The Australian Curriculum is going through a review process with proposed changes released for public consultation at the end of April.

When Australian state education ministers commissioned the review in June 2020, the terms of reference specified the aim to “refine and reduce the amount of content across all eight learning areas […] to focus on essential content”.

The draft up for consultation states:

The Review looks to improve the Australian Curriculum by refining, realigning and decluttering the content so it focuses on the essential knowledge and skills students should learn and is clearer for teachers on what they need to teach.

But is the curriculum actually “cluttered” or “crowded” as commonly claimed? And what does that even mean?

Who says it’s crowded?

Claims of the Australian Curriculum being “crowded” have been heard far and wide. For instance, in December 2018 then Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan told a conference:

Teachers tell me that there is too much being taught and we should be concentrating on developing a deeper understanding of essential content.

Preliminary research from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s (ACARA) does reveal teachers are in the chorus line of those voicing concerns about the need to refine and reduce the curriculum’s content.

ACARA’s Director of Curriculum Janet Davey said teachers are looking to the review for clarity about “what it is we want teachers to teach and what it is we want learners to learn”.

Today’s teachers are increasingly called on to play an active role in translating a wide range of contemporary social agendas into age-appropriate curriculum content for their students. This includes fostering young people’s understandings of respectful relationships , consent , cultural awareness and the environment.

While few would reject the importance of these issues having a presence in the contemporary curriculum, they inevitably add to the time and content demands already placed on teachers.

At the heart of accusations of a crowded or cluttered curriculum are concerns learning in key areas — such as literacy and numeracy — will be compromised by an insidious creep towards a breadth of content, such as gender and environmental issues.

Read more: Proposed new curriculum acknowledges First Nations' view of British 'invasion' and a multicultural Australia

Of course schools have always been active sites for the delivery of important social policy. Key social agendas associated with population health, welfare, security, nutrition and hygiene have all had prominence in the curriculum at various moments in history.

A historical example of curriculum adaptation to accommodate national priorities can be readily tracked during times of war. Both world wars saw an increase in gender segregation in the curriculum, in which greater emphasis was placed on the disciplining and conditioning of boys, while welfare and health education were heightened for girls.

Going ‘back to basics’

Accusations of a crowded curriculum are often amplified following the publication of international educational test results. At the end of 2019, the OECD released the latest results of its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The results showed, since PISA first assessed reading literacy in 2000, Australia’s mean score had declined by the equivalent of around three-quarters of a year of schooling.

Australia also trailed 23 countries in maths, and 12 countries in science.

Whenever the comparative performance of Australian students is seen to fall against their international counterparts a blame-game is set in motion.

Read more: PISA doesn't define education quality, and knee-jerk policy proposals won't fix whatever is broken

For instance, Dan Tehan had said he was disappointed with the results and would “take a chainsaw” to the Australian Curriculum — again saying it was too “cluttered”. Together with this is generally the declaration for an urgent need to, “go back to basics”.

Indeed, successive federal education ministers have called-out the crowded curriculum as a major reason for Australia’s international underperformance in literacy and numeracy (see, Christopher Pyne, Dan Tehan and current Education Minister Alan Tudge.)

It’s not so simple

While the rhetoric around stripping back the so-called crowded curriculum has an appealing simplicity, its application is considerably more problematic.

At stake here are the perceived merits of each of the eight key learning areas that comprise the Australian Curriculum.

It would be a hotly contested decision to declare the content associated with any of the eight Learning Areas (English, Maths, Science, The Arts, Humanities, Technologies, Health and Physical Education and Languages) should be purged.

So rather than concede the curriculum is crowded, ACARA has opted to describe it as cluttered. The prevailing view here is that it is not excessive curriculum content causing teacher angst, but uncertainty about its structure.

ACARA’s CEO David de Carvalho believes clarifying the structure of the Australian Curriculum and the relationship between the three dimensions of the curriculum — Learning Areas, General Capabilities (key skills and dispositions) and Cross-Curriculum Priorities (regional, national and global priorities) — will go a long way to addressing current teacher concerns.

Read more: What's the point of education? It's no longer just about getting a job

Indeed, ACARA defends the current curriculum’s breadth as necessary for preparing young people for active citizenship in an increasingly complex world.

