Thursday, September 28, 2006

Outcomes based Education

For just a brief moment, I thought I had nothing to blog about. It was just a passing phase, didn't last more than a few seconds in fact.

Apparently the people in charge of education in Australia are escapees of the lunatic asylum.
There have been revelations of how English has been taught in Western Australia with literature deconstructed in a Feminist, Marxist perspective, and now I read about geography.

According to the moonbats setting the curriculum, geography is about "active participation and stewardship by applying the values of democratic processes, social justice, ecological and economic sustainability and peace".

This is a result of Outcomes based education. I don't know what it means but if it looks like shit, smells like shit then it must be shit.

Here's more, geography must focus on "the core value clusters of environmental responsibility, respect and concern for others, social and civic responsibility, self acceptance and respect of self while also developing the skills for the pursuit of knowledge and a commitment to achievement of potential".

In the textbooks produced by the Victorian Geography Teachers Association, members of the Australian Defence Force are described as "harm workers".

This is condensed from an article by Kevin Donnelly

but wait,

on the opposite page of the newspaper, there's a letter to the editor by Adam Graycar praising this Outcome based education.
Quote, " ...geography graduates were literate and numerate, they could understand the way in which our society is spatially organised, and there was also an understanding of people and place.They were able to examine how people and place fitted together and, as a result, contributed enormously to policy development and analysis."

If I had school aged children, I would immediately pull them out of school, put them to work so they could gain an achievement of potential, and let them find out in the real world how society is spacially organised. In fact if they had to work for a living, they might figure out how people and place fitted together.

Finally, I am willing anytime, anyplace, anywhere for no fee at all to contribute enormously to policy development and analysis.
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your comments on OBE are very insighful.
It is shit!

Listen to what the "moonbats" at the curriculum council think what computing (now called applied information technology) involves:
"
"The student applies standards and conventions considering cultural values and experiences of the intended audience, demonstrating a repertoire of techniques that highlights the interrelationships between technical competence and expressive qualities while using resources in a positive manner that demonstrates creative and innovative information solutions for a variety of audiences and purposes."

5:24 pm
Lexcen said...

RR, I hope you will excuse me while I go and throw up.

6:59 pm
Anonymous said...

There's plenty more where that came from:

Extract from the English COS:

Students communicate with confidence and evaluate what they hear, interacting responsively and critically in formal and informal situations; show sophisticated understanding of the power of oral communication in different contexts; and analyse and manipulate conventions to communicate for effect.

This will be evident when students:

• establish rapport with, accommodate, engage with, position, persuade and/or influence others through devices such as phrasing, allusion, analogy, anecdote and figurative language; negotiate effectively to achieve agreement or consensus and to resolve disagreement or conflict;


• synthesise ideas from a wide range of sources appropriately and effectively according to purpose; anticipate and pre-empt possible reactions, questions, misunderstandings, objections and/or counter-arguments; and

• guide oral interactions towards problem solving and use oral language to develop and extend common understandings; identify, challenge and support implicit beliefs, arguments, values and/or assumptions.

Is this english or some middle-management weasel-words bunched together?

12:03 am
Anonymous said...

OBE in WA is an abyssmal failure.
It is responsible for producing a generation of kids that can't read or write, with an appalling standard of basic mathematical skills and fundamentally ill-prepared for the workplace and the future.

4:24 pm

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