school management
St Paul ’ s College Headmaster Paul Browning . Photo : Supplied
Time for change
St Paul ’ s headmaster shares concerns education is ‘ reaching a crisis point ’ in Australia .
Paul Browning interviewed by Wade Zaglas
St Paul ’ s College Queensland headmaster Dr Paul Browning recently published an article on LinkedIn arguing that we are gradually “ dehumanising education ” through standardised curriculums , tests such as NAPLAN and PISA , and excessive administrative work .
Browning shared with Education
Review that the impetus of two related LinkedIn articles was an emotional tweet from a UK teacher who said she was resigning after 20 years of practice .
While he sees a place for some standardised testing , national curricula and high-impact teaching strategies , he fears that many are losing “ sight of the joy of teaching ”.
ER : The article you published on LinkedIn centred on how education was being dehumanised in Australia . What do you think are some of the factors that have contributed to this ? The article I wrote was the second of two . About a week before that I was really struck by a tweet that came up in my feed from a teacher in the UK . It read : “ After 20 years , I ’ ve decided to give teaching away . I still like the actual teaching , maths especially . However , it ’ s more like a counsellor role for me these days . There ’ s so much sadness in the kids I teach , so much they shouldn ’ t have to live with . I ’ m done .”
There ’ s quite a lot of tweets of a similar nature coming particularly out of the UK , and it really quite distressed me . I wrote an article about that and then followed it with , Are we dehumanising education ? And I think one of the messages I got out of the tweet was that that particular teacher sees themselves as a person who teaches maths to students , whereas I think my perspective of teaching is I see that I teach children maths .
So the focus of education for me is actually the students , not the subject . And I know from comments again from people in the UK that there ’ s so much pressure on teachers these days from the government to improve our education system , coming in the form of standardised testing and publishing those results , that we ’ ve lost sight of the joy of teaching .
We ’ ve lost sight that it ’ s actually about the kids in our care , and the focus is on making sure they get the grades needed so we can actually look good as teachers .
I was in a conversation with the Australian Minister for Education recently at a public forum where people were invited to ask questions about education , and what needs to happen and where it needs to go . His comments really alarmed me and , no disrespect to the politician , but I wasn ’ t getting the sense he was keen to listen . He was thinking that he had the solution , and the problem with our education system is that we ’ ve got falling standards as measured by PISA and NAPLAN . Our kids are just falling behind the rest of the world and we need to fix it . And the way we need to fix it is to make sure that we have quality teachers in classrooms , and the behaviour in the classrooms is of a standard so that kids can actually learn .
I totally agree with the minister in that sense that we do need quality teachers in classrooms , and we do need to make sure kids are engaged in learning . But I think it was a very simplistic comment that the problem with education is actually the teachers . And that ’ s what he was implying .
Yes , standards have fallen as measured by PISA and NAPLAN over the last 20 years . But I don ’ t think it ’ s all the fault of the teachers , and that ’ s what I take offence at . The media tends to blame schools and teachers , inferring that we ’ re not working hard enough or that we don ’ t know what we ’ re doing .
Society has changed a lot in the last 20 years . Yes , we do have teachers who are teaching out of their area and yes , there ’ s changes in the classroom , but a lot of that ’ s been influenced by external forces . Twenty years ago kids didn ’ t have mobile phones in their pockets . It ’ s part of life now . They ’ re consumed by IT , distracted by that . Is that our fault ? No , it ’ s actually IT companies who ’ ve done a very good job of capturing our attention , and it ’ s actually changed the way to kids learn and approach life .
Family dynamics have changed . Our societal values have changed as well . We ’ ve gone through a terrible period of not quite recession , fortunately , but after the global financial crisis , things changed again in our society . So I would suggest that the reason for the declining standards is a complex issue . It ’ s not just about the quality of teachers and the behaviour in the classroom . There ’ s not a simple fix that ’ s focused on the teacher . We really need to think about the kids in front of us , and they ’ re different kids to what they were 20 years ago . So what are their needs ?
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