Schools - values
John Howard’s comments on public/private schooling were designed to muddy the waters, and they have. I’m going to separate my thoughts into four areas for clarity: funding, values, discipline and sundry. Here is the second instalment.
Values
This week, John Howard criticised the state school system for being both “too politically correct” and “too values neutral”. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the two points are contradictory, and that Howard is really upset that students are not being indoctrinated in Liberal dogma. Tony Abbott said that tolerance “is a good value, but sometimes I think that in modern Australia we end up tolerating the intolerable.” Like Howard, he refused to give specific examples. Dog-whistle politics again.
Tim Blair joined in by criticising a government-commissioned report that found state school values were not as bad as Howard would like us to think:
“Tolerance and understanding, social justice and respect” sound like exactly the sort of vague, valueless PC values [sic] the Prime Minister is complaining about. This report doesn’t contradict him; it supports him.
Needless to say, Blair hadn’t actually read the study (pdf: report, summary), just a one-line summary in a newspaper article. If he had done some research, he would know that the values espoused by both state and private schools go far beyond tolerance (summary, pp16-17):
Tolerance and understanding (Accepting other people’s differences and being aware of others).
Respect (Treating others with consideration and regard).
Responsibility — personal, social, civic and environmental (Being
accountable for and in charge of a course of action — responsibility for one’s own actions, including the exercise of self-discipline; responsibility for the way in which one interacts and cooperates with others especially for resolving differences in constructive, non-violent and peaceful ways; responsibility for one’s role in and contribution to society; and responsibility for one’s own role in the maintenance and preservation of the environment).Social justice (Being committed to the pursuit and protection of the common good where all persons are entitled to legal, social and economic fair treatment).
Excellence (Seeking to accomplish something noteworthy and admirable individually and collectively, and performing at one’s best).
Care (Caring for self and showing interest in, concern for and caring for others).
Inclusion and trust (Being included and including others, listening to one another’s thoughts and feelings actively and creating a climate of mutual confidence).
Honesty (Being truthful and sincere, committed to finding and expressing the truth, requiring truth from others, and ensuring consistency between words and deeds).
Freedom (Enjoying all the rights and privileges of citizenship free from unnecessary interference or control, and standing up for the rights of others; ensuring a balance between rights and responsibilities).
Being ethical (Acting in accordance with generally agreed rules and/or standards for right [moral] conduct or practice).
What’s more, allegations from John Howard, Tim Blair and other bloggers that teachers’ values are out of step with the community are not borne out by actual research. The Values Education Study surveyed students, teachers and parents from primary, secondary, government, Catholic and independent schools, and asked them various questions about values education. The most striking feature of the results is the broad consensus on which values are most important (parents and staff are almost entirely in agreement, students are only slightly different). Using the table of results on p220 of the report, I produced a graph to show how similar the groups were:
Some interesting features to note:
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Parents and teachers share the same top five values: responsibility, respect, honesty, tolerance and equality.
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Staff are far more likely to want parental involvement in values education than the parents themselves.
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“Peace” was ranked seventh by students, eleventh by staff, and tenth by parents.
Values are dealt with in pretty much the same way by parents and teachers, state and private schools. So what’s the difference?
As Professor Richard Teese argues, the difference is in the relative success of the schools:
What distinguishes young people in terms of their moral development - how well they relate to themselves and to others in an ethical sense - is not the type of school they attend. It is how well they do at school, whatever its type. The higher the level of student achievement, the stronger their self-esteem, the greater their caring attitude to others, and the firmer their sense of community responsibility.
This difference is, I think, largely driven by discpline problems in state schools, which I will address in my next schools post.
I think it’s number 10 that the coalition aparchicks (sic) fear the most - should widespread education of ethics be encouaraged amongst the godless masses, the god-given right to exploit, lie and abuse as per Howard’s regime of ignorance since 96 gets called into question. Should etyhics not be taught, those in rich rpivate shcools are educated to take what is rightfully their’s, whilst the poor are taught to accept their lot and, even though I went to a working class private school, taken down to sign up at social security during thier final week of school.
Robert,
Your inability to comprehend basic English is rapidly turning this into a humour site.
“Tolerance and understanding, social justice and respect” sound like exactly the sort of vague, valueless PC values [sic] the Prime Minister is complaining about. This report doesn’t contradict him; it supports him.
There is nothing even remotely critical of the report in the above TB quote. The gratuitous sic - I assume you cut and pasted the quote, so what are the chances that it would be unfaithful to the original? - was typical. Is it intentional that every time you whip out your monstrous analytical dick to show off to everybody you end up tripping over it?
