old unit curriculum.

Personally, I do not know enough about the two of them yet.
I am a second year at Curtin Uni in Perth and our teachers
are raving about outcomes, but they seem a bit broad / dodgy
to me.

Regards, Leith.

johnsuth · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 44

In , "Leith" writes:
>
>"Norman" wrote:
>>What a wank this newgroup has become.
>>
>>Not a bloody thing regarding Australian education.
>>
>>Whats gone wrong!!
>>
>>Norman
>>
>>
>
>
>Mate, I've got an educational question for you. Do you support
>the new outcomes based education which has just made its way
>into Western Australia, or are you a fan of the old unit curriculum.
>
>Personally, I do not know enough about the two of them yet.
> I am a second year at Curtin Uni in Perth and our teachers
>are raving about outcomes, but they seem a bit broad / dodgy
>to me.
>
>Regards, Leith.

Norman,

My observation is that teachers are computer illiterates, which explains
why you don't find them here.

Leith,

I am a mature age first year out teacher. I don't remember the syllabus
from when I was at school, so I know only the outcomes based documents.
I think they are an academic wank. The documents assume that the
teacher knows the subject backwards and needs only a cryptic clue to
know exactly what to teach. Even when teaching in a subject where I had
real world experience, I realised that the academic view of the world
was very different to the way I saw it. I think this is because the
syllabus writers read only academic publications about the world, and
avoid sullying themselves in it.

I specificaly remember a consultation draft where a mature age retrainee
like myself protested that the ideas presented did not match up with
real world practice. He was ignored.

From the syllabus documents that I have read, it seems that syllabus
committees include no one from outside academia. They are a closed
order. By contrast, most governments and company boards include people
from various backgrounds.

Phil Price · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 4

Guys. there are worse matters than curriculum.
In our staffroom are squads of teachers attempting to write out end of term
reports by hand. The reports are laid out in folders on various tables.
All have to be filled in with black biro. It is a fight to grab the grade
10 L to P folder.

The last school that I taught at required me to fill in the reports by hand,
then they asked me to compile a separate file so that some outside agency
could enter the results onto the "Computer."

This is a time destroying, stressful time that could be eliminated in a
stroke if only someone high in the Education Department of West Australia
could make a proactive decision for a single time in their career.

wrote in message$0D6@PC1.ACENET.COM.AU...
> In , "Leith" writes:
> >
> >"Norman" wrote:
> >>What a wank this newgroup has become.
> >>
> >>Not a bloody thing regarding Australian education.
> >>
> >>Whats gone wrong!!
> >>
> >>Norman
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >Mate, I've got an educational question for you. Do you support
> >the new outcomes based education which has just made its way
> >into Western Australia, or are you a fan of the old unit curriculum.
> >
> >Personally, I do not know enough about the two of them yet.
> > I am a second year at Curtin Uni in Perth and our teachers
> >are raving about outcomes, but they seem a bit broad / dodgy
> >to me.
> >
> >Regards, Leith.
>
> Norman,
>
> My observation is that teachers are computer illiterates, which explains
> why you don't find them here.
>
>
> Leith,
>
> I am a mature age first year out teacher. I don't remember the syllabus
> from when I was at school, so I know only the outcomes based documents.
> I think they are an academic wank. The documents assume that the
> teacher knows the subject backwards and needs only a cryptic clue to
> know exactly what to teach. Even when teaching in a subject where I had
> real world experience, I realised that the academic view of the world
> was very different to the way I saw it. I think this is because the
> syllabus writers read only academic publications about the world, and
> avoid sullying themselves in it.
>
> I specificaly remember a consultation draft where a mature age retrainee
> like myself protested that the ideas presented did not match up with
> real world practice. He was ignored.
>
> From the syllabus documents that I have read, it seems that syllabus
> committees include no one from outside academia. They are a closed
> order. By contrast, most governments and company boards include people
> from various backgrounds.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

johnsuth · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 44

In , "Phil Price" writes:
>Guys. there are worse matters than curriculum.
>In our staffroom are squads of teachers attempting to write out end of term
>reports by hand. The reports are laid out in folders on various tables.
>All have to be filled in with black biro. It is a fight to grab the grade
>10 L to P folder.
>
>The last school that I taught at required me to fill in the reports by hand,
>then they asked me to compile a separate file so that some outside agency
>could enter the results onto the "Computer."
>
>This is a time destroying, stressful time that could be eliminated in a
>stroke if only someone high in the Education Department of West Australia
>could make a proactive decision for a single time in their career.

The last thing you need is help from the Department!

You have touched upon two points that I raised, viz. the closed order
mentality of professional educators, whereby they believe that they can
handle everything in house and have no need of advice from other
professions, and computer illiteracy.

There is software to do the job you described. I suspect that the
examples I have used were written by teachers who were very proud of
what they had achieved, but because they had received no exposure to
business software, they had no idea of how bad their product was, and
why other teachers found it frustrating to use.