A complex world

So the challenge is to strike a balance between the competing curriculum demands for “back to basics” and the need for “formative futures” — understood as the fundamentals for effective personhood in an increasingly complex world. Numeracy and literacy may be important but they are not enough to prepare young people to be active shapers of the world they live in.

Yes, the curriculum is busy and requires regular updating and refining. But breadth is not the enemy of depth. A balanced curriculum has the power to deliver a wide range of important lessons.

So, rather than rehearsing old rhetoric about the curriculum being crowded, we should shift the focus to the quality of the learning experience, and how we can best nurture productive interactions between teachers and students.

Chris Hickey, Professor, School of Education, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Investing in a near-zero interest rate environment

The official cash rate has remained at an unprecedented low of 0.1% in response to severe economic weakness caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Expected returns on long-term bonds have also continued to fall with the 10-year government bond yield, which is the rate of return expected from investing in Australian government bonds, falling to 1% per annum in 2020.

Short-term cash rates and long-term bond yields tend to move in the same direction in response to changes to the economic outlook. The current rates, which are reflected in term deposit and mortgage rates, indicate a weak outlook for the Australian economy.

By decreasing the cash rate, the Reserve Bank of Australia aims to stimulate the economy by encouraging spending and investing via low returns on savings and reduced borrowing costs respectively.

What does this mean for investments in bonds, cash and term deposits?
Given the reduction in the official cash rate and fall in bond yields, there is a risk that future returns from these investments will be low and may even be negative.

In the past, falling interest rates have enabled the bonds to perform well with a return of 4.6% per annum over the past five years[i]. However, with interest rates currently at all-time lows, it’s unlikely that they would fall further. Hence, the returns on bonds that we’ve seen previously are not expected to repeat in the foreseeable future.

Similarly, the returns from cash and term deposits have significantly reduced. The average return for cash over the past 10 years has been 2.4% per annumⁱ, but with current rates at such low levels, it is unlikely that we will see these returns repeat in the next 10 years.

What has Australian Catholic Superannuation done about this?

In response to the downward trend in cash rates and bond yields, Australian Catholic Superannuation has reduced its exposure to bonds, cash and term deposits in favour of investments that offer better prospective returns including corporate bonds, bank debt and increasing the Fund’s exposure to equities[ii].

What can I do about it?

You are encouraged to consider your personal circumstances and ensure that your investment decisions are aligned with your tolerance for risk.

If you are a member of Australian Catholic Superannuation and need help with managing your finances, we offer advice on your superannuation investments, contributions or insurance at no additional cost through our limited advice team. Alternatively, we also offer comprehensive advice that looks at a broader range of topics including your finances outside of superannuation. Find out more about our different types of financial advice services or make an appointment today.

If you’re not a member of the Fund but would like to find out more, visit catholicsuper.com.au or contact our award-winning Member Services team today.

Any advice contained on this webpage is of a general nature only, and does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Prior to acting on any information on this webpage, you need to take into account your own financial circumstances, consider the Product Disclosure Statement for any product you are considering, and seek independent financial advice if you are unsure of what action to take. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

[1] Bloomberg AusBond Government Bond Index.

[1] Investment options with a higher percentage of growth assets generally expect higher returns over the long term but have higher risk and are also likely to experience larger fluctuations in returns from year to year and more frequent negative returns.

“Stormbirds and Seasons for Growth fit the bill perfectly.”
Queensland Catholic Education Commission 

Since the devastating impact of the 2019 Queensland monsoons and flooding, the Queensland Catholic Education Commission (QCEC) has strived to ensure that an appropriate response exists to assist students coping with natural disasters. Stormbirds and Seasons for Growth fit the bill perfectly: they are evidence-based psychoeducation programs that assist children and young people following change, loss, grief and natural disaster events.

In 2020, QCEC collaborated with MacKillop Family Services to deliver the programs to students in the dioceses of Townsville, Cairns and Rockhampton. The project was made possible following the successful application for funding through the Commonwealth / State Disaster Recovery Funding - FNQ and NQ Monsoon Trough - Category C Flexible Funding Grants Program. This meant that the usual challenges that schools face when seeking access and funding of resources were largely avoided.

