I don’t generally watch much tv, let alone write about it, but I was excited recently to watch episode 4 of Decadence - the meaninglessness of modern life:
“In this episode, Pria considers the undervaluing of a broad ‘western’ education in modern Australia and the narrow emphasis on money and profit which has replaced it. He speaks to best-selling author John Marsden and Professor Paul Davies.”
The presenter, Pria Viswalingam (of SBS’s most successful series internationally A fork in the road), asserts that the rise of specialised study to suit commercial needs at Australian universities (and schools) is stripping the west of it’s greatest achievement - excellent education:
“Indeed, school these days is more about hothousing kids into university, to get a vocation that’ll earn a decent position at the salary trough.”
The half-hour foray into Australian education highlights many interesting perspectives from people like John Marsden (who, coincidentally, opened his own school called CandleBark in 2006)
“Education is really struggling. It’s a funny thing that in Australia we claim that we value young people, we talk very beautifully about that, but we show our contempt for them by the amount of money we allocate to education, for example, by the way we structure schools. There is evidence everywhere we look, at just how little we value children. And so we talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.”
After a brief eye-opening journey through Australian (and Western) education, Pria concludes: “The West’s greatest achievement is being priced to sell, like factory trinkets, to straight A students - with a loan.”
And the scary thing is, “the West” doesn’t seem to care, as long as we make a buck while we can.
No comment on the SBS show or its presenter, but my point form response is full of (in)appropriately placed exclamation marks on your blog entry (like so!):
What!? young people are being educated?! Send them back down the coal mines!
And a capitalist society where education is freely provided as a means to a higher noble non profit oriented cause?
I get the sneaking suspicion that the “the North, South and East” dont care either! :)
*LOL* Dan I always have trouble understanding where you’re coming from :)
Why would it be strange for a capitalist society provide free education (I mean, why couldn’t it benefit the economy)? Do you have any experience of how the education system works in Korea? I’d like to find some other examples other than AU/US to compare to.
As for not caring, i meant the people - not the governments - of the “west”. Again, I’m just going on my overall impression of Australian attitudes towards education: at a grass-roots level (ie, parents and kids in public high schools) I get the feeling that many people don’t value it much at all (compared to overseas students studying in Australia anyway).
They say that there are two certainties in life, death and taxes.
Finland has is one western country with free education up the the tertiary level (probably at the expense of very high taxes). Finland could be the basis of a case study on education.
Korea is a user pay based system, at a high cost that is said to contribute to the fact that Korea lowest birthrate per woman in the OECD. There is a very strong emphasis for private tuition, which serve to compound the costs, highlighting the emphasis that the society has placed on education.
Attitude has a very different quantifier! (as is opinion)
My guess is that any cost increases on education for the coming election would ignite attitudes sufficiently.
Wow… just looked up Education in Finland:
Far out… they know how to keep their students’ attention! Sounds amazing:
I’d be interested to find out more about Finland’s education - ie, whether all schools are public or some private providers operating with public funding. Not that I can ever see that happening here again…
No worries if you don’t have time Dan, but one question comes to mind about Sth Korea:
Thanks for link to John Marsden’s school, that’s interesting, there are fewer alternative schools around these days and it’s good to find out what they are trying
btw I would have sent you an email about something else but couldn’t find your address on the “about” page
The school does sound interesting doesn’t it?! I love the description of the technology subjects - although I wonder how much ICT skills the kids do actually learn? Yes computers and technology can be overused, but I’d be keen to see what “balance” they have at the school.
Sorry, the email address is a bit hard to find: My username for gmail is absoludity - Interested to see what you were going to send :)
howdy, i know my response is a bit late, but i finally watched part of the decadence series
anyway. i skipped right to the education one, and wowowie i was interested…. i did half an engineering degree, and i have cert 2 and 3 in I.T from tafe…so thus i did school, uni and tafe..
learning has always been a beautiful thing and hobby for me, but i learnt the extremely hard way when i tried to find a job (after i did half the degree, then got panic disorder then psychosis after burning my brain out and bottling all my knowledge and EVERYthing up in my head, needed a year off after that…) and the I.T certs, i went job hunting..and i had NO luck at all!..this was the point in my life when i realised, that, just like this documentary, it doesnt matter how “smart” you are, or if you are a thinker etc, it is an absolute waste of time in this western world of money…
currently, i am happy being a storeperson..it has never mattered to me just to get a job that pays as much $$ as it can - it is absolutely a waste of time because im not the consumer/buying house/pool/expensive clothes type….. this documentary explained everything that i knew and suspected….
doesnt mean i wanna die over it…but i know kids are stupid now..they need calculators and spellcheck, and all they want to do is dress up….it is very saddening to realise that learning for all of these years is fruitless for survival (ie. you cant really do a maths degree or an arts degress cause you wont get a job out of it..and thus you wont live due to no money)…
this doco is brilliant! i love it - its great!
Hey Kitkatsavvy,
Yeah, it is a great doco… very thought provoking. Strange though, SBS seem to have skipped the 3rd part on Democracy? The skipped straight to part 4 Education this week.
I don’t know that ‘kids’ now are that stupid - their intelligence just lies in different areas (for eg. filtering information rather than absorbing it). But I agree that it’s sad how influential tv/media is in setting goals for a lot of young people.