There’s been a ton of media coverage of the Grattan Institute’s report on primary school mathematics, which was released a couple days ago. We had a quick, tangential one yesterday, and we hope to write something more substantial in a day or two (no promises). Generally, the coverage has been stenographic and sympathetic, which is, in turn, not great and good. Undoubtedly there will be others (hello, AARE), but so far we have came across just one dissenting voice.
The Australian Associated Press had a report on Grattan (unpaywalled version here), titled,
Leave it to us: teachers dismiss maths crisis claims
The dismissing turns out to a small part of AAP’s report, and the “teachers” turns out to be, at most, just one teacher: AEU President, Correna Haythorpe. The Australian Education Union was last seen trying to kneecap Jason Clare’s reforms, so it’s no great surprise to find Haythorpe and the AEU objecting to Grattan:
The union said some of the proposals – including “beefing up school and principal reviews” and setting up an independent oversight body to drive the curriculum – were not the answer.
They sound like pretty good answers to us. Then comes the jackpot quote:
“It’s time for the Grattan Institute to leave teaching to the highly qualified and trained teaching profession,” Australian Education Union federal president Correna Haythorpe said.
Yes, because that has been working so, so well.
We have our issues with Grattan generally and with their Primary Mathematics report specifically. But there is no doubt that Grattan is batting for the good team. Haythorpe and the AEU, on the other had, are simply comic relief.
Want to cancel my union membership but apparently it’s basically mandatory for male teachers.
What? Says who?
One of my mentor teachers on placement said so. She said if you aren’t with the union you’re screwed if you get an accusation (legal fees would be crazy if I wasn’t a member, I think was her main point). Also have heard it’s sort of like insurance for a teacher. But that was from the school union rep and a guy that came to the school who worked at the union.
Oh I see. Well that’s really the standard deal. That’s the kind of thing a union is for. It’s just unfortunate that the union is controlled by fruitcakes.
There are unions other than the AEU that give you the same representation with lower fees and without the ingrained BS that the AEU is coveting. My advice is to look around. I left the AEU when they sold us out during COVID.
Feel free to give these other unions a plug.
“It’s time for the Grattan Institute to leave teaching to the highly qualified and trained teaching profession,”
Well, the problem is that while there are good teachers out there their numbers are low. Maybe AEU should address this problem?
They would simply deny there is that problem. As to whether they are liars or are delusional, it’s anyone’s guess.
Sadly, this is exactly what it looks like.
I’m not sure this is the AEU/VIEU/Any Other Union’s issue to address since I’m sure a teacher’s ability to plan and implement a plan for teaching some good skills with whole numbers, operations and *maybe* some fractions and decimals is not related in any way to their union membership status.
I read the Grattan report, I agree with pretty much everything they have said (disclaimer: I am a secondary Mathematics teacher and not a union member) in that I cannot find anything I specifically disagree with.
However… I do get a bit of a sense of “here we go again” with all of this in that problems have been recognised in the past and for all the hand-wringing and political “good will” to “fix” things, I have not seen any improvement in 25 years.
It is very easy for a guest on a morning television show to say how they never use *insert any random mathematical topic* in life, so… and so the problem will continue, likely for a long time to come.
I’m sure of two things reading this report:
1. There will be more reports in the future, making similar conclusions and recommendations.
2. Very little (if any) progress will be made.
Thanks, RF. I’ve semi-read Grattan, and hope to write on it soon.
Of course I share your general skepticism, that these reports and then they go. However, there does appear to be momentum building for some sensible reform. It is too much the Brain Boys and too little the mathematicians, but it can still improve things a lot.
I remain hopeful but it does fade a bit with each new report and the subsequent public teacher-bashings.
Despite the AEU’s spin on it, I don’t think the Grattan report was teacher-bashing. But I guess it gives license to teacher-bashing.
But also, teachers are not innocents here, even if they are without doubt also and more so victims.
Not the Grattan report – the commentary on some of the “news” programs. Grattan was not teacher-bashing (not the type I object to anyway)
Maybe not surprising. But bashing by whom?
When I saw the flooding coverage on my LinkedIn feed, the first thing that came to mind was to visit this blog and read Marty’s thoughts. Admittedly, it seems to me that many scholars today have a kind of explicit-teaching-phobia…
I’m not sure “scholars” is the correct term.