For the 29 schools within Townsville Catholic Education in the Townsville Diocese, the outcome was that all guidance counsellors were trained in delivering the Stormbirds and Seasons for Growth programs. “I really wanted to have as many staff as possible trained and also to extend this opportunity to others such as Chaplains and pastoral staff”, said Annette McCarthy, Student Support Services Coordinator. Centacare staff were encouraged to access training too due to the positive impacts the programs can have on the whole family dynamic.  

The Stormbirds and Seasons for Growth programs provide a structured series of sessions that can be utilised easily and effectively with students in the school setting. They provide a safe space for young people to give voice to their experiences, understand their feelings, learn problem-solving and decision-making skills, develop friendships, and recognise they are not alone.

The feedback so far has been positive from everyone involved. Trained staff appreciate the resources provided to accompany the program curriculum and the guidebooks are well received by children. There is positive collaboration between staff as well as therapeutic connections being established between staff and students. Everyone now sees change and loss from many different perspectives.

“It helped me cooperate through hard times.”

11 year old, Seasons for Growth

North Queensland has and will continue to experience a range of natural disasters that impact its communities including cyclones, flooding, drought, storms and fires. At times these are significant one-off events, however for some communities like Ingham and the Burdekin, they are annual. Supporting students with programs like Stormbirds and Seasons for Growth ensures their losses are acknowledged and that they are taught the skills that can help increase their resilience. This ultimately allows QCEC to be a responsive education system that serves the needs of its children, young people, families and communities.

Programs like Stormbirds and Seasons for Growth bring expertise and add value to a busy curriculum while focusing on student welfare and promoting resilience and connection for the whole school community.

To find out more about Seasons for Growth and Stormbirds, contact by email Godelieve

Check out the:

Seasons for Growth Animation

Seasons for Growth helpful factsheets and resources for you to explore, download and share with your community.

www.goodgrief.org.au

7 min read

Educational leadership has never been more important than in these COVID times of acute disruption and precarity. For more than a year now, schools, universities and communities across the world have been upended, sometimes overnight, by the latest COVID news.

A school system is plunged into lockdown; teaching and learning is forced online with no time to prepare; a new COVID infection is discovered in the local community; students – or teachers – are reporting critical wellbeing issues.

Sometimes, the news has been inspiring. Teachers developing a richer repertoire of online pedagogies; unprecedented collaboration between school, parent and child; some students revelling in a less confronting online environment; agentic leaders ignoring directives for standardised practice in favour of an education that meets the needs of their particular student community.

It’s important we continue to share and reflect on stories of educational leaders in Australia responding to these situations. We can learn so much from dialogue about these experiences, and about how they’ve shaped the way we think about and “do” educational leadership, COVID or no COVID.

But what about our neighbours in the ASEAN region? How have their educational leaders and systems been faring?

A recent online forum hosted by the Monash’s Faculty of Education, “Educational leadership and COVID-19: What are we learning?”, invited educational leaders from across the ASEAN region to share their experiences and insights. Participants from Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Australia reflected on some of the challenges and triumphs of leading their particular education communities, and they identified some key lessons from their experiences. Here, we share some highlights from these reflections.

The Philippines

At the time of the forum, the Philippines was experiencing an alarming new wave of COVID cases. According to Dr Bert Tuga from the Philippine Normal University (PNU), the National Center for Teacher Education, the pandemic posed three national challenges: COVID health and safety; learning continuity across all sectors of education; and the ongoing flow of products and services.

Dr Tuga explained that education in the Philippines was acutely impacted by institutional closures and lockdowns, inequalities of student access to remote learning technology, and potentially lagging policies and systems.

The pandemic pulled back the curtain on inequalities, fragile systems, and potentially limited frameworks as points of reference for leaders. Educational leadership in this context became synonymous with flexibility, continuity and crisis support.

Dr Tuga’s institution sought to model innovative leadership through developing flexible modalities for learning, and establishing multiple online wellbeing forums for faculty, students, community and other stakeholder groups.

Brunei

While the Philippines, like Indonesia, was dealing with a new wave of cases, Brunei and Vietnam were grateful they had been COVID-free for some time.

