A Western Heart is all over the new grading system that's being implemented in Tasmania. Note to US teachers - if you think your jargon-laden paperwork requirements are bad, get a load of this:
The world is watching Tasmania's education reforms, says Education Minister Paula Wriedt. Dramatic changes to the state's educational system will start from next year. But teachers fear they are not ready for the transition, which will use vastly different assessment criteria from kindergarten to Year 10.
"This does require a big shift, it's quite groundbreaking," Ms Wriedt said yesterday. "I know some people are not comfortable with the change but equally there are many who are really excited about it...Students don't have to learn everything in the classroom as they always have."
Emphasis mine. What could that last line possibly mean?
From next year teachers will prepare report cards on how students do in whole new areas. Once phase-in is complete, report cards will not list traditional subjects like maths or english, with a grade for each.
Instead teachers will collaborate on each student and mark their ability to communicate, think and deal with issues of social responsibility...
A teacher who contacted The Mercury yesterday said many of her colleagues were sceptical and angry about the new system. She said it was over-theorised, jargonised and difficult for teachers, let alone parents, to understand. The secondary teacher said she would have to collaborate with every other teacher on her nearly 300 students.
Not to mention she'll need to have a firm grasp on the continuum underlying the construct of "social responsibility." Or at least what the Dept. of Ed considers socially responsible. Quite a change from focusing on teaching the ABC's.
I'm sure more teachers would be skeptical and angrey too - if they knew anything about the new system, that is:
...in a survey of 1334 teachers across the state by the Australian Education Union, 92 per cent said they did not have good knowledge of the marking system. More than half of primary teachers and three-quarters of secondary ones surveyed said they had little or no knowledge of the new system...
And you thought NCLB had a lot of resistance. This program is going to be implemented next year, and 75% of secondary teachers know very little about it?
From next year, government schools must assess four key areas - inquiry, numeracy, literacy and well-being. More will follow in 2006. They fall into five "essentials" - thinking, communicating (eg, literacy and numeracy), personal futures (ethics and well-being), social responsibility and world futures.
"Thinking"? How, exactly, does one measure "thinking" without focusing specifically on a subject area that a student is "thinking" about? Can a student be determined to be "thinking" well if no one checks to see if they got the right answer? Since when is numeracy part of "communication?" Does this mean that it doesn't matter how well you understand math, only how well you convey it to others? "Personal futures?" You've got be kidding me. How are teachers going to grade on that? Who's defining "well-being" here, especially when we're talking about teenagers? (Let me guess, goths wouldn't be defined as doing "well.")
"Social responsibility?" "World futures?" Those are weighted as heavily as "literacy and numeracy?" I'm highly suspicious of any "social responsibility" that is obviously divorced from civics and history learning; I doubt this method is intended to turn out patriotic and informed little Tasmanians.
The new learning replaces conventional division of subjects into mathematics, English or science - and nothing is compulsory. Instead, "cross-curricular units" will be studied by drawing on various disciplines. For example, learning about water could draw on maths, science and geography.
"Nothing is compulsory." That says it all. I guess being "socially responsible" doesn't extend to having enough of a backbone to insist that all children in Tasmanian schools learn some required amount of math, language, history, and science.