Thanks to Nick Gruen at Club Troppo for alerting me to the fact that the ALR is on line. I meant to check out whether it was, because I wanted to link to Stuart Macintyre’s review of Kevin Donnelly’s Dumbing Down. It doesn’t need much further comment from me. Read it here, and also check out the interesting comments thread, including some withering criticism of Dr D from practising educationalists as opposed to an educational crisis-monger:
Take for example his assertion that standards are falling. A perusal of Examiners’ comments in the University of Adelaide Public Examinations Manual for 1959 will show that in 1958 in Intermediate (Year 10) English, 33% failed; in double Maths, 39% failed. Over all. only 53% passed the Intermediate certificate. In Year 11, 35% failed English. All this at a time when teaching was as Dr Donnelly would want it to be: direct instruction, skills and drills, frequent tests and examinations, simple reports, inspectors and publication of results.
And there’s a very good rebuttal of the claim made by Dr D that any questioning of his own professional associations and history is in some way ad hominem:
When Dr Donnelly has so publicly and for so long questioned the professionalism, rectitude and motivations of so many educators – both individually and collectively – it is entirely in the nature of public debate that his own professional credentials should be examined in the same crucible and called to account if found wanting. That is not a personal attack, it’s fair dealing in the public sphere.
Macintyre doesn’t attempt to disguise his own political and educational commitments. Donnelly poses as a defender of TEH CANON and the alleged good old days and someone capable of impartial and professional analysis of education (as demonstrated by his numerous consultancies to Liberal governments!). But his distortions of the facts and ideological agenda are far more dangerous to education debates than any number of mythical Maoists or evil postmodernists in schools or Education faculties. Who’s really dumbing down the debate?
I think you mean Nick Gruen at CLUB TROPPO not Catallaxy. cheers.
Yikes! Thanks, steve!
Well the argument from credentials might be fair enough as a tit for tat exercise, but the argument from credentials is a pretty poor argument in most cases. (Perhaps less so in some of the sciences). From memory I don’t recall Stuart Macintyre playing that card. I really did like the lecture he gave Donnelly on grammar and writing. Hoisting him on his own petard and all.
I think the emphasis is on his own record. That is, Macintyre argues that he himself has been complicit in setting up the system he criticises, and criticises his professional activities as being about political intervention rather than policy input.
Look, Kev and his kind is very much part of a long tradition of hustlers who manufacture or inflame issues to provide a fertile market in which to peddle their own nostrums.
Patent medicine pundits. And they’re all across the political spectrum. Dr Kickapoo’s Joy Juice now comes as a nicely packaged consultants report with a cute title and exec summary that even a minister can grasp after a long lunch. Only one customer per pill but they pay in five figures now. The books and op-ed pieces are just the modern equivalent of bellowing through a megaphone to whip the punters into the tent.
Opps!
“Kev and his kind are very much part of..”
Hate to think that educational standards have dropped so low that even criticism of criticism of ‘em needs correcting.
And where pray Nicholas are your credentials for advancing such an arguement?
In case people don’t read the whole review:
That should read “he holds in esteem”.
Let’s face it, some people have a way with words and others…do not have way.
And some attribute stolen one-liners and others…do not
attributize, attribute.Kim,
Dr Cat did the same thing to Donnelly, here at LP only a month ago – live. very funny.
starts here and goes on for a few comments.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/02/08/teacher-bashing-as-easy-as-a-b-and-c/#comment-346157
Kim, Kevin Donnelly replied to Stuart Macintyre’s review. I think it was published in the Weekend Australian, the weekend before last. It might be useful to provide that link as well.
How Donnelly keeps getting these opportunities is beyond belief.
BTW, if you follow the link to the end as suggested by jo, Donnelly comes clean in a round about sort of way.
While I am no shill for Kevin Donnelly (I am sick to bloody death of him), I found Professor MacIntyre’s “review” to be so crass, low-rent, precious, unscholarly, ungentlemanly, ad hominem, and totally without merit vis-a-vis Donnelly’s allegations, that he should resign his professorship immediately.
If only MacIntyre had spent the past 15 years focusing his bile equally across the education spectrum, perhaps people like Windschuttle and Donnelly would never have achieved such prominent platforms.
Thou thinks the Profethor doth proteth too much (ath Ita buttrothe might thay).
I haven’t been following this debate, and I’ve got no time for the “good old days” crowd. But I do teach in first and second-year courses at an Australian university, and the standard of writing and general education displayed by some of the students coming into the system is painful to behold. I’ve had whole groups of students want to pull out calculators in order to multiply by factors of 10.
In regard to the pass rates mentioned above: if we failed that many students (and we could, with minor changes to how fussily we marked) we’d have the university admin pissing on us from a great height. Likewise, we can’t give an entire class a distinction mark, even if they all deserve it — spreads of marks are decreed from on high. In my field (biology) it’s probably fair to say that the basic Bachelor’s degree has been cheapened to the point of absurdity. Anyone who actually wants to get work in the field needs to get a graduate degree or PhD.