Dr Roslynn Roslan from the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education (SHBIE), Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), said she and her leadership colleagues had tried, during the periods of greatest uncertainty, to maintain a balance between responding to local institutional needs, the needs of their own community, and implementing government mandates.

Significantly, Dr Roslan’s institution in Brunei had introduced a major policy change within the first week of the COVID-19 cases being reported in that country, demonstrating what the literature describes as agile leadership in the face of COVID.

Leaders’ active support of collaborative ventures encouraged staff volunteers to provide workshops in online teaching, for immediate colleagues, and wider networks of teachers in schools.

Dr Roslan emphasised that this collaboration was underscored by “compassion, and a process of continuous reflection”.

Vietnam

In Vietnam, the approach to the pandemic was strongly grounded in what Professor Tuan Huynh, from Vietnam National University, described as unified “national beliefs”, “tenacity”, and “patriotism”. Political and educational leadership worked hand in hand, he said, in what the Vietnamese government and people framed as a “war on the enemy of COVID-19”.

Professor Huynh spoke of the importance of collectivism in Vietnam in the war against COVID. The approach of “joining hands for the community” prompted philanthropists, social organisations and corporate groups to offer resources and support for teachers, students and families.

The tenacity in the face of the pandemic produced innovations such as rice ATMs, and face mask ATMs emerged in response to community needs.

It was evident, too, in the story of Lầu Mí Xá, a H’Mong ethnic minority student living in the northern mountainous province of Hà Giang. Unable to return to school, and struggling with unstable connectivity, he built a shack on the face of a mountain that enabled him to connect to 4G, and complete his school studies online.

Malaysia

For Roger Schultz, head of The Alice Smith School in Malaysia, the pandemic has reinforced what meaningful learning really is, and the importance of the quality of relationships and personal connections between students, teachers, parents and families.

Schultz shared his gratitude for the joint response across the school community. He noted that “teachers have committed their time and efforts to inspire, understand, connect, guide and care for our students. Parents have been very supportive at home with online learning, supporting the efforts of teachers, and encouraging both their children and their teachers during this challenging journey.”

Australia

In Australia, the journey has felt more like individual states struggling against COVID than a nation galvanised, as waves were managed separately.

In Victoria, as in ASEAN nations, schools were also subject to lockdowns and remote learning throughout 2020, but the unprecedented nature of the pandemic shifted school leaders’ priorities from top-down to ground-up, and from external modelling to internal problem-solving.

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Read more: Leading schools for the future: Lessons learned from the COVID lockdown

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These shifts were visible in approaches to professional learning, where educators focused their work on the most pressing needs of students’ wellbeing and peer support for online teaching.

In a year without the nationally-mandated NAPLAN testing, school leaders seized the opportunity to step back from promoting standardised approaches to education, and concentrated instead on the relational work of education, supporting individual students’ needs and supporting families. School principals have been seen as both sources of reliable local information and leaders of a community that stretched beyond school boundaries.

Indonesia

Dr Nikmah Nurbaity, head of Educational Office Branch 8, Central Java, Indonesia, also recognised this shift to community leadership in her country.

While the Ministry of Education developed nationwide policies, including technology initiatives, to promote student wellbeing and independent learning, it often fell to school leaders to implement these policies in nuanced ways. Across hundreds of islands of Indonesia, they coordinated relationships with local families and communities to manage the transitions in and out of lockdown.

What are the ASEAN lessons?

What are we learning about educational leadership in the ASEAN region during COVID-19?

1. First and foremost, education leaders have prioritised attempts to ensure learning continuity for the young people in their care, and the professionals who teach them.

2. These leaders have needed tenacity and courage to lead and make decisions for their students and their broader community, often despite lagging policies from national policymakers.

3. Educational leaders have tended to respond to society’s trust in them with compassion. Sometimes, the compassion is behind robust challenges of inequity. Sometimes, it prioritises the provision of resources for teachers and their professional learning. Compassion looks for sustainable ways to support the wellbeing of young people and the teachers who teach them.

4. Lastly, no matter what the dominant politics or ideology of different countries in the region, this focus on sustainability is supported by a form of collectivism, a valuing of social networks and professional communities.

