A couple days ago, The Age featured an article by Education Editor, Noel Towell, on the “learning wars”, the new education battlefront. Towell is clear enough, and even-handed, and he gets it wrong, in a very educational manner.
I’m not particularly writing to criticise Towell, with whom I’ve chatted a couple times (by memory, he’s quoted me once), and whom I like.1 His article is thin – mostly a plug for this week’s Age Schools Summit2 – and is missing a critical point, but pretty much everybody else is missing the critical point, and it is the “everybody” upon which I wish to focus.
The developing war is over “explicit teaching”, which, thankfully, is the developing orthodoxy. Towell’s article follows last week’s free kick (and also a Summit plug) for AERO King, Jenny Donovan. Towell’s new article features Victorian Education Minster, Ben Carroll, in the blue corner and Adelaide University Education Professor Robert Hattam in the red corner, with La Trobe Dean of Education, Joanna Barbousas, acting as a referee or something.
There is not much to Towell’s article: just a bit of he said, he said. Towell is keeping education in the news for the Summit, which is fine. Towell presents the strongly opposed sides without suggesting which side might be being idiotic. But Towell might have given some space to the idea that, as is usual in Australia’s education debates, everyone is being idiotic.
Minister Carroll has gone hard with explicit teaching, and Towell quotes him so here:
This is the education revolution we had to have and this is the voice of reason, backed by science and evidence.
And so on. Hattam, “the veteran educator [who] has long battled against explicit learning” is the other guy.
There is not much to say about Hattam, who is about as cartoon a foe as one could imagine. Hattam rails against “one-size-fits-all nonsense” without providing a hint of which “size” explicit teaching may or may not fit, or why. But Carroll, while being plenty better than most education ministers, is also being idiotic.
One can be a rusted on fan of explicit teaching, as am I, while still being very queasy about the mandating of explicit teaching, whatever that may mean.4 Determining the sense and parameters of mandating teaching methods is tricky, and it is treacherous for both light-touch diplomacy and thug politics. One only has to look at the execrable Australian Curriculum, where ACARA played the greasy trick of pretending that their inquiry-modelling-exploring madness amounts to “content”, and thus can be declared mandatory.3 Carroll cannot play the same trick and it in its place he is being much blunter and, in doing so, is being astonishingly stupid.
Whatever the pedagogical soundness or political wisdom of mandating explicit teaching, Carroll is straying well out that territory, to throw his weight behind his appalling PowerPoint lessons. This is madness and it would be madness even if Carroll’s lessons were not the absolute garbage that they evidently are. It is insane to choose this distant hill to fight on, and to most likely die on.
I yelled it and I’ll keep yelling it: explicit teaching in mathematics is about being as clear as possible what you want the kids to learn and then have the kids learn it by doing it, with many good and appropriately graded exercises and problems. That is it, and if you are straying beyond that simple sense to broaden the battlefield, or to choose another battlefield entirely, then you are screwing up. Carroll, as are very many others, is screwing up.
The broadening and thus screwing up of the teaching battle has obvious parallels with the gender identity madness from which we are still trying to extract ourselves. For decades, many brave souls fought against a church-powered orthodoxy of sex roles and mores, fighting for the simple sanity of Live and Let Live. They won. But, that wasn’t enough for some. The letter people overreached and demanded not simply their lifestyles be tolerated but that everyone must also indulge in whatever mad fantasy they might concoct. Once the “marginalised” and their cheerleaders began to advocate for the “right” of men to wave their dicks in women’s bathrooms, once they advocated for the “right” of children to have body parts chopped off, and once they got drop-of-the-hat censorious over anyone who objected to this madness, they had lost both the plot and the populace. Inevitably, the populace has begun to push back, and not just against the madness but also, regrettably, against sensible and hard-won freedoms.
The exact same strategic madness is happening with explicit teaching. Greg Ashman has, on occasion, suggested the resolution of this battle is Live and Let Live: you teach in your school and I’ll teach in mine. But, if that was ever a reasonable description of a likely or workable reality it is not so now. It is not simply that explicit teaching is being shoved down teachers’ throats. As well, all manner of fifth-rate mission-creep PowerPoint-fuelled garbage is being shoved down teachers’ throats as well. Of course people are objecting to this garbage, and of course they are objecting to the sanctimonious Word of God manner in which it is being done.
The push for explicit teaching is a great thing. But, if Carroll and AERO and Ochre and Ashman and all the others screw this up, it will be because of their arrogant, overreaching and overbearing manner. They will only have themselves to blame. And we will all pay the price for their idiocy.
UPDATE (12/06/26)
In their latest podcast, Greg Ashman and Caiti Wade discuss the issues of this post and the previous.
1) Yeah, there is the title of the post, but what are you gonna do? If God hands you a title, you use it.
2) My speaking invitation obviously got lost in the mail, again.
3) See here for posts on the inquiry battle over the (then) draft curriculum, and see also email 36 of the WMMC FOI release.
4) Regular readers will know that I am critical of Greg Ashman on this topic, and am again in this post, so it is important to note Ashman’s expressed discomfort with such mandates.
Of course you are right. But if we are to take a step back and ask what the Government should do, it’s a bit more complex. The Minister, whose mother was a teacher, and who wants to be Premier, wants to make his mark.
The Ministers wants not only to promote what we called ‘teaching’ and is now called ‘explicit teaching’, but also he wants to be seen to do this (and make his mark). Logically to do this, he needs to have a solution available. And he has no choice but to recommend the Victorian Government solution (ARC) of course (though the Ochre is awful too). And he has to mandate to be seen to be strong and make his mark (which he may actually even believe as it’s pounds to peanuts that he’s never looked at a real ARC lesson).
