Union’s NAPLAN scare tactics set Queensland kids up to fail

Manufacturing drama to back its desire to abolish national testing does the Queensland Teachers’ Union no credit, writes associate editor, Kylie Lang.

Queensland Teachers' Union president, Cresta Richardson.

It’s poor form for the Queensland Teachers’ Union to use the vulnerability of children to support its tired campaign to abolish NAPLAN.

But hey, when all else fails, play the emotional card, right?

Wrong.

As we know – some of us more directly than others – ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred has wreaked havoc on the southeast.

Schools closed and many homes were left without power while others succumbed to rising floodwaters or falling trees.

Not the cruisy start to March anyone – including children – expected.

But there is no need to whip up hysteria and overstate the impact on kids who, the QTU would have us believe, are snowflakes.

Early on Wednesday, the very morning NAPLAN began in most Queensland schools, the union demanded the series of tests be dumped.

President Cresta Richardson said while they were “stressful” under normal circumstances, “added to this is the psychological and physical impact on students and school communities affected by recent natural disasters”.

Ms Richardson also claimed 2025 results would be affected due to kids missing regular classes prior to NAPLAN.

Wow. What a way to amplify everyday exam jitters into anxiety. Not only are children supposedly psychologically damaged by Alfred but even their best efforts won’t be good enough. Might as well give up entirely.

I am pleased that many kids are not fazed by NAPLAN, now or in previous years.

They rock up to school and answer as well as they can, and they will do this again from Monday when the tests continue in a delayed rollout. No biggie. This is how it should be.

Any pressure other kids feel comes from schools themselves, from parents or, indeed, the QTU.

Since 2008, the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy has been an indicator of where a student is in their educational journey, in years 3, 5, 7 and 9. It is a point-in-time measure – not a predictor of overall academic achievement or future life success.

Yet almost since its inception, the QTU has been dead against it, so I have to wonder why Ms Richardson said on Wednesday that “now is the perfect time to scrap” it.

Were earlier campaigns practice runs?

Since 2010 the union has told teachers to boycott NAPLAN and argued for it to be axed.

It has called it a burden on overworked, under-resourced teachers – and I don’t doubt this is true for many educators.

But leave kids out of it.

Our children are more resilient than many adults think – and by not giving them credit for this we are enabling weakness.

If we deny them the opportunity to step up and show up, we stunt their growth.

Besides, if a downgraded cyclone is the worst a child can expect to deal with in life, then kids are in for a rude shock.

In their excellent book The Coddling of the American Mind, lawyer Greg Lukianoff and psychologist Jonathan Haidt examine how a generation of young people are being set up for failure.

It applies equally to Australia.

They question what is going wrong when rates of anxiety, depression and suicide are rising.

One of the “great untruths” they say has become embedded in the way children are raised and educated is this: “What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker”.

“Teaching kids that failures, insults and painful experiences will do lasting damage is harmful,” Lukianoff and Haidt write.

“Human beings need physical and mental challenges and stressors or we deteriorate.

“For example, muscles and joints need stressors to develop properly. Too much rest causes muscles to atrophy, joints to lose range of motion, heart and lung function to decline, and blood clots to form.”

The good news, in terms of our prosperity, is that stressors, risks and unexpected events are part of life.

Instead of trying to shield kids from anything that might upset them, we should be helping them face it and grow – and this means pushing on, not giving up.

The word trauma is bandied around too often.

Only a few decades ago, psychiatrists used it to define something physical and tangible, as in traumatic brain injury.

It then broadened to PTSD to signify an extraordinary experience, like war, rape or torture.

Today, trauma covers just about anything unpleasant.

By the QTU’s reasoning, NAPLAN qualifies, coming off the back of that other trauma named Alfred.

Our kids have navigated a Covid pandemic, and every single day they are grappling with social media, a foe greater than any adult over 30 encountered growing up.

They need to be equipped with strategies that build resilience, not made to feel they are incapable of surmounting the challenges thrown at them.

And they most definitely should not be pawns in a failed union campaign.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail
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