Whether we’re struggling to overcome escalating COVID cases, or fighting to stay COVID-free, educational leaders in the ASEAN region continue to learn about the village that it takes to raise a child.

In a world forever scarred by COVID, we’re now appreciating that elements of education in that village may be transformed, but some fundamental values of our common humanity to, and with, each other must endure.

Professor Tuan Huynh is Dean of the Graduate Studies Faculty, the University of Languages and International Studies (Ulis), at Vietnam National University (VNU), Hanoi. Dr Roslinawati Mohd Roslan is Assistant Professor and Deputy Dean (Academic) in the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education, Universiti Brunei Darussalam. Dr Bert J. Tuga is President of the Philippine Normal University, the National Center for Teacher Education. Dr Nikmah Nurbaity is Head of Educational Office Branch 8, Central Java, Indonesia, with oversight of 200 high schools in the region. Roger Schultz is Head of the Alice Smith School, a British International school on two campuses in Kuala Lumpur, with more than 1500 students from 40-plus different nations.

This article was first published on Monash Lens. Read the original article

The so-called ‘Reading Wars’ have a long history within reading education. They began as a series of competing pedagogies, ‘Method A’ versus ‘Method B’ arguments, which were hotly defended and/or attacked by advocates and adversaries within the professional bodies representing reading education and resurface regularly, often fueled by media’s tendency to polarise the debate.

In the 1950s (when I began teaching) these debates involved a choice between two pedagogies, one based on a ‘look-and-say’ or ‘whole word’ based on visual-recognition-of-word-shapes principle, the other based on a transform-the-visual-signs-to-speech-sounds principle or ‘phonics’.

The debates about these two pedagogies can be traced back to a German educator, Professor Friederich Gedike.

who in 1779 wrote an essay in which he argued that reading instruction should go from whole words to the parts of these words, i.e. the letters. Since that time the debate between whole-to-part advocates and part-to-whole advocates has been a recurring feature of reading education. 

In the modern era this debate was re-ignited with the 1967 publication of Chall's classic volume, Learning to Read: The great debate. Although Chall renamed the two approaches as ‘code-based’ versus ‘meaning-based’, reading pedagogy was still framed as an either/or choice between two theoretical options. By ‘code-based’ Chall meant the part-to-whole process of transforming the visual display to sounds and blending these sounds together to make words. By ‘meaning-based’ she meant the ‘whole-to-part’ process of accessing meaning directly from the visual display without first accessing sound.  Despite the renaming of the issue, it was essentially a continuation of the ‘look-say’ vs ‘phonics’ debate. By the seventies and eighties this code-based vs meaning based debate had morphed into a series of variant strains of the same dichotomy such as ‘literature-based’ versus ‘skills-based’, ‘implicit’ versus ‘explicit’, ‘holistic’ versus ‘fragmented’ and ‘top-down’ versus ‘bottom-up’. 

The term ‘whole-language’ as a variant of ‘meaning-based’ first appears in the literature in 1992 in a Canadian publication, Whole Language Evaluation for Classrooms by Oran Cochran. It quickly spread to the USA where ‘whole-language’ versus ‘phonics’ became the main way of describing the issue. However, the term ‘whole language’ doesn’t appear in the Australian reading community till around the mid-nineties.

Such a long history means that today's teachers are heirs to a long tradition of (often acrimonious and unhelpful) debate about pedagogical methods, which are presented either as bi-polar opposites, or positions along a bi-polar continuum of some kind. It's as if the field of reading has, for a long time, suffered from something analogous to serious bi-polar disorder.

From the late nineties to the present time these dichotomies seem to have coalesced into something more complex. They are no longer perceived as ‘debates’. Rather they seem to have assumed the stature of ‘wars’. 

Thus, we now have the so-called ‘reading (or literacy) wars’. Instead of debating the pros and cons of a simple bi-polar dichotomy, the profession seems to be immersed in an all-out ‘take-no-prisoners’ war often led by psychologists and other experts in related disciplines standing outside the classroom.

