Category Archives: Education

A decadent managerial culture has sunk its unwelcome claws into Australian private schooling Benjamin Crocker Getty Images Benjamin Crocker 12 August 2023 6:00 AM There is a disquiet in our elite private schools, and a growing army of would-be therapists have failed to calm it. A cursory look through newspaper education pages tells a sorryContinue reading “The expensive illness in Australia’s elite schools”

Is university still worth it? Ross Clark Features Ross Clark 19 August 2023 9:00 AM Imagine that, just as Britain was closing down for the first Covid lockdown in the spring of 2020, you were 18 years old and had received an offer from the university of your choice, subject to good exam results. TheContinue reading “Degrees of failure: the great university rip-off”

Conor Ross Getty Images Conor Ross 31 May 2023 5:00 AM Only in the world of English teaching could you leave an industry conference feeling more confused about the purpose of your discipline than when you arrived. This conference was held in February by VATE (The Victorian Association of Teaching English) bringing secondary English teachersContinue reading “What is the point of teaching English?”

Why We See So Many Horrid Little Activists Tony Thomas Who’s the most important educator of Australian schoolkids? The learned amongst us might nominate my fellow-(ex)journo Derek Scott, CEO of Melbourne’s Haileybury College and current chair of ACARA (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority). Nah, not him. My nomination is Jason Kimberley, whose dad, CraigContinue reading “Education”

Flat White Rod Lampard Pexels Rod Lampard 3 May 2023 7:00 AM One of the biggest benefits of homeschooling is the healthy distance home education puts between politics, their peers, and our kids. We live in an era where government is God and its priesthood is post-modernist partisan activism. A time when parents are told to restContinue reading “Homeschool, if you can”

Education Raymond Burns In recent weeks, BHP, Australia’s biggest mining company, has announced the Ngarrngga Project, an educational initiative aimed at “encouraging Indigenous knowledge experts and practicing classroom teachers to work collaboratively”. The project finds BHP partnered with the University of Melbourne, which is well known for its Indigenous Knowledge Institute. According to the promotionalContinue reading “Indigenising the Curriculum in Our Schools”

Education Tom Lewis The state of affairs across Australia’s schools sees teachers burdened with an enormous number of tasks above and beyond teaching. One of these is known as “pastoral care”, for which teachers are not trained. It is a massive addition to the workload, contributes to burnout and early departures from the profession. ConsiderContinue reading “Here’s a Novel Idea, Let Teachers Teach”

Flat White Beverley McArthur Getty Images Beverley McArthur 11 March 2023 4:00 AM There’s an old saying: It’s not what happens to you that matters, it’s what you do about what happens that matters. It makes you sit up and ponder, doesn’t it? It makes you question. But more than simple, or thought-provoking, it’s powerful. ItContinue reading “Victimhood: the inversion of evolution by social stealth”

Frank Furedi Roots & Wings Substack 28 February 2023 According to new report published by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, American teenagers are increasingly miserable, anxious and depressed and report ‘persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. Typically, explanations for the so-called mental health crisis vary from blaming the social media, the atomisation ofContinue reading “The Culture of Fear and the Invention of the Vulnerable Student”