Championing education

Other countries have had debates about the new forms of education that are needed in an information economy (President Clinton in the USA and Tony Blair in the UK for example). But Australia has had no such debate.

Instead there are some very backward looking politicians, commentators and editors who, for their own reasons, are engaged in a furious struggle to put the genie back in the bottle.

Instead of looking at the attitudes and skills that are needed for life, leisure and work in the digital age, these influential people are obsessed with keeping classrooms just as they were - in the good old days of their own schooling (before flower power and feminism)!

It is so easy for these oldies to state smugly that schools aren’t what they used to be. But what does this prove? That they expect today’s students to participate in the 21st century world equipped with the same life and work skills that were the starting point for “a job for life” in the 1950s?

What these nostalgics haven’t actually noticed is that the world has changed dramatically - and that there has been an information revolution. Their “denial” demonstrates there were many limitations in their own schooling because it hasn’t equipped them to cope with change, or to deal with the demands of the digital age.

Yet the Australian public is not informed of the faults and limitations of these educational shockers. It gets only one very skewed view of the state of education. And without any other, or any different, views there can be no debate.

In what has become something of a mantra, Kevin Donnelly slams an English syllabus that has abandoned Shakespeare for popular culture. But maybe he would change his tune if he were to read just one item in the popular press that pointed out that in his day - Shakespeare was popular culture.

All those Shakespearean speeches that we were required to learn (off by heart) when we were in school, were the pop lyrics of the Elizabethan age. Shakespeare’s words were performed, not studied. (Most of his poems and plays were created before 1612 and he died in 1616: his works weren’t even published until 1623!)

The “masses” attended Shakespeare’s performances in much the same way as they would attend a pop concert today - and for many of the same reasons and with much the same results.

This is not an argument for getting rid of Shakespeare: although it would be infinitely better if students today were to take advantage of the new technologies and become engaged with the performance instead of being confined to the dreary chore of studying a text.

But it most certainly is an argument for including another voice, and for bringing the syllabus into the 21st century. Today’s students should be looking at the similarities between Shakespeare and Australian Idol, and analysing the differences. It is an argument for the 21st century educational policy of assessing the many changes that have taken place, and for defining and developing the creative skills that can be put to good use in the contemporary world.

Someone who knew their Shakespeare could even teach us something about spelling. The bard is reported to have spelled his name in 16 different ways - but there are no records of him failing the standardised national literacy tests, or of being branded as illiterate. (Though he would probably not score very well on literacy or numeracy tests today!)