Politics in the classroom: A riposte

Professor Wayne Sawyer’s editorial in English In Australia (No141) has caused a stir. That is not unexpected. He writes about the need for Critical Literacy approaches to English teaching especially in response to political events. His criticism of the Howard Government is explicit.

While the views in the editorial are his own, he writes with the support of The Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE) council. An editorial is, after all, the right place to present a personal opinion - especially when it is from such a distinguished and experienced educator as Professor Sawyer.

The shrillest voice in opposition has come from Kevin Donnelly. He has sought to promote the AATE journal, English in Australia, as undermining traditional approaches and wanting to turn students into “politically correct new age warriors”, rather than as promoting debate. He neglects to mention that he has also been given space in the journal to present his point of view.

Nevertheless, he is right in identifying a much more critical approach to texts than when he or I, went to school. This is uncontroversial to many and to do otherwise would be to disadvantage our students. Times have changed. It is a complex world, especially for our students. Social theory, curriculum writing, and teaching methodology have made attempts to recognise the fact.

Such a critical approach would encourage readers to ask a few questions about Donnelly’s opinion piece and the front page article (The Australian February 8).

Why should they be horrified that educationalists should have political opinions and are prepared to engage in public debate? What does it say about the education systems, the government and the media?

Why is Professor Sawyer depicted as “peddling political views” when Donnelly’s latest book was published by, and available online through, an overtly political group in the Menzies Research Centre?

Why have repeated attempts to publish comment, such as in “Letters to the Editor” in The Australian, about Donnelly’s attacks on AATE failed, and he is repeatedly given prominence?

AATE promotes free speech. We encourage students to think and develop their own opinions on matters of importance to the Australian community. In this spirit, we support Professor Sawyer especially when he expresses what he clearly says are his own views not those of the association. Isn’t this the point of democracy?

There is a broader picture.

Teaching literacy, with clear implications for English teaching, is much more than decoding words through recognising sounds and much more than rules and their correct application. Teachers know this.

Some attacks by Donnelly and others, all have an element of nostalgia about them. The first is an historical nostalgia that ignores the fact that we, as English teachers, have moved beyond whole language, phonics or any method as sufficient in teaching literacy skills, and into Critical Literacies.

Critical approaches are based on a simple understanding. Some students may struggle with reading but they can still think. It’s not about suggesting that first we will teach students how to decode and then we will let them comprehend and think critically about a text. It all happens concurrently and has the extra benefit of engaging students in their learning.

As informed educators, AATE has promoted critical frameworks, especially the Four Resources model which was developed in 1990, by Peter Freebody and Allan Luke. This acknowledges the complexity of literacy through teaching skills in code-breaking (phonics), comprehension, understanding the audience, purpose and the conventions of different text genres, and critical literacy. All are important at all stages of literacy development.

The more dangerous intellectual nostalgia, however, is this idea that children, once identified as having literacy “problems” can be “cured” with a shot of a particular methodology. This is a very simplistic notion and does not begin to address the complexities of a student’s life these days.

Teachers today deal with increasing diversity and new information and communication technologies. They do so professionally and need a range of strategies and partnerships with governments and other funding and research bodies to support the use of those strategies.

One such collaboration between the Australian Government, ALEA (The Australian Literacy Educators' Association) and AATE resulted in a program called MyRead. The CD won an Australian Award for Excellence in Educational Publishing. More importantly, it supports teachers in contemporary classrooms by offering, free of charge, an approach to reading that is well founded, accessible and developed through research with teachers. It is offered to teachers as part of a repertoire rather than a definitive approach.

Teachers do not need Basic Skills Tests to tell us what we know. We see and deal with the consequences of literacy skills that fail students every day. We need time to develop intervention approaches as whole schools and as individual teachers across all learning areas.

Dr Nelson’s newly established NIQTSL (National Institute for Quality Teaching and School Leadership) might have a role in literacy development. It could choose as its first major research project to support teachers in developing literacy approaches.

If the institute needs a model of collaborative research that recognises the voices, practices and experiences of teachers in a wide range of contexts, it might begin with another AATE/ALEA’s collaboration STELLA project (Standards for Teachers of English Language and Literacy in Australia). The model clearly takes up NIQTSL’s motto: “Of the profession, by the profession, for the profession”.

We are all concerned with levels of literacy however they are defined and measured. We also care passionately about equipping students to be positive about their futures. We want them to be confident with a range of computer literacies and we want them to understand that texts from Shakespeare to Australian Idol are profoundly shaped by contexts and open to a range of understandings.

Donnelly damns critical approaches and yet teaching students to be critical as they read and write texts is pivotal to a democratic society so that, as adults, they think about, rather than blandly accept, political, cultural and media viewpoints without question.