Tony Abbott the new Leader of the Opposition

For the first time in my memory, Australia has a parliamentary leader - albeit in opposition -who is a loud and proud Christian. Abbott is unlike previous and current leaders who are nominal Christians, publicly acknowledging their faith, but seeming to choose to limit the way this affects their political decisions (as with PM Kevin Rudd and ex-PM John Howard). Abbott is a professing Christian (he is a practicing Catholic) who is very open about the impact his faith has on his life and political direction.

Thank You God for this unexpected news! Please use Tony Abbott as a voice for Your will and purpose in the Australian parliament. And is it too much to ask that the next Prime Minister of Australia might be this man, that he may uphold the glory of your Name among the nations? Amem.

Leadership and God's sovereignty

Amy quoted John Adams on her blog yesterday: "No man has yet produced any revelation from heaven in his favor, any divine communication to govern his fellow men." I think he was wrong!

Surely Moses is one person of whom it could be said that there was "divine communication" in favour of him leading his fellow men. Exodus 3 recounts Moses' calling by God for a particular task in leading people, in particular Exod 3:10: "So now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt." By anyone's standard leading 600,000 men plus women and children and hangers-on out of one nation (on foot!) into another demands a particular position of governmental power.

Later, the Israelites asked that Moses would meet with God apart from them and be an intermediary between them and God (Exodus 20:19). This position of intermediary was definitely in line with God's promises to Moses, for example in Exod 19:9: "The LORD said to Moses, "I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you."..." I think it would be reasonable to say that God not only appointed Moses as leader of the Israelites, He also took steps to ensure that His divine appointment would be recognised, acknowledged and adhered to.

Then when Moses' (and then also Aaron's) leadership was challenged, as recorded in Numbers 12 and Numbers 16 & 17, God made it clear in no uncertain terms that His choice of leader - His choice alone - was to hold governmental and/or priestly power over the people.

There were other people who were God-ordained leaders of nations. The first two kings of Israel, Saul and David, were divinely appointed. 1 Samuel 8 records how the Israelite people demanded that God would give them a king, and God agreed to their demands (see 1 Samuel 8:19-22 especially). 1 Samuel 9:17 records, "When Samuel caught sight of Saul, the LORD said to him, "This is the man I spoke to you about; he will govern my people."" Samuel annointed Saul at God's direct instruction (1 Samuel 10). It was only later (1 Samuel 11:12-15) that the people of Israel had an opportunity to ratify God's sovereign choice of their leader.

Then, because of Saul's wicked presumption in offering sacrifices to the LORD, a task not in his God-given job description, God took away His favour from upon Saul. God chose David to be king, and Samuel anointed David following God's precise instructions. It was many years later that David came into his kingship officially, but from the time of his anointing, David was the chosen king of Israel in God's eyes, if not in those of Saul or the people. (See 1 Samuel 13, 15, 16:1-13 and following chapters.)

It is clear from all these passages that God does indeed appoint and anoint particular people for government leadership positions, or at least He has done so in the past. So I do not agree with Adams. (I find it particularly ironic that John Adam's wife was named Abigail, so I would have hoped that they would be familiar with the story of King David, if not the others.) Adams was one of the US presidents, right? Please forgive my lack of knowledge of US history.

Not knowing the context of this journal entry, it is hard to know whether Adams was presuming that God no longer acts (in these post-cross "last days") to choose national leaders in the way that He did in the past, or if Adams believed God never did, or only did with Israel. Perhaps you can hazard a more educated guess.) Even if I presume Adams held the first belief, I think this is a wrong stance. Paul wrote of a gift of leadership that is bestowed by God's grace in Romans 12, in particular where he wrote, "We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is ... leadership, let him govern diligently..." (from Romans 12:6-8). By God's grace, some people are specially gifted for governance. And God does not gift people for a task if He does not expect them to carry out that task. So by gifting certain people for governance, He is showing His divine favour for their leadership, in my opinion.

Furthermore, Paul wrote on the subject of general (non-Christian) governance in Romans 13:1-7. In the first verse, he wrote, "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.". Paul's opinion on the matter could not be clearer. All human authorities, whether godly or ungodly in their administration of their duties, are established by God.

Perhaps, as in the case of Saul's oft-times despotic rule, we may see that God is visiting judgement upon us by His choice of leader over our nation(s). Then again, we shouldn't be too quick to assume that God is giving us what we deserve. It is certain that God plans to use our trials under ungodly leaders (and even under the most God-fearing leaders) to bring us to maturity in Christ. As Paul had written earlier in his letter to the Romans, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified." In my view, the important thing is not so much who God appoints for leadership over the nations, but how we, as Christians, respond to their leadership.

Of utmost importance is our response to God's supreme choice of leader for us: our King and Saviour, Jesus Christ, God's Son. In Ephesians 1:9-10 & 22-23, Paul wrote, "And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment - to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. ... And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." Jesus Christ is the God-appointed leader over all Christians throughout time, and one day God will reveal that He is also sovereign over all that exists, whether they have recognised Christ's authority in the past or not.

Paul wrote of Jesus in Colossians 1:15-20, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness well in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." Jesus is the Lord and King over all things because it was through Him that all things were created. But Jesus' lordship is not dependent solely on something that happened long ago. Jesus is Lord because God has made Him Lord, dwelling fully in Jesus Christ, revealing his invisible nature through the visible man, Jesus, who once walked the earth and was killed on a cross, but who was brought back to life by God's choice and power, and now reigns in heaven at the right hand of God the Father. All praise be to God, the LORD, who is King and Lord of all! Do you recognise Jesus Christ as having authority over you, because He is your King, Lord, Boss and Master?

Gotta love the 25 hour day!

I woke up this morning when Sam crawled into bed and thought, I have to get up soon. Then I thought, no I don't, it's the end of daylight saving today! and so I have a whole extra hour in my day. What shall I do with it, I wonder?

