After the delights of a reptile fight and Dame Slap in full featherless flight, the pond wouldn't usually go a third course of reptile mania ... even as the reptiles maintain their SSM rage and the Bolter rushes to defend the Donald and the Dame ...
But while other reptiles fuss and feud there's always one the pond pays heed to ... dashing Donners ...
There's nothing like a literacy crisis to get the pond going, but then a hint of doubt crept into the pond when it saw the google ...
'Self-interest players'? They didn't, did they? They couldn't, could they? It was time to inspect the Donners' runes ...
'Self-interest players'? There it was again. But isn't 'self-interest' a noun? The pond rushed off to a dictionary and came across the Cambridge online here ...
Yes, there it was, a noun ... but can a noun be used to modify another noun, as in 'self-interest players'? The pond felt the ground shift beneath its feet, but yes, 'players' is a noun. Talk about 'mano-a-mano', 'noun-a-noun' ...
The pond was immediately plunged into a literacy crisis.
Wouldn't it perhaps have been better to use an adjective to modify a noun?
Perhaps 'self-interested players'?
The pond suspected that it had landed amongst dreadful relativists, post-modernist loons of the Humpty Dumpty kind ...
Clearly no one was willing to step up and pay a decent wage for "self-interested".
What's to be done?
Now living in a glass house, the pond won't throw stones at "the questionit has to be asked "Why?"
But it loves to play multiple choice questions.
Is the reason students in Shanghai, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Finland do well ...
(a) Silly befuddling befuddled Catholics have little to do with the education system;
(b) There's a strong government presence in education in each of those countries;
(c) None of these countries compare to the infinite wonders of a GOP education system;
(d) A Catholic education is an oxymoronic concept:
(e) A self-interested player is one who keeps banging on endlessly about the extraordinary wonders of a Catholic education.
Well it wouldn't be long before dashing Donners manages to yoke together Catholic and independent schools to claim a win. That's how specious rhetoricians work their specious logic ...
Indeed, indeed, as always, dashing Donners was worth the read, and let us not remind ourselves of how that 2014 review of the curriculum was an exercise in drop kick loserdom, if the pond might deploy an informal word ...
Now all that remains is for us to adopt the educational standards of the United States as a way to give Australia that much needed self-interest competitive edge ...
There's nothing like politics and religion when it comes to getting a good education ...
A good education will produce a keen sense of community ...
And of course a good education encourages a keen sense of personal responsibility ...
Donners: "Students in Shanghai, Singapore, South Korea. Japan and Finland consistently achieve the best results in literacy, numeracy and science tests and the question has to be asked "Why?""
ReplyDeleteA fine question indeed, DP to which you gave some excellent answers, though you didn't consider the possible effect of 'tiger mums' (and maybe even some 'lion dads') on the study habits of, in particular, east Asian students. Nor the Max Teichmann (IIRC) formula: teach 'em how to pass tests, set the tests for them to pass and congratulate each other on the result. Which I rather suspect happens in quite a few places around the world.
However, I would like to fly a different kite: it is said that approximately 21% of Australian people do not speak English at home. [ http://profile.id.com.au/australia/language ] Yet I would fondly imagine that all those wonderful NAPLAN etc tests would be set in English in Australia, wouldn't you ?
Now, consider Shanghai, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Finland - would 21% of citizens of those places not speak the national language at home ? Would that confer any overall test score advantage on those places compared with Australia perhaps ? Note: not an overall education advantage, just an advantage in scoring on a bunch of ill-designed tests. Which is why I think, contrary to Donners, that Australia is not about to collapse into total mediocrity.
There's no doubt about our Donners though, is there. A simple rule: if Donners likes it, then it must be wrong.