The full article from The Australian:

Classroom focus shifts to life skills

Senior students will be better prepared for work and further study under curriculum changes in NSW that lead the nation by ­improving writing skills, financial literacy, teaching how Western civilisation was shaped, and highlighting Robert Menzies’ place in Australia’s history.

The curriculum overhaul, the first in two decades, will “correct’’ the existing emphasis on studying a breadth of subjects to ensure students leave high school with deeper knowledge and the skills to navigate a changing world.

Maths will look at statistics and the algorithms used by Google for search engines, while English will include explicit references to structure, grammar, spelling, ­vocabulary and punctuation. Students taking history extension will better understand the nation-shaping role of the Anzacs in politics and culture.

NSW Education Standards Authority chairman Tom Alegounarias said: “This is our ­addressing of what we feel were shortcomings or corrections required to previous eras of curriculum development, particularly at the senior secondary level.’’

The changes address complaints about a lack of rigour in science studies. The physics curriculum was ripped to shreds as a “disaster’’ last month when one of the nation’s leading scientists, ­renowned quantum physicist Michelle Simmons, expressed horror that it had been “feminised’’ to make the discipline more appealing to girls by substituting mathematical formulae with essays.

The new maths, science, ­English and history syllabuses for the higher school certificate are released today after an extensive consultation process. Year 11 classes will adopt the reworked curriculum from next year.

The changes not only reflect the new national curriculum adopted by the other states but NSW has gone one step further by introducing a cross-curriculum emphasis on work and enterprise to future-proof its HSC students. More than 77,000 students sit the exam each year. The NSW syllabuses were miles ahead of the other states, Mr Alegounarias said, because the state had shifted its thinking to prepare students better for the ­demands of the workforce and further study.

“We’re not backing off indigenous perspectives or diversity; that’s our world. But we’ve faced up to issues such as where does work and enterprise fit in,’’ he said.

Kevin Donnelly, a senior ­research fellow at the Australian Catholic University, said many of the recommendations of the ­National Curriculum Review that he co-chaired had been adopted. “We recommended greater focus on essential content and more academic rigour, plus more about the history underpinning ­Western culture; the new NSW syllabuses reflect those recommendations,’’ Dr Donnelly said.

The underlying thrust of the NSW changes is to ensure students have a depth of understanding of topic, which means their skills are transferable.

“Depth in content is something that was previously, I would say, diluted, in order to achieve choice and diversity,’’ Mr Alegounarias said. “The point of the learning is to get to the depth of content and the rigour of understanding, and the confidence and mastery over the content.’’

The internationally recognised HSC sets the standard for school assessments in other states and the NSW changes are likely to influence other curriculums.

The NSW Education Standards Authority, which replaces the Board of Studies Teaching and Education Standards, has also tackled criticisms that previous history topics lacked an emphasis on the movements and events that had shaped Western civilisation.

“We have something called Shaping the Modern World,’’ Mr Alegounarias said. “Now that ­begins with the Enlightenment, it goes through the development of liberal democracy, the French Revolution, it studies the concepts of liberty, inalienable rights, the Age of Imperialism, capitalism, the Industrial Age, and manufacturing. So, there’s no shying away from the sort of comments that conservative commentators might accuse us of.”

He stressed those additions to the curriculum did not mean NSW had dropped indigenous perspectives. History retains World War I studies but they are shifted into Year 11 and World War II studies remain. History extension will include a look at the leadership and legacy of Australia’s longest-­serving prime minister, conservative Robert Menzies.

“You can’t study post-World War II Australia without studying Menzies and he’s mentioned explicitly on a number of occasions, but (former Labor prime minister) Gough (Whitlam) also gets a mention,’’ Mr Alegounarias said.

The curriculum also underscores Australia’s role in the Asian century. “We are a nation with a strong Western tradition that is situated in Asia at a time when the economic and social dynamic is centring on Asia,’’ Mr Alegounarias said. “We will not back away from diversity as an important perspective in content but we don’t see that in competition with work and enterprise.’’

The science curriculum will have increased mathematical content, especially in physics and chemistry, and a focus on learning scientific principles, theories and laws and contemporary applications.

In English, a new topic called the craft of writing has been introduced to tackle language structure and the power of ­expression. Maths courses will be assessed on a common scale, which means students doing harder courses will be rewarded.

I was sure someone would take offence to this.