Oh Snidely, leave TB to defend himself. Your insider position enables you to make a valuable contribution to the discussion. And Rob, it might be wise to stop goading Blair. He’s got nothing positive to contribute, and when he rises to the bait (as he always does) it only results in more heat and less light. Leave him festering away with his dittoheads.
So zoot, do you reckon Robert uses a spade or a shovel to dig these holes he continually finds himself in?
S Whiplash, a teacher in the public school system, has expressed (in other comments threads) his belief that lack of student discipline prevents him from delivering quality education to his classes. (Snidely - have I encapsulated it accurately?) Given Robert’s last sentence I’m probably jumping the gun, but I would like to offer the following for discussion.
I travelled through the public education system during the fifties. In primary school I was never in a class of less than fifty students; my final primary year the class consisted of 54 children. Under the circumstances I would guess that 10 or so of them were functionally illiterate when they left school. Correct me if I’m wrong Snidely, but I don’t believe any teacher can deliver quality tuition to classes of that size.
In high school the class sizes remained at around fifty souls for the first three years. There were discipline problems but they were rare and well contained, nothing like the modern day horror stories Snidely tells. I’m sure part of this was due to the application of corporal punishment (which I don’t agree with) but I think other factors were more important.
Most students finished their schooling the year they turned fifteen. They knew they only had to put up with the bullshit until that time and they would be free to leave and get a real job. Contrast that with the prospects for students today, where they are forced to continue to year 12 before they go onto Unemployment Benefit. Is it any wonder they become nihilists?
The other important factor is home environment. Snidely has touched upon this in his comments and I agree that the values within the students homes largely determine their attitudes within the classroom. I don’t think it’s the dribblings of an old man to say that these values have deteriorated over the years due to a number of forces (not the least of which is the emphasis on the individual as espoused by Mrs Thatcher and her acolytes).
All of this begs the question of how we repair public education. Even if the problems are confined to a minority of schools they still need to be addressed.
How do we support people like Snidely Whiplash who choose to stay and teach within the public system? I’m sure he’s not still there purely because of inertia. I like to think that somewhere within his prickly exterior there exists a touch of idealism that believes in public education and wants to make it work. I hope I’m right.
The only suggestions I can come up with involve allocating more resources to schools, maybe there are more creative solutions out there. One obvious step would be to isolate the troublemakers (and the troubled?) so that everybody else could get on with their job. Be up front about the fact that they are only being held at school to make the unempoyment figures look better and supply them with video games and pool tables (it’s a joke Joyce!).
Snidely has said that after school detention would be useful, but it depends on teachers volunteering for unpaid overtime. Would it help if teachers were paid to supervise such detention? I dunno, but if anyone comes up with a coherent scheme I’ll quite happily lobby my state and federal MPs.
zoot,
My compliments on a very thoughtful post.
Just a couple of quick comments before I turn in. I’ve had classes of 34 that were no problem at all. On the other hand, I’ve had classes of year 10 “spuds” with only six kids - there were more on the roll but mostly they didn’t bother to show up - where I regularly got a real workout. The problem isn’t that the kids give me crap; mostly they don’t. The problem is that they do no work and amuse themselves by being silly, loud and destructive. Also, they refuse to accept responsibility for their actions, which can be really annoying.
Detention is one of the few discipline options available but as it’s a reactive measure its efficacy is questionable.
I still have ideals but realistically it’s not possible to see past my goal of surviving each day with my sanity intact.
I’m going to give the whole public education package a bit more thought with a view to sending a piece to Wendy James at troppoarmadillo.
Tim Blair quotes the Prime minister as saying the following regarding values as one of the factors parents might consider when choosing a school: (my bold throughout)
People are looking increasingly to send their kids to independent schools for a combination of reasons. For some of them, it’s to do with the values-driven thing; they feel that government schools have become too politically correct and too values-neutral.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines “politically correct” as: “conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated”. Based on this definition it seems to me that “politically correct” and “values-neutral” have the same meaning, or at least should within the public education context.
You then criticise Tim Blair for “criticising a government-commissioned report that found state school values were not as bad as Howard would like us to think”. Mr Blair does not criticise the report, he simply observes that, based on some of the language contained in the report, it seems that the report confirms that “valueless PC values” are being taught in public schools. You then attempt to nail Mr Blair — you do realise that I’m speaking figuratively here, don’t you? — by referring to the report.
The Values Education Study, is not a study of the values being taught in schools. This is clearly established in the report’s introduction which states, “The study was designed to: enable schools to develop and demonstrate current practice in values education; provide an informed basis for promoting improved values education in Australian schools; and make recommendations on a set of Principles and a Framework for improved values education in Australian schools”. Thus, the report has no relevance, none, to the ongoing values discussion.
