Sycophantic Self Service

The only surprise in the letter to the editor, thinks Agamedes, is that the editor published it.

Do you need new -- lateral -- thinking for your own problems? email nick leth at gmail dot com. Need solutions? No worries. Now.

There's a letter in The West Australian today, 20 Dec 2010: 'One-stop shops' a winner. The letter writer supports an announcement by premier Colin Barnett that school sites will become centres for all sorts of child support services.

So what's wrong with that? It's a good idea! It deserves support.

Who wrote the letter?

The letter is from Michelle Scott, Commissioner for Children and Young People WA. ("From" Scott. I won't claim that she actually wrote the letter.)

Wouldn't a "Commissioner for Children and Young People WA" be a paid employee of the WA state government? Isn't there a rule that state government employees should not make public comments on government policies?

Isn't there a rule of good behaviour that employees should not kiss their boss' arse in public?!

Still, there is some good news

On 18 Dec 2010 The West published an opinion piece by Alannah MacTiernan. MacTiernan, it seems, believes that schools should teach.

MacTiernan refers to a trial where a primary school dropped the educational theory and actually taught children the basics. Forget about exposing children to a learning environment... This school -- Challis Early Education School -- brought back teaching of basic facts. Challis assumed -- and this is my own interpretation -- that their children were not really interested in learning, that they had already had their minds closed to learning, that bad habits had already been instilled. So Challis brought control into the classroom, allowed for fun and taught the very basics of the three Rs.

And it worked.

Barnett's "one-stop shops" on school sites is a good idea. We often need to help the parents in order to help the children. (See my post, Schooling Starts before School Starts, to see how one teacher has already provided a practical example of Barnett's theories.)

At the same time, we also need to provide good schooling at the schools.

Spend a heap of money providing parent-and-child support services on school sites. Make sure that this takes the "social services" responsibilities away from teachers: Improve the parenting skills of parents so that teachers are no longer de facto parents.

Allow teachers to teach.

MacTiernan is half right, that current educational theories do not work. Our schools are forced to provide social services rather than education. If the children were all better students, if the teachers were not wiping noses, stopping fights and being threatened by parents, perhaps the theories would apply.

Meanwhile, we need to allow teachers to just teach: "Here are things you need to know, practise it, repeat it. We will then measure what you have learnt and -- if you are ready for the next step -- we will move on to the next step."

If the one-stop shop allows teachers to teach, that's great. If it simply crowds more buildings onto the one site and adds more baby-sitter responsibilities to the teacher's work load... then I won't be at all surprised.

The role of schools is to provide education. Let's hope that that is not further diluted, when Barnett adds more social services with no matching offers of better education.

Independent thinking & independent analysis of your problems by Agamedes Consulting. Support for your thought: email nick leth at gmail dot com