Schooling Australia II: the 21st century learning furphy

In recent decades, Australian education systems have experimented with numerous approaches to curriculum design and pedagogy (e.g. adopting whole language approaches to the teaching of reading with the expectation that the teaching of writing would be accommodated, devaluing foreign language study and eschewing explicit instruction in English grammar).

The consequences of these strategies have been evident over time. In some cases, such as English literacy, the inter-generational loss of expertise and respect for technical competence in the national language has been so great that it is difficult to see how the situation might be retrieved. There are serious concerns about students’ engagement and achievement in science and mathematics, seen most clearly in unsatisfactory results in international assessments and falling enrolments in the ‘hard’ sciences.

Another area of considerable concern is the humanities, where low enrolments in subjects such as history, geography, economics and foreign languages reflect different learning priorities from those of Australia’s European and Asian counterparts, especially in the senior secondary years. Amidst the excitement of creating ‘new knowledge’, will there be room to learn about what it is to be human?

Returning to the three questions that preface this article, some might question whether they are too ‘last-century’ to be helpful in this new era. The 1952 Social Studies syllabus posed key, nation-building questions and, just like its 21^st century successors, concluded that one aim of education should be to contribute to a better world. A close look at the subject content shows that those young Australians of the mid-twentieth century were expected to read a lot, undertake extensive research and think, speak and write critically about their place in society and the wider world. The future-focused fixation on 21^st century learning may be a furphy on a grand scale.