The failure of Australia’s great educational experiment
Australia has spent the past five decades putting children at the centre of their own learning, often with disappointing results. But there’s a glimmer of hope.
Australia, like most of the Western world, has over the past five decades been engaged in a giant ideological experiment on how to educate its children to read, write and add up.
During those years, explicit instruction, rote learning and disaggregating learning into bite-sized chunks that can be committed to memory and called upon as necessary fell out of favour. This style of teaching systematically builds one piece of learning on top of another to ensure students master key concepts before progressing to more advanced areas.
Loading...
Julie Hare is the Education editor. She has more than 20 years’ experience as a writer, journalist and editor. Connect with Julie on Twitter. Email Julie at julie.hare@afr.com
