Literacy Crisis In Tasmania

[icyfroth]

At least half of Tasmania's population can't read or write properly and test results are showing a growing gap between Tasmanian teenagers and those on the mainland.

The latest global report card on 15-year-olds found that 47 per cent of Tasmanian teenagers failed the minimum standard of English, compared to 36 per cent nationally.

Tasmania's disturbing figures are not dissimilar to other parts of rural and regional Australia, but there is growing concern that the spending of more than a billion dollars a year is doing little to tackle the problem.

As Suzanne Smith reports, some experts say there will be no improvement without deep cultural change.

Entire Article Here

I was listening to the discussion about this on Hack the other night.

Apparently the schooling system has a lot to do with it. School finishes for most in year 10. To go on to year 12, students have to move to the city to complete their education at one of only 2 colleges.

[gleee58]

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@icyfroth wrote:

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@tasfleur wrote:

Yes, I get that situation too, it's staggering how clever tertiary students are, but can't express it.

Last year was the worst I had ever seen when assessing final year student papers.

I must go, bye everyone xx

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Tas, in the Hack program, quite a few case histories came up.

One case (from memory) was where a young man kept falling behind in school and decided to teach himself by reading comics. His preference was science fiction.

He's now an engineer.

So a lot depends on the individual, I think, and their own motives.

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That is such a good point that is often overlooked.

If a kid isn't interested in the traditional class room material it is important that they are encouraged to read something they like get reading practice.

Interestingly children with an aptitude in scientific/mechanical/mathematical areas often have difficulty learning literacy in the traditional style.

[icyfroth]

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@gleee58 wrote:

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@icyfroth wrote:

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@tasfleur wrote:

Yes, I get that situation too, it's staggering how clever tertiary students are, but can't express it.

Last year was the worst I had ever seen when assessing final year student papers.

I must go, bye everyone xx

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Tas, in the Hack program, quite a few case histories came up.

One case (from memory) was where a young man kept falling behind in school and decided to teach himself by reading comics. His preference was science fiction.

He's now an engineer.

So a lot depends on the individual, I think, and their own motives.

---

That is such a good point that is often overlooked.

If a kid isn't interested in the traditional class room material it is important that they are encouraged to read something they like get reading practice.

Interestingly children with an aptitude in scientific/mechanical/mathematical areas often have difficulty learning literacy in the traditional style.

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Well, you know Glee. If a kid isn't interested in higher education but wants to carve his/her niche in getting on with living in the rural general lfestyle chosen, who's to say that means they're less intelligent or without resources?

[gewens]

Hello, everyone. Please communicate in a courteous way for the harmony of this forum and do not take everything to heart. Thanks very much. 🙂

[poddster]

Teachers do not exist anymore. Once upon a time the teaching profession among with nursing was more than just a job, it calling a dedicated calling. Enter the Unions and  Education Department control.

Teachers were deprived of disciplinary powers, they were told what and how to teach, all sorts of constants were placed on them.

Is it any wonder that the teaching and nursing professions are devoid of teachers ? They have mostly been replaced with data serving automatons who have been trained to be automatons.

Couple that with the reluctance of most parents to participate in the preparing of their offspring for life and all its foibles.

Most children have been abandoned and left to their own devices. Peer pressure is rampant among the youth of this and most countries.

Kids have got one finger firmly implanted in a "smart phone" and the other fingers implanted in unmentionable places. Their noses are stuck to the screen of their most popular computer game where,  available to them are all manner of virtual mayhem.

Welcome to the future.

[azureline**]

http://www.education.tas.gov.au/parents_carers/schools-colleges/Pages/Years-11-and-12.aspx

There are eight senior secondary schools (colleges) in Tasmania that provide a wide range of programs and study options, including enrolment in the Flexible Learning Network (FLN), which provides opportunities for students to study off campus. 

• A number of regional and rural schools provide Year 11 and 12 education and training within their local communities. 
• Some of these have programs available through Trade Training Centre (TTC) facilities which are designed to provide practical training using industry-standard equipment. 
• eLearning Programs also provide access to some VET courses for Year 11 and 12 students in regional and rural schools. These eLearning courses are delivered by an online teacher with the support and supervision of the student’s own school.

[the_great_she_elephant]

Kids have got one finger firmly implanted in a "smart phone" and the other fingers implanted in unmentionable places. Their noses are stuck to the screen of their most popular computer game where,  available to them are all manner of virtual mayhem.

Welcome to the future.