Why the hell discuss Robert Menzies? Pig Iron Bob did what to shape our nation? Credit squeezes, 20% inflation, Korean War and Viet Nam War! Nobbled the CSIRO and wanted to shut down the Snowy Mountain Scheme. We know he spent 6 months in the UK taking home movies and waiting to be made UK PM so he could appease Hitler.

Why not John Curtin? He learned the lessons from the one term Scullin govt, directed the effort in WWII and at the same time developed a vision for post war Australia. What Menzies did, apart from idiocies like trying to ban the Communist Party was just carrying out Curtin’s vision.

This makes me suspect the whole new curriculum!

In principle the new curriculum sounds good to me!

So, what did he do that was of lasting good?

Are you saying we should not teach history formally?

Curtin stood up to Churchill and Roosevelt separately and together in the matter of, first, getting our troops out of the ME and, more importantly getting them to PNG not Burma where the Japs would have captured them pretty effortlessly (the diggers didn’t have their heavy equipment in the convoy.)

Curtin the man and politician deserve some study IMHO while the blowhard Menzies did SFA really.

A curriculum making a howler like that is not worth adopting IMHO—what other howlers are there?

Only one paragraph in that article rings true. This one:

Quote:


The rest is mostly misguided. Trump, Le Pen etc. are only effects of an already demoralised West. The actual point of when it went downhill is debatable, but it is certainly not Trump or Le Pen. Personally, I place the downfall when the radicals took over the universities and politics in the 1960-70s. Western history and culture was vastly reinterpreted at this time. The guilt and loathing industry rewrote the history books and this trickled down into everyday culture. Others argue that the downfall starts with Boas anthropology, others go as far back as the French Revolution. Whatever the case, 'The Wall Street Journal' is way off the mark.

freediver wrote on Feb 21^st, 2017 at 5:49pm:



The oligarchy setting the agenda to produce robots once again.

If it's set in stone you cannot refute it or debate it.

Personal opinion and thought don't count.

Stay inside the box my son, it's safer in here.

Britain never had a French style revolution but ended up being wealthier. While there's no doubt that the Revolution did spawn ideas on freedom, equality and liberty - as we see them today - the amount of blood spilled in order to establish them with the totalitarian style of Robespierre and the Jacobins is highly questionable. Britain did it relatively peacefully by enacting small incremental changes in rights over time.

There is also the argument, which I in part agree with, that this was the beginning of resentment based politics that we see today. Preachers of equality cannot tolerate anyone above them, which begets and validates envy and resentment fueled political movements. Awe and reverence dissipate from this time.    

So many questions.
You've taken a very linear view of life and history (very Fukuyama like). Freedom (as in negative freedom?) and democracy aren't strictly determined evolutions or progressions. Non-Western countries, even the Mediterranean countries, are more collective, whereby (negative?) freedom plays second fiddle to the collective or traditional structures of culture and family.

We should go a few steps backward first and ask, do they want or need to establish liberal democracy?

Do you think any of these people had a choice how to establish liberal democracy?


I would say no.

The British and French.

So the French should have simply chosen a gradual British-style transition to liberal democracy?

Intervened how? To stop the French monarchy slaughtering the slow and dimwitted reformers?

What's the fascination with liberal democracy anyway?

Quote:


It could have also failed completely. How much blodsheed do you think would have been "just enough"?

Quote:


Perhaps they realise it has revolutionised the world.

freediver wrote on Feb 26^th, 2017 at 5:54pm:


dunno. it's your story.

Quote:


in some respects.   

freediver wrote on Feb 27^th, 2017 at 8:24pm:


you brought choice into it.
do you have military experience on overthrowing governments, or should I say, monarchies? 

Quote:


dafuq?

i answered that in reply 28.

as indicated, Robespierre and the jacobins have extremist mindsets and are mass murderers. that isn't even my main beef with the revolution. my main beef was, as indicated, that the emphasis on equality begat and validated resentment based politics.

it's not equality before the law that's the problem (although there is no equality before the law when you need large amounts of money to hire a lawyer). the problem is the envy of success. some people resent it and form entire political movements around it.

trying to be karnal eh. meh.

i've given a clue above as to why some aspects of it are problematic. i really couldn't be bothered putting in too much effort on here explaining it though.

I stated before in this thread that I lay most of the blame onto the radicals of the 1960-70s, as it was them who almost completely rewrote the history books and reinterpreted culture.

my reply 51 is in regards to reply 15, which came before the section you quoted, which is reply 19.

yes, i think that's been established.