I’m curious about education these days.
My children have been out of the education system for many years now, however the difficulties of the day that I encountered are far from a distant memory.
Some aspects of that history I suspect are relevant to a past political environment that impacted schools:
I recall on one occasion arriving at primary school around 3 pm to collect my son who was busy emptying his lunch box into a rubbish bin.
I’m not sure what offended my sensitivity most … that I’d made his lunch that morning or that the rubbish bin was almost full to the brim with good food.
I’m sure that doesn’t happen now?
Other aspects I suspect that were tiresome deficiencies for many (that I was able to overcome with personal tuition) now appear to be inherent failures in the contemporary view … not so much failures of teachers to teach I might add, but of teaching methods and curriculum.
That leaves me with questions.
Does our education system still endorse the child centered orthodoxy that I encountered in its infancy.
By international standards, that decline is not an experiment but an acknowledged and studied failure now.
The same reliable metrics that were obvious and significant enough for me to invest time rectifying, are now spoken about as dire consequences for society, occupational outcomes and intergenerational deterioration.
Looking back, a child would not have gone hungry with what was available in that rubbish bin but those most reliant on schools seem not only to fail now to bring food to school but fail to take more than the most marginal education away.
What might be attributed to giving effect to the Treaty?
What might be attributed to a suggestion of equitable outcomes?
What might be attributed to some change in the social fabric that the education system cannot influence or what it has attempted to cater for?
Is the education system, employing its own product, a failure in itself, that has no hope of recovery.
Is it really not that bad, and just political waffle?
Have schools lost their defined purpose?
That begs the question though, as to whether a privilege exists were it shouldn’t – a liberty taken that shouldn’t be allowed – and like politics our lack of interest/effective governance has led to leadership by the incompetent?
What’s the current assessment?
Who do you get a straight answer from these days?
Writer of Sorts 