Chris
One of my uni. tutors shared with me a 2,500 word essay that had been given a grade of 57/100 from a couple of years ago. It read like something a 12 year old would write. And the whole Asian private students situation is far more diabolical than the media reports. Many of the traditional subject areas where these students concentrate (eg commerce, business) now have multiple choice exams!
Apparently the only traditional real academic subject that has not experienced a severe loss of rigour is the NSW 3 and 4 Unit Mathematics syllabuses/i (for the smarty pants’)!
Dr D’s response doesn’t seem to be online.
Chris, the failure rates quoted above are high school ones. It may well be the case that some university students are not as well prepared as they were in the past, but that would be because there are far more students going on to uni, not that schools taught to a much higher standard in the past. And grade inflation is a result of the Howard government’s (lack of) funding policies, not anything to do with schools, which is what Dr D is writing about.
These young ‘uns are too damn busy texting on their Xboxs to their MyFaceSpaces to pick up an improving tome or fountain pen, that’s what it is. There’s just no way a Nokia 9500 can simulate the feel of deluging an unsuspecting classmate with a good squirt of qwink.
“Take for example his assertion that standards are falling. A perusal of Examiners’ comments in the University of Adelaide Public Examinations Manual for 1959 will show that in 1958 in Intermediate (Year 10) English, 33% failed; in double Maths, 39% failed. Over all. only 53% passed the Intermediate certificate. In Year 11, 35% failed English. All this at a time when teaching was as Dr Donnelly would want it to be: direct instruction, skills and drills, frequent tests and examinations, simple reports, inspectors and publication of results.”
So what? I sat those PEB exams from Intermediate, Leaving and Matriculation and they were universal and transparent exams that actually failed students for not achieving certain levels of competence. Those standards were jealously guarded and maintained by real tertiary academics, whose gene pool had not by then been diluted by the mixed blessing of free tertiary education and the cancerous postmodernism that followed it.
What would really settle this debate would be for the current crop of students across Yrs 10-12 to sit those same exams, under the same conditions and see how their pass/fail rates stack up. In your dreams our educators would, when in my own state, the teacher’s union, Ed Dept and Govt don’t even want public scrutiny of comparitive YR12 exam results across schools. Oh but the parents do naturally enough, but what would they know?
Mustn’t have the little munchkins psychologically scarred for life by actually failing them for not coming up to scratch now must we?. A bit like todays report that Pumpkin Patch designer label are reworking all their clothes sizes for girls to get rid of the Large and Extra Large labels. They’ll now start at XXXS and end at medium for the fatties. Bah! Humbug!
The word’s spelled ‘comparative’ too, not that the current crop of educators would know it. I know instantly upon rereading that I’ve misstyped or misspelled a word, due largely to weak typing skills not keeping up with the brain.(now now settle down) That’s no excuse for the SMS generation though.
Kim
Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I can’t WAIT to see you justify this howler. This is the best pitiful excuse I have enountered in yonks.
Why do you think that casual tutors teaching 30 students as opposed to 10 or 15 twenty years ago might be giving some students more of a pass than they deserve, John? And don’t you think that the internal funding allocation models (ie bums on seats for courses and majors) and the income from international students might lead to grade inflation?
Not so sure about the class size thingy Kim. In the late sixties I was in a matriculation class of 45 odd and that was not unusual. I had a chemistry teacher(ex researcher) who was straight off the boat and a wee bit hard to understand, but you weren’t there to mess around, or up to the Deputy Head for the cuts in this typical public school. Schools and classes were bulging at the seams and many teachers were fast tracked into service from outside careers. So much for all that child psych, sociology stuff they get filled up with for years nowadays. Sit up, shutup and get this into ya! And we did in droves.
I’m talking about university class sizes, obs, in response to JG’s point.
Hi,
My reply to Macintyre can be found at:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21353509-28737,00.html
If what I have argued about outcomes based education is so wrong, why has the education minister in WA (today) announced the changes he has, why did Tasmania scrap essential learnings and why are Rudd and Smith talking about the need to raise standards and have a more academic curriculum?
Macintyre, and those of his ilk, have backed the wrong horse.
Best wishes,
Dr D
So now your case that education has been “dumbed down” is proved by your ability to pick a winner? I have a couple of hundred to one shots at the Dubbo Dogs you might want to take a look at Dr D.
Hello again,
FYI – last weekend’s Australian had a more positive review of ‘Dumbing Down’, the opening paragraphs are below.
Best wishes,
Dr D
REVIEW of â??Dumbing Downâ?? by Kevin Donnelly. Review by much-published Leftist historian Ross Fitzgerald . He writes that Kevin Donnelly is a first-class polemicist hammering the postmodernists wrecking Australian schools:
“AS a liberal-humanist and member of the Left, I still find it disconcerting that so-called progressivists continue to oppose selective schools, unambiguous academic standards and the teaching in our schools of distinct disciplines such as history, geography, science, mathematics and English. This is because, for the working class, high-quality education represents the most effective avenue for social mobility and for ascending the ladder of economic and intellectual opportunity.
