Monday, June 11, 2007

Commencing Courtesy

If you go to a football game, a rock concert or a fraternity kegger, you will not be surprised to find people screaming, laughing, bumping chests, ringing cowbells, baying at the moon and generally shedding their inhibitions. If you attend a wedding ceremony, a funeral or a confirmation, however, you may expect those around you to comport themselves in a polite and restrained manner.

School commencement exercises used to fall into the latter category, but they have been moving-make that descending-toward the former. The question being addressed in Galesburg, Ill., is whether to surrender to that slide or try to reverse it. And I'm happy to report that school officials there not only favor reversal but have actually managed to bring it about.

A couple of years ago, the graduation ceremony at Galesburg High School had come to resemble a circus, but without the calming influence of elephants. Students crossing the stage were dancing and flashing hand signs; friends in the audience were jumping up, whooping and raising a racket with air horns. Deluged with complaints from parents and others who couldn't see or hear at crucial moments, local officials decided a change was in order.

They adopted several reforms, the most important of which was to establish clear rules and require students and parents to sign forms listing forbidden conduct-such as yelling, dancing, making gestures, using noisemakers and other "disruptive behavior."

The school also spelled out the consequences "should the graduating student and/or family/friends admitted to the ceremony" misbehave: The student would be barred from the school party and would not get an actual diploma (though he or she would still be considered a graduate). An insert went into the commencement program in case anyone needed one last reminder.

Administrators say the new policy produced a huge improvement. But this year, a few recalcitrants had to test the limits, and the school decided to withhold diplomas from five students. They were offered the chance to get their diplomas by performing eight hours of community service. On Wednesday, though, school officials relented, saying it was time "to move on."

In the enforcement phase, the students perceived racial bias, noting that four of them are black and the other is Hispanic. At other schools, there have been complaints that imposing commencement decorum amounts to forcing nonwhites to abide by stuffy white conventions.

There is no infallible way to define and detect "disruptive behavior," but the school did its best by stationing four observers around the auditorium, and all four wrote down the same five names during the ceremony. Are the educators racist? When I called one of the kids who were punished, Nadia Trent, she said that during her student days, she had never encountered racial bias from school officials.

In any event, bad behavior is not a product of skin color. Well-to-do white schools have their share of people who feel entitled to do whatever they want regardless of how it affects others. Back in 1999, an outdoor venue in suburban Chicago banned a local high school from holding commencement exercises there after students and parents threw marshmallows, trampled flowers, ignored no-smoking signs and insulted employees. This is a high school that is less than 1 percent black.

In the aftermath, the superintendent acknowledged the problem in terms that would have worked equally well for Galesburg: "We should talk about these things: civil discourse, courteous demeanor, following and obeying rules, refraining from unnecessary interruptions."

At a typical graduation, most people don't need to be told to show courtesy and respect for others. But there are always some attendees who insist on calling attention to themselves. And all it takes is a handful of the unruly to spoil the experience for everyone else.

Some people think that a commencement is a celebration, and that celebrations by definition should be unrestrained. By that logic, wedding guests should be blowing noisemakers during the recitation of vows. Modern America does not lack for parties. What it increasingly lacks is rituals that treat landmarks in life with a sense of solemnity.

School officials in Galesburg may have fallen short of a perfect solution, but they at least are trying to preserve a tradition their community values. They understand that a society which treats every happy occasion as a frolic is a society in danger of forgetting that some moments are worthy of dignity, respect and even awe.

Source




Comeback for "progressive" education in England

I once taught at a "progressive" school so I know how little many students learned there

Katie Harris, 11, is telling me that she recently spent a lesson making paper aeroplanes and measuring how far they flew. What did she learn? "It was really enjoyable. It wasn't just about one subject like maths, there was science in there as well," she replied. Katie is a pupil at Bursted Wood primary in Bexley, southeast London, one of eight schools in the borough at the forefront of a stampede back to "creative learning" and progressive teaching methods that were popular more than a decade ago. Despite the bad press such methods got back then, when they were blamed for turning out thousands of children who couldn't read or write properly, a survey of 115 primary schools last week revealed that four out of five are returning to teaching based around "topics" such as chocolate.

At Bursted Wood, traditional secondary-school style classes in subjects such as history, geography and maths have been ditched for topics planned out on "creative learning wheels". I look at one wheel, laid out on a card, with the school's head teacher, Ely Prynne (pictured). The topic is The Groovy Greeks: children are encouraged to learn about maths, for instance, by studying patterns and right angles in Greek art and analysing graphs showing their favourite Greek gods.

