In the news today:
One in three Australian school students is not meeting literacy and numeracy benchmarks, and more than one in ten need additional support, the 2024 NAPLAN results show.
"In plain English, one third of Australia's children are not on track with their learning," the Grattan Institute's education director Jordana Hunter said.
Experts say the scores demonstrate the urgent need for classroom reforms, otherwise a significant part of a generation looks set to miss out on crucial foundational learning.
"It's almost half a million students around the country that are not where we need them to be," Dr Hunter said.
"The NAPLAN results are sending a pretty clear message. The question I have is 'are education ministers listening?'"
If the student hasn't learned, then the teacher hasn't taught. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the teachers, themselves, haven't learned.
I had a teacher write me a note a few days ago. The first thing I noticed was that she did not hold the pencil the right way. The next thing was she couldn't spell and, because it was about a monetary payment, she couldn't add up. She failed the three "r"s, so how could she possibly teach a class correctly. To add to the problem, she had 2 unruly young children.
If a teacher can't discipline her own and can't add up and spell correctly, what hope has she got of teaching others correctly. If she can't hold a pen or pencil correctly then how can she teach neat and easily legible writing.
I can remember when I was a young student, the day started with writing down 20 words and giving the answers to 10 mental arithmetic questions. We also had "copy" books to practice correct writing.
This isn't all the fault of teachers. A lot of the problems come from the home and the blame can be partly passed back to some of the parents.
