Dumbed down Australia

Julia is concerned about  "education" . Joe Hockey is preoccupied with  "productivity" and Penny Wong likes, this week at least , the word "resilience" .(ABCqanda 6 Feb 2012)  Pack of dummies the lot of them .
Just throwing these words around,  as carelessly as they do,  shows they can't be trusted to unpick the processes that would cause them to cut deeply on these subjects  .
Some may argue that they are appealing to the ignorant,  or some bottom line in the audience understanding of issues . Q&;A format doesn't help; just like it doesn't answer questions (but speculates on motivation )but allows Jones to dumb down any deep issue.  Judith Sloan  at least got a few words in edgeways (explaining them) .
I say , don't do it too often or you'll only reinforce the view amongst thinking Australians that this tribe of wannabes don't think ; by treating us as dummies - becoming dummies yourself
Everyone must unpick the word or kill the spirit of the idea:
Otherwise the idea that they don't know what they are talking about will dominate: as it does amongst children trying to watch Q&A

Nothing in recent days proves the dumbing down than the silly and simple consensus  that a piece of paper and a particular word ( W1, W2 or W3) should identify the scapegoats for the OLD floods (Blame is  never allowed to be a poly) - the flood managers of Wivenhoe dam.   (I know the media  think W1 is a process but that's still the sort of stupid limits we put on ideas these days .

 Let the pedants rule and we spend our last dollar fighting each other in the courts

 Scientists shouldn't be judged on compliance with guidelines they draft , but on decisions they make. Q&A and pollies are not credible when they speak for scientists but don't LET them speak for themselves.
An all party problem - that's how deep the dumbing down is going 

Fighting off disaster

Nothing breaks up the parties of wannabes and their worrier friends than a real environmental event. The chooks are all amok because of floods.   Rural people are used to wavering fear dread and disaster talk from the left field . What Australia,  that country of innovators and planners don't seem to see  is that while the wooriers are in charge noone is safe .
If the worriers are not looking in the right places  (eg science in practice focus) , so the tax effort and all the bells and whistles are all wasted.
The key clue to the disaster in crude old Canberra  is that, like Captain Bligh the latter ,  they think that good decisions come from a piece of paper,  not a person . Personal responsibility is the be all , end all of Western politics and many of our pollies don't even know it .
We need not fear being physically overtaken by the east , we are already been overtaken by it by the way we think /don't think .

Marriage, democracy and other sacred objects

The above 2 words are losing their value . Being treated as sacred  isn't helping revive interest in the best way to keep their original meanings alive in our culture and keeping sense of their importance as ideals .
The hypocrisy of not allowing a discussion is more obvious, it seems to me , if we observe the phenomenon in another culture.
Why for example are PapuaNG ( esp this week )leaders both keen to look like they are running a democracy,  when one or many parties don't respect the spirit of it . ( NEWS  ALSO  /Syria/ Iraq/ Thailand) Truthfulness about " a no talk situation "would help us see the truth and how to keep the spirit alive . No talk prevents discussion and allows abuse by religious isolation and veneration.

Is the hypocrisy evident in  current PNG politics ( 2 leaders claiming  to represent the people ) something we TOO could be excused of .
Marriage is observed  (Both leaders claim parliamentary support ) but family breakdown is obvious.  These dumb observances, mere description  and talk of mere numbers  fail to deal with the hypocrisy and key disease of "allowing everybody to  do your own thing as morally right" .Good governance becomes by default bad governanace if you don't define governance better that the rule of the majority ( The Greeks knew this,  why don't we?The Greeks knew that information is power (Aristocracy) why don't we?    The real status of any  marriage amongst political leaders is obviuos -often  only just a piece of paper .Worse,  it can be plain hypocrisy on the part of parties;  less than worthless,  plain distracting .
Marriage and democracy isn't a problem to those who know what it really means . Refusing to discuss what it means can mean that a new generation won't know what it really means !
In our own culture,  Marriage equality is made out to be a big ambition that we must and haven't achieved to date. Surely such an ambition, if achieved ,will be a hollow one  because redefinition will kill the spirit of the word just as technofix over it now ,when marraige no longer works for most people, has killed the interest . My point is , the spirit is more easily lost by seeking to shore up some silly sacred view of it .