So the question is what might actually help over the longer term (and is of course unlikely to happen). As you note, the Curriculum needs fixing. We also need to fix teacher training. We need some decent textbooks written (although this could be Powerpoint – it would just have to be far higher quality than the demand for instant delivery that the political cycle demands). And we need to convince at least a generation of (mainly) primary maths teachers that the way they have been teaching is a disaster.
Put it all together and it’s really very very hard. All we can do is lay the groundwork (as you are doing) and agree that mandating these Powerpoints is insanity and is likely to drive a backlash.
For fuck’s sake: he cannot doing anything helpful so he may as well do something unhelpful?
This is all mad. Carroll COULD do something helpful by going to war with ACARA. He’s on the fucking Minister committee, which has to approve all of ACARA’s shit.
The fundamental problem was never inquiry learning, although ACARA’s sleazy, idiotic curriculum had made that much more a cemented problem. The fundamental problem is that the curriculum is as weak as piss, and there is not proper mandated testing of even that pissweak curriculum.
Fix the curriculum and fix the testing, and then let teachers do what the fuck they want.
Yes – you’re right – but he is hardly likely to pick such an abstruse (in political terms) battle. And there’s no one in the bureaucracy who might put him up to it. The whole structures of power are rotten – that’s very hard to fix.
JJ, what the hell are you arguing other than that Carroll is just another self-interested dumbfuck politician?
Thanks, Marty. For me, explicit teaching in mathematics is much closer to the Chinese teachers’ examples in Dr Liping Ma’s book. To the best of my knowledge, however, explicit teaching in Australia often seems to be associated with scripted lessons, mini whiteboards, and document cameras.
Thanks, Jiqing. This reminds me of a TV ad from long ago for salad dressing: the ad proudly proclaimed that the dressing had “that authentic Asian flavour”. I think Australia is getting “that authentic explicit teaching”.
It is not hard. How can people make something so obvious and so simple into something so perverted?
Explicit teaching in Australia is most commonly associated with Rosenshine’s principles (especially the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model), none of which mention anything about scripted lessons. There’s a bit of a hoax going around that Explicit Teaching = Engleman’s direct instruction coming from a few fringe academics, but it’s not really based on anything. Never heard of Liping Ma, are they similar to Rosenshine?
Thanks, Alfven. Liping Ma wrote a great book, comparing the difference between the teaching of primary mathematics in China and the US. The other stuff you wrote is Greek to me, and will remain Greek to me. It doesn’t matter whatsoever to me who has what principle. None of these people come bearing commandments from God.
Despite your objection to the word ‘principle’, Rosenshine was a fairly humble researcher that promoted explicit instruction without being annoying. His principles are very straight-forward common-sense teaching. As a bonus, he did all of his research before the invention of powerpoint.
Thanks, Alfven. I’m not sure I’ve objected to the word “principle”, and I had/have no opinion on Rosenshine one way or the other. What I object to (without suggesting you were doing it) is the chanting of “Rosenshine” or “Engleman” or “Bloom” or “Sweller” or “Boaler” or “The Finnish Clown” or whomever, as if that carries any particular weight.
I simply don’t believe there is much to teaching beyond KKK and tons of practice and plain common sense. To the extent any of these guys are providing some nuance to flesh that out, then great. If they’re claiming much more, then I simply don’t believe it.
I agree with you Marty. The point I was trying to make is that no one in Australia advocating for scripted lessons. Not Ashman, not Carroll, not Aero (maybe Ochre). It’s a conspiracy theory to scare teachers that can usually be traced back to a few academics at Deakin.
It is not a conspiracy theory. I have talked to seriously stressed and/or furious teachers being fucked over by this. And none of the people/groups you named above are cleanskins.
If so many teachers keep associating explicit teaching with scripted lessons, PowerPoints, mini whiteboards and compliance routines, it might be worth asking why that impression exists in the first place. At some point, it becomes more than just a misunderstanding.
Thanks, Jiqing, but I don’t think it is the teachers who are suffering from the misunderstanding.
Again, the problem here is not that some teachers choose to use PowerPoint or mini-WB or whatever. Teachers can be happier with a tighter or looser ship, in all manner of ways, and good for them. I may like or dislike some aspects but of course my opinion does not matter one jot: Live and Let Live.
The problem, which is very very much not a conspiracy theory, is that the PowerPoints, the scripts, the tight regimentation and the Big Brothering of it all is being forced upon teachers, including good teachers who know well what they are doing and were doing it much better before being ordered around by micromanaging cretins.
Others can disbelieve it all they like, but it is real. And the disbelief is the exact kind of wilful ignorance of justified anger that gives rise to populist backlash. The bad guys are enough of a problem. Why do the good guys have to be fucking it up also?
“As a bonus, he did all of his research before the invention of powerpoint.”
Well, Rosenshine’s principles predate the invention of PowerPoint. As a bonus, Chinese mathematics classrooms had been practising many of these ideas long before Rosenshine wrote them down.
Thanks, Jiqing. Although the Chinese also practised foot binding long before Rosenshine. One has to be careful using tradition as a source of confirmation. But, if Rosenshine is being sensible then it is no great surprise that others were the same sensible earlier. (In which case, why do we need Rosenshine?)
Hi Marty, just found this interesting https://fillingthepail.substack.com/p/i-already-do-that from Greg Ashman, regarding the matter we discuss here.
Thank you, Jiqing. Yes, I noted it, and also his “When will they …” podcast.
I’m pondering Rosenshine.
I think that’s a bit harsh. Certainly Nick Gibbs are a very rare species. However if he were just a run of the mill politician, he would have done nothing as that would be the path of least resistance. Whether what he has done will be counterproductive is up for debate.
I wrote that he was one of the better ministers. But you seem to be excusing him for doing a half-assed thing that may well kill any popular support for the non-half-assed thing.