Ross Farrelly

Published on www.aussiecon.net , September 2006 Alain de Botton in his recent book How Proust can Change your Life points out that "An effect of reading ... is that once we've put the volume down and resumed our own life, we may attend to exactly the things which the author would have responded to had he or she been in our company." As Huxley put it in Brave New World, "You read, and you're pierced." Yes, he is talking about literature, but the more general point he is making is that what we read affects us. One implication of be Botton's observation is that writing is not a morally neutral activity. When we write, we produce a text which will deeply affect the reader. There are strict laws governing the production of food stuffs which demand that the label show all the ingredients. The aim is that the consumer may accurately ascertain the likely effect the consummation of the food product in question will have on his or her constitution. There are...

Published on www.mercatornet.com , September 2006 Children find the classics relevant and interesting if they are taught properly. Parents who wish their children to learn something of the classics of English literature at high school must be tearing their hair out in the state of Western Australia. It would be a travesty if school students were directed to study the reality television show Big Brother during the precious few hours they have in the English classroom. However the state's curriculum council has gone one better, suggesting that students study the ads screened during this program. This tragic situation is a result of the post-modern view that any text is as good as any other, that there is no absolute truth and that no books have anything meaningful to say about the human condition. Homer Simpson is thought to be as good as Homer’s Odyssey and students end up wasting precious time watching the ads screened during Big Brother when they could be studying George Orwe...

This is the second part of an article co-authored with Naomi Smith, first published in Sydney's Child . This year, more than ever we have seen a distinct trend towards the centralisation of education policy. The federal government, principally through its education minister Brendan Nelson, is intent on wresting the responsibility for education from the states and exerting its influence on every classroom in Australia.  Strangely enough, this policy is at odds with the Liberal’s philosophy of decentralisation, small government and deregulation. In many policy areas they recognise that competition and minimal government control is best for consumers. Take for example these comments on superannuation by Malcolm Brough, the Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer in the final session of parliament for the year. Today we are here to talk about choice. … This side of the House actually believes [the Australian people] have the capability to choose for themselves, and th...

Hardly a day goes by during which we are not told by someone that standards of one description or another are slipping. Basically, things are not as good as they used to be. Whether it’s the absence of values in public schools , a decline in civility in the general community , school-boy antics in parliament , increasing criminal activity on the streets or race riots at Cronulla, according to many commentators, Australia is inexorably doing away with many of the standards of civilised behaviour we once cherished. However, it is informative to explore what exactly we mean by “standards” and the alleged descent associated with them. Here I will examine the question as it relates to K-12 education in Australia by looking at three interpretations of the “Standards are Slipping” mantra followed by some suggested responses. It is commonly assumed that there must be an agreed set of knowledge standards against which students performance must be measured. I will argue that the assumption is ...