PowerPoint Presentation · Arts, PDHPE –knowledge and skills as constructed and organised within scientific disciplines. - As measured by NAPLAN, PISA and ATAR. What The Melbourne

The Melbourne Declaration (2008)


“As a nation Australia values the central role of education in building a democratic, equitable and just society – a society that is prosperous, cohesive and culturally diverse, and that values Australia’s Indigenous cultures as a key part of the nation’s history, present and future.”


“Schools play a vital role in promoting the intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development of young Australians, and in ensuring the nation’s ongoing economic prosperity and social cohesion.”


“Global integration and international mobility have increased rapidly in the past decade. As a consequence, new and exciting opportunities for Australians are emerging. This heightens the need to nurture an appreciation of and respect for social, cultural and religious diversity, and a sense of global citizenship.”


All Australian schools are expected:

- to promote “the intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development of young Australians,” and;

- “to nurture an appreciation of and respect for social, cultural and religious diversity”.

The NESA Solution…

The NESA Solution…

…is to ensure that this is achieved through:The school curriculum;Forms of assessment;Regulatory standards for schools; andTeaching quality and professional standards.

(NSW Education and Teaching Legislation Amendment Act 2016 No 50)

The NESA Solution…knowledge and skills!

The curriculum key learning areas that will allow these objects to be fulfilled:

English, Mathematics, Science, Human Society and its Environment, Languages other than English,

Technological and Applied Studies, Creative Arts, Personal Development, Health and Physical Education.

(The NSW Education Act 1990, Sections 7 & 9)

What we want (Melbourne Declaration):

- The intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development of young Australians, and;

- An appreciation of and respect for social, cultural and religious diversity as global citizens.

What we want (Melbourne Declaration):

- The intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development of young Australians, and;

- An appreciation of and respect for social, cultural and religious diversity as global citizens.

What we get (NESA):

- English, Mathematics, Science, HSIE, LOTE, TAS, Creative Arts, PDHPE – knowledge and skills as constructed and organised within scientific disciplines.

- As measured by NAPLAN, PISA and ATAR.

What The MelbourneDeclaration Promises

What The MelbourneDeclaration Promises

What NESADelivers

Knowledge is the cause of our global crises

“Science and technology have led to modern industry, agriculture, transport, armaments, medicine, and hygiene. And these in turn have led to global warming, population growth, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, the development of extreme inequalities of wealth and power around the globe, pollution of earth, sea, and air, depletion of natural resources, the lethal character of modern war, the increasing threats posed by the spread of modern armaments, and even the AIDS epidemic.”

(Nicholas Maxwell, 2014, p.3)

An academic revolution is the solution

“The crisis of our times, the crisis behind all the others, is our failure to have developed the kind of enquiry rationally designed and devoted to helping us solve our problems of living, make progress towards a good, wise, enlightened world…Instead of creating wisdom-inquiry, all we managed to do is create knowledge-enquiry, a botched version of wisdom-inquiry.”


We need wisdom!

“The crisis of our times, the crisis behind all the others, is our failure to have developed the kind of enquiry rationally designed and devoted to helping us solve our problems of living, make progress towards a good, wise, enlightened world…Instead of creating wisdom-inquiry, all we managed to do is create knowledge-enquiry, a botched version of wisdom-inquiry.”


See also Dewey, Bruner, MacIntyre, Gardner, et al…for more than a 100 years!

What the scientific disciplines claim

What the scientific disciplines deliverWhat the scientific disciplines claim

The intentional human activity of enculturating one generation to the next…


…of deciding what we want the next generation to know or do…


…of deciding what we want the next generation to know or do…

…of deciding who we want the next generation to be.


Secular Education

Christian Education

Public, free and secular…?


“...the aim shall be to introduce and maintain good secular instruction…”

SA Education Act 1852, Para 2


“...the aim shall be to introduce and maintain good secular instruction, based on the Christian Religion...”



“...the aim shall be to introduce and maintain good secular instruction, based on the Christian Religion; apart from all theological and controversial differences on discipline and doctrine, and that no denominational catechism be used.”



“In government schools, the education is to consist of strictly non-sectarian and secular instruction. The words secular instruction are to be taken to include general religious education as distinct from dogmatic or polemical theology.”

NSW Education Act 1990, Para 30


NSW Schools, as secular schools, are expected:

- to promote “the intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development of young Australians,” and;

- “to nurture an appreciation of and respect for social, cultural and religious diversity”;

- by including “general religious instruction.”


Secularism is inclusive of religious education, not its absence, embracing moral and spiritual

development.

Sectarianism is an exclusive dogmatic religious position, whether it be of Christian or Islamic

fundamentalism, or Marxist humanism.

Yes…because we seek knowledge rather than

wisdom…from a sectarian rather than a secular

perspective.

Myths• Education is all about knowledge

and skills, as measured by NAPLAN, PISA and ATAR

Big Ideas• Education is broken and it is our infatuation with, and our

assessment of, knowledge and skills that has caused it.

• Knowledge is necessary, but not sufficient for education.

• Education is either secular or religious.

• Education is either secular or sectarian.

• Any school, including Christian and state schools, can be either secular or sectarian with respect to their approach to religious education.

Documents

PowerPoint Presentation · Arts, PDHPE –knowledge and skills as constructed and organised within scientific disciplines. - As measured by NAPLAN, PISA and ATAR. What The Melbourne