The Herald Sun’s education expert, Andrew Bolt, shares his thoughts on reports that Aboriginal students in year 9 are not performing as well as their peers in standardised literacy testing:
A culture of dysfunction
Where are the parents in this? Where are the tough programs to crack down on absenteeism? Where the ruthless determination to stamp out the fetish for teaching in Aboriginal languages?
Of course, the solution to every problem is to get tough on something. But what if we took a moment to consider the problem beyond simple sound bites.
When asking “Where are the parents” you also need to ask whether the parents themselves have adequate literacy skills to be able to make a contribution to their children’s learning. How can you demand that a parent help improve their children’s literacy if their own education failed them? Instead of getting tough, shouldn’t we be offering support? Wouldn’t we get a double payoff if we helped raise the literacy skills of adults in our community while demonstrating the importance of reading to their kids?
As for “tough programs to crack down on absenteeism” has Andrew considered the possibility that if we make school a better experience for kids, they’ll be more likely to want to come? Other causes of absenteeism are often related to financial problems, having no money for transport, school uniforms or breakfast makes getting to school a challenge. Instead of “getting tough”, how about trying to improve people’s life skills? Give them the resources to manage their home better and not only are you likely to see absenteeism drop, but kids absorb the lessons as well.
And while Andrew demands a “ruthless determination to stamp out the fetish for teaching in Aboriginal languages”, research in Victoria finds that:
learning a second language can enhance a child’s ability to think and reflect upon language which improves their reading readiness. Furthermore, studies show that a child who learns that meaning can be represented in more than just one way, through exposure to another language, gains valuable insights into the nature of language which can subsequently benefit their English literacy skills.
So instead of “getting tough” on native Australian languages, and potentially allowing them to become extinct, wouldn’t it be better to rely on the evidence that they can actually enhance literacy?
“Getting tough” isn’t a solution to education problems. The fact that 46% of Australian adults have difficulty with reading skills(.pdf) is evidence that there was no golden age when education worked brilliantly for everyone. It’s time for columnists like Andrew Bolt to admit that “getting tough” is a poor substitute for getting results, and support the people who devote their lives to educating others, rather than viewing education through their own uninformed, ideological filters.
38 Comments
I don’t know why he protests too much. There’s every chance that those who are poorly educated will go on to be of a conservative mindset. I suspect that knowledge of this forms the rationale behind conservatives’ ideological antagonism to public education.
Oh, for $$#@!!!!!^&*^%%#. What a &^%^^^%$##!!!!! t**l!!!!!
I wonder how he feels about f**king Latin?
So, indigenous culture and history should play no part in the education of indigenous children?
What a $###@!!! $$$%wipe.
I don’t know how you manage to retain your sanity every day, getting across this type of egregious nonsense from someone to claims to be so much more “cultured” and “worldly” than the average leftist bearded barbarian.
Jesus Christ on a f**king cross.
I’d go further than that, and posit that “getting tough” is a time-tested way of explicitly avoiding having to think about or do anything about the problems. It’s an anti-answer which abnegates investigation, understanding, or care. It’s a response which denies the very possibility of any other response than getting a bigger stick — if those kids aren’t learning, then either they really are that stupid,
or elseand we need a bigger stick to beat them with, and there’s always a bigger stick to try. It’s the instinctive reflex of a bully, and pretty much guaranteed not to do anything to solve the problem, but instead to put the blame for failures of a system onto the victims of that failure.But still, sure, while as a policy it’s pretty much guaranteed to epically fail in the stated intent of improving school attendance and educational outcomes, but by God it works in its implicit intent of stirring up the anti-intellectual bullies with a bit of victim blaming and “being beaten with a hockey stick by my form master never did me any harm” psychopathy.
Frankly, I’d rather that bullies and psychopaths weren’t setting education policy.
Where’s Bolta’s outrage about the white bogans and their parents who can’t read or write good?
Where’s his outrage at the pisspoor grammar of his stablemates? You would think there was a tax on verbs and pronouns the way McCrann is so stingy with them.
Declining literacy standards — it’s why the News trabloids are written at a 8th grade level.
So long as English is taught to the children (let’s face it, it is Australia’s lingua franca), does it matter that they learn another language?
