Boot Camp for Teachers

I’m not directly affected by the release of the school league tables and it's not an area I claim any expertise in but as someone who respects teachers who work in the public school system it’s hard not to be annoyed when they are presented as the problem. Federal Minister for Education Julia Gillard is skitching parents on to teachers who are apparently not delivering; underperforming school principals are to be mentored; the reality show ’Boot Camp for Teachers’ is probably in pre-production.

Not having any school age children I thought I’d check the league table results for my old primary school. XYZ Public School is situated in Northern New South Wales. Many of the families of students are transients; 34% of students identify as Indigenous, and many of the school’s students come from single parent families. The school’s performance in literacy and numeracy, as represented by the National Assessment Program, isn’t very good and it’s outperformed by Cherbourg State School. Cherbourg State School is the school Aboriginal educationist Chris Sarra had such a profound impact on and it has become in a sense a ‘show school’ for the new regime in education. Comparisons with XYZ Primary School are revealing. XYZ Public School has a student population of 216 while Cherbourg State School has 199 with 99 % of the school’s students being Indigenous. Students at Cherbourg State School were intensively coached for the National Assessment Program tests and its website showcases an extensive range of programs for students. It’s the disparity in staffing levels that is most confronting. Cherbourg State School has a teaching staff of 19.2 and a non-teaching staff of 13.6. In comparison, XYZ Public School has a teaching staff of 15.8 and a non-teaching staff of 4.6. I assume that these figures are also a pretty good indicator of the relative level of resources available to both schools. Because it is so poorly resourced there doesn’t seem much of a chance at XYZ Public School that a child with learning difficulties will get the intensive support they need. The Cherbourg State School results are to be applauded: I’d also be applauding if comparable resources and attention were being directed to XYZ Public School.

Finally for my old teachers at XYZ Public School – one or two you were doozies but you’re remembered with affection and gratitude. You were my first point of contact with White Australia and the greater world. Something worked…

The job gets done...

2010 starts for the Australian Indigenous Studies program tomorrow.  I’m feeling primed and ready to roll but deadlines are already pressing. We’re developing teaching materials for new subjects as well as reviewing previously taught subjects. Everything has got to be ready for the coming semester. As well as that we’ve got to finalise our Honours program for 2011 - that has to be completed  by the end of January.  I’d have liked to have been further advanced with these tasks but this is the time frame we’ve got. Add up various other deadlines and commitments and it’s a combination of optimism and fatalism that will see us through.  As for fatalism, one of my former bosses, an ex-army officer, used to say, ‘The job gets done; it might be done differently; it might be done worse, but it gets done.’ Aboriginal affairs generally is bedevilled by short-term goals, and short-sighted, sometimes cynical,  strategies; thankfully  that’s not the case with the Australian Indigenous Studies program. The optimistic vision is that the completion of each of January’s tasks lays the foundations of a unique program.