Gone are the days when English teachers were expected to teach students how to read and write, to weigh arguments rationally, to think logically, and to introduce them to Western culture’s most enjoyable and enduring literature.

As detailed by Mark Lopez in his account of the literary texts taught at the Year 12 level, as a result of neo-Marxist-inspired critical theory, identity politics, and post-colonial theory, students are fed a steady diet of Woke texts guaranteed to turn them into cultural warriors of the left.

In his book School Sucks: A Report on the State of Education in the Politically Correct Era Lopez writes, ‘When looking at the Year 12 text list any year, it is evident that the texts chosen for study, with few exceptions, are overwhelmingly politically correct and left-wing.’

Based on the writings of the Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire VATE and the national association for English teachers, the AATE, champion a neo-Marxist-inspired critical literacy approach to teaching the subject.

Critical literacy involves using English teaching to empower and liberate students to enable them to overthrow Australia’s sexist, homophobic, patriarchal society riven with structural classism and racism.

VATE and the AATE have long argued against teaching standard English, learning to read with phonics, using standardised tests like NAPLAN, and having competitive, high-stakes examinations where some students fail.

After the re-election of the Howard government in 2004 the AATE journal argued teachers had failed to teach critical literacy and, as a result, that they must redouble their efforts as too many young people voted the wrong way.

No wonder over the last 20 to 30 years Australian students’ results have flatlined in the NAPLAN tests and students are ranked 21st in the Progress in International Reading Study.

To argue English teaching has long since abandoned a liberal view of education, one based on Matthew Arnold’s expression ‘the best that has been thought and said’ is not the fault of teachers. Rather bodies like VATE and like-minded academics are to blame.

Dr Kevin Donnelly

Sir Grappler Truth Teller OAM wrote on Nov 21^st, 2022 at 1:12pm:


You just can't help yourself, can you?

Not only off-topic and irrelevant, but deliberately calculated to be offensive.

It really is time you dropped this bullshit.

Kat wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2022 at 2:38pm:


You mean the trannies aren't going to start assaulting men, and are happy to stick to assaulting women, invading female spaces, and making a mockery of women's sports instead? 

Wow - that takes balls...          

Gnads wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2022 at 6:27pm:

Me at the checkout yesterday buying dishwasher tablets for $19.30.

Hand kid $20 note + 30 cents.

Kid says they're only $19.30.

Me says yeah, I know, gimme a dollar change.

Kid says but you've given me too much money, they're only $19.30 not $20.30.

Me takes back the 30 cents, and gets three 20 cent pieces and a 10 cent from the kid.

Me walks off leaving the kid still looking perplexed.

.....Kid later that night to parents; "Had this dopey old prick in the store
today.  He kept on trying to pay a dollar more for some dishwasher tables".

            

Frank wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2022 at 3:01pm:



You really are an idiot.

But then, you know that.

Kat wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2022 at 6:50pm:


Yeah - he forgot numeracy .............................           

The threshold for what can be deemed triggering seems to get lower by the day. Back in 2016, the law faculty at Oxford introduced trigger warnings to its lectures on sexual offences. Barely a year later, English literature undergraduates at Cambridge were given trigger warnings for Shakespeare plays for their ‘potentially distressing topics’. Last year, in an irony of ironies, students at the University of Northampton were warned of the potential thoughtcrimes they might encounter in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. And now, we have reached a new low, where even children’s literature can be considered challenging and hurtful to students.

So, what exactly is supposed to be ‘triggering’ about Peter Pan? According to Aberdeen University, it isn’t the ticking crocodile or the villainous Captain Hook that is likely to give students the biggest fright, but the novel’s ‘odd perspectives on gender’. How terrifying.
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