Shared fictions

‘Human power depends on mass cooperation, mass cooperation depends on manufacturing mass identities – and all mass identities are based on fictional stories, not on scientific facts or even on economic necessities.’ ‘When you give up all the fictional stories, you can observe reality with far greater clarity than before, and if you really know […]

The KFC Fix

“The 2016 results show reading scores have increased by 0.4 per cent since 2013, writing scores have declined by 0.2 per cent and numeracy scores have risen by 1.26 per cent. Over the same time period, federal school funding has increased by 23.7 per cent.”   Federal Minister for Education, 2016             […]

The BOSTES Review

The Review of BOSTES (Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW) commissioned by the NSW Minister for Education in March 2016 has been released. Mr Piccoli has accepted all of the recommendations. This will result in a name change with BOSTES becoming the NSW Education Standards Authority or, as the report details, “the Authority“. An article […]

A big task!

Greg Whitby is the only very senior educationalist that I know in NSW who regularly uses social media and blogging to highlight his educational beliefs and values. Greg has blogged, tweeted and generally participated in online discussions for as long as social media has been a concept. He is enthusiastic about technology or rather, how […]

Performance and Development Framework

“Teaching is a dynamic and rewarding profession. Good teachers provide students with rich, interesting and well-structured learning experiences. Teachers who provide these experiences enjoy the opportunities offered by the profession and recognition of their achievements by the community.” Australian Professional Standards for Teachers My employer and union have collaborated, supported by the Secondary Principals Council (SPC), with the purpose of […]

Nurturing Democracy: Shellharbour Forum

Active and informed citizens…are committed to national values of democracy, equity and justice, and participate in Australia’s civic life.     Melbourne Declaration The Student Representative Council (SRC) hosted a forum today for the candidates seeking election in the state electorate of Shellharbour where our school is located. The event was packed, attended by all senior […]

Northern Lights: The Positive Policy Example

This book is written in the belief that the nations of Scandinavia and Finland, or Nordic Europe*, do continue to provide important living proof that economically successful, socially fair and environmentally responsible policies can succeed. Northern Lights: The Positive Policy Example of Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway by Andrew Scott will brighten our national mood, […]

The Professional and the Personal

Back in 2008, Martin Weller’s video, A Twitter Love Song, captured the potential of social media to be the ‘sweet spot’, a kind of comfortable marriage of the personal with the professional. This ‘subjective’ video message of Martin’s really appealed at the time (and still does). This, I think it is fair to warn you, is a […]

Big History, Bill Gates & Diane Ravitch

“Diane Ravitch is the rarest of scholars—one who reports her findings and conclusions, even when they go against conventional wisdom and even when they counter her earlier, publicly espoused positions.”     Howard Gardner ‘So Bill Gates Had This Idea for a History Class’, although inaccurately titled, is quite a good article from The New York Times […]

Humans Need Not Apply

We need to start thinking now what do we do when large sections of the population are unemployable through no fault of their own.  What to do in a future where, for most jobs, humans need not apply? Please watch this 15 minute video. The quote, from the conclusion of the video you just watched, […]

I Voted!

There have been many posts about our school’s nurturing democracy program over the last few years at my blog, including this one about our plan to hold formal elections conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). Today, we made significant progress in assisting students to learn about how preferential voting works in our country as almost 900 […]

The Road to Serfdom & Capital in the 21st Century

Hugh Mackay, in a recent article about the 2014 federal budget,  asks Australians to consider: is this the Australia we really want to be? To answer this question we all need to reflect on the important role of ideology in the formulation of policy and what we personally believe, as citizens, is important. Joe Hockey, when […]

Democracy at school

Does your school hold authentically democratic elections? The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is conducting our school elections for the first time in 2014 as our ‘Nurturing Democracy’ program continues into its third year. Students from Year 7-11 will experience the same voting protocols that their parents recently followed at the 2013 federal election. Students will […]

Nurturing Democracy

“The tone of modern political discourse [in Australia] has caused younger generations to become disillusioned with government, and by extrapolation, with democracy.”  SOURCE  “In a result that confirmed the surprise findings of our 2012 Poll, only 59% of Australians say that ‘democracy is preferable to any other kind of government’, and more than one in […]

The Soap Opera

 “Politics is war by other means.”         Foucault The soap opera that is Australian politics entered a new phase last night. Three years after being deposed by Julia Gillard, in a coup led by ‘faceless men’, Kevin Rudd has been returned as leader of the ALP and Prime Minister. Back then it […]

Pearson & ACARA

The next generation of NAPLAN literacy and numeracy tests will transform the monitoring of students’ development of these key foundational skills. It will be 21st century assessment for 21st century young people and their families…Electronic delivery will bring major benefits. It will allow quicker turnaround of results and give schools a better opportunity to use […]

BYOD (in a post-DER world)

State schools in NSW are grappling with a post-DER world. The Digital Education Revolution funding from the federal government provided Lenovo laptops, technical support and wireless coverage to schools. For the last 5 years Year 9 students have been issued with a laptop. That has all evaporated with no funding from the state government to […]

Gonski and Faux Reform

Now the extra base funding necessary to get us to this school resourcing standard over six years is $14.5 billion. It’s a lot of money, but I believe it is a wise investment in our children’s future and in our nation’s future. J. Gillard The Gonski Review has led to our Prime Minister announcing “the biggest changes […]

Great Teaching, Inspired Learning #2

A blueprint is a reproduction of a technical drawing…invented in the 19th century, the process allowed rapid and accurate reproduction of documents used in construction and industry. The blue-print process was characterised by light colored lines on a blue background, a negative of the original. The process was unable to reproduce color or shades of grey.         […]

Dangerous

If Australia genuinely wants to continually enhance the nature and standard of its schooling and move to the fore internationally it is imperative it advocate the appointment at schools small and large of principals who can successfully lead ever-evolving digital schools operating increasingly in the networked mode. Mal Lee posted The Principal and the Digital School at his […]

The end of the ‘Digital Education Revolution’?

“The Australian Government supports the use of new technologies in Australian schools to prepare students to learn, train and live in a digital world.” (sic)                 SOURCE It has reached the stage where the contradictions in government education policy in Australia are leaving satirists with very little to parody. In […]

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