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Under the heading "English expertise", a version of the letter below appeared in The Australian on Monday 22 December 2014. Underlined words were deleted and the bracketed ones inserted. They also rearranged my four paragraphs into three and removed the quotation marks. Having deleted the words "about whom there have been no allegations of racism" in the final paragraph, the paper failed to remove the now unnecessary preceding comma.
Barry Spurr and the review of the Australian English Curriculum
Ivan Kennedy (Letters, 20-21/12) avers that, from his personal experience, academic Barry Spurr is not a racist, and that therefore there is no need to "revisit" his contribution to the review of the English component of the Australian Curriculum. Kennedy (This) misses the point.
The publication of some of Spurr's emails served to focus public attention on his involvement in the curriculum review as a commissioned "subject specialist". But, whatever people may think of their content and whether they were serious or not, those emails are not the real reason that Spurr's recommendations about the school English curriculum should be accorded little weight.
The review report contains no detail about the process by which Spurr and Dr Fiona Mueller were chosen out of all those in the country who could legitimately be considered to be experts on the content and teaching of English in primary and secondary schools.
In addition, there is no evidence to indicate that the views of Spurr and Mueller, about whom there have been no allegations of racism, can be regarded as generally representative of the views of the many others in the country who have a similar degree of expertise. Spurr and Mueller are perfectly entitled to their opinions, but those individual opinions should have little influence.
Garry Collins
President, Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE)
Stafford Heights, QLD
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Author: Garry Collins, AATE President
| Tags: Curriculum matters |
Masterclass - Unit 4Our second Masterclass, and the final in our Vision 2020 series, will provide targeted and specific knowledge for Unit 4 of the new QCE English syllabuses English, Literature, English as an Additional Language, and Essential English. English teachers will work with a variety of experts, academics and peer practitioners. Participants will rece... |
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From the Physical to the IntellectualKathleen Macdonald is presenting From the Physical to the Intellectual on Saturday 20th October, 2018 at Ryan Catholic College from 9:00 to 11:30am. This will be an extended version of the workshop Kathleen is presenting at the State Conference on 18 August. All the details are available here. ... |
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Beginning Teachers DayThe Beginning Teachers Day this year will be held on Saturday 27 October at University of South Queensland (USQ) Springfield campus, 37 Sinnathamby Blvd, Springfield Central. The Date Claimer and Call for Presenters is available now. Further information on the program is available here This day is designed to meet the needs of pre-ser... |
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This is the first time I have been to an ETAQ conference and it was really sensational to get so much at all of the sessions.
ETAQ conferences always have sessions that make me excited to be a teacher.
I know that ETAQ conferences in the past have never disappointed - valuable, relevant, practical, inspiring so I came again.
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