I am a tired mother. I am a sick-of-the-washing mother. I am a placate with tiny teddies for a few minutes of peace mother. I’m a read to my kids every night mother. I don’t know if I’m the kind of mother Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham thinks will be impressed by his latest policy suggestion that all Year One students sit a Literacy and Numeracy test. But in case there’s any doubt, I’ll be clear. I’m an opt-out mother for federally mandated testing.
There is no need for the Federal government to involve itself in student assessment practices. For a start, education in Australia is delivered by the States. New South Wales has its own Education Standards Authority that develops the syllabi in use in NSW classrooms. The funding for public schools is, for the most part, delivered by each State, and the Federal government has clearly stepped back from funding responsibilities with the latest 80:20 private/public funding split in the Gonski2 iteration. Federal government involvement in education is strings-attached. Neither of the major parties can dodge responsibility for playing puppets with children’s futures. Julia Gillard imported the concept of school-shopping via a website, (My School) from a similar initiative running in the American state of New York. The larger concept behind such a creation draws not from educational research or child psychology but from the same failed school of thought that brought us ‘trickle-down economics’ and ‘market provides’. As we have seen, inequality has only increased over the last thirty years, the market provides only to shareholders, and school choice - via school-shopping has splintered the Australian education sphere in irredeemable ways. Simon Birmingham, Julia Gillard, even the teachers’ favoured son, Adrian Piccoli, have left their mark on how education, teaching, and learning is understood in Australia. They have counted on parents being too tired to read the history, to tired to follow the money flows, and too scared to think of any other children’s future apart from their own. I am tired. And I am scared for what a (climate-compromised) future may hold. But I will not be placated by politicians that treat my children - or someone else’s - as their policy playthings. Our children have a real need for an educational experience that understands them as dignified human beings whose curiosity, desire for connection, and need to feel safe are part of their childhood. Our schools should be places where knowledge and understanding are cultivated, where needs are met, where teachers have the time and space to focus on the kids in their community. A politician who is more focused on tests than ending the inequalities facing Australian kids clearly reveals their compromised priorities.
0 Comments
I’m carrying my child like a football. All twenty months of her is tucked up under my armpit, mashed above my hip line, elbow locking her in, so I can grasp each of her wrists and propel her through water. “Paddle, paddle, paddle,” I grimly chortle, trying to add a sense of oh, this is so fun! to the experience. Except it isn’t. We both know it.
We started swimming lessons a term ago. She loved it. One of her favourite activities is to sit on the edge and fall in towards me, a splashing hug of a game. She knows I will catch her and delight spreads from her eyes to her smile each time. As the term went on, we parents - mostly mums, but there is an occasional dad, were encouraged to ease our class of little babies and toddlers into underwater activities. Games that were played head above the water line now had an extension activity. My task was to propel her like a baby dolphin diving in and through that wet-place-that-has-no-air before popping her out for a cheery congratulations. She’s no fool. She hated it. And I could tell from the way she’d turn her face away in disgust where she thought I could stick my all my ‘good girl’ affirmations. Last week, my little one balked at most of the activities. This week, she didn’t even want to play at all. Her teacher looked at me. I looked at her. Then she said something that made me want to hug her. This is not verbatim but it was something along these lines: Many parents are focused on achieving the most advanced skill in the quickest time. But dependence and trust in the water, with the caregivers, and with the teachers, needs to come first, before the kids can become autonomous. This message resonated with me beyond this moment in the water. I heard it echo in memories of the kids at the park on the weekend, pushing and climbing their way up a difficult rope ladder. I had to help my eldest make the final pull to the top. I asked her, Do you want to climb back down or do you want mummy to help you? With her consent I reached up my arm to give her the push she needed. Other kids chose to work their way carefully back down the rungs - not ready - or able, to fling themselves up on their own. Others scurried up so fast and with so much confidence they looked ready for that Ninja Warrior show. I heard the message of dependence and trust echo in memories of the classroom and my work in teaching. For the rest of the swimming lesson, I worked with my little one, showing her I understood her fears and respected her choice to reject the push towards advanced underwater skills. Once she realised I wasn’t going to push her under, I felt her muscles, tightly immobile in tension, relax again. She giggled and laughed as we played above the water. She was able to look at her teacher and interact with her instead of seeing her as a threat. Sometimes we forget that children are individuals with their own ways of navigating the world. Sometimes we are encouraged to forget that they each develop at their own pace and in their own way. A sense of safety in place, a sense of trust in caregivers and teachers, a sense of agency - that their will and needs and hopes and fears will be respected - matter. |