I recall being taught French, German, and Japanese in high school – where is Bolt’s outrage about that? I don’t think anyone is suggesting the children be taught in another language without learning English, so any sh%t-stirring he’s doing on that is (surprise, surprise) lacking foundation.
“Getting tough” in the conservative mantra, much like “advertising campaign” is for liberals.
Interesting to look at the chronology of the half-hearted “on again off again” approach to bilingual education in the NT in recent decades at – http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20090914/language/chronology.htm
Interesting, too, to look at the data presented by Brian Devlin, which make it clear that the arguments presented against bi-lingual education in terms of negative effects on literacy simply arise from selective presentation of data and the comparison of oranges with apples. See http://www.ns.uca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Evidence-in-Bilingual-Education1.pdf for example.
The primary motivations, it seems to me, for attacks on bilingual education are two-fold. Firstly, running good bi-lingual programs requires education departments to invest in good teacher recruitment and appropriate training processes, the engagement of additional Aboriginal staff, and other appropriate resourcing. It makes it harder for education departments to take a “one size fits all” approach to education.
Secondly bi-lingual education is an anathema to those monocultural zealots who believe the 1940′s and 50′s rhetoric of complete assimilation into the dominant culture is the only “proper” course for Aboriginal groups(or migrants, too, for that matter). Bilingual education, from their perspective, has the unfortunate side effect of strengthening traditional structures, making it easier to see their relevance for both students and outsiders alike. Heaven forbid, it can help to show that there is true worth in world views other than that of the Bolts of this world, and to show students that there own culture is not simply seen by the rest of the world as some sort of useless vestige from the past, to be discarded as fast as humanely possible!
Funny how those who bemoan things like loss of parental authority, and of increases in things like substance abuse that so often stem in a large measure from perceptions of personal worthlessness and purposelessness, are almost invariably those who want to pursue courses of action that are guaranteed to further exacerbate such things.
This is just stuff to keep his gallery of prostatic dribblers happy. One would be seriously mistaken if one thought it was published because he actually cares what happens to Aboriginal people or their children…unless of course, those people are guilty of getting disproportionate amounts of assistance; then the poor disadvantaged white folks will have Andrew to rail against “this reverse racism that has no place in Australia etc etc”.
Just by the way, those who want to further their understanding of this issue should read the AIATSIS Research Discussion paper “Gaps in Australia’s Indigenous Language Policy: Dismantling bilingual education in the Northern Territory” by Jane Simpson, Jo Caffery, and Patrick McConvell – three eminent figures in Australian linguistics who between them have knocked up around a hundred years of experience with NT indigenous groups.
You can download it from http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/research/docs/dp/DP24.pdf
If politicians based more of their action on advice from people like Jane, Jo and Patrick, and less on the knee jerk populist nonsense of those like Bolt, we’d really begin to get somewhere in areas like this.
This is the same commentator who sees red if ‘the role of Christianity in building Australia’ isn’t promoted in history classes. Apparently, that’s ‘neglecting the culture that nurtured us’…or something. But including Aboriginal languages for Aboriginal children? That’s ‘dangerously devisive’.
Bolt is a c#$%^%$d.
For many people especially in remote communities English is, always was and always will be a second language. If Bolt or anyone else doesn’t like it they can get fucked. What are they gonna do – ban blackfellas from speaking in language? That happened before, not just in Australia.
If anyone is into banning languages you can fuck thalamh agus bás tú ceann coileach dúr redneck.
“Where are the parents”… sometimes I’d like to berate his parents for {Snip}
Ok lets look at the facts here – this report shows that in the important aspects – early on – literacy rates are improving beyond expectations among young kids. Thats important, and is a real positive. Bolt ignores this and prefers to concentrate on the negatives.
Thats typical of Bolts writing.
He is an oppressor in that he uses Master Suppression or Domination techniques in his writing, especially about indigenous people.
He makes them invisible – minimising the improvements to focus on the one negative result. By barely mentioning the startling improvement among younger indigenous students he is hiding them from his audience, making them invisible. IN Bolt’s world indigenous people and any success on their own terms do not seem exist. Presumably tho, some of the parents of yr 9 indigenous kids also have indigenous kids in younger age groups. So it seems he is ignoring this. Attacking parents who may in fact have younger children. If he was a fair man he would have also complimented those parents of indigenous kids in yrs 3 to 7.
