National Curiculum
POLITICAL AGENDA or Priority for the children and the nation??Judith Wheeldon(former head of two Syd private schools) writes of her concerns of the proposed national curriculum by the Australian Labour Party.
I think that the her positive overview of a K-12 curriculum is good because it encompasses all the stages of the young human's development - however this is not an article to explore the details of the how. Her concern for a lack in true scientific thinking prowess in our population and thus the populations' ability to make informed judgements on critical issues such as health and environment citing alternative medicine and the very real environmental problem of water are very astute - this concern supports one of the five major areas of curriculum priority = science. However it is our adult population who are voting and making choices - conscious or otherwise in relation to health and environmental living that address the 'inconvenient truths' - AL Gore.
How can a political agenda be truly supportive of the highest good of our children? Education is going to be a hot political topic because of the long term of the Liberal Government and its unashamed support of private schools in all its funding priorities - building, subsidies, equipment etc.
Parents of children going to State Public Schools have felt the lack of resources for some time now and are very aware of the Liberal Government's biases. The Labour Government in addressing education and advocating National Curriculum with funding given to schools who implement their guidelines.
These parents are a large portion of the voting population. The competition in the job market is very real and the separation between the service class and the educated class is well addressed in Richard Florida's discussion about the creative economy and the prejudice to a better education for the wealthy which encourages the loss of talent from poorer families migrants etc. who have no benefit of a 'good' education.
Wheeldon points out that the Labour Government have omitted the Creative Arts in its Curriculum priorities, I think this an excellent observation, it seems the policy writers have not an understanding of the wealth of applicable creative thinking and scientific integration the arts manifest . I think her article addresses the whole agenda of politics by innuendo - I believe the LOCAL to GLOBAL argument is not considered in politics. It is STATE or COUNTRY and arguments that do not address Global Community or Local Geographic Community are seriously lacking. Narrowing our vision to a competitive player in the world (OECD) does not address the bigger problems we face as a planet.
Though Wheeldon's article is very insightful and clearly objective, the content is limited in itself by the priorities of our National Agenda and the focus of the "political" arena .
The 'voting' population is uninformed and very susceptible to propaganda, and largley influenced by popular media. Our overall lack of scientific thinking - as cited, and ability to "get" the global picture make us potential pawns in our own unconscious future.
posted by kushli @ 3:06 PM
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