Finding Happiness

If we knew , we could be millionaires; so why aren't I ? I won't go there just yet but , in truth I have "moved on"  far enough to know its not about money .
So there  goes the value of a democratic survey - most people are not "there yet"  so you can't trust them to know about being millionaires .The majority may also still believing the TV or the group , the talk or whatever ; unlikely to say No to status they haven't yet got ; an exoperinece they haven't had  .
BUT It must be something else . You only have to ask for money from the rich to know that the mathematics of happiness does not include the joy of giving for most of them (statistically poor people do enjoy giving more (so put that in your excel chart and smoke it )

The Australia Institute are on a search for happiness sources ( Well being survey ). If its as fruitful as the search for comedy at the moment,,  they might have to think a bit more laterally to actually ask for the right descriptors " .
me thinks AI's  ambition is infact a sign of the disease in our society - most people aren't prepared to look widely enough to answer this question .
The answer is clearly that it's a bit spiritual- and spiritual doesn't sit well with many .The herd is not a good modelling agent AI
Jesus is quoted as saying Happiness is actually to do with NOT having things .( Matthew 5:3) He's a bit weird; right out there even.
But is He right? He claims to be God and if he's right this might be the big picture universe picture.

The poor PLANS , PEOPLE and PAPER balance

Nobody who works in public life is against Plans,  but power desperate Polys (and those who follow their lead ) produce far too many of them . Presumably its often a sense of powerlessness and remoteness (CEO's now often do not KNOW the organisations they run ) that drives this new wave of snowing .

How does Green labor come to think that Canberra can coordinate the States action in the Murray Darling Plan. The Carbon tax too,  is ambitious  beyond its means. How long will Labor's new love affair with the market last ? Not long , because its a pretence - a pretence that says price will avoid paper . The politics of paper and plans seems to move in extremes . Too often people who act professionally but are treated poorly by the powerful  are casualities

Bland Curriculum constrictions

  James Paterson (IPA) in The Australian ( nov 11) and in Quadrant  makes a strong point about the reasons why Australians are now faced with more pedantic and overly bureaucratic education review . In presuming to tell teachers how to teach,  and what they are doing wrong ( perhaps rather than tell the parents ) our political parties are doing our best teachers and our educations system great wrong .  If only pollies wouldn't meddle or think they know things in other people's area of expertise.I must stop dreaming  

....And get back to a memorable lesson and how it happened . A good teacher  has a rather special way of approaching any subject , and its not helped by trying to define "The lesson" too closely in phrases and words  that everyone ( esp a non teacher ) understands. That is to bring boring forward and leave basic excitement outside the room . That is to make the teacher the educator of the bureau and as everyone knows on that subject -most of our best teachers don't want to go back to kindergarten .
The lesson is a whole and , like a good meal , is best enjoyed and approved  as a complete thing .
 I would argue  the case that it's  "the extras"and the links to them  ( the "externalities" in ecosystem or economics, if you like )  that often  make a subject  interesting  eg a powerful discussion on renewable energy links  maths, physics and plant biochemistry or fun food learning needs a bit of secondary level chemistry to make fun with food technology more than a mere list of checkboxes .Kids learn,  and learn how to learn by glimpsing process in nature , not nature in isolation - in categories . You will reduce boring if you have the right  links.     Kids,  like us, learn more by linking subjects than we do by studying them in isolation. Its part of what we say when we say "learning best by doing" too.
Just listing the components is just making a very, very long list,  which no teacher has time to check list ( even though bureau persons in Canberra and Spring street might )
There is a lot to be said for the old system in Victoria where non core subject matter is  categorized generally so that only the final product is approved ( rather than try and talk to the parts as they do in curriculum review)
For example learning about responsible use of alcohol is not a matter of telling kids how many stubbies is good for your health  . Good education is a matter of TRUST which means the pollies are probably undermining it by trying to take full control of it.
With alcohol and good health lessons you  either
-leave it to their parents,
-have a  clear approved lesson  of what is to be taught in a form parents can clearly understand ,( Vic system)
--or use only people the parents trust to teach the sensitive non core subjects ( has to be clear that they do ) .
Politicians meddling in the categories and undermining the trust and technical soveriegnty of a "good lesson " undermines,  like a good meal,  the right combination of ingredients that make them both interesting , tasty and memorable .Education should be edgy and the curriculum approach is anything but edgy.

Any more ideas on how we can avoid the ongoing dumbing down of education in Australia?
The stream of parents choosing private schools says something about  more interesting combinations of subjects and values than the plain flour meals offered as gospel in too many public schools

Original ideas - rarer than we all think

While Australia's media elite fail to recognize their old childish chorus of delight in all things reactionary (wars on everything old explains their venerability to new things technical ) they will continue to drag their audiences into the predictable reactionary dullness that has dogged the ABC for the last 30years .Greers constant reappearance on the ABCTV  clearly illustrates that the ABC is stuck in the past.
As the eternal appeal of Shakespeare, and Williamson show ,some recipes don't need to change,but can benefit from the new medium .

Clearly ncp (Trioli 's forum tonight) are confused enough to not recognize that more technology won't help when more honest talk may.
ABC success is dependant on allowing objective outsiders scripts to air ( the slap ,no1 detective ) NOT the tribe of commentators waiting in the wings for another contract.