The use of this military metaphor first appeared in an article entitled, From a 'Great Debate' to a Full-Scale War: Dispute over teaching reading heats up,by Robert Rothman in the 1990 edition of the journal, Education Week. It was quickly picked up by a Californian grandmother named Marion Joseph. She claimed to be concerned that her grandchildren were being denied access to becoming literate because Chall’s research was being ignored by the Californian system. With the help of a Californian superintendent, Bill Honig, she mounted a relentless media campaign using the term ‘reading wars’ to force the Californian government to mandate a phonics first program in public schools. This notion of ‘reading wars’ began appearing in the Australian context in the mid to late 90s and has ebbed and flowed since then. Most recently in Australia the ‘wars’ have been characterised as ‘synthetic phonics’ versus ‘balanced literacy’ although ‘balanced literacy’ has often been erroneously conflated with ‘whole language’.

A consequence of these ‘reading wars’ was the demand that only pedagogies, which are ‘evidence-based’, or ‘scientifically derived’ should be applied in the nation’s literacy classrooms. However, invoking ‘science’ and ‘evidence-based research’ as a way to reduce the theoretical confusion surrounding literacy education doesn't seem to have helped much.There are quite distinct views of ‘good science’ and ‘good evidence’ held within the education research community. All that seems to have happened is that a new round of argument and debate about whose science and whose evidence should be considered, has begun. 

Such a state of affairs begs the following question: Why is reading education so pedagogically confused? The answer to this question lies in history as well as in different understandings about what reading is.

My research and the hundreds of research papers written on this topic have led me to believe that the notion of ‘teaching phonics effectively’ is contingent on how one defines, thinks, and talks about such concepts as ‘effective reading’ and ‘effective learning’. Until the community comes to some agreement on what these terms actually entail in the 2020s and beyond, the same theoretical squabbles will continue to plague education. Such theoretical arguments are not helpful for the teaching profession or the teaching of reading. To date, not enough attention has been paid to educators’ experiences and their evidence in helping children learn to read in classroom contexts.

Brian Cambourne is principal honorary fellow at the University of Wollongong and foundation patron of the Foundation for Learning and Literacy. He is a lifelong researcher of literacy and learning. He completed his PhD at James Cook University, was a post-doctoral Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Fulbright Scholar.

References

Australian Literacy Educators Association, Summary of the ALEA Submission to the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy. Accessed at: www.alea.edu.au/ 

Chall, J. (1967). Learning to read: the great debate. New York: McGraw Hill.

Cochran, O. (1992). Whole language evaluation for classrooms. Accessed at:

https://www.loot.co.za/index/html/index2784.html

Ewing, R. (ed). (2006) Beyond the reading wars. A balanced approach to helping children learn to read. Primary English Teaching Association Australia, Newton.

Paisey, D. Learning to read: Professor Friederich Gedike. Primer of 1791. Accessed at: https://www.bl.uk/eblj/1978articles/pdf/article11.pdf

Rothman, R. (1990). From a 'Great Debate' to a Full-Scale War: Dispute over teaching reading heats up,Education Week. Accessed at: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/from-a-great-debate-to-a-full-scale-war-dispute-over-teaching-reading-heats-up/1990/03

Snyder, I. (2008) The literacy wars: why teaching children to read is a battleground in Australia. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

The Reading wars are over: Whole language vs. Phonics Accessed at: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Reading_wars_are_over:_Whole_language_vs._Phonics 

To cite this paper: Cambourne, B. (2021) A brief history of the 'reading wars’ https://foundationforlearningandliteracy.info 

The cover image: George Hodan has released this “Child And Books” image under Public Domain license.

This article was originally published on EduResearch Matters. Read the original article.

There is much to admire in the proposed revisions to the Australian Curriculum, which were released for public consultation this week. I'd give it a B+.

The curriculum content organisers and core ideas have been revised to ensure that they are more closely aligned, with some trimming of content to enable greater depth of study. There is also less prescription to enable a broader range of curriculum opportunities within the framework of the Australian Curriculum.

However, perhaps the most remarkable shift is the clear break from Kevin Donnelly and Ken Wiltshire’s 2014 curriculum review, which called for greater emphasis on Australia’s Western cultural canon and Judeo–Christian heritage. The proposed changes have a clear commitment to cultural diversity, plurality and inclusion of multiple perspectives, which is embedded throughout multiple aspects of the revised curriculum.

