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Separatists at the school gates

By Mercurius Goldstein - posted Friday, 7 December 2007


In his victory speech, Kevin Rudd appealed to Australians to put the “old debates” behind us. One area he nominated was the public and private schools debate. As I wrote this, the Prime Minister tasked all government MPs to visit a public and a private school.

The desire to put old debates behind us is understandable, but it glosses over a strong contradiction in public attitudes towards this issue. On the one hand, there is growing support for policies aimed at integrating our diverse population into the “mainstream” Australian community. On the other hand, there is also support for the notion of school choice as an important democratic right for parents.

For many, these might seem to be positive, plausible and unproblematic notions. You might even support both initiatives. But what if these two ideas work against each other? In calling for more choice and independent schooling, might we be undermining the public institutions that have delivered so much of the social cohesion we now enjoy?

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Any strategy that has societal integration as its goal needs to consider the essential role that public schooling played in the Australian community during the two generations immediately following World War II. When public school enrolments as a percentage of the population were at historically high levels, it was the norm for children from all walks of life to be educated in the same playgrounds, the same set of buildings and the same postcodes.

These were the years when Mediterranean migrant children were teased for having salami in their sandwiches instead of Vegemite, and when even well-heeled families had few qualms about sending their precious darlings to the same school as the kids from the wrong side of the tracks. And yet, as these generations grew to adulthood and assumed power in Australia’s boardrooms and parliamentary chambers, we should not underestimate the extent to which their shared childhood experiences and playground scrapes have contributed to Australia’s post war social stability.

What predictions then might we make about the current generation, whose schooling experiences are more strongly divided into hermetic social groups, pre-determined by their parents’ choice of school?

First, let me clarify that this is not a discussion of public versus private schooling. In truth, there is little that is private or independent about any school given the economic reality that so many have grown dependent on public funding, and face ever more prescriptive government guidelines as to the curriculum they teach. Furthermore, as all schools have intense interrelations with their local community, they cannot escape ethical responsibility for the effect they have on the public sphere around them.

In place of private schools, I believe that Australians have lately acquired a taste for what could be more properly be described as separatist schools.

I am well aware of the inflammatory connotations of the term “separatist”, but I consider it to be an apt description of the process by which some schools inculcate their students with a belief that they possess special characteristics when compared to the general populace, against whom they define themselves.

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One can find such separatist notions at work regardless of the school’s chosen focus on religion, socioeconomic privilege or a particular educational philosophy.

If we are to accept that separatism is a contrary force to the desired goal of social stability and cohesion, it raises the question of why some 30 per cent of Australian families would willingly embrace such separatism. Are we pursuing some sort of mass cultural suicide, as alarmists predict? Do millions of Australian families really want to undermine the stability and fairness of the society on which so much of Australia’s success and prosperity rests? Hardly.

I prefer to take a much more charitable view of the support for separatist schools and, in so doing, to highlight how the trend can be reversed to the benefit of all. And before anybody is consumed with outrage, let me assure you that we needn’t shut down a single school to achieve this.

To solve this puzzle, what we first require is an honest and fulsome appraisal of the factors that drive separatism, and an acceptance of our share of responsibility on the part of the public sphere to be as inclusive as we can. We need all Australians inside the tent and, when a splinter-group decides to wall themselves off behind a particular belief system, this reflects to some extent a failure of the general community to assist them to feel included and validated within our society. When separatism spreads, we are all the poorer for it.

The solution is to make our public system ever-more inclusive. There should be no need or desire to shut down separatist schools. Instead, we need to de-separatise them, and to bring them inside the tent of a holistic public school system that reaches across the community. This will require adjustments on both sides of the gates, but it is achievable in a spirit of goodwill and a charitable attitude on the part of all groups.

In the rhetoric of the day, the last thing I would call for is an “Education Revolution”. There is no Bastille to storm, and nobody is going to bayonet recidivists at dawn. Rather, I seek an Education Renaissance - an epochal shift in our expectations and beliefs about what public schooling is and can be, so that all of the public can participate and partake of the benefits.

A particular change would be for the public system to adjust some of its assumptions that are alienating large sectors of the community - in particular, assumptions relating to secularity. This is a considerable intellectual and moral challenge, but it is one we must face if we wish to avoid the dire scenario that results from the continued growth of separatist schools.

Lest anybody misinterpret this argument, let me make it clear that I emphatically reject any notion that government should be involved in religious matters, and vice versa. But to the extent that religion plays an important role in the lives of many Australians, there is democratic validity for government to allow space for such in the public sphere, just as governments provide a space for arts festivals, sporting grounds and bushwalking trails.

We already have a well-established template for such adjustments in the New South Wales primary school system, which educates many children from families as diverse as Exclusive Brethren, sharia Muslims, Orthodox Jews and many other social backgrounds. Schools do this quietly, without grabbing headlines and without damaging the foundations of public schooling, as some militant secularists would fear.

Let those who wish to pursue a separatist schools agenda remain free to do so, and to bear the full economic costs of their choice by becoming truly private and independent. But let those who wish to participate in the public system enjoy the fruits of their choice by being fully included, whatever their beliefs or values.

This would also relieve many parents of the stress, anxiety and expense of making a choice of schools. For what benefits have choice produced? A public system starved of resources and suffering a decline in public confidence, and a separatist school system that undermines social cohesion.

When it comes to school “choice”, our best choice is to transform the public system into one that retains the confidence of all Australians, and to which all Australians can feel proud to send their children. A truly inclusive public system will underwrite our social stability for generations to come. The alternative is that we choose to go down the road of school separatism, with all the fragmentation and upheaval that entails.

It does not seem to me a difficult choice.

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About the Author

Mercurius Goldstein is Head Teacher at an International School and is retained as a consultant at The University of Sydney as a teacher educator for visiting English language teachers. He is a recipient of the 2007 Outstanding Graduate award from the Australian College of Educators, holding the Bachelor of Education (Hons.1st Class) from The University of Sydney. He teaches Japanese language and ESL. These views are his own.

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