Well, I did do some nice things with my bonus hour, you will be delighted to know.

When Anna asked me if she could read her Bible to me, I said, "Sure sweetheart, come and lie next to Mummy on the bed and you can read it to me right now". I didn't say, "Not now, honey, I'm too busy getting ready for church." Duh. I think I should have more of these "end of daylight saving" days if it can help me re-prioritise like that. I mean, what's the point of going to church to listen to the Bible being read and expounded upon with other Christians if I won't even commit time to listening to my own darling daughter read from the Bible to me? That was a really good start to my day.

It was also encouraging to me that when Joshua asked if I could help him with his uniform socks and shoes, I had enough time not to do it just to get it over and done, but to ask him to have a try himself. And, of course, with a little extra time, he did manage wonderfully, even though his socks are really quite long and stiff.

Not only that, but because Joshua was upset at the prospect of missing Sunday School at our church, because I was taking the kids to another church for their Brigades' service, I didn't tell him just to get over it (as I probably would usually have done, if I was in a hurry). Rather, I took the time to find out what exactly was bothering him. Then I rang his Sunday School teacher so that she could reassure him over the phone that missing one day of Sunday School in order to attend church with a different congregation would not take him out of the running for the end of year perfect attendance reward, which is what was concerning him about the whole thing. And so the problem was dealt with and resolved, rather than being ignored and left to fester (the biblical term is to become a "bitter root", I think).

And having that extra hour up my sleeve meant that I was able to be very gracious and think of Jeff's needs, rather than my own, and let him know that I would take Sam with the rest of the kids so that he didn't have to come back from church to take Sam with him, and foist him onto another family there, just so I didn't have to deal with getting all four children into and out of the car what seemed like a dozen times. Jeff was preaching this morning and after my somewhat critical critique (?!) last night he went in to church early today so that he could tweak the sermon before the service. (Happily, he thinks it went well, by the way.) And I got all four kids ready, including two into uniforms and two into plaits, without feeling put-upon [favourite Thomas phrase] once. Hooray! Unfortunately I must admit that this wonderful exhibition of emotional self-control was entirely to blame on the clock and not on my own response to the Holy Spirit's counsel.

Much of the extra hour did get eaten up by the extra travel to a different church site (40km round trip), leaving me feeling very blessed by the fact that we now live so close to the place where we gather for public worship. We got there on time, hooray.

Not only that but I was in time to get a seat up the front where I could watch my beautiful little Anna's face when she decided she was brave enough to hold her Captain's hand and walk up to stand with all the other new girls out the front and agree with them to "obey my leader and always try my hardest" (and a few other things), when she said proudly right into the mike, "I do!" Whoo-hoo! There were more than 300 people in that church auditorium. Anna stood straight and tall and didn't wriggle or fidgit one bit up there, didn't even let her eyes wander. She was very very brave for such a little, shy girl. I was so proud of her!

When I got home from church I wasn't as exhausted as I normally am - all this extra time made me feel quite relaxed all day - and instead of sending Abi down cold to her nap, I lay with her and read aloud a few stories from her story Bible (she picked stories of Moses and Joseph from her little kid's message).

Later, when Sam woke up from his nap in a clingy mood, I used a snippet of my extra time to take him for a horsey ride around the play room as I did a bit of a tidy up of the spreading morass of toys in there.

I used another moment of extra time to think before I automatically said "no" to Joshua's request to play out in the front yard, and instead said, "Sure, honey, and ask Anna if she'd like to play out there with you as well. Have a great time."

I took another, slightly larger portion of the extra time to check on the kdis later and gently ask Joshua to ensure that when they were finished with the makeshift cubby of outdoor chairs that they had built on the next-door neighbour's front lawn, that they picked up every single one of the little twigs they were using for "firewood" and didn't leave them strewn all over J and T's immaculately manicured greenery.

When Anna came running in from the front yard itching all over, I didn't get all fussed over the time, and hastily put on some Stingose just to deal with the symptom of the problem but not the root cause. Instead, I used a bit of my extra time to wash her off carefully and then to explain that it seemed that she was allergic to the grass, just like Mummy was as a child, and that she could only play on the swing and climb the tree, not crawl and roll around on the grass under their cubby as she had been doing or she would just get itchy again.

And I took a few minutes to make sure that Joshua had done as I asked and cleaned up all those twigs. (He had, I am happy to report.)

One final thing helped to use up the last bit of my bonus time. Jeff hadn't set the clock on his phone back, so he came home early from church this arvo (having gone in for some peace and quiet while he finalised the lecture he is doing for the Faith and Science cafe-church-thingy tonight), thinking it was later than it was. So even though Jeff was very busy today, preaching/teaching on two different topics, we still were able to eat dinner as a family and chat about our day as a family. We do normally eat dinner as a family. But it is always extra special to be able to do it without rushing, even though Jeff is going to be out for the evening.

Now I come to think of it, it seemed like there was a whole lot more than one extra hour in my day today. But maybe that was because it was my attitude to the time that had changed.

I think I am going to vote for Daylight Saving in the referendum, just so I can have another unrushed day like this again, even if it's only once a year!

NCB Science advice paper comment conclusion

This is the conclusion to my submission to the National Curriculum Board regarding their initial advice paper on Science, which I emailed in last night. I already posted the rest in separate sections: part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V.

VI. In conclusion, there are significant deficiencies within this initial advice paper, which must be addressed before the final national Science curriculum is put to parliament. The most serious of these is the low priority given to the teaching of “scientific knowledge”, particularly in the primary years. Science studies should provide all students with both the skills and background understandings to make informed decisions with regard to scientific matters in their adult lives. This is true even for those who will not continue on to further academic study in this discipline. This paper proposes additions to the work load of teachers, while at the same time decreasing the rigor of what they are expected to teach. Again, it would be more worthwhile to specify a higher required contact time to teach scientific concepts, theories and processes, in age levels which are appropriate for the students’ mental capacities.

