From my perspective as both a parent and a professional who has worked closely with young people I am very supportive of any iniative which challenges the current system.

Personally I have three daughters who have completed year 12 and one daughter who is currently in Yr 12.

Professionally I have lost count of the number of young people in year 11 & 12 who have expressed their stress and indeed distress at the seemingly ever increasing workload including the vast array of assessment pieces.

My eldest daughter is currently studying at a Masters level and I would venture to say that she finds the workload more realistic than my daughter in Year 12.

It saddens me to see the effect that this stress is having not only in this developmentally significant  phase of their lives but potentially the ongoing and sometimes insidious effects which may go unnoticed until they raise their head as fully blown mental health issues.

I do not believe that this is alarmist but rather my observations of what I have seen first hand and what has been shared with me by young people themselves.

Our young people are a precious and unique asset both within our families and our community. It behoves us to tread carefully and rather then set them up for potential burnout to instead skill them with an intellectual curiosity and emotional resilience which sets them on a pathway to become both enthusiastic life long learners and compassionate, wise members of our global community.

I recently had a conversation with a teacher who stated that she no longer had time to have a relationship with her students. This struck a deep chord at the time and I wondered what this may actually mean. There seemed to me to be a great sense of loss in this statement. Indeed something to reflect upon.

Jennifer McMahon
B Health and Community Service, Major in Counselling

Much as been written lately in the press about the success of Asian education: particularly regarding schooling in Singapore and China.
The main emphasis of these reports is that vigour, examinations, pertinent content and well qualified educationists are the keys to quality education.
In contrast education in Qld is hampered by poor or inadequate syllabi, bureaucratic red tape and a stultifying, suffocating approach from the Queensland Studies Authority [QSA].
In many ways this, so called “education body”, acts in direct opposition to creating the standards required for high quality education.
The QSA requirements for examining and recording of students achievements are not precise and are at best opaque. Symbols handed to pupils give a very imprecise account of what they have achieved. Imagine going shopping and the price of an article was given a symbol B. How do you assess what is the true value of the article? Accountants don’t use symbols to decide on the Tax one has to pay – nor does the ATO. Similarly how accurate is it to give a pupil a B? Clearly this system has to be thrown out and replaced with marks and percentages. Of course the QSA will provide some mumbo jumbo edu-babble to justify their approach.
The other main aspect where Asian students have an advantage over the Queensland pupils is that Content is seen as king.
Einstein did not come to his theory of relativity from a vacuum of content. Rather he knew, fully understood the facts and could apply the theory in practical ways. He consequently could make quantum leaps in creativity. The build up of knowledge follows these steps: recall of information, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and finally, creativity coming last. This latter skill is dependent on all of those other formative steps. Instead of ensuring these foundations are laid down, the QSA is playing around with education with the Extended Response Tasks [ERTs] and Extended Experimental Investigations [EEIs] – open-ended tasks in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry which soak up valuable teaching time. While contextual learning has its merits, pupils in Queensland schools are compelled by the QSA to research information and undertake experiments they are not qualified to do. We are talking about 15/16 year olds not 4^th year university students. It is putting the cart before the horse. In most cases these [ERTs and EEIs] become defacto or at best camouflaged English assignments; not Mathematical or Scientific applications. The bottom line is that they are of dubious educational value in Maths and Science where assessment criteria set by the QSA emphasise the ability to write well rather than the ability to do physics, chemistry or maths. The sciences are vast areas of knowledge today. Why make it harder for pupils to become efficient and knowledgeable in these difficult subjects? Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel it makes sense to use the wheel to further understanding and creative applications. Hence, the emphasis and teaching time should be geared to honing traditional problem solving skills and act as a springboard for the transfer of knowledge.
Finally, the load on teaching staff under the current authority, is related more to meeting assessment criteria that are unrelated to Maths and Science rather than passing on knowledge which they have gained from years of involvement. It acts as a demotivating enterprise for teachers and has a very negative feedback on pupils, particularly boys. The QSA approach is disguised socialisation and feminisation of maths and science.
Clearly all pupils suffer with this approach, particularly boys and more especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Who wins: the pen pushers in the authority – not the pupils and not our nation.

Merv Myhill

BSc; UEd; BEd; MEd.