In which the pond enjoys a little learning with the poodle ...

Because, it has to be said, studying the past and deriving some understanding from it, is not a core skill, it's a useless skill. And actually knowing where you are on the planet, and something about the planet is just a deviant excuse for rampant greenie ideology, and it too is a useless skill ...

What we need is literarcy and numerarcy.

I see we have a doubting Thomas at the back of the class.

Thomas, tell the class why we need literarcy and numerarcy.

Please Miss, it's because we need to know how to count up our entitlements and then write for the newspaper how we're entitled and others aren't and it's best if it shows off good spelling Miss. Like this:

Parliamentary documents show [Education Minister Christopher Pyne] claimed taxpayer-funded business-class flights for three family members from Adelaide to Sydney on Boxing Day 2009, returning six days later, at a cost of $3843… 
While staying in Sydney at taxpayers’ expense, Mr Pyne filed an article to The Advertiser newspaper in Adelaide that mocked “jolly big spending” and criticised Labor government spending decisions while ordinary families struggled with the cost of living. “My family and many others will tighten our belts through January,” Mr Pyne wrote. “Yet … the federal government is still expanding fiscal policy."…

Very good answer Thomas.

Please Miss, might we also do some drama to enact the belt tightening? Put on a show? Have the poodle presenting a bowl of gruel and saying more please?

Sssh, Thomas, that's drama and has absolutely no place in the curriculum. Like the silly y'artz in general.

But can't we pose alongside a dozen flags while showing our commitment to the belt tightening? Count up the points of a flag to show how much we love the country?

Hush, Thomas that's history. Who cares about the points on a flag and what they mean? Who cares about the term "country"? That's far too geographical a concept. Thank the long absent lord, Thomas, you and what we used to call the country now has the poodle to show you kiddies the way forward:

Indeed, indeed. There's no doubt that primary schools are failing the children. Look at this typical example:

Bishop was educated at Roseville Public School, completing her primary education in 1954. Bishop undertook a five-year LL.B. program at the University of Sydney.However, she was deemed ineligible to continue after failing a number of subjects multiple times. Bishop failed a total of 11 subjects over six years. In her first year in 1960, she failed all four core subjects. In 1964, she failed four subjects again and repeated them in 1965, in which she failed three again. The policy of the University of Sydney at the time was that a student was required to show cause why they should be allowed to repeat a subject for a third time, and Bishop was deemed ineligible to continue. (Greg Hunt the links here).

And yet, and yet, you too child, could become the Speaker of the Land, and learn the subtle nuances of rorting, however much Roseville Public School might have failed you ...

Oh dear, all you produced was a horde of bloggers?

Never mind, on we blog with our intrepid educators. Now what about creativity?

Yes, it's absolutely wrong to have any actual understanding of the texts you're reading. Just be a little train and stick to the tracks, none of this romping in the meadows. What a dangerous fad, fancy noting the implications of Shylock ... why that verges on the perverted.

As for literarcy,  who needs herstory to understand the contxt in which peple wre writing, and what might have motivhated their writing?

Instead let's have some decent rote learning to hardwire children's brains for learning.

Well there goes creativity, flying out the window ...

Study hard, learn by rote, and you can end up as a circumscribed dullard in the school of Donnelly, surely the most hapless and ideological goose doing the rounds, bearing a PhD but with not a clue about what makes for an entrepreneurial capitalist spirit ... instead sucking on the teat of government with reviews, and reviews of the reviews ...

But as a result, you can learn, by rote, lots of splendid information.

Now class, repeat after the pond:

Poodle good, Abbott great, Poodle good, Abbott great ...

History bad, geography, greenie,, Donnelly good ...

Repeat until full of larning ...