Reminder NCB submissions due soon

Public comment on the National Curriculum Board's initial advice papers in English, History, Mathematics and Science is only open for a few more days. Submissions must be received by the 5th of November (that's this Wednesday).

If you plan to submit a comment, you can email it to: feedback@ncb.org.au.

If you haven't found them already, the initial advice papers can be downloaded from this page.

You can read and comment on what will be my submission in the following posts. Sorry, they're all in reverse order. You'll have to scroll down then up again, if you want to read them in order according to the paper, but I can't be bothered editing all the post option times just to make them read better on this blog and it would have been a ridiculously long post if I did it in one hit. Feel free to comment before I email it all on Wednesday.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 5

V. [Appendix 1] “Teaching for scientific competencies requires: More emphasis on teams working cooperatively to investigate problems or issues.”

A. This is completely false. It is impossible to assess with any certainty the knowledge and understanding of any individual within a team based purely on the team’s final product. In team-based situations it is easy for one or more individuals to contribute minimal effort, to the detriment of other members of the team. The problems of students’ perceived needs for peer acceptance means that this is unlikely to be either identified by the teacher or reported to them. Working in teams when the team members have no particular special abilities related to their role within the team penalises the knowledgeable and hardworking team members and benefits those whose morals allow them to slack off.

B. Team tasks where individuals are arbitrarily given different portions of the topic to examine cannot solve this problem, as then the entire team membership is limited in their understanding of parts of the topic that were beyond their purview.

C. It would be of greater worth to encourage teachers to incorporate interactions between their students and people with a higher level of knowledge in the field, whether in person (using technological advances to make this possibly where necessary) or through the close study of the products of fertile, intelligent scientific minds: the actual journal articles and books written by great scientists of the past and present. The length of time necessary to study some of these materials (or even a portion thereof) in depth would be entirely rewarded by the interest inspired in the students, their greater level of understanding and the catalyst which this experience would provide to their further efforts within the discipline. This form of detailed study would be particularly rewarding and stimulating to students in the senior years of secondary study.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 4

IV. [pp9-10] "To improve the quality of science learning there is a need to introduce more diagnostic and formative assessment practices. These assessment tools help teachers to understand what students know and do not know and hence plan relevant learning experiences that will be beneficial."

A. The introduction of new "diagnostic assessment tools" will not make the plight of a teacher easier of more effective in any way. Rather, it will do the reverse. A science test can be easily designed to determine if a student "knows or does not know" any given concept, and tests can also be designed to determine if a student understands that same concept and its application. Furthermore, it is even easier to provide an opportunity for students to report on “all they know of a particular subject” which provides for a more individual and comprehensive assessment if required. Especially if one takes into account the common use by secondary science teachers of summative experiments, assessment in schools is done with efficiency and effectiveness at present. In my experience, differentiating between "formative assessment" and "watching and listening to the students as they work" only results in more paper work for the teacher and less time for them to interact with the students in a one-to-one fashion. "Detailed diagnostic information" never (in my experience) means "listen to the student’s explanation of a concept, and talk to them about how they are right and wrong in their understanding. Rather, it means paperwork and more paperwork.

B. The best way of enabling teachers to identify students’ needs and achievements is to provide greater opportunity for one-to-one interaction. This will not be achieved through the imposition of greater assessment and reporting requirements. Rather, it will be achieved through smaller science classes, greater time allocation for science lessons, or a combination of both of these.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 3

III. [p8] "To increase the relevance of science to students there is a strong case to include more contemporary (and possibly controversial) issues in the science curriculum…
The school science curriculum should provide opportunities to explore these complex issues to enable students to understand that the application of science and technology to the real world is often concerned with risk and debate."

A. I do not believe this is appropriate in the primary grades. Children of primary age are not able to grasp the idea of bias and how it affects the interpretation of statistical evidence, nor can they fully understand the idea that there may be no "right" answer.

B. This is appropriate at the secondary level where students are intellectually capable of learning and applying methods of reasoning (of which the scientific method is merely one) and also have a strong internal drive to make their own decisions and forge their own solutions. It is at this age when personal relevance of content to students’ lives is important to consider. However, it does take a skilled teacher to draw students into considering and acknowledging the breadth of their sphere of “personal value and relevance”. For this reason it is vital that secondary science teachers are provided with regular opportunities to upgrade their knowledge of scientific and technological developments, particularly if they teach in the fields of biology, biochemistry or physics.

[edit: this section was added 5 Nov]
C. It is no small matter for a curriculum to advocate the teaching of controversial issues as part of science classes. These issues are controversial because there is significant disagreement about the ethics of particular types of research or particular applications for research. Expecting a teacher to provide a fair and balanced assessment of a topic which engenders high levels of feeling and emotion within the scientific community and the general public seems akin to asking for complaints to be made about teachers’ approaches to the topic.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 2

II. [p7] "There is a consistent criticism that many of the problems and issues in science education arise from the structure of science curricula which tend to be knowledge-heavy and alienating to a significant number of students. ... The challenge is to identify the science concepts that are important and can be realistically understood by students in the learning time available."

A. It is my experience that the structure of science curricula is not too “knowledge-heavy”. It is not the content to be learnt which is “alienating to students”. Rather, the body of knowledge to be taught is organised in a manner that does not reflect either the experience of the students, nor their capacities and drive to learn. In my experience, young children (primary age) are inquisitive about the world around them and want answers. They do not want more questions, or to be told to work it out on their own. Children of this age want to know what things are like and how they work. This is mentioned in the paper [p10-11] however the paper does not acknowledge that at this age children’s curiosity extends beyond their own experience and it is easy for a teacher to nurture their interest beyond themselves and their local natural world. With liberal access to good books (particularly those which impart information within a storyline, addressing young children’s need to have concepts fit within a context) and judicious access to multimedia, a primary teacher is easily able to inspire children’s interest in a broad range of scientific concepts beyond their immediate experience. With careful planning a teacher can incorporate the wide range of tactile experiences and clear explanations required to help students to understand abstract concepts which otherwise would be beyond their understanding. At this age, students find learning reasons and rules fascinating and fun, and as a consequence are able to absorb more scientific concepts than they are presented with under the present system. At this age, memorisation is not difficult, but fun and rewarding. If this window of opportunity were used fully, students who at later ages are bored, frustrated or “alienated” with learning what appears to them to be dry facts would instead be able to extend and apply their previously built foundation of scientific knowledge in ways that are of interest at this age.

B. Towards this end I would suggest a greater emphasis upon the teaching of scientific concepts in the primary years when children have a thirst for knowledge but do not yet have the intellectual capacity for formal analytical reasoning as required by the structure of the scientific method. At present, primary teachers often leave science out of their curricula completely, or just give it minimal attention because they feel underprepared to teach it. It would be short-sighted to decide not to teach a sizeable amount of scientific content merely because the present system crowds the learning of virtually all scientific concepts into the junior secondary years. It is my belief that a focus on building knowledge of simple concepts, rather than the experience of elaborate experiments to “investigate questions scientifically”, would enable primary teachers to use a few intelligent and inspiring resources in ways which will satisfy their students’ desire to know as well as fueling their interest in science as a discipline. It would also ensure students enter secondary level education with a reasonable level of knowledge to draw upon as they enjoy applying the scientific method.

[edit: this section was added 3 Nov]
C. I am extremely disappointed with the attitude displayed by the developers of this paper. This section shows that they have not esteemed and valued the vast wealth of understanding that scientific endeavour has made available to people, and sought to find a way to share this wealth with Australia's students. Instead, the paper's developers seem to have given this effort up as a lost cause because it is "alienating to a significant number of students". If scientific endeavour is at all valuable to our society, as of course it is, it is worthwhile pressing onward and searching for ways to prevent this "alienation", rather than submitting to it. Nothing is gained without effort, and hard work and diligent effort reaps large rewards, in my experience. This is true for all levels of the education system. Students must apply themselves to thinking if they are to learn anything of worth. Teachers must seek ways to make the knowledge content of their discipline interesting and engaging to the students. Principals must employ teachers who display a high level of knowledge and regard for their subject matter. Curriculum designers must not seek to water down the curriculum to meet the standards of the lowest common denominator academically, but rather to set high goals and standards. These efforts will be met with the rewards of students' success and knowledge gained. The rewards of knowledge must not be given up meekly without regard for their high value.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 1

I am writing as an ex-teacher. I taught Science, Mathematics and Information Technology in both public and private schools at the secondary level (years 8-12) in South Australia and the Northern Territory for six years. I am also writing as a parent. I have four children (junior primary age and younger) who have been home educated for several years under my tutelage. Thus my response takes into account both my experiences as a teacher of Science and my hopes for the future educational experiences of my children.

I. [pp5-6] "... a science curriculum could be well based on three key elements:
1. Science as a way of knowing through inquiry...
2. Science as a human endeavour...
3. Scientific knowledge"

A. The purpose of scientific inquiry is to explain what is observed, using the “scientific method”. To explain is not the same as to know. As the paragraph under (1) states, scientific explanations change. Hence it is erroneous to state that science is a way of knowing. Rather, it is a way of explaining. One of the first things I learnt in my first year of university lectures in Science is that scientific experimentation cannot never tell us what is so, it can only tell us what is not so . The scientific method is a form of inductive formal logic, and as such, while it applies the laws of probablitity and possibility, it cannot prove anything for certain. There is a danger, to my mind, of referring to the academic discipline of Science as “a way of knowing”, because this can lead students to believe that the scientific method is the only way of determining the facts of a matter. In contrast, the methods of informal logic (critical thinking) and formal, deductive logic (Aristotelian use of categorical syllogisms and modern symbolic or propositional logic) provide other means of analysing and arranging evidence for or against an explanation of an observation. This misunderstanding, that scientific endeavour provides the only way to identifying the facts, is quite common and could be avoided if Science is taught as one way of formulating and justifying an explanation for observations, rather than as “a way of knowing”.

B. I find the inclusion of the second point, “science as a human endeavour” superfluous to the definition of a science curriculum. If students are taught that science is one mode of inquiry, they will certainly understand that those who make these inquiries are human beings. There is nothing else capable. Likewise, if students are taught even a small portion of the body of accepted scientific theory, they will see that the application of these theories has obvious ramifications for human society. If things change, they cannot stay the same. It is unnecessary to specify a key element of science to be the nature of it as a human endeavour, because study of the other two elements will necessitate the coverage of this factor.

C. Furthermore, I object to the placement of “scientific knowledge” at the end of this list of key elements. It is clear from this placement, and the lack of emphasis throughout the paper on building a foundation of scientific knowledge, that the writers of this paper do not feel that knowledge of the current body of scientific knowledge is of high value. Appendix 1 highlights this denigration. Given that the purpose of scientific inquiry is to build a body of reasonable explanations about our observations, it is of utmost importance to teach the results of previous scientific endeavour. Otherwise, our educational systems will merely produce students who are capable of applying a method, but who then have to use that method to re-establish the validity of the most fundamental ideas that already underpin our technological society. If students are not taught which theories held by scientists in the past have been refuted, we cannot expect to move forward in our theories; instead, we will be doomed to continually cover the same ground. At best, this system will produce students who lack the scientific understanding to embark on further academic study in this discipline, let alone become research scientists. The study of “scientific knowledge” must be of prime importance in the science curriculum if the students of the future are to graduate with a foundation of knowledge sufficient to allow them to understand further scientific developments that will have marked impacts on their lives, and to make wise decisions about their own practices as a result.

Quotes from the NCB Science advice paper

These quotes have been selected from the National Curriculum Board's Initial Advice Paper on Science (PDF, 62kB). I am not nearly so impressed with this Science advice paper as I was with the History paper. I'm quite disappointed, actually. I think I might have to write a submission in response to this one.

"... a science curriculum could be well based on three key elements:
1. Science as a way of knowing through inquiry...
2. Science as a human endeavour...
3. Scientific knowledge" [So far, so good, except why didn't they put point (3) first? As I read further I realised it was because they thought this was the least important part of any science curriculum.]

"Australia is a scientifically and technologically advanced nation. It is imperative that its future citizens have an understanding of science so that personal and societal decisions can be made on the basis of evidence and reason."

"The purpose of school science is to develop science competencies by which students can:
• understand more about science and its processes
• recognise its place in our culture and society
• use it in their daily lives.
It could be argued that developing these science competencies is a basic need for effective citizenship. ... school science not only prepares students for citizenship, but provides a solid platform for more specific science pathways."

"By the end of the compulsory years of science study it is expected that students would be able to demonstrate the following attributes of scientifically knowledgeable people:
• they are interested in and understand the natural world around them
• they engage in discussions of and about science
• they are sceptical and questioning of the claims made by others
• they can identify and investigate questions and draw evidence-based conclusions
• they can make informed decisions about the environment and their own health and well being.
Essentially the focus is on what one could describe as ‘science for life’."

"Science education should acknowledge the interaction between science and social values in the many debates about the applications of science."

"There is a consistent criticism that many of the problems and issues in science education arise from the structure of science curricula which tend to be knowledge-heavy and alienating to a significant number of students. ... The challenge is to identify the science concepts that are important and can be realistically understood by students in the learning time available."

"... scientific knowledge is rapidly increasing... add[ing] to the pressure on the science curriculum. There is a reluctance to replace the old with the new. Rather, there is a tendency to simply add the new science ideas to the traditional ones. ... Obviously such a situation is not sustainable."

"This paper argues that developing science competencies is important, understanding the big ideas of science is important, exposure to a range of science experiences relevant to everyday life is important and understanding of the major concepts from the different sciences is important. It is also acknowledged that there is a core body of knowledge and understanding that is fundamental to the understanding of major ideas."

"... it is possible to provide flexibility and choice about the content of local science curriculum. ... In managing this choice, there is a need to be conscious of the potential danger of repetition of knowledge through a student’s school life and ensure repetition is minimised and that a balanced science curriculum is provided for every student." [I am assuming (and hoping) by this the authors are referring to repetition of the same task or localised issue to the level of boredom, rather than repetition of the same concept to the level of mastery.]

"Instead of simply emphasising what has been described as ‘canonical science concepts’, there is a need to provide a meaningful context to which students can relate ... students will be better placed to understand the concepts if they can be applied to everyday experiences." [Hmm...]

"To increase the relevance of science to students there is a strong case to include more contemporary (and possibly controversial) issues in the science curriculum." [Well, not necessarily. We could just increase the amount of exploration and play-based science activities we do with students in the primary grades, and make experiments more relevant to everyday life in the secondary grades.]

"The school science curriculum should provide opportunities to explore these complex issues to enable students to understand that the application of science and technology to the real world is often concerned with risk and debate." [Not at the primary level they shouldn't, IMO. Kids of this age are not able to grasp the idea of bias and how it affects the interpretation of statistical evidence, nor can they fully understand the idea that there may be no "right" answer.]

"When a curriculum document is prepared there is an expectation that what is written will be what is taught and what is assessed. Unfortunately, there is sometimes a considerable gap between intended curriculum, the taught curriculum and the assessed curriculum; what can be assessed often determines what is taught."

"It is unfortunate that the summative end-of-topic tests seem to dominate as the main tool of assessment. ... To improve the quality of science learning there is a need to introduce more diagnostic and formative assessment practices. These assessment tools help teachers to understand what students know and do not know and hence plan relevant learning experiences that will be beneficial." [I do not agree with this at all. The introduction of new "diagnostic assessment tools" will not make the plight of a teacher easier of more effective in any way. Rather, it will do the reverse. A science test can be easily designed to determine if a student "knows or does not know" any given fact, and tests can also be designed to determine if a student understands that same concept and its application. Especially if one takes into account the common use by teachers of summative experiments (that is, experiments done to test the student's knowledge and skill), assessment in schools is done with efficiency and effectiveness at present.]

"...formative assessment is more useful in promoting learning." [For those who are not familiar with the term, formative assessment is assessment done purely to give feedback to the teacher and student about their progress, not to give a final assessment of their achievement at the end of a course/topic. In other words, they are saying the teacher should be aware of how well each of the students is dealing with the material at hand, so they can direct students to further study or interaction with the material as required to achieve mastery and seeing them pass or fail the final test should come as no surprise. Well, whoop-de-doo! In my experience, differentiating between "formative assessment" and "watching and listening to the students as they work" only results in more paper work for the teacher and less time for them to interact with the students in a one-to-one fashion - as is evidenced by the next quote. "Detailed diagnostic information" never (in my experience) means "listen to their explanation of a concept, and talk to them about how they are right and wrong in their understanding. Rather, it means paperwork and more paperwork.]

"Assessment should enable the provision of detailed diagnostic information to students. It should show what they know, understand and can demonstrate. It should also show what they need to do to improve."

"[E]arly science experiences should relate to self awareness and the natural world. During the primary years, the science curriculum should develop the skills of investigation, using experiences which provide opportunities to practice language literacy and numeracy. In secondary school, some differentiation of the sub-disciplines of science may be appropriate, but as local and community issues are interdisciplinary, an integrated science may be the best approach. Senior secondary science curricula should be differentiated, to provide for students who wish to pursue career-related science specializations, as well those who prefer a more general, integrated science for citizenship."

"During the primary years ... A broad range of topics is suitable including weather, sound, light, plants, animals, the night sky, materials, soil, water and movement. Within these topics the science ideas of order, change, patterns and systems should be developed."

"In the early years of primary school, students will tend to use a trial and error approach to their science investigations." [How does one perform "trial and error" investigations upon the weather? Does one try to make it rain and find out one cannot? Does one try to guess if it is raining and find that this is a meaningless exercise? Perhaps a better model would be to use a "look, listen, feel, do and learn approach" and actually make a child's experience an important factor in their developing knowledge: Thus one looks at many different types of clouds and watches lightning, listens to thunder and the pounding of rain on a hot iron roof, feels the rain in their hair and on their hands, feels the heat of the sunlight on their bare arms and notices the way the heat dries the sprinkling of water applied thereto, uses a watering can to make "rain" over a soil and grass "habitat" in a plastic box, reads Robert Louis Stevenson's poems "Rain" and "When the sun comes after rain", waters plants in their garden and eventually gets to smell the flowers or eat the vegetables, and in all these things comes to a greater understanding of rain and sunshine and what weather really is.]

"[During the Junior Secondary years] it is important to exercise restraint and to avoid overcrowding the curriculum and providing space for the development of students’ science competencies alongside their knowledge and understanding of science content. Topics could include states of matter, substances and reactions, energy forms, forces and motion, the human body, diversity of life, ecosystems, the changing earth and our place in space. The big science ideas of energy, sustainability, equilibrium and interdependence..."

"[During the Senior Secondary years] There should be at least three common courses across the country: physics, chemistry and biology. There could also be one broader-based course..."

And just for the record, I disagree with pretty much everything in this appendix:

Quotes from the NCB History advice paper

These quotes have been selected from the National Curriculum Board's Initial Advice Paper on History (PDF, 71kB). I highly recommend reading the paper in full, it is surprisingly and pleasantly understandable!

"By teaching history systematically and sequentially across the years of schooling we will enrich educational outcomes."

"The starting-point of this paper is that the restriction of the national curriculum to Australian history is inappropriate. If only to equip students to operate in the world in which they will live, they need to understand world history. That history should have a broad and comprehensive foundation from which its implications for Australia can be grasped. ... Australian history will retain an important place in a national curriculum."

"We fail them also if we do not foster the skills of historical thinking that equip them, by the end of their studies, to take
an active part in the debates over the legacy of the past, to understand and make use of new sources of information, to sift the wheat from the chaff, to find truth and meaning in history and contribute to democratic discussion of national issues."

"One reason for teaching history is to ... develop a critical perspective on received versions of the past, and learn how to compare conflicting accounts so that the conflicts and ambiguities are appreciated."

"Introducing students to historical thinking involves teaching methods of historical inquiry. Students need both to know history and practise it. Factual knowledge is essential to historical thinking."

"In broad terms, students should be introduced to world history from the time of the earliest human communities... Students should have an appreciation of the major civilizations of Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Australia. They should understand Australian history within a comparative framework..."

"No-one possesses an exhaustive historical knowledge, but an historical education should furnish both the capacity to acquire new knowledge and a continuing desire to do so."

The explanation of the "Benchmarks of Historical Thinking" on page 8 is clear and helpful.

"... substantive knowledge incorporates knowledge of events, historical actors and other information; procedural knowledge refers to the concepts and vocabulary that are used to make sense of the substance of the past. ... both forms of knowledge are mutually dependent."

"[A successful model] combine[s] a historical survey with studies in depth. ... [This] calls for careful curriculum design. The curriculum needs to incorporate overview, bridging and depth components. Overview components will use an expansive chronology and assist students to understand broad patterns of historical change. Bridging components will provide a context for closer studies in depth. Depth studies will provide students with the opportunity to bring the skills of historical thinking to bear on well-defined events of particular significance."

"The curriculum should provide for a sequence of learning, building on and consolidating earlier studies, but avoid excessive repetition..."

"The primary school curriculum should introduce students to the traditions, stories, myths and legends that connect them with the values, beliefs and the socio-cultural elements of past societies. It should also lead to an appreciation of the legacy of that past on present society."

"In the lower primary school years the curriculum should enable students to make connections between their direct experiences and those that result from their exposure to artefacts, images, simple primary sources and oral histories that relate to their own past and those of significant others. ... The middle and upper primary school curriculum for Australian history should introduce students to key topics for inquiry in history that will be pursued in greater depth and breadth in the junior secondary years."

"It would make use of local and community history, with strong links to national, regional and global perspectives. Students would use local and community history, as well as stories about well-known and ‘ordinary’ people, as they acquire an initial understanding of some key events..."

"It is proposed tentatively that the history curriculum should follow a sequence:
(1) History from the time of the earliest human communities to the end of the Ancient period (c. 60,000BC — c. 500AD)
(2) History from the end of Ancient period to the beginning of the Modern period (c.500 — 1750)
(3) Modern history (c. 1750 — present)
(4) Australian history (c.1901 — present)"

"The first unit will explore the ways of life and global migrations of the earliest communities..."

"The second unit ... will highlight the consolidation of complex urban states and associated social, political, economic and religious activities in Europe, for the settler society of Australia derived many of its core institutions and values from Western Europe and its expansion into the rest of the world from the sixteenth century had decisive consequences."

"The third unit ... deals with the industrial revolution and industrialisation, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, the French and American Revolutions, the principles of human rights and democracy, the rise of the nation-state and associated ideas of national identity, the era of mass warfare and the ideological conflicts it engendered, and the emergence of supra-national organisations."

"The fourth unit on Australian history ... will include Federation, World War I, the Depression, World War II, immigration, women’s rights, the Vietnam War, Indigenous rights and contemporary political history."

"The curriculum will make particular use of narrative, applying the skills of historical thinking to the depth studies, and working to a comparative overview by the completion of each unit."

"It is proposed that there should be units in Years 11 and 12 in Ancient and Modern History, and Australian History... [with optional] extension studies in history at Year 12 which allow students to explore traditions of historical research and writing, including debates among historians, and engage in the production of an extended research project."

"From Edward Gibbon to Geoffrey Blainey, writers of history provide models of literary distinction that engage students and enhance their appreciation of prose. Students should be exposed to secondary sources that exemplify these qualities..."

"Historical understanding ... can be enhanced by drawing on a wide range of artistic works..."

"The approach set out in this paper is premised on schools making a substantial commitment to teaching history. This will require making space in the timetable for a sustained and sequential program. At present there is little guidance for the allocation of time to history. It should occupy at least ten percent of teaching time in the primary school years, and in years 7 to 10 it should occupy an average of 100 classes a year, and a total of 400 classes."

National Curriculum Board advice papers

Over the last week or so the National Curriculum Board has released four "initial advice papers on the curriculum proposed for English, mathematics, the sciences and history." I have been reading a lot of comment in newspapers on what is being called "draft curriculum" in the media. So I decided to find the primary documents. If you're interested as well, you can download them from links on this page.

According to the NCB site the public can comment on these advice papers through email to: feedback@ncb.org.au or by mail to: National Curriculum Board Feedback, PO Box 177, Carlton South, Victoria 3053. Feedback on the initial advice papers needs to be in by November 5, and they expect to make their final recommendations in Term 1 next year.

A letter to the editor

Re: "Rudd set on paying working mums more" by Andrew Tillett, The West Australian Saturday, October 4, 2008 pg16Rudd’s plan to pay working mums more than stay-at-home mothers for their mothering care in the first few months is short-sighted.

Women who choose to stay at home for only a short period of time after their child’s birth experience minimal disruption to their career path and its financial rewards.

Women who decide to have subsequent children before returning to paid employment make a much greater financial sacrifice. They give up an ongoing income flow by not returning to work in the intervening time and also face greater barriers to picking up their career. They are often no longer employable in their previous field, certainly far from able to fit smoothly back into the vaunted career track, and must accept either a lower paid job in a different field or the added financial burden of re-training.

I have decided these disadvantages are outweighed by the benefits to my four children (and the community) of my staying at home. Others may not be financially free to make this choice.

Maternity pay for those who were already established in the previous “job” of stay-at-home mother is essential, if we are to encourage women to have more than one baby. Otherwise the only thing this new maternity leave scheme will do is reward families who choose to have less children – and Australians are doing that in droves already.

Obama on abortion

Barack Obama at Saddleback Church:
"I am pro-choice. I believe in Roe versus Wade. And, and I come to that conclusion not because I'm pro-abortion; but because, ultimately, I don't think women make these decisions casually. I think they, they wrestle with these things in profound ways."

I find this comment fascinating and distressing. Not because American politics holds any interest to me (I find American presidential campaigns baffling as well as boring), rather because I love my children now and I loved them from the moment I knew they were growing inside me. The baby whom we lost to miscarriage between my pregnancies with Joshua and Anna was loved and prayed for and is still mourned. I think back with sadness and shame to the occasion I took the morning after pill to avoid an "inconvenient" pregnancy when a condom broke, and pray that I might be forgiven for cutting short any life that had already been conceived within me that day. I am forever grateful to my Father in Heaven who has forgiven my sin, Whose Son took my punishment when He died on the cross for me. I know He loves my children - all of them, born and unborn - much more than I could ever imagine.

Obama's comment forces me to ask: Isn't the single characteristic which makes murder different to manslaughter - and so much more monstrous - the forethought that precedes the action? So why, then, does Obama think that a deliberate prior decision to take a life somehow makes the action of taking that life acceptable? I do not understand this. Taking a life is taking a life, whether one "wrestles" with the moral implications or not. The choice of abortion must be condemned for what it is: a deliberate, wilful act of murder.

The Bible on Murder
Exodus 20:13 (the sixth commandment) says, "You shall not commit murder." Consider what God said to Cain after he murdered his brother Abel (Genesis 4:10-11): "The LORD said, 'What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse...' " What curse will be put on those among us who allow these murders to continue? And think upon how God warned Noah after the flood (Genesis 9:5-6): " 'And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.' " What accounting will be made of our involvement in this continued genocide? Even the tiniest baby is made in the image of God. This image-bearing status cannot be removed by any decision of the mother, casual or otherwise. It was and is the gift of God. May His name be glorified in all the earth!

Ecclesiastes 8:11 and public school education

This is a slightly edited version of a letter I wrote in the online comments section of the Sunday Times.

I was very pleased on Sunday to read (almost) the first good idea to come from Mr McGowan, of making the expulsion process quicker and easier "Bad pupils to be kicked out of public school". In sage advice from Ecclesiastes 8:11, "When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong." This is why in the past, the immediate penalty of caning was effective. While some people suggest we reinstate its use, this is no longer an acceptable punishment in Australian society which has largely forgotten that the proverb, "No pain, no gain" applies to matters other than physical exercise.

Immediate removal of the disruptive student from the classroom, short and long term suspensions, and permanent (or at minimum until the next school year) expulsion provide punishments which stop the problem from reoccurring in that class and school. On their own, they do not provide a complete solution, however. Disruptive, violent and abusive students must be taught appropriate behaviours, and parents must be held ultimately accountable for their child's behaviour. Unfortunately, many parents lack the skills to do so and often gave up the effort long ago when they saw their methods were not working. I would argue that this problem is due in large because the vast majority of parenting how-to manuals today present a method of parenting based on the idea that if you make your child the centre of your world, making every effort to keep them happy by giving them "positive" experiences and rewarding "positive" behaviours with "positive" reinforcement, they will never have to display "negative" behaviours and will grow up into perfect little angels. This is a load of codswallop!

When a child is expelled, often the solution cannot be to enrol them in McGowan's first option of Distance Learning, because the parents will be no more able to obtain dilligent educational effort from this child than the teachers. Part of the solution is training for the parents in setting and sustaining boundaries of acceptable behaviour for their child and the concurrent use of immediate consequences. While the parents are obtaining this training, their child must be enrolled in the "student-behaviour centres" or "special private schools" which McGowan mentioned, with teachers who have already received training in the aforementioned skills.

The student does not need to learn to express their anger at deep emotional wounds, as the counsellor "concerned for kids of Claremont" suggested (see comment 25 here). They need to learn how to act in accordance with Australian society's standards for appropriate behaviour. This includes the idea that those who want something ask politely and, if they are not given it, work to obtain it for themselves. Learning to whinge is not a lesson any disruptive student needs to learn from a counsellor. They already have it down to an art form, as the comment from "At my wits end of Perth" illustrates (see comment 34&39 here).

I'm an ex-teacher with experience in both public and private schools, where I did, unfortunately, experience physical assault from a student. I am now enjoying educating my own children at home. They are being taught both academics and the sometimes more rigorous lessons of self-discipline. I made every effort with my own children to start on the right track from the very beginning, but for parents and children who are a long way down the wrong track, streamling expulsion will provide a much needed "time out" from schooling to develop better ways of dealing with others, ways that will make possible the opportunity for a successful return to (academic) education in the future.

Where Rudd's "Education Revolution" will take us

At last, after weeks of fretting over lack of information throughout the election campaign, I begin to see the substance of what Rudd promised with his promotional mantra of plans for an "educational revolution".

Last weekend, The Weekend Australian reported that "In a new super-ministry, Ms Gillard will be in charge of policy on childhood development, schools, universities, skills and training, workforce participation and employee rights." Thus the deputy prime minister has the portfolios of industrial relations (as would have been expected, given her previous role as shadow minister for industrial relations) and also education. Predictably, in this article, the main concern expressed over this was the enormous workload involved in combining these two important areas of oversight. Of course, everyone thinks their particular area deserves, or even requires, more concentrated focus within a smaller portfolio. I think these views somewhat short-sighted. Indeed, I think they miss the point completely.

This same article described Rudd's justification for his decision thusly: "Mr Rudd strongly supported Ms Gillard's appointment, saying Labor's plan was to bring preparation for work "under a single roof". He described Ms Gillard's super-ministry as a modern approach, combining the entire agenda of education, skills and training, participation at work and workplace relations." It appears that the crux of Rudd's so-called "education revolution" is to demote the myriad goals and aims of education to "preparation for work", that is, vocational training.

Gillard's comments (later reported in The Australian) supported the need to integrate some Australian history into a national curriculum, as Howard had done previously. She also maintained the popular, but in my opinion, limited, view of the supreme importance of the three Rs. Gillard "reiterated that Labor would focus very strongly on the basic skills of maths, reading and writing in the development of the curriculum." Surely education should be aimed at producing more than the most basic of all academic skills? (I am not sure that the Liberals ever aimed for anything too much above these basics, either, and that is perhaps why they seemed to be losing the educational war to the socialist left in the past decade of the infamous OBE.)

At this point, I would like to introduce a contrast. My next two quotes are taken from Dorothy Sayers' paper read at Oxford University in 1947, The Lost Tools of Learning. Sayers proposed a "progressive retrogression" to a classical model for education in the tools of the trivium, (Latin) grammar, formal logic and rhetoric. She said of her hypothetical students, "one cannot begin a good thing too early... We will therefore "catch 'em young," requiring only of our pupils that they shall be able to read, write and cipher [ie, perform basic arithmetical calculations]." Sayers' expected that, although her students would be young, they would already be competent in the basic skills. In Sayers' opinion, these skills were not the end point of a school education, they were, rather, the pre-requisites of this education!

If Sayers did not see these basic skills as the end point of education, what did she propose as an alternative? The concluding sentence of her paper tells us. "For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain." Some would argue that it is too early to criticise, but I fear that the first steps of Rudd's "education revolution", towards a model of education that limits itself to concentrating on the basics and preparing people for nothing other than a life of serfdom ("participation in work"), will eventually be revealed to have been in vain.

The state of English teaching in Australia

English teaching in Australia seems to be in a bad way, and I'm not sure if it has any chance of getting better.

On the one hand, I was heartened to read recently that the new Western Australian OBE English course for Year 12, in which students "were asked to study the Big Brother television show, Mr Men children's books and movie posters", is to be scrapped and replaced with a more traditional course that actually specifies students must study "at least one major text, such as a play or a novel". I do truly pity those students who have been caught in the middle of this OBE schemozzle.

On the other hand, it seems that at the federal level there is no way to beat back the encroachement of the critical literacy army of the various English Teaching Associations. The latest Weekend Australian says that the plans of the Federal Liberal government to provide professional development summer schools to teachers in order to improve their literacy teaching skills appear to have been scuttled by the inclusion of the AATE among the organisers. The AATE plan to waste teachers' time with discussions of whether a blog should be studied as a "literary text", and the so-called importance of including so much "cultural diversity" in the texts students read that they will have no understanding of the majority of Australians' historically Judeo-Christian culture. One of the academics involved is interested in "ways in which heterosexism might be countered in English classrooms". Not exactly the sort of "literacy outcome" most parents would expect or prioritise for their child's time in English classes, I would have thought.

I would like to offer a counter-proposal: have the teachers spend their time renewing their knowledge of correct Standard Australian English spellings, learning some of the rigorous grammatical rules for proper sentence construction and analysis, and actually reading some quality literature from the Western Canon, such as Homer's Iliad, Dante's Divine Comedy, Cervantes' Don Quixote, or even something a little lighter by Jane Austen or Charles Dickens. Afterward, they could share some of what they have learnt with their students. Unfortunately, I suspect that's a bit too much to expect of the people to whom we entrust the instruction of this nation's children in the beauties of their mother tongue.