That's an interesting point, Poddy. a few years ago my son asked me and I agreed to read and give advice on a novel that a friend of his was writing. The writer was a young man in his mid 20

The novel was a fantasy, inspired I at first assumed, by the Lord Of The Rings. It made very odd reading. the main character was a boy of  some vaguely imagined non-human race that had been driven to the brink of extinction by an unexplained campaign of genocide by some other vaguely imagined non-human race

.Over the course of the first five pages (note that, five pages.) the boy is left at the home of a wizard by his parents who are being pursued by unexplained assassins - presumably tfrom the same race that has wiped out the rest of their kind. The parents then disappear into the night and are never heard of or even mentioned gain.

The boy grows up in the wizard's house and receives some kind of of wizardly training (none of which is ever described). At 20 years of age he leaves the wizard and goes off to seek his fortune, meets a girl, marries her, I think they have a baby, he comes home from hunting one day and finds she and the child have been killed by robbers . He hunts the baddies down and kills them (all this in FIVE pages, remember.)

He then takes to the road on an aimless journey to nowhere and for the rest of the book - or as much of it as I managed to get through before giving up in despair -  he says nothing, thinks nothing and does nothing except  fight an assortment of  orcs, trolls, brigands and assorted baddies who leap out at him from behind rocks and trees and serve no purpose other than to be summarily slaughterd  in a variety of  ingenious and bloodthirsty manners.

The whole novel was an exercise in pointlessness. It had me totally flummoxed until suddenly the penny dropped. I realised - and this was later confirmed by my son - that his writer had never read a novel in his life and his only  understanding of story telling had come not from books or  films or even TV shows - it had came from computer games. 

[lind9650]

She-ele, that explains so much. Children and young adults are not encouraged to think anymore.

Every answer they can find on the internet. Cyber-speak eliminates good spelling and mathematics are done on computers.

Nothing is real anymore. Smart phones, tablets and computers make real thinking obsolete.

I am glad my children grew up at a time where they were taught how to read, write and spell and are insisting that their children use their heads instead of electronic gadgets.

Erica

[poddster]

Like I said ele welcome to the future.

Unless parents pay more attention to the upbringing of their offspring and take an active role in their preparation for their adulthood the world will be populated with the like of the 'novelist' that you have described. As the young generation will be future administrators and policy makers of the future, I fear for the survival of our species as cognisant, thinking creatures.

Mayhem will permeate all aspects of physical, intellectual, and psychological life.

Parents, extract your digits from wherever they are lodged and take an active and informed role in the future survival of the species.

[gleee58]

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@icyfroth wrote:

---

@gleee58 wrote:

---

@icyfroth wrote:

---

@tasfleur wrote:

Yes, I get that situation too, it's staggering how clever tertiary students are, but can't express it.

Last year was the worst I had ever seen when assessing final year student papers.

I must go, bye everyone xx

---

Tas, in the Hack program, quite a few case histories came up.

One case (from memory) was where a young man kept falling behind in school and decided to teach himself by reading comics. His preference was science fiction.

He's now an engineer.

So a lot depends on the individual, I think, and their own motives.

---

That is such a good point that is often overlooked.

If a kid isn't interested in the traditional class room material it is important that they are encouraged to read something they like get reading practice.

Interestingly children with an aptitude in scientific/mechanical/mathematical areas often have difficulty learning literacy in the traditional style.

---

Well, you know Glee. If a kid isn't interested in higher education but wants to carve his/her niche in getting on with living in the rural general lfestyle chosen, who's to say that means they're less intelligent or without resources?

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I don't think anyone said they're less intelligent if they want to live a rural lifestyle.

Obviously higher education isn't for everyone.  Years 11 and 12 are hardly higher education by today's standard, even though they are compared to the year 8 or 9 that their grandparents might have attained.  Most jobs in rural areas need education and skills. Farmers need to meet food standards and business standards.  As do people working rural health services and rural education.   

In general, each generation stays at school for longer than that of their grandparents.  Perhaps there is just so much more to learn.

[poddster]

Or perhaps the automaton data servers that are supposed to pass for teachers lack the ability to actually teach.

Education is governed by the state and as a result standards and content are designed to meet the requirement that best suits the state.

I am not talking about "state" as in Victoria, Tasmania or any other state.

Schools should be handed over to private individuals and interference should be state should by minimised as much as possible.

Throughout recent history it has been proved that if you wanted your offspring to have a far superior chance of succeeding you sent them to a private school.