The study reports on only 50 values education case studies undertaken at a total of 69 schools. These case studies were funded by the study as action research. In other words, funding was provided to the participating schools which then developed values education programs that became part of the study. There is no discussion in the report — at least not in the executive summary — of the values education programs, if any, existing in the schools outside of the study.
The study also examined the available values education literature and conducted research “via focus groups and a password-protected online survey to determine parent, teacher and student views on the values the community expects Australian schools to foster”. It should be obvious — you did actually read the report, didn’t you? — that the report does not look at existing values education programs: examining the literature and canvassing community expectations gives no insight into what is actually being taught in public schools.
The report even cautions: “While the research undertaken as part of this overall Values Education Study can only claim to provide a snapshot of practices and approaches, the results are instructive. The results from 50 case studies in 69 schools, the literature review and the online survey inform the preliminary Principles and Framework for improved values education outlined in this report”. The report is seen as nothing more than possibly helpful in the development of future values education programs.
In castigating Tim Blair for not reading the report you state that, had he read the report, “he would know that the values espoused by both state and private schools go far beyond tolerance”. Since the study does not look at the values currently being taught in school it is impossible to draw this conclusion. The 10 values you indicate as espoused by schools are actually values that the report recommends “be considered as a ‘discussion starter’ in Australian schools, when working with their school communities on values education”.
These 10 shared values were determined through a survey of only 129 parents, 431 students and 135 staff from 20 schools. The report states that, “The survey therefore represents a limited but instructive snapshot of school community opinions”. The survey offered a list of 28 values from which those surveyed were to pick 10 values that they felt schools should foster. It is hardly surprising that responders provided similar responses given that responders valued the survey enough to respond to it. (I would argue that almost any group of reasonably responsible persons, if given the list of 28 prospective values would pick the same top 10 values. What are the chances that values like “empathy”, “economic values” and “competitiveness” are going to make the top 10? Also, there appears to be no breakdown of how many students from which schools responded to the survey. For all I know the vast majority of students, teachers and parents responding to the survey were from private schools.) Also, did problem students and uncaring parents bother to respond? Did functionally illiterate students and their likely literacy challenged parents respond? This is a very iffy survey indeed.
It is instructive to note that the report provides only six student responses (page 217) to an open ended question regarding how values education is presented at their schools. Student responses like, “Teachers share values with kids” and “There is no set values education in our school. There are some rules followed that could relate to values but no high standard of values are put in place and practiced” and “Well for one thing, we have a virtue week that kinda [sic] teaches us about values and my two teachers are always talking about how goals and values are important” seem to me to be supportive of Mr Howard’s observations regarding values education.
Mr Corr, it seems that you didn’t put much effort into your research. Or, were you deliberately trying to mislead your readers?
Whiplash, thankyou for your comments. I’m a little bit tipsy at the moment, having just stumbled home from a garden party, but if I’ve read you right the essence of your complaint is that the VES did not address what values are taught in schools, but rather which should be taught. Fair enough, but I haven’t come across any other studies into this area, and certainly none that suggest government schools are out of step on values.
I linked to Teese’s article, in which he argues (based on other research) that there is little difference between the sectors:
I understand that these are just academics talking about schools, but the government hasn’t provided any contrary evidence. (Neither, for that matter, have you.) Where is the study that argues the opposite?
When Howard was asked what values he thought were lacking in public schools, he declined to comment. When Abbott was asked what intolerable things public schools were tolerating, he declined to comment. Why do they refuse to back up their assertions?
I’m not complaining, I trying to get through to you that, in my opinion - and you’ve posted nothing to convince I’m wrong - your original post is nonsense. Further, not only did you get it wrong - again - you refuse to acknowledge that fact - again.
Whiplash, in order to deal with some of the points you have raised — they are indeed significant — I will proffer a brand new post on school values when I’ve recovered from the long weekend. I trust yours was as enjoyable as mine?
Yes, I had a very enjoyable Australia Day long-weekend, thankyou. For me - also an immigrant - Australia Day is the time to reflect on what’s great about Australia and being an Australian.
You must have had a very rough weekend indeed if you still haven’t recovered enough to respond to the “significant” points I raised earlier. No doubt you vast readership is keenly anticipating your demolition of my post.
Have a nice day.
Am typing the post as we speak.
Yippee.
You’ll have to wait a while longer, I’m afraid, I’m going to watch the tennis for a while. I bet you’re on the edge of your seat now…