Prynne is evangelical about the changes. "I find our children's knowledge is being deepened," she says. "Instead of doing half an hour of history, half an hour of geography, we take a theme. For example, one topic was called Time Travellers. "It took an idea a bit like the Tardis and Dr Who, with the children travelling through time to visit the Tudors. We went to a local building where the children made candles and learnt Tudor dances."

Like thousands of primary school teachers Prynne started her career, 30 years ago, teaching young children through themes and topics. It was all the rage at the time. But in 1992 a report commissioned by the then Tory education secretary, Kenneth Clarke, pinned blame for declining standards on such methods. The report followed the introduction of a national curriculum in primary schools prescribing which subjects had to be taught. Jim Rose, Robin Alexander and Chris Woodhead, dubbed "the three wise men", were the report's authors. They discouraged the "playschool" approach and recommended more traditional teaching methods. Later in the decade a literacy and numeracy hour was introduced and English and maths standards started to rise. Now it seems another wave of reform is taking place and the traditional methods are being jettisoned.

"The national curriculum was very constricting. Teachers felt they did not have ownership, now they do," says Prynne, whose school is held up by government agencies as an example of good practice. The change started, she says, four years ago when teachers were encouraged to break out of the straitjacket of the national curriculum and make lessons more imaginative.

The only problem is that test results for 11-year-olds at Bursted Wood, while still above the national average for maths and English, have fallen since 2003, when Prynne introduced the new timetable. Last week she said that the innovations had "nothing at all" to do with the dip in results, which compared two different groups of children. Meanwhile, 25% of 11-year-olds nationwide are still leaving school unable to read or write properly. "It is not just about results," she says. "It is also about things like confidence and a love of learning." She adds that the "creative wheel" covers the content of the national curriculum and the school also still provides a literacy and numeracy hour.

However, David Hart, a former head of the National Association of Head Teachers, has warned: "Theme-based schooling will disadvantage pupils . . . and make the secondary teacher's task much more difficult." Blair Chandler, 11, has been taught both ways. When he started at Bursted Wood there were separate traditional subject lessons. But in the last four years he has been on a "creative learning journey". "This is much funner," he says. Perhaps. But is it more educational?

How much history or geography do your children know? Go on, ask them. Ruin the family Sunday. It isn't their fault. Our children leave primary school in pitiful ignorance because teachers remain committed to half-baked notions. According to a survey, four-fifths of state primary schools have abandoned traditional subject teaching in favour of what is known as "topic" work. Boring old history and geography have been replaced by exciting projects on, say, "chocolate".

Time and again, back in the 1980s, I'd listen to a primary school teacher tell me that he or she "taught children not subjects". Children don't, the argument went, think in terms of history and geography. They experience the world in all its buzzing confusion, and, if school is to be "fun", the artificial boundaries between subjects must be broken down to allow the child to experience the full interdisciplinary richness of human experience. The fact that the boundaries are not artificial did not seem to cut much ice. Neither did the fact that children are unlikely to make much progress in, for example, science, if they are forever encouraged to think about how chocolate is made.

The national curriculum, improved things for a while, but now teachers seem to be slipping back to their old ideological ways. Prep schools will, of course, still teach history and geography and the gap between standards in state and private schools will widen further.

Source




Foreign doctors to learn Australian

It is a tremendous indictment of Australian medical education that Australia does not train enough of its own doctors -- despite the fact that there is great competition from young Australians to get into medical schools

FOREIGN doctors are having speech lessons in a bid to improve communication with Australian patients and avoid medical mishaps. A pilot program is aiming to make doctors whose first language is not English easier to understand for the average Australian. The 10-week course tackles pronunciation, understanding of slang or colloquial "ocker" expressions, language attitudes and speech patterns.

A growing number of overseas-trained doctors are filling hospital and GP positions in Australia amid a national shortage of medical workers. Many take jobs in rural or remote areas, where they are more likely to struggle with cultural and language barriers.

Gai Rollings, director of speech pathology at Toowoomba Base Hospital, has started the program with doctors from Africa, India and South America. "I don't think they have trouble understanding our accent but they might have trouble understanding some of our expressions," she said. "We are looking at how they are actually pronouncing their sounds and how they put stress on words." She said the doctors' speech would be rated by members of the public before and after the course. "If (a doctor) asks a nurse to help putting this solution into an IVF, that could be a really risky situation if the nurse doesn't understand what he is asking," Ms Rollings said.

Andrew Schwartz, president of the Australian Doctors Trained Overseas Association, said the program was "a fine idea" but would not achieve much in practical terms. "We have got a drastic shortage of doctors so Australian people are going to have to accept they have got to listen and make sure they are getting their message through at the same time."

The above story by CLAIR WEAVER appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on June 10, 2007

***************************

For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

***************************

No comments: