A couple of years ago I read a study which looked in some detail at the provisions for 5 and 6 year-olds in England, Denmark and Finland. It was done by the Brits. They chose Denmark because at age 15 the Danes did a little worse academically than the Brits and Finland, who were the absolute tops. In both those countries they have institutionally based preschool programs, but delay formal learning until age 7.

The Finns had far and away the most generous resourcing in terms of facilities and staff, but their success was probably due to something else - namely, a reading culture and magnificent public library facilities.

The Danes were significantly different in that they didn’t use teaching staff at that level. Each unit had two full-time paraprofessionals who had a three-year tertiary diploma in the helping services.

The Brits seemed to have very cramped and inflexible facilities and early entry into the serious stuff or the 3Rs, science etc. Teachers complained that there was not enough time for more open developmental activities.

It’s an area that warrants serious attention. The Americans found, again back in the 1970s, that decent programs involving creative social play at this level made a substantial difference to kids’ life chances.

We’ve had ago at it in Qld and, sadly, appear to have stuffed over the good things we were doing in favour of what some day may be recognised as an abomination in our new “Prep” initiative. But that’s another story.

For a good student in a bad school a standardised textbook, such as in maths or physics, is the life-raft that allows them to get to the same level as students at other schools. Without one, as in English, they don’t even know what it is they aren’t learning.

That’s right, Russ, I think, and also very sad.

When I said “Within this framework I can‚Äôt imagine a mainstream English program (ie. one that all kids must do) that does not introduce people to Shakespeare” I should have said responsible or credible program. To say, as Rob said above that “Harold Bloom has even argued that Shakespeare actually created us as we are today (more or less)” is going a tad too far IMHO, but certainly Shakespeare has contributed to who we are.

In a sense I had Shakespeare without having Shakespeare. I vaguely remember Julius Caesar and Henry V (when I was much too young to cope) and later at university plays like Coriolanus, but got through four years of secondary school and three years of English at uni without encountering any of his great tragedies.

English without Shakespeare reminds me of a very grumpy lecturer we had in 3rd year English at QU. He asked us how many in the class had read Matthew Arnold’s poem Dover beach. About half had. He told us that it was disgraceful not to have read it and to go home that night and remedy the situation.

Today Nelson was still banging on about the folly of studying Buffy the Vampire Slayer over the classics. So I googled and came up with this not half bad piece by Emma Tom where she argues that it shouldn’t be a case of either/or and there may indeed be merit in studying Buffy. After all it does have serious themes which warrant further examination and may be less of a turn-off than Sophocles’ Oedipus the King where you get “killing your dad, rooting your mum, then stabbing your eyes out with a brooch.”

One reason that can be used against textbooks (particularly bad ones) is that they tend to impede teachers from approaching the subject in a way that suits both them and the class. The reason I think they are necessary is because of comments like Brian’s:

Within this framework I can’t imagine a mainstream English program (ie. one that all kids must do) that does not introduce people to Shakespeare.

I can easily imagine such a program because it is exactly what I had at school. That was 10 years ago now, but I’d be very surprised if it has changed. Arguments about the curriculum are irrelevant in the context of a classroom of semi-literates. It isn’t that those students are learning Critical Theory when they should be learning Classics, it is that they are learning nothing at all.

For a good student in a bad school a standardised textbook, such as in maths or physics, is the life-raft that allows them to get to the same level as students at other schools. Without one, as in English, they don’t even know what it is they aren’t learning.

the young Germans who vote for the left-wing parties in great numbers and take part in environmental and peace mobilisations are required to read Dostoevsky at school - so I am told by a German backpacker I met in Canberra in 2003;

Pual, recently I met a German I had gone to school and university with. He was the son of a German missionary in PNG. After he had done a year of a BA course at UQ in 1961 his father carted him off to Germany to get a decent education. The Germans put him back into school for a couple of years.

While we were swapping yarns my wife was chatting to his wife (an Irish lass as it turns out.) She learnt that the Germans don’t begin serious formal schooling until age 7. Then they have 13 years school, so they would be a mature 20 when they emerge. Apparently in order to study anything at university you need two languages other than German.

Personally they thought this was altogether too much and old-fashioned, but the Germans don’t change these things without good reason and so far no-one has come up with one.

I would deduce from this that schooling is a significantly different experience in Germany. But they are perhaps more likely to change in our direction than we are in theirs.

Incidentally the notion of delaying formal schooling until 7 is common in the Scandinavian countries. We have known for 30 years that by age 12 any advantage the rest of us get from starting earlier is washed out of the system. On this basis our early years of schooling are a waste of time. Brendan Nelson should perhaps be applying his mind to that little issue.

Rob asks what education is about:

The (or a) point of education surely is to open their eyes to the things that are not part and parcel of their own lives, to open doors that may have been shut to them. This could be Sumerian civilisation, Nordic creation legends or Bach cantatas. Anything to open their eyes, minds and ears to things that were not part of their actual-experiential envelopes.

Yes, Rob that is one of the main points of education, together with building on the skills, knowledge, interests and potentialities that the student brings to the exercise. If you just take sport, for example, the physical education teachers will be concerned with skill development and introducing kids to a wide range of sports. This effort is somewhat undercut, especially in the primary school, by sports teachers, who put a lot of their own time into getting kids into premature specialisation and competitive sport.

Up to year 10 in Qld (or Intermediate) the emphasis is on developing and broadening the child. The last two years of schooling are dominated by the agenda of the academy and the professions, at least for academically oriented students and the academic is privileged over the technical/practical.

But within this agenda there can still be developmental education and broadening by whatever the culture has to offer. But English is special, because it is compulsory (and vice versa).

Within this framework I can’t imagine a mainstream English program (ie. one that all kids must do) that does not introduce people to Shakespeare. But, as mentioned above, that does not mean IMO that everyone should do a whole Shakespearean play. In fact I’d rather they didn’t unless one of those magical, inspirational teachers who can make it come alive was available.

I appreciate how Laura sees this from a tertiary perspective. It is possible that whole Shakespearean plays would be better left to advanced English courses, taken as an elective by advanced students. In Qld there is only Drama apart from the academic mainstream English that all students must do. I notice that in NSW commenters refer to an advanced English subject. This would seem on the surface a desirable development.

I’m coming to believe that the central concern, to be addressed in the compulsory mainstream, should be primarily about the different kinds of communication, the dimensions of context, purpose, power and positioning, values, technique and meaning etc. In other words the very sociological, deconstructionist (but also practice in constructing texts) approaches that Pell and Nelson are complaining about. The Queensland syllabus is not too far from the mark.

The canon should be there to some degree, and so should an appreciation and understanding of the aesthetic dimension. I’m afraid this may get neglected or mangled at present.

So what do we do? Do we reconcile ourselves to a world where Shakespeare is not important to children, that he’s displaced by MTV and chick-lit because it’s more ‘relevant’? That throws almost everything down the insinkerator.

What about Chinese or Japanese literature from the 10th century or prior? That’s not relevant either - unles you want it to be. And that, it seems to me, is what education in the arts is all about: making it relevant if you want it to be.

But I’m hopelessly conservative on these issues.

The biggest problem I see is the culture of some schools. What you learn is far too dependent on the quality of the teaching and the type of class you had. In my year 12 class we never discussed the books because barely anyone had read it and the only skill I learnt was how to balance a chair on two legs. Unfortunately this wasn’t on the exam.

Personally I’d like to see a more textbook orientated approach that lays out what students need to know and what they should be aware of by quoting liberally from the canon and elsewhere. Students should still read whole books as part of the curriculum, but they should go to them willingly. Of course, this also means you need someone capable of writing a textbook that doesn’t defile printing presses by its very existence.

It’s a myth to think that previous generations were brimming with educated poetry (or opera) lovers. Yes, the wealthier people were well-educated in the canon and latin and had beautiful handwriting. Opera was once a more popular art form too. But again, with the wealthy few.

On the other side were those who couldn’t read at all and who made their own music etc etc. In my family, for instance, my father left school when he was 15 to work full time. His father left school when he was 10. Not much time for Shakespeare when you’re working as a drover from age 10 or as an apprentice at age 15.

Whenever people go on about the shocking state of education in Australia I think about how it wasn’t so long ago — within my grandparent’s lifespan — when education was a boon for a lucky, wealthy minority.

Yes, education can be improved in this country but let’s not fall into the trap of believing that our near-universal literacy and high education rates aren’t as good as the fine old days when only middle and upper class boys had all the educational opportunities.

Russell, I both listen to whole operas and go to performances whenever I can. Sad to think it’s such a minority thing but you’re no doubt right about that also. Looks like it’s my day for being depressed about myself and the sad state of the world.

Rob - I have been thinking about a Yr 8 class I used to teach and why they wouldn’t have responded to Shakespeare with shivers, but rather blank incomprehension.

1. many of them were more concerned about when footy training started
2. some of them would have been wondering what they were going to scrounge up for dinner that night, still being hungry from having no breakfast and probably no lunch
3. others would have been wondering if Dad and/or Mum were going to get drunk that night and hit them
4. some would have been dreading Maths/English/ whatever with that teacher they hated

It’s hard to reach kids who are hungry, tired and generally too worldly wise for 14yr olds. Occassionally you would see a spark in their eyes as you connected with something they understood. I’m sure that there are some fantastic teachers out there who could relate Shakespeare back to footy and get these kids in. But would that satisfy George Pell?

And Rob, not fair, you just quoted the good bits. We all love Nessun Dorma or the Torreador Song, but very, very few of us will go to, or listen to whole operas.

And I’d like to blame Pell and his ilk for any decline in values - if they hadn’t bored people out of the churches, and hadn’t been so hypocritical, more people might have stayed in the church to hear it’s teachings !

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that schools and students have changed somewhat over the years and many students are a lot more up front about demanding to know what relevance something has (in my brief experience anyway). So you can either take that as a challenge to your authority, or as a challenge to your creativity. The way different teachers handle it very much determines whether kids come out running a mile from Shakespeare, or reading more of it.

Another thing that many seem to be unaware of is the great inertia in schools regarding buying new books etc. If they already have resources that can be used then they are going to use the old ones rather than buy new ones. Some of the books I read in the late 80’s early 90’s at school were purchased in the 60’s but were still on the syllabus so we used them.

Much easier to rail against po-mo teaching styles and the lefty infiltration of schools.

I’m way more concerned about other things. I didn’t do a single minute of foreign languages in 12 years at school, despite it being officially compulsory to get your school cert, because my “disadvantaged schools” couldn’t get the teachers so we got an exemption. Don’t need to parlez vous francais to work at BHP (or get sacked from BHP, more to the point)or Franklins, I guess, was the thinking. Learning other languages, even at the basic level you pick up at high school, is a major asset in opening your mind to all sorts of possibilities and complexities. I’d like to see a little less obsessing about Yeats and a bit more little advocacy on the inadequate LOTE at many of our schools. And maths, and science. And, and, and ….

Of course that would involve addressing the issue of higher wages/incentives for teachers which probably makes it un-PC for most of the right wing panic merchants.

(And such unfocused rants are exactly why, Liam, I don’t blog about politics!)

Curtis White‚Äôs The Middle Mind (on the lack of imagination in modern culture) examines the arguments the cultural right uses in what he terms The Great Canon Debate. The debate here though is about what is “greatness?” The cultural right fear that the postmodernists and the deconstructionists have devalued the great books. Of course great is a subjective term and the cultural right tend to use question begging to define great (great is great because it is the best of what has been thought and said).

This paragraph is the interesting one. It is easy to bag the evil academic leftists and forget about other forces that undermine attitudes to culture:

“The huge irony here is that what cultural conservatives like George Will fear most, that the values of a shared cultural tradition are being lost, has come true. But traditional culture has not been lost to the efforts of academic leftists. It has been lost to Will’s own beloved free market economy moving ever further into its international mode. It is capitalism that looks without pity on Will’s cultural sentimental¬¨ity. What does Shakespeare matter to George Bush II? Hey, George Will, Bush doesn’t even like your precious Cubs! Wrigley Field? Fuck it! Sell it to the Japanese and build something in its place with lots of luxury boxes where corporate execs can munch sushi and watch Sosa launch homers. If nobody but Stupid White Men (in Michael Moore’s endearing phrase) can afford to go to the game, who cares?

On the other side, the joy of Cultural Studies in its conquest of the humanities in academic America must come tempered by the understanding that it is not its leftism that allows it to win, but its unacknowledged complicity with the globalized corporate culture of the future.”