E for Education

Before I start -
Seems like Czech AND Argentina are out - probably Germany or winner of Brazil v France will have the best shot. And while that's happening, Federer is continuing his title defense at Wimbledon :)
In addition, two new Lemonade sites: the wiki, and the OneWay portal - the former is great for quick generation of information, the latter looks much nicer but is a bit less userfriendly - for now, use both, but later I think the wiki stuff should be moved over to the portal.

However, what I actually thought I may as well blog about was the weird stuff happening to the Education Systems in each of the states. Unfortunately, at the same time, people have introduced Outcomes-based Education (OBE) in Western Australia as well as protesting against a mandatory A-E grading system throughout primary schools. Sure, maybe A-E is a bit blunt, especially when not accompanied by any explanation. But, why 'unfortunately'?
Well, it all stems with what people are recommending they replace A-E with: 5 levels (still!) but now going from "minimal achievement of what is expected at this year level" to "excellent achievement beyond what is expected at this year level".
In other words, it seems like "your child isn't performing well" is being forcebly removed, deemed inappropriate (even if a child isn't performing well...) and replaced with: "they have achieved, but not excelled" even when not achieving :S - I dunno, maybe it's the sadist in me, but don't you just wish sometimes some parents could be told the truth about how annoying / evil their bundles of joy really are?
And what is worse is that OBE in WA not only gets rid of grades altogether, but it also weights all subjects equally, which has been predicted (quite logically) will severely decrease the number of people studying maths or sciences because there are simpler options with the same result. Throw in the proposal that WA music students don't have to play an instrument, and literary students don't get penalised for spelling or grammar, and analyze movie posters and txt messages - just as long as people can spell 'Dumbed-down education', all shall be well :p
What else could I leave with than a picture (rare around here, I know, sorry):

Comments

  1. OBE will be the death of education in WA.
    The laughable new Courses of Study are so laden with edu-babble jargon that parent and students (and I suspect many teachers) are incapable of deciphering them

    For example:
    From the Applied Information Teachnology CoS "The student Applies standards and conventions considering cultural values and experiences of the intended audience, demonstrating a repertoire of techniques that highlights the interrelationships between technical competence and expressive qualities while using resources in a positive manner that demonstrates creative and innovative information solutions for a variety of audiences and purposes."

    What is that supposed to mean?

    or from the Digital Media CoS
    "The student: draws on a range of strategies to interpret extended or challenging media works; and selects an appropriate critical framework to evaluate their own and a range of professional media works and the context of their production and consumption."

    What utter drivel.

    No wonder students leaving school are unable to spell or mentally add and subtract if they spend all day reading this nonsense.

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