Championing education

It’s the printing press that is to blame. It made the publication of his plays possible and so countless students have had to study the Shakespearean printed word (an exercise he would not have understood!)

And it was the printing press that standardised spelling: it was the printers who decided there would be only one way to spell a word.

Is there sufficient computing power to calculate how many students have had to spend how many hours memorising how many spelling lists over the centuries? Not that the system really worked; we still all had to have dictionaries to check it out.

And now we have the spell check.

It is time for the case to be heard in favour of spell check and calculators, and Ipods and Google - and the extraordinary range of today’s students’ digital skills.

All the accusations about the parlous state of education, the treachery of teachers, and the poor performances of students, are not only false, they are damaging. They cast doubt on Australia’s educational provision, dismay parents and demoralise teachers - and for no useful purpose! But worst of all they define today’s talented students as failures. Just because they don’t do what their parents did in the old days - when they didn’t have computers.

So jobs are going for educational champions who can counter the critics and come up with the many success stories that education can provide. Australia is in desperate need of educational leaders who have a policy for the 21st century - based on the digital literacies and the world view that the kids already have, and that the rest of us desperately need.

Whether these champions will be embraced by the media - is another matter.