Superman brings more inconvenient truths

In my experience, good teachers look very unlike the depiction of teachers in Superman, or indeed most other places they can be found in popular culture and the media.  Good teachers move among their students while they're learning, asking finely-tuned questions and finding out where the misconceptions are.  They understand that good learning happens when the learner takes charge, to borrow from Seymour Papert, and that it largely relies on strong teacher-learner relationships.  They rarely stand in front of a blackboard or whiteboard scrawling notes or conduct lessons like performance pieces.

Supermanoffers us a few ‘inconvenient truths’, unfortunately not via what it says but rather via what it leaves unsaid.  As a portrait of a system that’s carried some of the ideas we now hold dear in Australia through to their ugly conclusion, it should highlight for us the perils of applying simple solutions and common sense ‘quick fixes’ to educational conundrums that are actually very complex and require some patience. 

That’s right, patience.  We’re not likely to develop the best possible education system in one electoral cycle.  Ah, there’s the rub…