Instead he ridicules the parents – asking where they are – and the culture – “Culture of dysfunction” “the fetish for teaching in Aboriginal languages?”
Indigenous people reading this will be shamed cos he has withheld any realisation of informatiion about success – the fact that rates are increasing is not celebrated but minimised or implied to be not happening via a quote from a reader. They are being blamed in this article for failing despite the fact that the results of the surveys show an improvement.
This a terrible double bind to be put in if you’re a blackfella reading this. It doesn’t matter what success your community has its isn’t good enough.
Finally he uses violent imagery throughout the few lines he writes, around 40 words in all.
Of those approximately 40 words over a quarter are violent and aggressive:
“the tough programs to crack down” “the ruthless determination to stamp out”
Thats a bit like me saying fuck thalamh agus fhaigheann tú bás contúirteacha gráin líonta ceann coileach to Mr Bolt.
Its aggressive and rude.
Absolute tripe.
Shut the hell up, Jester.
It must be “get tuff week” or something in wingnut heaven….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/08/3238640.htm
Perhaps he could “get tough” on the profound illiteracy and innumeracy of the people who comment on his blog.
I think you’ve misinterpreted part of Bolt’s argument: he hasn’t objected to teaching Aboriginal children the Aboriginal language, he’s objected to teaching them in the Aboriginal language.
As I understand it, he’s saying that schools that allow Aboriginal to be used as the primary teaching language are disadvantaging their kids since there is a paucity of teaching resources available in that language.
In other words there aren’t a lot of Physics text books written in Aboriginal.
I doubt that even Bolt would insist that schools be prevented from teaching Aboriginal students the Aboriginal languages as a subject choice.
We Wil Get Tuf On Lefty Taechers!
Hell yeah! Act like a cheap steak, and get tough!
Don’t you people understand? The problem is clearly with with society and its complete lack of values and morals (in which case we need a crackdown), only when it isn’t and it’s entirely the fault of the individual or their parents (in which case we need to get tough.)
Mondo, I understand the distinction that you’re raising, and I still think that it’s problematic. All that I’ve read about bilingual schools for Indigenous kids have them being taught for half a day at most in their traditional language. It’s usually aimed at the lower grades and done in subject areas where the resources can be taught in either language. I haven’t read of anyone advocating teaching HSC physics in any language other than English.
The point of teaching in local languages is that these kids have been raised in those languages, and you’re not going to encourage either the school experience or a fluency of English by making them come in, sit down, and be taught from day one in a language which is basically foreign to them.
Teaching in Language in Primary school at the very least gives those kids something to hook into, and uses that as a means of teaching English, which is, as has been pointed out, needed for later secondary studies and for access to the world outside the communities. Sure, there is little in the way of academic texts in, eg., Pitjanjara, but basic literacy and numeracy shouldn’t be that much of a problem.
But if the kids are dragged to school and dumped in front of some whitefella speaking a language they don’t understand, then they will be instilled with a hatred of school intense enough to ensure that the question of what language year 12 physics is taught in simply won’t be an issue.
Mondo, have a read of the Simpson et al article I linked to earlier.
As they point out very cogently where remote NT communities are concerned one part of the problem lies in the fact that the first language – the “mother tongue” – of the kids in these communities is not English, and this presents different educational challenges, which we tend to recognise to some extent when it comes , for example, to the children of immigrants , and adopt means to overcome, but which generally gets ignored with remote Indigenous communities. THis manifests, as they say, in:
” the failure of policy- makers to recognise that children who are monolingual in a language other than English need explicit teaching of the English language, by trained English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, before they can learn through English as the medium of instruction ” and
“the failure to recognise the social and cognitive benefits of bilingualism, the belief that nothing special needs to be done to teach Indigenous children English other than to talk at them in English, the confusion between learning to write a language and learning another language, and finally the belief that home languages and cultures are an add-on, something that happens on weekends, rather than something which schools should engage in.”
I doubt that Bolt really understands anything at all about teaching in such circumstances.
A better question is why the invaders didn’t learn aboriginal languages and why it is that aborigines are forced to learn the language of the invaders.
Bolt {Snip – we can’t speculate on what he’s thinking – Dave} and he has become completely ridiculous.
Talking about getting tuff, now Abbott is talking about tougher criteria for asylum seekers, but the only criteria is set in concrete and has been since 1954 when it became legally binding.
Why is it with these migrants that they think they have the right to break our laws? If the migrants in our parliament don’t want to uphold our laws they should be deported.
Hi Dave. At the very least the distinction renders the evidence you’ve provided about the benefits of learning a second language moot: Bolt does not actually advocate against Aboriginal children being taught a second language.
As far as the efficacy of teaching in both Aboriginal and English I can’t really comment as I have no experience in that area. Perhaps it is as effective as a standard ‘English language’ approache (perhaps it is even more effective).
However if the kids who are attending these classes are returning poor literary scores then I think a causative link shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.
@jules:
While it may look right when fed through Google Translate and back again, it doesn’t quite work as Gaeilge.
Maybe something more native like: “Téigh go dtí hIfreann, a amadáin, agus faigh bás leis an Diabhail”
(Note to mods: that line is swearing like a sailor in Irish.)
In one hundred years, educational historians will look back at the debate on teaching in the indigenous language, from what will be the context of a tragically diminished linguistic diversity across the globe, and wonder how STUPID could we have been to even QUESTION it.
It WORKS!! It’s WORTH IT!!!! The evidence is THERE!!!! Debate over, MOVE ON!!!! AND THANKS TO THIS BLOODY THREAD I NOW HAVE THE CAPS LOCK STUCK
What I really like about that thread is the list of concrete suggestions. Clearly he’s somebody taking an interest in the solutions, rather than simply taking advantage of the problem. I’m pretty sure our departments of education are going to be printing out that work of wisdom and putting it into practice right away.
I’d suggest some options myself, except I’ve never spent any time in the areas being discussed, I know nothing first-hand about the reasons why kids aren’t turning up, or are turning up and failing, and … yeah, I have to admit it, it does’t really affect me directly anyway. It doesn’t matter what I say – it’d be all care and no responsibility. You know, it’s almost like I could be writing a blog for NEWS …
Catsidhe it looked slightly insane when fed back thru the translator actually. I would have got a neighbour to help but he was out. But then I realised it actually reinforced my point, which is:
See this is what happens when languages are banned.
Thanks for the correction tho. Its important to get this stuff right.
It WORKS!! It’s WORTH IT!!!! The evidence is THERE!!!! Debate over, MOVE ON!!!!
Shouldn’t the relatively poor results for literacy amongst Aboriginal children cause you to question this conclusion?
Can Bolt’s parents please explain how a person in a writing career, such as their son Andrew, could display such poor critical literacy? For an adult whose role it is to critique, is this not essential? With his nice, privileged white background, one would expect he’d have no excuse. Sure Andrew is literate, but he doesn’t demonstrate critical literacy*.
And Andy dear, if you don’t know the difference between literacy and critical literacy then you just continue to prove the point. I have sound critical literacy which is how I can tell what you say is bull. Unfortunately most Hun readers don’t.
*The unfortunate alternative is that he is critically literate and simply chooses to knowingly misrepresent the truth. I am giving him the benefit of the doubt. Idiot or liar Andrew, what will it be?
Mondo in 1999 the benchmark literacy level for indigenous yr3 students was less than 2/3. In 2010 it was over 3/4. That suggests that steps being taken to address indigenous illiteracy are having some success.
One of those steps is the teaching of indigenous kids in language if that language is their first language and English isn’t.
and yet!
Only if one can tie that directly to the bi-lingual teaching and not, say, to the variety of other socioeconomic differences the children in question have to mono-lingual schools.
narc , BOTH .
Shouldn’t the relatively poor results for literacy amongst Aboriginal children cause you to question this conclusion?
Shouldn’t your quite evidently poor research in this area cause you to question your own assumptions?
ReturnedMan – Is the evidence somewhere the rest of us can see it? This sounds like good stuff.
It’s a few years ago that I looked at this stuff in very close detail, but I’ll see if I can find some of the research that I studied then. There has been a lot of misinformation bandied about between then and now, and the Jester has obviously bought into it.
I wonder if the Jester would say the same thing about bilingual Welsh education policies. Has this endeavour been to the detriment of school children’s progress in Wales?
That is absolutely the last thing that Bolt wants to see….