Australia’s school education system has a fundamentally flawed element: teaching is treated like an art, not a science.
In its first two years, over 6000 teachers signed up for one of three short courses at La Trobe University that teach the science of language and reading.
“The Commonwealth government has been complicit in not holding university education faculties to account. Teachers have to go and get the information themselves in a really inefficient way.” The Productivity Commission – unsurprisingly – concluded the $319 billion that had been set aside for improving school outcomes, particularly in the most disadvantaged schools, had somehow failed to deliver any results.
But decades of scientific research has shown how wrong-headed that thinking is. The human brain might be hard-wired to learn to speak, but it has to be taught to read. And doing that requires them learning how to connect sounds with letters – or what is known as phonics. “We looked at the science of learning, understanding things like cognitive load theory. That has been a journey for us.”
“Students learn in the right sequence,” says Ross Fox, director of Catholic Education Canberra Goulburn.“Teachers check in with high frequency that what they have taught is being learned. We need to make precious use of the million minutes that students have with us from kindergarten to year 12 and ensure they are engaged from the highest possible expectation of cognitive tasks.”
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