Kevin Donnelly is a first-class polemicist in the best sense of that word. In his regular contributions to The Australian, his provocative book Why Our Schools are Failing (2004) and now in Dumbing Down, he focuses attention on the pernicious effects of outcomes-based and politically correct curriculums and the impact of the so-called culture wars on our primary and secondary schools and, by implication, ouruniversities.”
Gee, I dunno, Dr D, because your political campaign and that of the government and the Oz has been successful?
Yep – it’s the Fine Cotton affair all over again, this time in Federal politics.
Can we all have a turn at writing a review of Dr D’s book? Let’s see, Stuart Macintyre’s had a go, and Ross Fitzgerald has, and even Dr D has reviewed Dr D’s book.
Well, here’s my review of “Dumbing Down”. Actually it’s a review I wrote for Dr D’s last book, but I’ve since found you can use to review everything he’s ever written. It’s a kind of meta-review. Very efficient really, and it would’ve saved Messrs Macintyre and Fitzgerald all that time…
HOW TO BE AN EDUCATION EXPERT
You too can enjoy the public acclaim and consultancy fees that come with being an education expert! Just follow this prescription for success and a government grant can’t be far behind…
1. There is a crisis in education – your business depends upon it. Take every opportunity you can to point out the crisis in education. Think of it as advertising.
2. Teachers are Marxists. Teachers who deny they are Marxists are postmodern Marxists, which is worse.
3. Postmodernism is a world-view that makes it impossible for people to see that you are right. Postmodernism causes teenagers to challenge authority and spell badly. Before postmodernism, these problems did not exist.
4. There aren’t enough men in teaching. And by men, I mean real men, not these postmodern Marxist nancy-boys you see flouncing about our public schools (there’s something suspicious about them…). Be careful not to make too much of this however, because men will demand the same salaries they can get in other professions.
5. Repeat after me: repetition works. Studies have shown that a claim becomes true if you say it over and over again without listening to any alternative suggestions. Studies have shown that a claim becomes true if you say it over and over again without listening to any alternative suggestions. Try to make your claims truer than everybody else’s.
6. Paying for private education is a noble act of self-sacrifice, made by parents without any thought for the future social or material benefits that may result. Parents who send their kids to private schools love their children more and are better people than public-school parents. If public-school parents only loved their children more, they would be able to afford a private education for them.
7. Public schools are not failing enough students, and are heartlessly providing them with nothing but support and encouragement. Fortunately, there is lots parents can do to balance things up. Start by telling your child every morning what a disappointment they are to you, and provide them with years of shaming and criticism. This will result in a happy, well-adjusted individual ready to negotiate in the modern workplace.
8. Teachers are to blame for teenage delinquency, moral relativism, greengrocers’ apostrophes, multicultural policy and Leo Sayer’s comeback. However, to give credit where it’s due, we should remember that when young Australians make great achievements, or grow up to be decent individuals holding down a job and raising a family, it is all thanks to their parents.
9. In the modern classroom, students don’t do any real work. Instead, they get given namby-pampy “assignments” where all they have to do is think of a topic, find research materials, form a logical argument based on the evidence and make a persuasive presentation to their classmates. But since they do all that without copying anything down from the blackboard, they haven’t really learnt anything, have they?
10. The golden rule: If you ever let anybody think that Australian education is doing well, they won’t give you any gold to fix it.
Brilliant! Having caught the good doctor’s performance, as lacklustre as it was on Difference of Opinion, I can attest to his use of repetition.
Maybe his book should be titled Simplification for Simpletons.
Come to think of it Dumbing Down is the perfect title.
24-karat, Mercurius. Beautiful.
Is Leo Sayer really making a comeback?
Mercurius; as others have said your comments are on the money.
A great piece of entertainment from Mercurius, who would have been a welcome addition to the recent Donnelly crucifixion on Difference of Opinion.
On that occasion, it would have been easier to have limited sympathy for Donnelly – if not for his position – had his crude ideological themes surfaced less frequently.
Are teachers really throwing the keys over the wall to the barbarians waiting at the gates? Or are we just continuing to squeeze schools rather than adequately fund them? The drive for efficiencies is fundamentally at odds with better teaching and learning.
“Are teachers really throwing the keys over the wall to the barbarians waiting at the gates? Or are we just continuing to squeeze schools rather than adequately fund them?”
Can’t we do both?
Darren, thanks for the compliment, but please don’t use the word “crucifixion” in connection with public debate. There’s enough politicians and hangers-on who have a Jesus complex already.
“Who’s really dumbing down the debate?”
Sky TV & the mainstream news organisations…:)
Not sure how I missed it the first time around, but that is one Golden Comment from Mercurius.
… and thanks to you digging it up Laura, I too have been spared missing it.
If you drop by this thread again Mercurius, I offer you my heartiest big-ups.
essential learnings
Gah, that’s dreadful.
Mercurius, let me add my voice to the chorus of admiration.