Curios of the week #62

Clippings, endnotes and other ephemera

thousands of clocks

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This week began with a pleasant walk around Lake Wendouree, the lake in the centre of Ballarat. It’s roughly six kilometres in circumference and worth the effort. Most days, you will see a mix of Ballarat citizens walking, jogging and cycling around the lake. Ballarat is a big running and cycling town.

I took some time out of the walk to stomp on acorns, when and where I could find them. Oak trees are not native but they have been planted quite frequently in this part of town. I learned that stomping on acorns is considered childish behaviour by some and. I am reliably informed it’s not good for my hips and I should know better.

This week’s Curios include worrying survey data, the effectiveness of jigsaw method, an unfashionable cause and much more.

AARE Blog post of the week

Last week, I found myself writing about a poorly edited AARE blog post. This week was the turn of the sequel. The new article, by Dan Harris, initially described as from the ‘School of Educatio,’ (sic) at RMIT, imagines a rift between two Australian ministers. The first is Jason Clare, who would really like kids to learn to read, write and do basic maths and is intent on reforming teacher education so trainee teachers don’t have to faff about quite as much. The second is Tony Burke, who is in charge of the ominous-sounding ‘National Cultural Policy,’ named, ‘Revive.’ This policy prioritises creativity and, as such, is in conflict with the approach pursued by Clare. Because reading, writing and maths are somehow antithetical to creativity. What?

Responding to a report about teacher education that Clare has signaled his intent to implement, Harris notes, “Creativity nor the arts are mentioned even ONE TIME in its entire 128 pages.” Which doesn’t make sense.

Harris continues with something, something, UNESCO Sustainability Goals, something:

“Australia is of course a signatory to the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals. Does a direct instruction approach align with SDG 3 ‘to ensure good health and wellbeing for all at all ages?’”

I don’t think we are supposed to conclude, “Yes, of course it does.,” but there we are.

What is interesting is what is missing. At no point to Harris attempt to explain why building students knowledge and skills through explicit teaching is somehow at odds with creativity. To them, it’s the water he swims in. It’s just obvious and no explanation is necessary.

LinkedIn post of the week

An Australian anti exclusions campaigner took to The Conversation to take issue with a school’s decision to expel two boys. The boys had been involved in making an excel spreadsheet ranking girls on the looks, with the rankings using appalling terms I am not going to repeat here.

I would never second guess a school’s decision in a case like this. The professionals involved would have access to much more information than has been reported in the media and so, unless I have a reason to do otherwise, I would trust their call.

However, to anti exclusions campaigners, exclusions are axiomatically bad. Hence the article which is a classic of its kind and revealing of the ideology that underpins it. I wrote about this on LinkedIn:

This is a good opportunity to remind you I am on LinkedIn and you can connect with me there.

Jigsaw method of the week

One of the groovy teaching strategies I was introduced to when training was the ‘jigsaw method’. The idea was that students would work in, say, five groups with each group learning about a different aspect of some topic. The groups would then be reordered so that each member of the new group was drawn from a different starting group. The new groups were then set a task that involved using all five aspects and so integrated the knowledge of each member.