This can be most clearly observed in the revisions to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures cross-curriculum priority, which emphasise ‘truth telling’ and deeper, more honest engagement with the complex and confronting histories and experiences of First Nations Australians.

Terms such as ‘occupation’, ‘colonisation’ and ‘invasion’ are embedded into the conceptual bedrock of the curriculum, which sits in stark contrast to the recommendations posed by the Donnelly–Wiltshire review.

Cue outrage from the conservative commentariat.

Almost immediately, the Institute for Public Affairs decried the changes as demoting the values of Western civilisation and Christianity, while also forcing the curriculum to become ‘monocultural’, with the Director of the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program, Dr Bella d’Abrera, claiming that ‘children will be taught the historical lie that Australia was invaded by the British’.

Donnelly also quickly sprang into action, criticising the proposed changes as being ‘politically correct’ and enforcing a ‘cultural-left interpretation of the nation’.

Even the federal education minister, Alan Tudge, was quick to express concern that the proposed curriculum changes came at the risk of ‘dishonouring our Western heritage’.

The culture wars are far from dead and we can expect to hear more public proclamations of the calamity that will surely befall society if Australian students learn the truth about the histories and cultures of First Nations Australians in the classroom.

Another concern about the ‘decluttered’ curriculum revisions is the emphasis, yet again, on increasing the focus on literacy and numeracy in the early primary years. Schools already emphasise the ‘basics’ in the first years of schooling, with many public schools timetabling only one or two lessons each week for the arts.

Any curriculum that focuses on literacy and numeracy at the expense of the arts, humanities and social sciences is an impoverished curriculum.

The perennial argument that we need to go ‘back to the basics’ to fix declining performance on standardised tests misunderstands the problem. Take the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for example, which is a triennial test of 15-year-old students’ performance in reading, mathematics and science. While the national aggregated data demonstrate a small decline in performance over the past couple of decades, when the data are disaggregated, a much more nuanced picture appears.

Australia has one of the worlds most segregated and inequitable schooling systems. Performance on PISA is intimately tied to socioeconomic status and geolocation. The basic correlation is that the closer to the city and the more money and education that your parents have, the better your chances of performing well on PISA.

NAPLAN is much the same.

The MySchool website includes a series of technical reports that explain the correlation between school performance on NAPLAN and its Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA), which is based on parental education and occupation, geolocation and percentage of Indigenous student enrolments. The annual ICSEA technical reports consistently demonstrate approximately four-fifths of the variance in schools performance on NAPLAN is accounted for by ICSEA.

In plain language: what happens in the lives of young people has a much bigger effect on their success on NAPLAN and PISA tests than the curriculum or pedagogy they experience in school.

Australian schooling is starkly divided into those who can afford independent school fees and/or to supplement school learning with extra-curricular activities such as music lessons, dance and art clubs, sporting teams and the like.

However, for young Australians living in poverty and complex situations, including those in out-of-home care, or who do not have access to rich extra-curricular opportunities, the school curriculum is the only place where they have an opportunity to be exposed to the rich diversity of culture and creativity that is available through the arts, humanities and social sciences.

A greater emphasis on the basics in the curriculum might produce a small bump in test results, but the effects of an impoverished curriculum will be much longer lasting, especially for those students who are most marginalised and disadvantaged.

As such, we need to shift the debate away from one that engages in endless cultural and ideological dispute, or one which focuses on the lowest denominators of basic literacy and numeracy, to one that asks how we can meaningfully ensure that all young people, but especially those least advantaged, have access to an engaging, high-quality and rich curriculum.

The proposed changes are a good start, but we still have a long way to go.

Dr Stewart Riddle is an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Southern Queensland. His research interests include social justice and equity in education, music-based research practices and research methodologies. He also plays bass in a band called Drawn from Bees.

The photograph used in the header image is of Kevin Donnelly. The author of the image is credited as "wife of Kevin Donnelly". Image hosted here. It is available under a Creative Commons license.

This article was originally published on EduResearch Matters. Read the original article.