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The following letter was submitted to The Courier-Mail for possible inclusion in the edition of Wednesday 9 September 2015 but it was not selected for publication.
Number crunchers in charge of education
Professor Kenneth Wiltshire wisely warns against allowing "measurers" or "number crunchers" to be in charge of any part of a school system ("In-school senior assessment still needs more examination", Sep 8).
Professor Barry McGaw, the inaugural chair of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), that developed the national curriculum, was sometimes inaccurately described by journalists as an expert on school curriculum. He would not have made that claim himself. His expertise and experience were in educational measurement.
And I suspect that Professor Wiltshire would be appalled if he had a better undertanding of the contemporary focus on data in the school system, which sometimes amounts to an obsession. Data is of course useful but a sensible balance must be maintained. There is some timely advice often attributed to Einstein (inaccurately, I believe): not everything that counts can be counted; and not everything that can be counted counts".
Garry Collins
President, Australian Association for the Teaching of English
 "Garry Collins, AATE President")
Author:Garry Collins, AATE President| Tags:Assessment |
Short Stories and PoetryThe transformation of text is demanding and difficult, but it is also often a thing of beauty. General English Unit three requires students to transform a poem into a short story, which requires us to guide them through this process. Using poems as stimulus for short story is inspiring and energising and this workshop will offer practical a... | |||||||||||||||
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March Masterclass 2022We are delighted to announce our first event for 2022 will be the March Masterclass: Writing: Our future to be held on Saturday 12 March 2022 at Iona College, Lindum, when Dr Sally Humphrey, senior lecturer (Literacy Education) ACU will present the keynote address. The program will be available by 28 January and registrations will open ... | ||||||||||||
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May Seminar 2022The May seminar Writing our future ... will respond to developments in the text list, National Curriculum and NAPLAN. Keynotes will be presented by Lisa Bottomly and Sophie Johnson, from QCAA with supporting workshops on the new additions to the text list. | ||||||||||||
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JCU Spectacular 2022Join Dr Claire Hansen for a two-hour session on teaching Macbeth. We'll dive into an exploration of the language of Macbeth and teaching strategies to engage students with Shakespeare's Scottish play. The workshop will also explore learning activites for Macbeth created by the Shakespeare Reloaded project. For further details, see the... | ||||||||||||
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Indigenous Perspectives in the Junior CurriculukAfter a work program review Town High explored ways to better embed indigenous perspectives in the year 7 program through a novella study of Black Cockatoo. The unit became our first taste of analytical essay writing in year 7, in preparation for subsequent years. We found greater engagement from students across the board. ... | ||||||||||||
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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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